Psalms 103:6
The deep like a garment is its clothing: above the mountains shall the waters stand.
Open Psalms 103:6 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Abyssus sicut vestimentum amictus ejus ; super montes stabunt aquæ.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἄβυσσος ὡς ἱμάτιον τὸ περιβόλαιον αὐτοῦ, ἐπὶ τῶν ὀρέων στήσονται ὕδατα·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 104:6
- תְּ֭הוֹם כַּלְּב֣וּשׁ כִּסִּית֑וֹ עַל הָ֝רִ֗ים יַֽעַמְדוּ מָֽיִם
Haydock's commentary
The deep. Hebrew, "thou hast covered it with the abyss." This proves that there was no pre-existent matter, otherwise God would not have begun with plunging his work in the abyss, and in confusion. But he chose to bring this beautiful world out of a state of disorder in the space of six days, as Moses and the psalmist relate. (Berthier)
At first, all was created, covered with the waters, Genesis i.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine On the Holy Trinity, Whatever is Spoken of God According to Substance, is Spoken of Each Person Severally, and Together of the Trinity Itself. One Essence in God, and Three, in Greek, Hypostases, in Latin, Persons
9. Wherefore let us hold this above all, that whatsoever is said of that most eminent and divine loftiness in respect to itself, is said in respect to substance, but that which is said in relation to anything, is not said in respect to substance, but relatively; and that the effect of the same substance in Father and Son and Holy Spirit is, that whatsoever is said of each in respect to themselves, is to be taken of them, not in the plural in sum, but in the singular. For as the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, which no one doubts to be said in respect to substance, yet we do not say that the very Supreme Trinity itself is three Gods, but one God. So the Father is great, the Son great, and the Holy Spirit great; yet not three greats, but one great. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CIV
5. “The deep, like a garment, is its clothing” ( ver. 6 ). Whose? Is it perchance God’s? But he had already said of His clothing, “Clothed with light as with a garment.” I hear of God clothed in light, and that light, if we will, are we. What is, if we will? if we are no longer darkness. Therefore if God is clothed with light, whose clothing, again, is the deep? For an immense mass of waters is called the deep. All water, all the moist nature, and the substance everywhere shed abroad through the seas, and rivers, and hidden caves, is all together called by one name, the Deep. Therefore we understand the earth, of which he said, “He hath founded the earth.” Of it I believe he said, “The deep, like a gar ment is its clothing.” For the water is as it were the clothing of the earth, surrounding it and covering it.…
St Gregory Nazianzen In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office
76. This depressed and kept me humble, and persuaded me that it was better to hear the voice of praise than to be an expounder of truths beyond my power; the majesty, and the height, and the dignity, and the pure natures scarce able to contain the brightness of God, Whom the deep covers, Whose secret place is darkness, since He is the purest light, which most men cannot approach unto; Who is in all this universe, and again is beyond the universe; Who is all goodness, and beyond all goodness; Who enlightens the mind, and escapes the quickness and height of the mind, ever retiring as much as He is apprehended, and by His flight and stealing away when grasped, withdrawing to the things above one who is enamoured of Him.