Psalms 29 commentary

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.

PSALM 29.

David, that he may humble all men before God, from the highest to the lowest, celebrates his terrible power in the various wonders of nature, which he affirms are not less fitted to arouse us to give glory to God, than if he were to assert his empire and majesty with his own voice. After he has struck fear into the proud, who are reluctant to yield, and addressed an exhortation to them accompanied by a gentle reproof, he sweetly invites the faithful voluntarily to fear the Lord.

A Psalm of David.

Psalm 29:1-4

1. Give unto Jehovah, ye sons of the mighty, give unto Jehovah glory and strength. 2. Give unto Jehovah the glory of his name; “C’est, digne de son nom.” — Note, Fr. Marg. “That is, worthy of his name.” worship before Jehovah in the brightness of his sanctuary. 3. The voice of Jehovah is upon the waters; the God of glory thundereth; Jehovah is upon the great waters. 4. The voice of Jehovah is in strength, the voice of Jehovah is in beauty.

1. Give unto Jehovah, ye sons of the mighty. It was no doubt David’s design to lead all men to worship and reverence God; but as it is more difficult to reduce great men, who excel in rank, to order, he expressly addresses himself to them. It is obvious, that the LXX, in giving the translation, sons of rams, The entire reading of the verse in the Septuagint is, “Ενέγκατε τῷ Κυρίῳ ὑιοὶ Θεοῦ ενέγκατε τῷ Κυρίῳ ὑιοὺς κριῶν” “Bring to the Lord, ye sons of God, bring to the Lord young rams.” Thus the LXX, as is not unusual in other places, render the words for “Ye sons of the mighty” twice; first, in the vocative case, addressing them, Υιοὶ Θεου, Ye sons of God, and then in the accusative case, ὑιοὺς κριῶν, young rams, being apparently doubtful which was the correct rendering, and, therefore, putting down both. The Vulgate, Arabic, and Ethiopic, exactly follow them. Jerome also reads, “Afferte Domino filios arietum;” although he does not give a double translation of the original words. But the correct rendering, we have no doubt, is, “Ye sons of the mighty;” which is just a Hebrew idiomatic expression for “Ye mighty ones,” or, “Ye princes;” and to them the inspired writer addresses an invitation to acknowledge and worship God from the manifestation of his majesty and power in the wonders of nature. were led into a mistake by the affinity of the Hebrew words. The Hebrew word which Calvin renders “mighty,” is אלים, elym, a word which means gods. The Hebrew word אילים, eylim, which means rams, nearly resembles it, having only an additional י, yod, and this letter is often cut off in nouns. About the signification of the word, indeed, the Jewish commentators are all agreed; but when they proceed to speak of its meaning, they pervert and obscure it by the most chilling comments. Some expound it of the angels, The Chaldee paraphrases it thus:— “The assembly of angels, sons of God,” meaning by God angels. some of the stars; and others will have it, that by the great men who are referred to are meant the holy fathers. But David only intended to humble the princes of this world, who, being intoxicated with pride, lift up their horns against God. This, accordingly, is the reason why he introduces God, with a terrific voice, subduing by thunders, hail-storms, tempests, and lightnings, these stubborn and stiff-necked giants, who, if they are not struck with fear, refuse to stand in awe of any power in heaven. We see, therefore, why, passing by others, he directs his discourse particularly to the sons of the mighty. The reason is, because there is nothing more common with them than to abuse their lofty station by impious deeds, while they madly arrogate to themselves every divine prerogative. At least that they may modestly submit themselves to God, and, mindful of their frailty, place their dependence upon his grace, it is necessary, as it were, to compel them by force. David, therefore, commands them to give strength unto Jehovah, because, deluded by their treacherous imaginations, they think that the power which they possess is supplied to them from some other quarter than from heaven. In short, he exhorts them to lay aside their haughtiness, and their false opinion about their own strength, and to glorify God as he deserves. By the glory of God’s name, (ver. 2,) he means that which is worthy of his majesty, of which the great men of this world are wont to deprive him. The repetition, also, shows that they must be vehemently urged ere a proper acknowledgement be extorted from them. By the brightness of God’s sanctuary This translation conveys a somewhat different meaning from that of our English version; but it is supported by several critics. Green reads, “In his beautiful sanctuary;” and Fry, “Worship Jehovah with holy reverence,” or, “Worship Jehovah in the glorious places of the sanctuary.” “Where the Hebrews read בהדרת” says Hammond, “in the glory or beauty of holiness, from הדר, to honor, or beautify, the LXX. read, ἐν αὐλὣ ἁγίᾳ αὐτου, in his holy court, as if it were from, “penetrale, thalamus, area, a closet, a marriage-chamber, a court; and so the Latin and Syriac follow them, and the Arabic, in his “holy habitation.” is to be understood, not heaven as some think, but the tabernacle of the covenant, adorned with the symbols of the divine glory, as is evident from the context. And the prophet designedly makes mention of this place, in which the true God had manifested himself, that all men, bidding adieu to superstition, should betake themselves to the pure worship of God. It would not be sufficient to worship any heavenly power, but the one and unchangeable God alone must be worshipped, which cannot come to pass until the world be reclaimed from all foolish inventions and services forged in the brains of men.

