Passage

Psalms 104.9

Book: Psalms · NASB95

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

7. At thy rebuke they fled; At the voice of thy thunder they hasted away 8. (The mountains rose, the valleys sank down) Unto the place which thou hadst founded for them.

9. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; That they turn not again to cover the earth.

He sendeth forth springs into the valleys; They run among the mountains; 11. They give drink to every beast of the field; The wild asses quench their thirst. (Psalms 104:7-11, ASV)

WEB

7. At your rebuke they fled. At the voice of your thunder they hurried away. 8. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down, to the place which you had assigned to them.

9. You have set a boundary that they may not pass over; that they don’t turn again to cover the earth.

He sends springs into the valleys. They run among the mountains. 11. They give drink to every animal of the field. The wild donkeys quench their thirst. (Psalms 104:7-11, WEB)

KJV

7. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. 8. They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them. ^{They go up: or, The mountains ascend, the valleys descend}

9. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.

He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. ^{He: Heb. Who} ^{run: Heb. walk} 11. They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst. ^{quench: Heb. break} (Psalms 104:7-11, KJV)

YLT

7. From Thy rebuke they flee, From the voice of Thy thunder haste away. 8. They go up hills, they go down valleys, Unto a place Thou hast founded for them.

9. A border Thou hast set, they pass not over, They turn not back to cover the earth.

Who is sending forth fountains in valleys, Between hills they go on. 11. They water every beast of the field, Wild asses break their thirst. (Psalms 104:7-11, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: the psalmist; the Hebrew text carries no title, while the Septuagint, where it is Psalm 103, heads it "of David"
Audience: Israel at worship
Location: Israel, in temple and synagogue praise
Time period: undated; a creation hymn of the monarchy or later

Theological reading

Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; That they turn not again to cover the earth. The sea's limit is a decree. The same idea appears in Job 38:10-11, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further," in Proverbs 8:29, and in Jeremiah 5:22, where the sand is the sea's "perpetual decree."

"Turn not again to cover the earth" is close in thought to God's promise after the flood that "neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth" (Genesis 9:11). Whether the psalmist has the third day of creation or the end of the flood in view, the verse grounds the stability of dry land in God's word.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

None of the words in this verse has its own lexicon entry yet.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

Genesis Flood, via Psalms 104.6-9
Laws of the Universe as Witness to Design, via Psalms 104.5-10
Water and Life, via Psalms 104.5-10

Notes

Your annotations.

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.