19 Ps 104.6-9 Earth's post-flood tectonic changes
Psalm 104:5-9 (ESV)
^5 He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.
^6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.
^7 At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight.
^8 The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them.
^9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
Note God's description here of the changes to the earth's crust (tectonic changes) He made after the (Noahic) flood answer the objection some raise about the flood: which is that if there was enough water to cover all the earth's mountains, where did all that water go.
Ps 104.8 describes how in the aftermath of the flood God significantly increased the vertical relief of the earth's crust: He caused the mountains to gain height and the valleys between them to become deeper. This both answers the question of how the flood's waters could cover all the earth's mountains (Gen 7.19-20) and where all that water could have gone after the flood:
- Before the flood the earth's "relief", e.g. the distances between the earth's surface's lowest and highest points, was much less than it is now. The earth was "flatter", thus the quantity of water available from subterranean and atmospheric sources (Gen 7.11) could cover all of it, to a depth of more than 20 feet (Gen 7.20). This "flatter earth" condition is implied by Vs 8's description of the mountains rising up and the valleys sinking after the flood, or as part of the ending of the flood and the reappearance of dry land.
- After the flood the earth's "relief" was much greater, creating space for the waters to consolidate in the great ocean basins we see today, and exposing the landmasses.
- As a side-effect, this cataclysmic shifting of the earth's crust most likely created from one contiguous land mass the continents, separated by oceans, we see today. As these shifts could have continued for decades, there was time and opportunity, after God miraculously created different languages thus creating different people groups from the descendants of Noah's sons (Gen 11.8-9), for those groups to migrate away from each other and to ultimately end up on different continents.