Psalms 104:8

They go up by the mountains, they go down by the valleys,.... The Targum is, "they ascend out of the deep to the mountains;'' that is, the waters, when they went off the earth at the divine orders,

They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them. They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys.

In that first division of the waters from the earth, some part of them by God’ s command, contrary to their own nature, went upwards, and became springs in the mountains, and the greatest part went downwards to the channels made for them. Others, both ancient and later interpreters, read the words thus, The mountains ascend, the valleys descend; when the waters were separated, part of the earth went upward, and made the mountains; and part went downward, and made the valleys or low grounds. But our translation seems the best, as being most agreeable to the context, because he speaks of the waters both in the foregoing and following verses. Unto the place which thou hast founded for them; unto their proper channels and receptacles which God provided for them.

Psalms 104:8 They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.Ver. 8. They go up by the mountains] They run any way, in post haste, breaking through thick and thin, and nowhere resting, till embodied in the abyss, their elemental place and station. This is check to our dulness and disobedience. If a man had been present, saith one, when God thus commanded the seas to retreat from the earth, he might have seen both a terrible and a joyful spectacle.

(8) They go up.—This translation is grammatically possible, but is inconsistent with the preceding description. It is better therefore to take the clause parenthetically, and to make hills and valleys the subjects. Hills rise, valleys sink, an interesting anticipation of the disclosures of geology, which, though in a different sense, tells of the upheaval of mountains and depression of valleys. Two passages in Ovid have been adduced in illustration (Met. i. 43, 344). And Milton, no doubt with the psalm as well as Ovid in his mind, wrote “Immediately the mountains huge appear Emergent,” &c—Paradise Lost, book vii.

Verse 8. They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys] Taking the words as they stand here, springs seem to be what are intended. But it is difficult to conceive how the water could ascend, through the fissures of mountains, to their tops, and then come down their sides so as to form rivulets to water the valleys. Most probably all the springs in mountains and hills are formed from waters which fall on their tops in the form of rain, or from clouds that, passing over them, are arrested, and precipitate their contents, which, sinking down, are stopped by some solid strata, till, forcing their way at some aperture at their sides, they form springs and fountains. Possibly, however, vapours and exhalations are understood; these by evaporation ascend to the tops of mountains, where they are condensed and precipitated. Thus the vapours ascend, and then come down to the valleys, forming fountains and rivulets in those places which the providence of God has allotted them; that is, continuous valleys, with such a degree of inclination as determines their waters to run in that direction till they reach another river, or fall into the ocean. Some have thought there is a reference to the breaking up on the fountains of the great deep, at the time of the flood; while the protrusion of the waters would raise the circumambient crust, so as to form mountains, the other parts, falling in to fill up the vacuum occasioned by the waters which were thrown up from the central abyss, would constitute valleys. Ovid seems to paraphrase this verse: - Jussit et extendi campos, subsidere valles, Fronde tegi sylvas, lapidosos surgere montes. Met. lib. i., ver. 43. "He shades the woods, the valleys he restrains With rocky mountains, and extends the plains." DRYDEN.

8. (The mountains rise, the vales sink down,) Unto the place which thou hadst founded for them. The ‘rebuke’ of God is His command, uttered as it were with a voice of thunder (Psalms 18:15; Isaiah 50:2). It is best to follow the marg. of A.V. and R.V. in taking Psalms 104:8 a as a parenthesis, describing the result of this Divine command. Mountains and valleys appear (Genesis 1:9) as the waters retire to the place appointed for them. Cp. Ov. Metam. i. 344 f. “Flumina subsidunt, colles exire videntur, Surgit humus, crescunt loca, decrescentibus undis.” See also Milton, Par. Lost, vii. 285 ff. The rendering of the A.V. and R.V., which is also grammatically possible, appears to describe the commotion of the waters as the great deep breaks up and they seek their appointed place.

They go up by the mountains ... - That is, when they were gathered together into seas.

8. Up by the mountains… down by the valleys—A reference to the subsidence of the waters to the present bed of the ocean.