He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap. He lays up the deeps in storehouses.
Parallel translations
- KJV He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: he layeth up the depth in storehouses.
- BSB He piles up the waters of the sea; He puts the depths into 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 15:8With the blast of your nostrils, the waters were piled up. The floods stood upright as a heap. The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea.
- Josh 3:16the waters which came down from above stood, and rose up in one heap, a great way off, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those that went down toward the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, were wholly cut off. Then the people passed over near Jericho.
- Josh 3:13It shall be that when the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of Yahweh, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan will be cut off. The waters that come down from above shall stand in one heap.”
- Gen 1:9–10God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.
- Ps 104:6–9You covered it with the deep as with a cloak. The waters stood above the mountains.
- Hab 3:15You trampled the sea with your horses, churning mighty waters.
- Job 26:10He has described a boundary on the surface of the waters, and to the confines of light and darkness.
- Job 38:8–11“Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke out of the womb,
- Jer 5:22Don’t you fear me?’ says Yahweh ‘Won’t you tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it can’t pass it? and though its waves toss themselves, yet they can’t prevail; though they roar, yet they can’t pass over it.’
- Prov 8:29when he gave to the sea its boundary, that the waters should not violate his commandment, when he marked out the foundations of the earth;
- Ps 78:13He split the sea, and caused them to pass through. He made the waters stand as a heap.
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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.