Psalms 29

1 <> Ascribe to Yahweh, you sons of the mighty, Ascribe to Yahweh glory and strength.

2 Ascribe to Yahweh the glory due to his name. Worship Yahweh in holy array.

3 The voice of Yahweh is on the waters. The God of glory thunders, even Yahweh on many waters.

4 The voice of Yahweh is powerful. The voice of Yahweh is full of majesty.

5 The voice of Yahweh breaks the cedars. Yes, Yahweh breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.

6 He makes them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox.

7 The voice of Yahweh strikes with flashes of lightning.

8 The voice of Yahweh shakes the wilderness. Yahweh shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

9 The voice of Yahweh makes the deer calve, And strips the forests bare. In his temple everything says, "Glory!"

10 Yahweh sat enthroned at the Flood. Yes, Yahweh sits as King forever.

11 Yahweh will give strength to his people. Yahweh will bless his people with peace.

Psalms 29 Commentary

Chapter 29

Exhortation to give glory to God.

- The mighty and honourable of the earth are especially bound to honour and worship him; but, alas, few attempt to worship him in the beauty of holiness. When we come before him as the Redeemer of sinners, in repentance faith, and love, he will accept our defective services, pardon the sin that cleaves to them, and approve of that measure of holiness which the Holy Spirit enables us to exercise. We have here the nature of religious worship; it is giving to the Lord the glory due to his name. We must be holy in all our religious services, devoted to God, and to his will and glory. There is a beauty in holiness, and that puts beauty upon all acts of worship. The psalmist here sets forth God's dominion in the kingdom of nature. In the thunder, and lightning, and storm, we may see and hear his glory. Let our hearts be thereby filled with great, and high, and honourable thoughts of God, in the holy adoring of whom, the power of godliness so much consists. O Lord our God, thou art very great! The power of the lightning equals the terror of the thunder. The fear caused by these effects of the Divine power, should remind us of the mighty power of God, of man's weakness, and of the defenceless and desperate condition of the wicked in the day of judgment. But the effects of the Divine word upon the souls of men, under the power of the Holy Spirit, are far greater than those of thunder storms in the nature world. Thereby the stoutest are made to tremble, the proudest are cast down, the secrets of the heart are brought to light, sinners are converted, the savage, sensual, and unclean, become harmless, gentle, and pure. If we have heard God's voice, and have fled for refuge to the hope set before us, let us remember that children need not fear their Father's voice, when he speaks in anger to his enemies. While those tremble who are without shelter, let those who abide in his appointed refuge bless him for their security, looking forward to the day of judgment without dismay, safe as Noah in the ark.

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 29

\\<>\\. In the Vulgate Latin version is added, "at the finishing of the tabernacle"; suggesting that this psalm was composed at that time, and on that occasion; not at the finishing of the tabernacle by Moses, but at the finishing of the tent or tabernacle which David made for the ark in Zion, 2Sa 6:17. The title in the Arabic version is, ``a prophecy concerning the incarnation, ark, and tabernacle.'' In the Septuagint version, from whence the Vulgate seems to have taken the clause, it is, at the "exodion", "exit", or "going out of the tabernacle"; that is, of the feast of tabernacles; and which was the eighth day of the feast, and was called true, which word the Septuagint renders exodion, the word here used, Le 23:36, Nu 29:35; though it was on the first of the common days of this feast that this psalm was sung, as Maimonides {w} says. Some think it was composed when the psalmist was in a thunder storm, or had lately been in one, which he in a very beautiful manner describes. Kimchi thinks it refers to the times of the Messiah; and it may indeed be very well interpreted of the Gospel, and is very suitable to Gospel times. {w} Hilchot Tamidin, c. 10. s. 11.