PSALM 29

Psa 29:1-11. Trust in God is encouraged by the celebration of His mighty power as illustrated in His dominion over the natural world, in some of its most terrible and wonderful exhibitions.

1. Give--or, "ascribe" (De 32:3).

mighty--or, "sons of the mighty" (Psa 89:6). Heavenly beings, as angels.

2. name--as (Psa 5:11; 8:1).

beauty of holiness--the loveliness of a spiritual worship, of which the perceptible beauty of the sanctuary worship was but a type.

3. The voice of the Lord--audible exhibition of His power in the tempest, of which thunder is a specimen, but not the uniform or sole example.

the waters--the clouds or vapors (Psa 18:11; Jr 10:13).

4. powerful ... majesty--literally, "in power, in majesty."

5-6. The tall and large cedars, especially of Lebanon, are shivered, utterly broken. The waving of the mountain forests before the wind is expressed by the figure of skipping or leaping.

7. divideth--literally, "hews off." The lightning, like flakes and splinters hewed from stone or wood, flies through the air.

8. the wilderness--especially Kadesh, south of Judea, is selected as another scene of this display of divine power, as a vast and desolate region impresses the mind, like mountains, with images of grandeur.

9. Terror-stricken animals and denuded forests close the illustration. In view of this scene of awful sublimity, God's worshippers respond to the call of Psa 29:2, and speak or cry, "Glory!" By "temple," or "palace" (God's residence, Psa 5:7), may here be meant heaven, or the whole frame of nature, as the angels are called on for praise.

10-11. Over this terrible raging of the elements God is enthroned, directing and restraining by sovereign power; and hence the comfort of His people. "This awful God is ours, our Father and our Love."

O ye mighty - בני אלים beney elim, "sons of the strong ones," or "sons of rams." The Chaldee has, "Ye hosts of angels, sons of God." The Vulgate has, "Offer to the Lord, ye sons of God; offer to the Lord the sons of rams;" in this rendering agree the Septuagint, Ethiopic Arabic, and Anglo-Saxon. The old Psalter has, Bringes til Lord ye goddes sonnes; brynges til Lord sonnes of wether: which it paraphrases thus: that es, yourself, sonnes of apostles, that war leders of goddes folk; qwam ye study to folow.

Glory and strength - Ascribe all excellence and might to him.

The whole Psalm is employed in describing the effects produced by a thunder-storm which had lately taken place.

The glory due unto his name - Rather, the glory of his name. His name is Mercy; his nature is love. Ascribe mercy, love, power, and wisdom to him. All these are implied in the name Jehovah.

In the beauty of holiness - בהדרת קדש behadrath kodesh, "the beautiful garments of holiness." Let the priests and Levites put on their best and cleanest apparel; and let the whole service be conducted in such a way as to be no dishonor to the Divine Majesty. The Vulgate and others read, In the palace of his holiness. Let all go to the temple, and return thanks to God for their preservation during this dreadful storm. See on Psa 29:9 (note).

