At a glance

The creation passages strongly affirm God’s control of the sea. Whether they prohibit the global judgment described in Genesis is a further interpretive question. This site favors a global Flood, but Psalm 104’s creation setting must be taken seriously; it is not plainly a Flood-only passage.

Ross’s reading

Ross combines the land-and-sea separation of Genesis 1 with Job 38:4–11, Proverbs 8:22–31, Psalm 104:1–35 and Jeremiah 5:20–25. He understands the boundaries established at creation to prevent a later covering of all land. He argues that Psalm 104:5–9 describes creation, while acknowledging that the psalm does not narrate the six days in strict chronological order. [1] His appeal to God’s completed creation and rest supports this enduring-order reading. [2]

What the context establishes

Proverbs 8 and Job 38 explicitly situate the sea’s limits in God’s ordering of creation. Psalm 104 moves from God’s majesty and ordering of the world to the provision sustaining its creatures. That broad context is a genuine reason for Ross’s reading of verses 5–9. That context weighs against treating those verses exclusively as a retelling of Noah’s Flood.

The YEC disagreement concerns how this language relates to the rest of Scripture. Genesis 7:17–24 describes a divinely sent judgment with comprehensive language about waters, mountains and land creatures. Genesis 9:8–17 then gives a covenant against another such destruction. A YEC reader can understand the psalm’s retreating waters and prohibition against covering the earth again alongside that covenant. Alternatively, a creation reading can describe the enduring ordinary order without specifying every exceptional act of judgment. Neither proposal should be asserted as the only possible meaning of the psalm.

This site gives priority to the cumulative scope of the Genesis narrative when deciding the Flood’s extent. Ross instead reads that narrative within creation boundaries that he regards as excluding global coverage. The disagreement requires reconciling both sets of passages; a claim about the meaning of “earth” in isolation cannot settle it.

Does God’s rest decide the geology?

Hebrews 4:1–11 connects God’s completed creation work with the promised rest his people must enter. It is not a statement that God never subsequently judges, sustains or acts in his creation. A Flood judgment does not automatically amount to repeating the work of creation. Conversely, the passage does not give a license to attach any proposed geological mechanism to God’s power without evidence.

The theological question and the scientific model must remain distinct. This reading explains why God’s rest need not exclude a global Flood; it does not demonstrate a recent chronology or validate a particular tectonic model.

Where this response stops

The sea-boundary texts are substantial evidence in the interpretive discussion, rather than an obstacle that can be dismissed. This response defends a YEC reconciliation with Genesis, while recognizing that Psalm 104 is poetic and does not name Noah. A pre-Flood rain debate, a newly created rainbow or a water canopy are not necessary parts of that case.

References below identify sections of the 2025 RTB Press first edition; they do not supply printed page numbers.