The Sound of Many Waters

In PSALM 93:4, David declares that “The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters…” and in describing “four living creatures,” Ezekiel “heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of many waters, like the voice of the Almighty…” (EZEKIEL 1:24). In EZEKIEL 43:2, the prophet proclaims God’s “voice was like the sound of many waters” and in the only physical description of Jesus offered in the New Testament, the Apostle John affirms “His voice as the sound of many waters” (REVELATION 1:15). For a reader familiar with these Biblical passages, it is impossible to think that Poe did not have them in mind when composing this final sentence of one of his greatest short stories: “While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened—there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight—my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the ‘HOUSE OF USHER.’”