Deep called unto deep— Bishop Lowth observes, that no metaphor occurs more frequently in the sacred poems than that by which grievous and sudden calamities are expressed under the image of overflowing waters. The Hebrews seem to have had this very familiar, from the peculiar nature of their country. They saw the river Jordan before their eyes, twice every year overflowing its banks (Joshua 3:15.; 1 Chronicles 12:15.) when the snows of Lebanon and the neighbouring mountains, melting at the beginning of the summer, increased with sudden torrents the waters of the stream. Besides, the country of Palestine was not watered with many constant rivers, but, as being principally mountainous, was obnoxious to frequent torrents bursting through narrow vallies after the stated seasons of rain; from whence Moses himself commended this country (Deuteronomy 8:7; Deuteronomy 11:10-11.) to the Israelites who were about to invade it, as very dissimilar to every thing they had seen in Egypt before, or lately in the desarts of Arabia. This image, therefore, is used by all poets, but may be esteemed particularly familiar, and, as it were, domestic to the Hebrews; and, accordingly they apply it very frequently. The poet seems to have expressed the very face of nature such as it then presented itself to him, and to have transferred it to himself and his circumstances, when, from the land of Jordan and the mountains situated at the rise of that flood, he utters the most ardent expressions of his grief, with that impetuosity and boldness of words:
Abyss calleth to abyss, thy cataracts roaring around; All thy waves and waters have overwhelmed me. See his 6th Prelection.
The author of the Observations is of opinion, p. 324 that our translation of water-spouts is just. Natural philosophers, says he, often make mention of water-spouts, which are most surprising appearances; but hardly any of the commentators that I have observed speak of them, though our translators have here used the term, and the Psalmist seems to be directly describing those phoenomena, and painting a storm at sea; and none of them, I think, take notice of the frequency of them on the Jewish coast, and, consequently, that it was natural for a Jewish poet to mention them in the description of a violent and dangerous storm. That this however is the fact, we learn from Dr. Shaw, who tells us in his Travels, p. 333 that water-spouts are more frequent near the lakes of Latikea, Greego, and Carmel, than in any other part of the Mediterranean. These were all places on the coast of Syria, and the last of them, every body knows, in Judea; it being a place rendered famous by the prayers of the prophet Elijah. The Jews then could not be ignorant of what frequently happened on their coasts; and David must have known of these dangers of the sea, if he had not actually seen them, as Dr. Shaw did. Strange then, since this is the case, that commentators should speak of these water-spouts as only meaning vehement rains, or that any should imagine that he compares his afflictions to the pouring of water through the spouts of a house, as Bythner seems to do in his Lyra; when they have nothing to do with a storm at sea, which the Psalmist is evidently describing! See Poole's Synopsis on the place. Others have observed, that these spouts are often seen in the Mediterranean; but I do not remember to have seen it any where remarked, before I read Dr. Shaw, that they are more frequent on the Syrian and Jewish coast than on any other part of this sea.