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markable statements. Wisdom, speaking, says — “ I was set up 
from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. 
When there were no depths I was brought forth ; when there 
were no fountains abounding with water When He 
prepared the heavens, I was there ; when He set a compass 
upon the face of the depth ; when He established the clouds 
above ; when He strengthened the fountains of the deep ; when 
He gave to the sea its decree that the waters should not pass 
His commandment ; when He appointed the foundations of the 
earth,” &c. 
In these words of Wisdom there is — First, a distinct reference 
to the arrangement of the firmament or heavens, by which the 
first great separation of the waters was effected, viz., into the 
waters above and the waters below the firmament. There is, 
secondly, in them, and in the context, the gathering of the 
waters into one place, and the appearing of the dry land. 
And, thirdly, in this one place of the waters there appears to 
be a further distinction between the depths, on the face of 
which a compass was set, and “the fountains of the deep.” 
These fountains clearly correspond with “ the storehouses of 
the depth” (Psalm xxxiii. 7), and with the place founded for 
the deep (Psalm civ. 8), a place on which bounds are set, that 
those waters “ turn not again to cover the earth.” 
In the Book of Job, Jehovah Himself speaks ; and surely 
we are not to look for legend or conjecture or mistake here. 
In immediate connection again with the foundation of the 
earth, and yet as a work separate and distinct from it, He 
says (Job xxxviii. 8-11), “ Or who shut up the sea with doors 
when it brake forth as if it had issued out of the womb ? When 
I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness 
the swaddling-band for it, and brake up my decreed place, 
and set bars and doors, and said, f Hitherto shalt thou come, 
but no further ; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed/ ” 
Now this clearly refers to a period when the deep covered 
the earth, and when darkness covered the face of the deep. 
It as clearly intimates that this was not the original or 
normal state of the earth. Here, as in Psalm civ., it is 
evident that if the Lord “ covered the earth with the deep as 
with a garment,” there must have been the earth to be 
covered. If “the sea brake forth as if it had issued out 
of the womb,” there previously existed those inner recesses 
from which it so brake forth. Into those recesses it is here 
stated, as in Psalm civ., to have been driven back ; and 
on “ the decreed place,” broken up for it, “ bars and doors ” 
are stated to have been set, so that without the special 
interference of Him who set those bounds, the sea should 
