104:6 The watery deep covered it 1 like a garment;
the waters reached 2 above the mountains. 3
107:24 They witnessed the acts of the Lord,
his amazing feats on the deep water.
A song of ascents. 5
130:1 From the deep water 6 I cry out to you, O Lord.
1 tc Heb “you covered it.” The masculine suffix is problematic if the grammatically feminine noun “earth” is the antecedent. For this reason some emend the form to a feminine verb with feminine suffix, כִּסַּתָּה (kisattah, “[the watery deep] covered it [i.e., the earth]”), a reading assumed by the present translation.
2 tn Heb “stood.”
3 sn Verse 6 refers to the condition described in Gen 1:2 (note the use of the Hebrew term תְּהוֹם [tÿhom, “watery deep”] in both texts).
4 sn Psalm 130. The psalmist, confident of the Lord’s forgiveness, cries out to the Lord for help in the midst of his suffering and urges Israel to do the same.
5 sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.
6 tn Heb “depths,” that is, deep waters (see Ps 69:2, 14; Isa 51:10), a metaphor for the life-threatening danger faced by the psalmist.