Psalms 33:7

33:7 He piles up the water of the sea; ¹ 

he puts the oceans ²  in storehouses.

Psalms 104:6

104:6 The watery deep covered it ³  like a garment;

the waters reached ⁴  above the mountains. ⁵ 

Psalms 106:9

106:9 He shouted at ⁶  the Red Sea and it dried up;

he led them through the deep water as if it were a desert.

Psalms 107:26

107:26 They ⁷  reached up to the sky,

then dropped into the depths.

The sailors’ strength ⁸  left them ⁹  because the danger was so great. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 148:7

148:7 Praise the Lord from the earth,

you sea creatures and all you ocean depths,

¹ tn Heb “[he] gathers like a pile the waters of the sea.” Some prefer to emend נֵד (ged, “heap, pile”; cf. NASB) to נֹד (nod, “bottle”; cf. NRSV; NIV “into jars”), but “pile” is used elsewhere to describe water that the Lord confines to one place (Exod 15:8; Josh 3:13, 16; Ps 78:13). This verse appears to refer to Gen 1:9, where God decrees that the watery deep be gathered to one place so that dry land might appear. If so, the participles in this and the following line depict this action with special vividness, as if the reader were present on the occasion. Another option is that the participles picture the confinement of the sea to one place as an ongoing divine activity.

² tn Or “watery depths.” The form תְּהוֹמוֹת (tÿhomot, “watery depths”) is the plural form of תְּהוֹם (tÿhom, “great deep”; see Gen 1:2).

³ 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.

⁴ tn Heb “stood.”

⁵ 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).

⁵ tn Or “rebuked.”

⁷ tn That is, the waves (see v. 25).

⁸ tn Heb “their being”; traditionally “their soul” (referring to that of the sailors). This is sometimes translated “courage” (cf. NIV, NRSV).

⁹ tn Or “melted.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “from danger.”