Psalms 104:6-9

104:6 The watery deep covered it like a garment;

the waters reached above the mountains.

104:7 Your shout made the waters retreat;

at the sound of your thunderous voice they hurried off –

104:8 as the mountains rose up,

and the valleys went down –

to the place you appointed for them.

104:9 You set up a boundary for them that they could not cross,

so that they would not cover the earth again.


tc Heb “you covered it.” The masculine suffix is problematic if the grammatically feminine noun “earth” is the antecedent. For this reason some emend the form to a feminine verb with feminine suffix, כִּסַּתָּה (kisattah, “[the watery deep] covered it [i.e., the earth]”), a reading assumed by the present translation.

tn Heb “stood.”

sn Verse 6 refers to the condition described in Gen 1:2 (note the use of the Hebrew term תְּהוֹם [tÿhom, “watery deep”] in both texts).

tn Heb “from your shout they fled, from the sound of your thunder they hurried off.”

tn Heb “a boundary you set up, they will not cross, they will not return to cover the earth.”