thor of all Scripture. He inspired His writers to record what He wanted written, while still allowing for the individual’s own style to shine th

ommunicate true history to us, the Lord uses ordinary written language in the Bible, subject to the same interpretive constraints as any other type of writing. Unlike the rest of His creation, God has hard-wired mankind to know how to use and interpret language—we might consider this the distinctive human instinct. It is self-evident to any sane person that the immediate surrounding context of a passage sets limits on how we are to understand the use of any particular word. Figurative language, such as the use of simile and metaphor, is known throughout the world and poses no barriers to clear communication in ordinary writing, so we can expect it will not cause confusion in understanding the biblical writings either. We simply need to recognize it when it appears. Context, therefore, is crucial.With these principles in mind, let us now look at several interrelated Scripture passages that, taken together, shed light on their shared meanings. We will look at Genesis 1:1–2, 9–10; Job 38:4–11; Proverbs 8:22–31; and Jeremiah 5:22. The insights from those passages should help us understand the meaning of Psalm 104:5–9.Genesis 1: The Primeval World Sea with a Single ContinentWe begin by reading Genesis 1:1–2, 9–10:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.9 Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 10 God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters he called seas; and God saw that it was good.These verses tell us that at Creation, all the waters of the world sea—what the Bible terms “the deep” (Hebrew t?howm), a word first used in verse 2—were “gathered into one place.” The significant, logical corollary of this statement is that there was likewise a single original landmass localized in one place. The waters are said to be “gathered,” indicating they originally covered the entire world. God apparently deepened a basin—a valley, if you will—to allow the waters to collect there and cause the land to rise out of the sea. Since there is no hint of any event prior to Noah's Flood that could have broken up the original landmass, we can reasonably conclude that the dry land first took the form of a single super-continent at least up to the time of the Flood. Science knows this by the name Pangaea. And since it was separated from the deep, the dry land obviously had a boundary.Job 38: Insights from God on the CreationLet us now seek further insight from the book of Job. It is well accepted that the content of this book, if not its commitment to writing, is far older than the Psalms. The age of the material may be inferred from Job’s longevity, his practice of true religion outside the bounds of the Abrahamic covenant, and the early economic and political developments reflected in the book (cf. Kline, Wycliffe Bible Commentary). It may be taken as a given that King David and the other Psalmists were as familiar with Job as they were with Genesis, so it would have been raw material in their minds for the Lord to tap into when He inspired the Psalmists to write. For this reason Job 38:1–11 provides clarifying material for properly understanding Psalm 104:5–9. The principle of using more clear material to understand what is less clear is both sound logic and the time-tested approach used in systematic theology.In Job 38:4–11, God directly addresses Job with these words:4 Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth! Tell Me, if you have understanding.5 Who set its measurements, since you know? Or who stretched the line on it?6 On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone,7 When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?8 Or who enclosed the sea with doors, When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb;9 When I made a cloud its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band,10 And I placed boundaries on it, And I set a bolt and doors,11 And I said, “Thus far you shall come, but no farther; And here shall your proud waves stop”?In verses 10–11, as in Ps. 104:9, we encounter the mention of boundaries, and in this context they clearly apply to the sea, not the waters of the Flood. Theories that propose that the ocean floor and the land changed places during the Flood, or that the original surface of the Earth was largely subducted into the mantle, run into a problem with this passage. Verses 4–7 are very obviously talking about the original creation. With the “morning stars/sons of God” looking on—poetic, figurative language for the angels—God speaks of measurements made, lines stretched, bases sunk, and the laying of a cornerstone. This is the language of an architect; He planned where everything would be. Since these verses set the context for what immediately follows, verses 8–11 do not speak of the Flood, but remain focused on the original Creation.



The Flood is always referred to by either its unique Hebrew term,
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 thiRosetta Stone Italian