properly · verb, piel perfect, 2nd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
deep
תְּ֭הוֹםTe.hom
H8415
an abyss (as a surging mass of water) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
garment
כַּלְּב֣וּשׁka.le.Vush
H3830
a garment (literally or figuratively) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
waters
מָֽיִםMa.yim
H4325
water · noun, common masculine plural absolute
stood
יַֽעַמְדוּya.'am.du-
H5975
to stand · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
mountains
הָ֝רִ֗יםha.Rim
H2022
a mountain or range of hills (sometimes used figurative… · noun, common masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Genesis 7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
2 Peter 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the…
Genesis 1:2-10 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 104:1-9
When we are addressing ourselves to any religious service we must stir up ourselves to take hold on God in it (Isa 64:7); so David does here. "Come, my soul, where art thou? What art thou thinking of? Here is work to be done, good work, angels' work; set about it in good earnest; let all the powers and faculties be engaged and employed in it: Bless the Lord, O my soul!" In these verses,
I. The psalmist looks up to the divine glory shining in the upper world, of which, though it is one of the things not seen, faith is the evidence. With what reverence and holy awe does he begin his meditation with that acknowledgment: O Lord my God! thou art very great! It is the joy of the saints that he who…
Thou coverest it with the deep as with a garment,.... This refers not to the waters of the flood, when the earth was covered with them, even the tops of the highest mountains; but to the huge mass of waters, the abyss and depth of them, which lay upon the earth and covered it as a garment, at its first creation, as the context and the scope of it show; and which deep was covered with darkness, at which time the earth was without form, and void, Genesis 1:2 an emblem of the corrupt state of man by nature, destitute of the image of God, void and empty of all that is good, having an huge mass of sin and corruption on him, and being darkness itself; though this depth does not separate the elect…
Psalm 104:5-9
5. He hath founded the earth upon its foundations, so that it shall not be moved for ever. 6. He hath covered it with the deep as with a garment: the waters shall stand above the mountains. 7. At thy rebuke they shall flee; at the voice of thy thunder they shall haste away. [180] 8. The mountains shall ascend, and the valleys shall descend [181] to the place which thou hast founded for them. 9. Thou hast fixed a bound over which they shall not pass; they shall not return to cover the earth.
5 He hath founded the earth upon its foundations Here the prophet celebrates the glory of God, as manifested in the stability of the earth. Since it is suspended in the midst of the air, a…
The Church Fathers
The waters shall stand above the mountains. Not, as some suppose, that the waters stand above the mountains because of winter and the rains; but the mountains were covered by the waters, and the earth did not appear. But according to the figurative interpretation, the waters are to be taken for doctrine, and the mountains for the saints.
The deep, like a garment, is his clothing. As is written elsewhere: "And he made darkness his hiding-place," and again: "The judgments of the Lord are a great deep." He signifies the unspeakable governance of God, and that we cannot comprehend the wisdom of God. For just as we cannot gaze with these eyes into the deep, so neither can we gaze into the greatness nor into the wisdom of God. But according to the Hebrew we ought to understand "his clothing" in this way, that "of the earth" is to be supplied; so that the sense is that this very deep surrounds the whole earth — the thing they call the ocean. For around the whole earth there are waters, and the earth is like an island.
"The deep, like a garment, is its clothing." Whose? Is it perchance God's? But he had already said of His clothing, "Clothed with light as with a garment." I hear of God clothed in light, and that light, if we will, are we. What is, if we will? if we are no longer darkness. Therefore if God is clothed with light, whose clothing, again, is the deep? For an immense mass of waters is called the deep. All water, all the moist nature, and the substance everywhere shed abroad through the seas, and rivers, and hidden caves, is all together called by one name, the Deep. Therefore we understand the earth, of which he said, "He hath founded the earth." Of it I believe he said, "The deep, like a garment is its clothing." For the water is as it were the clothing of the earth, surrounding it and covering it. ...
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Birds · God provides for — God provides for
Continents · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Earth · Primitive condition of — Primitive condition of
Geology · 22:16; — 22:16;
Mountains · Collect the vapours which ascend from the earth — Collect the vapours which ascend from the earth
Providence Of God, The · Is exercised in: Preserving the course of nature — Is exercised in: Preserving the course of nature
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
In a second decastich the poet speaks of the restraining of the lower waters and the establishing of the land standing out of the water. The suffix, referring back to ארץ, is intended to say that the earth hanging free in space (Job 26:7) has its internal supports. Its eternal stability is preserved even amidst the judgment predicted in Isa 24:16., since it comes forth out of it, unremoved from its former station, as a transformed, glorified earth. The deep (תּהום) with which God covers it is that primordial mass of water in which it lay first of all as it were in embryo, for it came into being ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ δι ̓ ὕδατος (Pe2 3:5). כּסּיתו does not refer to תהום (masc. as in Job 28:14),…
Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.
Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment. The new born earth was wrapped in aqueous swaddling bands. In the first ages, ere man appeared, the proud waters ruled the whole earth. The waters stood above the mountains, no dry land was visible, vapour as from a steaming cauldron covered all. Geologists inform us of this as a discovery, but the Holy Spirit had revealed the fact long before. The passage before us shows us the Creator commencing his work, and laying the foundation for future order and beauty: to think of this reverently will fill us with adoration; to conceive of it grossly and carnal…
