Genesis 9:11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

There shall not any more be a flood God had drowned the world once, and still it is as provoking as ever; yet he will never drown it any more, for he deals not with us according to our sins. This promise of God keeps the sea and clouds in their decreed places, and “sets them gates and bars: Hitherto they shall come,” Job 38:10-11. If the sea should flow but for a few days, as it doth twice every day for a few hours, what desolations would it make! So would the clouds, if such showers as we have sometimes seen, were continued long. But God, by flowing seas and sweeping rains, shows what he could do in wrath; and yet by preserving the earth from being deluged between both, shows what he can do in mercy, and will do in truth.