Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 104:8
They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.
8. (The mountains rise, the vales sink down,)
Unto the place which thou hadst founded for them.
The ‘rebuke’ of God is His command, uttered as it were with a voice of thunder (Psa 18:15; Isa 50:2). It is best to follow the marg. of A.V. and R.V. in taking Psa 104:8 a as a parenthesis, describing the result of this Divine command. Mountains and valleys appear (Gen 1:9) as the waters retire to the place appointed for them. Cp. Ov. Metam. i. 344 f.
“Flumina subsidunt, colles exire videntur,
Surgit humus, crescunt loca, decrescentibus undis.”
See also Milton, Par. Lost, vii. 285 ff.
The rendering of the A.V. and R.V., which is also grammatically possible, appears to describe the commotion of the waters as the great deep breaks up and they seek their appointed place.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
They go up by the mountains … – That is, when they were gathered together into seas. They seemed to roll and tumble over hills and mountains, and to run down in valleys, until they found the deep hollows which had been formed for seas, and where they were permanently collected together. The margin here is, The mountains ascend, the valleys descend. So it is translated in the Septuagint, in the Latin Vulgate, by Luther, and by DeWette. The more natural idea, however, is that in our translation: They (the waters) go up mountains; they descend valleys.
Unto the place – The deep hollows of the earth, which seem to have been scooped out to make a place for them.
Which thou hast founded for them – Where thou hast laid a permanent foundation for them on which to rest; that is, which thou hast prepared for them.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys] Taking the words as they stand here, springs seem to be what are intended. But it is difficult to conceive how the water could ascend, through the fissures of mountains, to their tops, and then come down their sides so as to form rivulets to water the valleys. Most probably all the springs in mountains and hills are formed from waters which fall on their tops in the form of rain, or from clouds that, passing over them, are arrested, and precipitate their contents, which, sinking down, are stopped by some solid strata, till, forcing their way at some aperture at their sides, they form springs and fountains. Possibly, however, vapours and exhalations are understood; these by evaporation ascend to the tops of mountains, where they are condensed and precipitated. Thus the vapours ascend, and then come down to the valleys, forming fountains and rivulets in those places which the providence of God has allotted them; that is, continuous valleys, with such a degree of inclination as determines their waters to run in that direction till they reach another river, or fall into the ocean.
Some have thought there is a reference to the breaking up on the fountains of the great deep, at the time of the flood; while the protrusion of the waters would raise the circumambient crust, so as to form mountains, the other parts, falling in to fill up the vacuum occasioned by the waters which were thrown up from the central abyss, would constitute valleys.
Ovid seems to paraphrase this verse: –
Jussit et extendi campos, subsidere valles,
Fronde tegi sylvas, lapidosos surgere montes.
Met. lib. i., ver. 43.
“He shades the woods, the valleys he restrains
With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.”
DRYDEN.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
In that first division of the waters from the earth, some part of them by Gods command, contrary to their own nature, went upwards, and became springs in the mountains, and the greatest part went downwards to the channels made for them. Others, both ancient and later interpreters, read the words thus, The mountains ascend, the valleys descend; when the waters were separated, part of the earth went upward, and made the mountains; and part went downward, and made the valleys or low grounds. But our translation seems the best, as being most agreeable to the context, because he speaks of the waters both in the foregoing and following verses.
Unto the place which thou hast founded for them; unto their proper channels and receptacles which God provided for them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
They go up by the mountains, they go down by the valleys,…. The Targum is,
“they ascend out of the deep to the mountains;”
that is, the waters, when they went off the earth at the divine orders, steered their course up the mountains, and then went down by the valleys to the place appointed for them; they went over hills and dales, nothing could stop them or retard their course till they came to their proper place; which is another instance of the almighty power of the Son of God. Some render the words, “the mountains ascended, the valleys descended m”; and then the meaning is, when the depth of waters were called off the earth, the mountains and valleys appeared, the one seemed to rise up and the other to go down; but the former reading seems best, and emblematically describes the state of God’s people in this world, in their passage to their appointed place; who have sometimes mountains of difficulties to go over, and which seem insuperable, and yet they surmount them; sometimes they are upon the mount of heaven by contemplation, and have their hearts and affections above; they mount up with wings as eagles; sometimes they are upon the mount of communion with God, and by his favour their mount stands strong, and they think they shall never be moved; at other times they are down in the valleys, in a low estate and condition; in low frames of soul, in a low exercise of grace, and in the valley of the shadow of death, of afflictive providences in soul or body: and as the waters, thus steering their course under a divine direction, and by an almighty power, at length came unto the place which, the psalmist says, thou hast founded for them, meaning the seas; which the Lord founded and prepared for the reception of them; and which collection of waters in one place he called by that name, Ge 1:10. So the Lord’s people, through a variety of circumstances, trials, and exercises, will be all brought safe to the place appointed for them, and prepared by Christ in his Father’s house; where they will be swallowed up in the boundless ocean of everlasting love.
