Psalms 104:6

Thou coveredst it with the deep - This seems to be spoken in allusion to the creation of the earth, when it was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the waters invested the whole, till God separated the dry land from them; thus forming the seas and the terraqueous globe.

The poet Ovid has nearly the same idea: -

Densior his tellus, elementaque grandia traxit,

Et pressa est gravitate sua; circumfluus humor

Ultima possedit, solidumque coercuit orbem.

Met. lib. i., ver. 29.

Earth sinks beneath, and draws a numerous throng

Of ponderous, thick, unwieldy seeds along:

About her coasts unruly waters roar;

And, rising on a ridge, insult the shore.

Dryden.

Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment - Compare the notes at Job 38:9. The meaning is, that God covered the earth with the sea - the waters - the abyss - as if a garment had been spread over it. The reference is to Genesis 1:2; where, in the account of the work of creation, what is there called "the deep" - the abyss - (the same Hebrew word as here - תהום tehôm - covered the earth, or was what "appeared," or was manifest, before the waters were collected into seas, and the dry land was seen.

The waters stood above the mountains - Above what are now the mountains. As yet no dry land appeared. It seemed to be one wide waste of waters. This does not refer to the Deluge, but to the appearance of the earth at the time of the creation, before the gathering of the waters into seas and oceans, Genesis 1:9. At that stage in the work, all that appeared was a wide waste of waters.

104:6 The deep - In the first creation, Gen 1:2,9.