mabbul, or by the context-defined generic term mayim, “waters.” There are no clear uses of t?howm, “the deep,” where it applies to the Flood. Missing this subtle exegetical detail has made it far too easy for English readers to see a mention of the Flood here, in so doing ignoring clear contextual clues that the whole of Psalm 104:1–9 refers only to the Creation.I also believe the other biblical passages make it clear that the common mentions of boundaries on the waters indicate these are poetic language equivalents for the narrative of Genesis 1:9. Since God obviously created mountains as part of the original antediluvian world (otherwise there would have been none for the Flood to cover, Gn 7:19–20), just mentioning mountains cannot, by itself, place verses 6–9 during the Flood. There must be other persuasive evidence to establish this.I do not think such persuasive evidence exists. The overall theme of the Psalm, its overarching context, is the Lord's care over all His works. The Flood was a judgment upon sin, a theme inconsistent with the dominant theme of praise. When one gets an overview of the structure of the entire Psalm, one notices this praise theme quite clearly. It begins, in verses 1–4, with praise to Him for calling the heavens and earth into being, and from there moves on to praising God for establishing the boundaries of the dry earth and sea (5–9), providing water for the animals to drink (10–13), praise for food for all creatures, for places to live, for all provisions for life.Psalm 104 actually appears to move through Genesis 1 in almost chronological order, starting with the mention of God clothing Himself with light (v. 2a=Gn 1:3), moving on to the stretching out of heaven (2b=Gn 1:6), and “the beams of His upper chambers in the waters” (3a) connects with Genesis 1:7–8. Logically this progression should continue, so we should expect verses 5–9 to be a praise having some direct connection with Genesis 1. I think this is apparent. Psalm 104:5 speaks of establishing the foundations of the earth. Establishing these foundations involved calling the earth into being, initially without form and void, covered “with the deep as with a garment” (6a) by the primeval waters of Creation. (Recall Job 38:9, where the Lord says he made a cloud the “garment” for the primeval waters. There is no place in Genesis 6–8 where the Flood waters are called a “garment,” which is to be understood in the positive sense of a protective covering.)The phrase “the deep” is also a clear reference to the primeval waters of Genesis 1:2. The Flood story in Genesis 6–8 never refers to the waters of the Flood as “the deep”; though it talks about the breakup of “the fountains of the great deep,” whenever the waters of the Flood are specifically referred to (not the fountains, where “of the great deep” is a modifier to make clear WHAT “fountains” are referred to), they are always spoken of as “the flood,” “the water,” or “the waters of the flood,” never as “the deep.” This complete covering of the planet by “the deep” extended even to covering the mountains (6b), a poetic word picture emphasizing that the entire land surface of the world was covered by “the deep” at this point. This is entirely consistent with our observation that Psalm 104 is mirroring Genesis 1, and has nothing to do with the Flood.In Ps. 104:7 the Psalmist moves on to the next stage, mirroring Genesis 1:9–10—the exposing of the dry land. “At thy rebuke they fled” is a poetic way of restating Genesis 1:9, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.” God commands the primeval waters covering the planet to move so the dry earth can be exposed. To do so, He deepens a hollow on the surface of Planet Earth so the waters have a place to “gather” to. “The mountains rose; the valleys sank down” (8a) is thus best understood as a poetic way of expressing these geophysical changes, with no reference to the judging Flood of Genesis 6–8 intended. The use of the word “establish” in 8b hearkens back to Job 38, where the Lord was portrayed as a master builder doing planning, surveying and foundation-laying for the grand project of constructing the Earth.In addition, as seen in the various English translations above, there are solid contextual reasons to view the mention of mountains and valleys as parenthetical details to a primary emphasis in Psalm 104:6–9 on the moving of the primeval waters. The understanding that the antecedent of the clause in 104:8b, “unto the place which thou hast founded for them,” is not the valleys of 8a, but the fleeing waters of 7a. Verses 7a and 8b together constitute a completed thought—“at Your rebuke, the waters fled...to the place You established for them”—with 7b and 8a serving as minor clauses. Thus, the main focus if verses 6–9 is all about elaborating on Genesis 1:9.Finally, 104:9 has an even closer connection to Job. When the Psalmist wrote, “Thou didst set a boundary that they [the waters] may not pass over; that they may not return to cover the earth,” he parallels God’s words in Job 38:10:And I placed boundaries on it [“it” being the sea, referred to in verse 8],And I set a bolt and doors,And I said, “Thus far you shall come, but no farther;And here shall your proud waves stop.”Altogether, I think we can see that the primarily poetic nature of Psalm 104, its praise theme, plus the clear echoes of Genesis 1 and Job 38, points to Psalm 104 having no reference to the Flood, no mid-course change of context at verse 6. It is entirely a work of praise to God for His provision in Creation, including setting the bounds that kept the sea in its place. The mentions of mountains and valleys are poetic equivalents for the raising of the primordial continent out of the world sea as its waters were “gathered together” into the hollows He established for them.Proverbs 8:29, which speaks of the setting of the boundary of the sea, also sheds tremendous light on the meaning of Psalm 104:9, “Thou didst set a boundary that they may not pass over.” “They” in this verse must refer to the primeval waters of the Creation. The antecedent of “they” in 104:9 is found in 104:6, where the two parts of the verse are an example of Hebrew poetic parallelism. In 6a, the primeval sea is first called “the deep” that covered the earth; in 6b, the same primeval sea is called “the waters [which] were standing above the mountains.” Both parts of verse 6 are saying the same thing, just in different ways. It is because these boundaries are set on the primeval waters of the world sea, that “they may not return to cover the earth.” Verse 9b, although it easily brings to mind God’s promise to never again send a worldwide Flood, IN CONTEXT does not refer to the Flood, but only to the setting of bounds on the sea. So once again, applying the principles of systematic theology and allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture indicates that the poetic language of Psalm 104 is not to be understood as referring to the Flood.Tying it All TogetherIn this study we have observed that the passages in Job 38 and Proverbs 8, as in Jeremiah 5, all speak of “boundaries on the sea” in remarkably similar terms, strengthening the case that they all have the Creation in view. Let’s see all of these verses together:Job 38:10And I placed boundaries [choq] on it [antecedent yam, v. 8],And I set a bolt and doors,And I said, “Thus far you shall come, but no farther;And here shall your proud waves stop.”Prov. 8:29When He set for the sea [yam] its boundary [choq]So that the water would not transgress His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth...Jeremiah 5:22For I have placed the sand as a boundary [g?buwl] for the sea [yam],



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