The Psalms translated and explained

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PSALM CIV.
the time and cause of the effect described. The last verb is a
passive meaning strictly to be panic-struck, or to flee in consequence
of being panic-struck. See above, on Ps. xxxi. 23 (22.)
xlviii. 6 (5.) The voice of thy thunder may be literally understood
to mean the sound of thunder, or, according to a well-known
Hebrew idiom, thy voice of thunder, cr thy thundering voice.
8. Theij go up mountains^ they go down valleys^ to this jplar^
thou hast founded for them. The first clause is a beautiful description
of the fluctuations which attend the subsidence of
swollen waters, not only in the case of Noah's flood (Gen. viii.
4— 5) to which the words relate in the first instance, but in all
other cases, where the same rule still holds good, so that the
verse,
by an insensible transition, founds the statement of a general
truth on that of a particular event. The use of the demonstrative
{this) is highly idiomatic. The original construction
is, to a place, this (which) thou hast founded for them. This
form of expression is equivalent to pointing with the hand, and
therefore adds not a little to the graphic vividness of the description.
9. A hound thou didst set, they shall not pass over, they shall
not return to cover the earth. This grand exception to the law
which governs the relations between land and water is the only
one to be permitted or expected. The limits broken were renewed
with an assurance that henceforth they should be inviolable.
See Gen. ix. 15. Besides the immediate reference to the
flood, the verse contains the Btatement of a general fact in the
economy of nature, and thus furnishes a natural transition to the
bimilar statements of the next verse.
10. Sending springs into the valleys ; between hills they go.
The participial construction, interrupted by the
parenthetical accour*
of the flood, is here resumed, the participle, like the others,