Verse 3
3. Floods נהרות , ( neharoth,) rivers.
Lifted up their voice This could be done by rivers only in the rushing and roaring of cataracts. The cataracts of the Jordan were used as a figure of the civil commotions which drove David for a season from his capital. See on Psalms 42:7. Probably the word rivers, here, refers to the Euphrates and the Tigris, as representing the mad power of Assyria.
Waves The word signifies “waves” that are broken by being dashed against the shore, or otherwise broken with violence breakers. The radical idea is, to dash in pieces to break. The common word for wave is different, and comes from the idea to heap together, to cast up a mound. In symbolic language, the sea, or any great body of water, represents a great collection of people; and a troubled, or tumultuous, sea signifies a nation or nations at war. See Psalms 65:7; Daniel 7:2; Jeremiah 51:42. The figure here clearly points to such war and commotion as threatened the destruction of the nation, and is a strong indication of the date we have assigned to the psalm.
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