The voice of the Lord - Thunder, so called, Exo 9:23, Exo 9:28, Exo 9:29; Job 37:4; Psa 18:13; Isa 30:30. On this subject see the note on Job 37:4, where there is a particular description of the nature and generation of thunder; and of the lightning, clap, rain, and other phenomena which accompany it.

Upon many waters - The clouds, which Moses calls the waters which are above the firmament.

Is powerful - There is no agent in universal nature so powerful as the electric fluid. It destroys life, tears castles and towers to pieces, rends the strongest oaks, and cleaves the most solid rocks: universal animate nature is awed and terrified by it. To several of these effects the psalmist here refers; and for the illustration of the whole I must refer to the above notes on Job.

Full of majesty - No sound in nature is so tremendous and majestic as that of thunder; it is the most fit to represent the voice of God.

Breaketh the cedars - Very tall trees attract the lightning from the clouds, by which they are often torn to pieces. Woods and forests give dreadful proof of this after a thunderstorm.

Divideth the flames of fire - The forked zigzag lightning is the cause of thunder; and in a thunder-storm these liahtnings are variously dispersed, smiting houses, towers, trees, men, and cattle, in different places.

The wilderness of Kadesh - This was on the frontiers of Idumea and Paran. There may be a reference to some terrible thunder-storm and earthquake which had occurred in that place.

Maketh the hinds to calve - Strikes terror through all the tribes of animals; which sometimes occasions those which are pregnant to cast their young. This, I believe, to be the whole that is meant by the text. I meddle not with the fables which have been published on this subject both by ancients and moderns.

Discovereth the forests - Makes them sometimes evident in the darliest night, by the sudden flash; and often by setting them on fire.

And in his temple - Does this refer to the effect which a dreadful thunder-storm often produces? Multitudes run to places of worship as asylums in order to find safety, and pray to God. See on Psa 29:2 (note).

The Lord sitteth upon the flood - יהוה למבול ישב Jehovah lammabbul yasheb, "Jehovah sat upon the deluge." It was Jehovah that commanded those waters to be upon the earth. He directed the storm; and is here represented, after all the confusion and tempest, as sitting on the floods, appeasing the fury of the jarring elements; and reducing all things, by his governing influence, to regularity and order.

Sitteth king for ever - He governs universal nature; whatsoever he wills he does, in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, and in all deep places. Every phenomenon is under his government and control. There is something very like this in Virgil's description of Neptune appeasing the storm raised by Juno for the destruction of the fleet of Aeneas. See at the end of this Psalm.

The Lord will give strength - Prosperity in our secular affairs; success in our enterprises; and his blessing upon our fields and cattle.

The Lord will bless his people with peace - Give them victory over their enemies, and cause the nations to be at peace with them; so that they shall enjoy uninterrupted prosperity. The plentiful rain which God has now sent is a foretaste of his future blessings and abundant mercies.

In the note on Psa 29:10 I have referred to the following description taken from Virgil. Did he borrow some of the chief ideas in it from the 29th Psalm? The reader will observe several coincidences.

Interea magno misceri murmure pontum,

Emissamque hyemem sensit Neptunus, et imis

Stagna refusa vadis: graviter commotus, et alto

Prospiciens, summa placidum caput extulit unda.

Disjectam Aeneae toto videt aequore classem,

Fluctibus oppressos Troas, coelique ruina.

Eurum ad se zephyrumque vocat: dehinc talia fatur

Sic ait: et dicto citius tumida aequora placat,

Collectasque fugat nubes, solemque reducit.

Cymothoe simul, et Triton adnixus acuto

Detrudunt naves scopulo; levat ipse tridenti;

Et vastas aperit syrtes, et temperat aequor,

Atque rotis summas levibus perlabitur undas.

Sic cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor, aequora postquam

Prospiciens genitor, caeloque invectus aperto,

Flectit equos, curruque volans dat lora secundo.

Aen. lib. i., ver. 124. "Mean time, imperial Neptune heard the sound

Of raging billows breaking on the ground.

Displeased, and fearing for his watery reign,

He rears his awful head above the main,

Serene in majesty; then rolled his eyes

Around the space of earth, of seas, and skies.

