Exodus 14:16

14:16 And as for you, ¹  lift up your staff and extend your hand toward the sea and divide it, so that ²  the Israelites may go through the middle of the sea on dry ground.

Exodus 14:22

14:22 So the Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry ground, the water forming a wall ³  for them on their right and on their left.

Exodus 14:28-29

14:28 The water returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the army of Pharaoh that was coming after the Israelites into the sea ⁴  – not so much as one of them survived! ⁵  14:29 But the Israelites walked on dry ground in the middle of the sea, the water forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.

Job 38:11

38:11 when I said, ‘To here you may come ⁶ 

and no farther, ⁷ 

here your proud waves will be confined’? ⁸ 

Psalms 29:10

29:10 The Lord sits enthroned over the engulfing waters, ⁹ 

the Lord sits enthroned ¹⁰  as the eternal king.

Psalms 93:3-4

93:3 The waves ¹¹  roar, O Lord,

the waves roar,

the waves roar and crash. ¹² 

93:4 Above the sound of the surging water, ¹³ 

and the mighty waves of the sea,

the Lord sits enthroned in majesty. ¹⁴ 

Psalms 104:7-9

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. ¹⁵ 

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

so that they would not cover the earth again. ¹⁶ 

Psalms 107:29

107:29 He calmed the storm, ¹⁷ 

and the waves ¹⁸  grew silent.

Psalms 148:8

148:8 O fire and hail, snow and clouds, ¹⁹ 

O stormy wind that carries out his orders, ²⁰ 

Proverbs 8:29

8:29 when he gave the sea his decree

that the waters should not pass over his command, ²¹ 

when he marked out the foundations of the earth,

Jeremiah 5:22

5:22 “You should fear me!” says the Lord.

“You should tremble in awe before me! ²² 

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.” ²³ 

[14:16]  ¹ tn The conjunction plus pronoun (“and you”) is emphatic – “and as for you” – before the imperative “lift up.” In contrast, v. 17 begins with “and as for me, I….”

[14:16]  ² tn The imperfect (or jussive) with the vav (ו) is sequential, coming after the series of imperatives instructing Moses to divide the sea; the form then gives the purpose (or result) of the activity – “that they may go.”

[14:22]  ³ tn The clause literally reads, “and the waters [were] for them a wall.” The word order in Hebrew is disjunctive, with the vav (ו) on the noun introducing a circumstantial clause.

[14:28]  ⁴ tn Heb “that was coming after them into the sea.” The referent of “them” (the Israelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[14:28]  ⁵ tn Heb “not was left among them as much as one.”

[38:11]  ⁶ tn The imperfect verb receives the permission nuance here.

[38:11]  ⁷ tn The text has תֹסִיף (tosif, “and you may not add”), which is often used idiomatically (as in verbal hendiadys constructions).

[38:11]  ⁸ tn The MT literally says, “here he will put on the pride of your waves.” The verb has no expressed subject and so is made a passive voice. But there has to be some object for the verb “put,” such as “limit” or “boundary”; the translations “confined; halted; stopped” all serve to paraphrase such an idea. The LXX has “broken” at this point, suggesting the verse might have been confused – but “breaking the pride” of the waves would mean controlling them. Some commentators have followed this, exchanging the verb in v. 11 with this one.

[29:10]  ⁹ tn The noun מַּבּוּל (mabbul, “flood”) appears only here and in Gen 6-11, where it refers to the Noahic flood. Some see a reference to that event here. The presence of the article (perhaps indicating uniqueness) and the switch to the perfect verbal form (which could be taken as describing a past situation) might support this. However, the immediate context indicates that the referent of מַּבּוּל is the “surging waters” mentioned in v. 3. The article indicates waters that are definite in the mind of the speaker and the perfect is probably descriptive in function, like “thunders” in v. 3. However, even though the historical flood is not the primary referent here, there may be a literary allusion involved. The psalmist views the threatening chaotic sea as a contemporary manifestation of the destructive waters of old.

[29:10]  ¹⁰ tn The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here carries the descriptive function of the preceding perfect.

[93:3]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew noun translated “waves” often refers to rivers or streams, but here it appears to refer to the surging waves of the sea (see v. 4, Ps 24:2).

[93:3]  ¹² tn Heb “the waves lift up, O Lord, the waves lift up their voice, the waves lift up their crashing.”

[93:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “mighty waters.”

[93:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “mighty on high [is] the Lord.”

[104:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “from your shout they fled, from the sound of your thunder they hurried off.”

[104:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a boundary you set up, they will not cross, they will not return to cover the earth.”

[107:29]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “he raised [the] storm to calm.”

[107:29]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “their waves.” The antecedent of the third masculine plural pronominal suffix is not readily apparent, unless it refers back to “waters” in v. 23.

[148:8]  ¹⁹ tn In Ps 119:83 the noun refers to “smoke,” but here, where the elements of nature are addressed, the clouds, which resemble smoke, are probably in view.

[148:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “[that] does his word.”

[8:29]  ²¹ tn Heb “his mouth.”

[5:22]  ²² 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.

[5:22]  ²³ tn Heb “it.” The referent is made explicit to avoid any possible confusion.