Kommentar zu Ijow 38:8

the sea with doors The sand, which is its boundary.

After describing how planet Earth was fixed in space, God goes on to explain how He then made it habitable. The primeval planet had been formless and void, and totally covered by water. It was as a result of the ordinances God invoked to gather the waters into the seas and the atmosphere that the dry-land appeared. Malbim describes the process as follows: The element water was sandwiched between the element earth below and the element air above.¹¹(This notion of a series of concentric spheres, each surrounded by another out to the ultimate sphere, is Aristotelian. According to this notion, earth has its natural place at the center of the universe, and water, being the next heaviest element, has its natural place immediately above earth. The comes air, and above them all, fire.) At God's decree, vapor began to rise from the element water up to the firmament which is the atmosphere, where the clouds are. As it says: 'And the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water' (Genesis 1:2) and this made the water-vapor begin to rise. As a result of this, the element air was separated from the evaporating water and some dry-land began to appear. Afterwards, God ordained that the remaining waters gather and form the seas, thus making more dry-land appear.

when it broke forth Heb. בגיחו, when it broke forth from the deep, like (Ps. 22:10), “that You drew me (גחי) forth from the womb”; drew me forth.