Genesis 1:9

Let the waters. The third creative act, performed during the first part of the third day, was a separation of the water from the dry land. The inspired pen of the psalmist describes this event in the following picturesque and poetical terms: “The waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the sound of thy thunder they took to flight. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place which thou didst appoint for them. Thou didst set a bound which they should not pass” (Ps. 104:6-9, RSV). The gathering of the waters into one place implies no more than that they were, from this day forward, to be collected into “one place,” and restrained within bounds in a place by themselves, so as to admit the exposure of the earth’s soil. It must have been a grand spectacle to any heavenly observer to see hills rise up out of the water that had so completely covered the face of the earth. Where there had been water only as far as the eye could see, great land areas suddenly rose up and gave to this earth an entirely new appearance.