Psalms 104:5-9

104:5 He established the earth on its foundations;

it will never be upended.

104:6 The watery deep covered it ¹  like a garment;

the waters reached ²  above the mountains. ³ 

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. ⁴ 

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

so that they would not cover the earth again. ⁵ 

[104:6]  ¹ 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.

[104:6]  ² tn Heb “stood.”

[104:6]  ³ 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).

[104:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “from your shout they fled, from the sound of your thunder they hurried off.”

[104:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “a boundary you set up, they will not cross, they will not return to cover the earth.”