He piles up the waters of the sea; He puts the depths into storehouses.
Parallel translations
- WEB He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap. He lays up the deeps in storehouses.
- KJV He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: he layeth up the depth in storehouses.
- NKJV He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deep in storehouses.
- NASB He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He puts the depths in storehouses.
- NLT He assigned the sea its boundaries and locked the oceans in vast reservoirs.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God gathers the seas and stores the deeps as easily as one handles familiar things, showing his mastery over creation.
Overview
Using imagery of waters gathered like a heap and stored in storehouses, the psalmist pictures God's complete control over the vast and chaotic ocean. What overwhelms humanity is wholly subject to him. The God who masters the deep is the same Lord whom wind and waves obeyed in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Exod 15:8At the blast of Your nostrils the waters piled up; like a wall the currents stood firm; the depths congealed in the heart of the sea.
- Josh 3:16the flowing water stood still. It backed up as far upstream as Adam, a city in the area of Zarethan, while the water flowing toward the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.
- Josh 3:13When the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the LORD—the Lord of all the earth—touch down in the waters of the Jordan, its flowing waters will be cut off and will stand up in a heap.”
- Gen 1:9–10And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered into one place, so that the dry land may appear.” And it was so.
- Ps 104:6–9You covered it with the deep like a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.
- Hab 3:15You trampled the sea with Your horses, churning the great waters.
- Job 26:10He has inscribed a horizon on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.
- Job 38:8–11Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,
- Jer 5:22Do you not fear Me?” declares the LORD. “Do you not tremble before Me, the One who set the sand as the boundary for the sea, an enduring barrier it cannot cross? The waves surge, but they cannot prevail. They roar but cannot cross it.
- Prov 8:29when He set a boundary for the sea, so that the waters would not surpass His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth.
- Ps 78:13He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 33:7 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.