What Does Psalm 104:6 Mean?
You cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stand upon the mountains.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.THE KEY
The deep is not merely around the earth; the verse clothes the earth in it.
THE MEANING
The world before you is pictured with the earth beneath the deep, water standing above the mountains. The image gives overwhelming depth a form: it covers the earth as a garment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that the deep is only shapeless void gives way to an image of relation: it covers the earth as a garment.
THE ROOT
כַּלְּבוּשׁ
kallebush
GROWS FROM
לבש
to wear; in the causative, to clothe
The Hebrew word for “garment,” כַּלְּבוּשׁ (kallebush), grows from לָבַשׁ (lavash), “to wear or clothe.” The deep is pictured as clothing over the earth, not merely water beside it.
ALSO GROWS
lavash: to wear; to put on clothing
לָבַשׁ
The verb shows the clothing image from the side of what wears it: the earth is pictured as taking on the deep.
hilbish: to clothe; to dress someone
הִלְבִּישׁ
This causative form names the act of clothing another; the verse likewise presents the earth as receiving the deep as its covering.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses clothing to make creation’s vast coverings and changing forms visible.
He wraps himself in light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a curtain.Who ascends to the heavens, and comes down? Who gathers the breath in his fists? Who bundles the waters in a garment? Who makes all the edges of the earth stand? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if you know?And like a cloak you will roll them up; like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not run out.THE THREAD
And the LORD God made tunics of skin for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them.The Hebrew root לָבַשׁ (lavash), “to wear or clothe,” stands behind “clothed” here and “garment” in Psalm 104:6. The same clothing image moves from bodies to the earth itself: the deep is what the earth wears.
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