m So Pagninus, Musculus, Cocceius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Psa 104:8 continues with the words (cf. Gen 1:9, ): the waters retreat to the place which ( , cf. Psa 104:26, for , Gen 39:20) God has assigned to them as that which should contain them. He hath set a bound ( , synon. , Pro 8:29; Jer 5:22) for them beyond which they may not flow forth again to cover the earth, as the primordial waters of chaos have done.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(8) They go up.This translation is grammatically possible, but is inconsistent with the preceding description. It is better therefore to take the clause parenthetically, and to make hills and valleys the subjects. Hills rise, valleys sink, an interesting anticipation of the disclosures of geology, which, though in a different sense, tells of the upheaval of mountains and depression of valleys. Two passages in Ovid have been adduced in illustration (Met. i. 43, 344). And Milton, no doubt with the psalm as well as Ovid in his mind, wrote
Immediately the mountains huge appear
Emergent, &cParadise Lost, book vii.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. Up by the mountains down by the valleys A reference to the subsidence of the waters to the present bed of the ocean.
Unto the place which thou hast founded for them This shows that the deep cavity of the ocean, being a sunken area, “varying in depth from 1,000 feet or less, to probably 50,000 feet,” was not left to the blind operation of natural causes, but was a matter of divine forethought and design.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 104:8. They go up to the mountains They went up mountains, they went down vallies, to the place which thou hast founded for them. Here a noble image is lost in our translation, for want of considering that the sacred writer is describing the motion of the waters over mountains and in vallies, when, at God’s command, they filed off from the surface of the earth unto the posts assigned them. Mudge. This psalm will gain great light by being compared with the first chapter of Genesis, and considered as a kind of comment upon it.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 104:8 They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.
Ver. 8. They go up by the mountains ] They run any way, in post haste, breaking through thick and thin, and nowhere resting, till embodied in the abyss, their elemental place and station. This is check to our dulness and disobedience. If a man had been present, saith one, when God thus commanded the seas to retreat from the earth, he might have seen both a terrible and a joyful spectacle.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
hast founded = didst prepare.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
They go up: etc. or, The mountains ascend, the valleys descend, Gen 8:5
Reciprocal: Pro 3:20 – the depths Jon 2:6 – mountains
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 104:8. They go up by the mountains Rather, They went up mountains: they went down valleys, &c. They went over hill and dale, as we say; they neither stopped at the former, nor lodged in the latter, but made the best of their way to the place founded for them. The psalmist is describing the motion of the waters in mountains and valleys, when, at Gods command, they filed off from the surface of the earth, into the posts assigned them. Some interpret the psalmists meaning to be, that, in that first division of the waters from the earth, part went upward and became springs in the mountains, but the greatest part went downward to the channels made for them. Thus Dr. Waterland: They climb the mountains; they fall down on the valleys. The Hebrew, however, may be rendered, (as it is by some, both ancient and later interpreters,) The mountains ascended; the valleys descended; that is, when the waters were separated, part of the earth appeared to be high, and formed the mountains, and a part to be low, and constituted the valleys or low grounds. So Bishop Patrick: Immediately the dry land was seen, part of which rose up in lofty hills; and the rest sunk down in lowly valleys, where thou hast cut channels for the waters to run into the main ocean, the place thou hast appointed for them. But the former sense seems most agreeable to the context, because he speaks of the waters both in the foregoing and following verses.