26:10 He marks out the horizon 1 on the surface of the waters
as a boundary between light and darkness.
1:9 God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place 2 and let dry ground appear.” 3 It was so. 1:10 God called the dry ground “land” 4 and the gathered waters he called “seas.” God saw that it was good.
104:9 You set up a boundary for them that they could not cross,
so that they would not cover the earth again. 9
5:22 “You should fear me!” says the Lord.
“You should tremble in awe before me! 10
I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea,
a permanent barrier that it can never cross.
Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail.
They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.” 11
1 tn The expression חֹק־חָג (khoq-khag) means “he has drawn a limit as a circle.” According to some the form should have been חָק־חוּג (khaq-khug, “He has traced a circle”). But others argues that the text is acceptable as is, and can be interpreted as “a limit he has circled.” The Hebrew verbal roots are חָקַק (khaqaq, “to engrave; to sketch out; to trace”) and חוּג (khug, “describe a circle”) respectively.
2 sn Let the water…be gathered to one place. In the beginning the water covered the whole earth; now the water was to be restricted to an area to form the ocean. The picture is one of the dry land as an island with the sea surrounding it. Again the sovereignty of God is revealed. Whereas the pagans saw the sea as a force to be reckoned with, God controls the boundaries of the sea. And in the judgment at the flood he will blur the boundaries so that chaos returns.
3 tn When the waters are collected to one place, dry land emerges above the surface of the receding water.
4 tn Heb “earth,” but here the term refers to the dry ground as opposed to the sea.
5 tn Heb “which [is] between me and between you.”
6 tn Heb “all flesh.”
7 tn Heb “to destroy.”
8 tn Heb “all flesh.”
9 tn Heb “a boundary you set up, they will not cross, they will not return to cover the earth.”
10 tn Heb “Should you not fear me? Should you not tremble in awe before me?” The rhetorical questions expect the answer explicit in the translation.
11 tn Heb “it.” The referent is made explicit to avoid any possible confusion.