Bible Strands
Psalms 46:3
though their waters roar and foam and the mountains quake in the surge. Selah
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses the community of Israel amidst descriptions of cosmic and geographical collapse, using the imagery to ground their present crisis in a known pattern of divine sovereignty.
The words — יֶהֱמ֣וּ (ye.he.Mu) = they will roar and יִֽרְעֲשֽׁוּ (yir.'a.shu) = they will shake describe the violent, involuntary motion of the waters and mountains.
The thread — This motif of turbulent waters and shifting mountains recurs in Psalms 93:3, Jeremiah 5:22, and Job 9:5 to illustrate the limits of created forces against divine authority.
Why it lands — The text reports natural cataclysm as an observable fact before drawing any theological conclusion, demanding that the reader acknowledge chaos as a real condition rather than a metaphor.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
Cross-references
- Psalms 93:3 The floodwaters have risen, O LORD; the rivers have raised their voice; the seas lift up their pounding waves.
- Jeremiah 5:22 Do you not fear Me?” declares the LORD. “Do you not tremble before Me, the One who set the sand as the boundary for the sea, an enduring barrier it cannot cross? The waves surge, but they cannot prevail. They roar but cannot cross it.
- Job 9:5 He moves mountains without their knowledge and overturns them in His anger.
- Judges 5:4 O LORD, when You went out from Seir, when You marched from the land of Edom, the earth trembled, the heavens poured out rain, and the clouds poured down water.
- Micah 1:4 The mountains will melt beneath Him, and the valleys will split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope.
- Nahum 1:5 The mountains quake before Him, and the hills melt away; the earth trembles at His presence—the world and all its dwellers.
- Psalms 114:4 the mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs.
- Revelation 16:20 Then every island fled, and no mountain could be found.
- Job 38:11 and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’?
- Psalms 18:4 The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of chaos overwhelmed me.