And brake up for it my decreed place - Margin, “established my decree upon it.” So Herder, “I fixed my decrees upon it.” Luther renders it, “Da ich ihm den Lauf brach mit meinem Damm” - “then I broke its course with my barrier.” Umbreit renders it, “I measured out to it my limits;” that is, the limits or bounds which I judged to be proper. So the Vulgate, “Circumdedi illud terminis meis” - “I surrounded it with my limits,” or with such limits as I chose to affix. The Septuagint renders it, “I placed boundaries to it.” Coverdale, “I gave it my commandment.” This is undoubtedly the sense which: the connection demands; and the idea in the common version, that God had broken up his fixed plans in order to accommodate the new-born ocean, is not in accordance with the parallelism. The Hebrew word (שׁבר shâbar) indeed commonly means “to break, to break in pieces.” But, according to Gesenius, and as the place here demands, it may have the sense of measuring off, defining, appointing, “from the idea of breaking into portions;” and then the sense will be, “I measured for it (the sea) my appointed bound.”
This meaning of the word is, however, more probably derived from the Arabic, where the word שׁבר shâbar means to measure with the span (Castell), and hence, the idea here of measuring out the limits of the ocean. The sense is, that God measured out or determined the limits of the sea. The idea of breaking up a limit or boundary which had been before fixed, it is believed, is not in the text. The word rendered “my decreed place” (חקי chuqiy) refers commonly to a law, statute, or ordinance, meaning originally anything that was “engraved” (חקק châqaq) and then, because laws were engraved on tablets of brass or stone, any statute or decree. Hence, it means anything prescribed or appointed, and hence, a “bound,” or “limit;” see the notes at Job 26:10; compare Proverbs 8:29, “When he gave to the sea his decree (חקו chuqô) that the waters should not pass his commandment.” The idea in the passage before us is, that God fixed the limits of the ocean by his own purpose or pleasure.
And set bars - Doors were formerly fastened, as they are often now, by cross-bars; and the idea here is, that God had inclosed the ocean, and so fastened the doors from where, it would issue out, that it could not pass.