He saw the Trojan fleet dispersed, distressed,

By stormy winds and wintry heaven oppressed.

He summoned Eurus and the Western Blast,

And first an angry glance on both he cast;

Then thus rebuked.

He spoke; and while he spoke, he soothed the sea,

Dispelled the darkness, and restored the day.

Cymothoe, Triton, and the sea-green train

Of beauteous nymphs, and daughters of the main,

Clear from the rocks the vessels with their hands;

The god himself with ready trident stands,

And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands;

Then heaves them off the shoals: where'er he guides

His finny coursers, and in triumph rides,

The waves unruffle, and the sea subsides.

So when the father of the flood appears,

And o'er the seas his sovereign trident rears,

Their fury fails: he skims the liquid plains

High on his chariot; and with loosened reins,

Majestic moves along, and awful peace maintains.

Dryden.

Our God, Jehovah, sitteth upon the flood: yea, Jehovah sitteth King for ever.

The heathen god is drawn by his sea-horse, and assisted in his work by subaltern deities: Jehovah sits on the flood an everlasting Governor, ruling all things by his will, maintaining order, and dispensing strength and peace to his people. The description of the Roman poet is fine; that of the Hebrew poet, majestic and sublime.

Ye - Ye potentates and rulers of the earth. Glory - By an humble and thankful acknowledgment of it.

Give, &c. - The honour which he deserves: own him as the Almighty, and the only true God. Holiness - Or, in his holy and beautiful house.

The waters - Above in the clouds, which are called waters, Gen 1:7 Psal 18:11. The Divine power displays itself in those high places, which are far above the reach of all earthly potentates. Many - Upon the clouds, in which there are vast treasures of water, and upon which God is said to sit or ride, Psal 18:10,11 104:3.

Lebanon - A place famous for strong and lofty cedars.

Them - The cedars; which being broken by the thunder, the parts of them are suddenly and violently hurled hither and thither. Sirion - An high mountain beyond Jordan joining to Lebanon. Lebanon and Sirion are said to skip or leap, both here, and Psal 114:4, by a poetical hyperbole.

The flames - The lightnings.

Kadesh - An eminent wilderness, vast and terrible, and well known to the Israelites, and wherein possibly they had seen, and observed some such effects of thunder.

To calve - Through the terror it causes, which hastens the birth. He names the hinds, because they bring forth their young with difficulty, Job 39:1,2. Discovereth - Heb. maketh bare, of its trees, which it breaks or strips of their leaves. Glory - Having shewed the terrible effects of God's power in other places, he now shews the blessed privilege of God's people, that are praising God in his temple, when the rest of the world are trembling under the tokens of his displeasure.

The flood - The most violent waters, which sometimes fall from the clouds upon the earth. These are fitly mentioned, as being many times the companions of great thunders. And this may be alleged as another reason, why God's people praised him in his temple, because as he sends terrible tempests and thunders, so he also restrains and over - rules them. Sitteth - He doth sit, and will sit as king for ever, sending such tempests when it pleaseth him.

1 GIve unto the LORD, O ye mighty , give unto the LORD b glory and strength .

Ye Potentates and Rulers of the Earth. To these he addresseth his Speech; Partly, because they are most apt to forget and contemn God, and insolently to assume a kind of Deity to themselves: and Partly, because their Conviction and Conversion was likely to have a great and powerful influence upon their people. By an humble and thankful acknowledgment of it: for other ways we can give nothing to God.

(i. e.) The glory of his strength or power, which is the Attribute set forth in this Psalm: Or, his glorious strength.

Marginal references: 1 Chr. 16. 28. 29. Psal. 96. 7, 8, 9.; Heb. ye So[illegible: 1+ letters]s of the mighty.; Or, of God.

2. Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name : worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness .

(i. e.) The Honour which he deserves: which is to prefer him before all other Gods, and to forsake all others, and to own him as the Almighty, and the only true God.

Or, of the Sanctuary, which is commonly called by this Name; in his Holy and beautiful House, as it is called, Isa. 64. 11. the only place where he will receive Worship. So he exhorts them, to turn Pro[illegible: 1+ letters]elytes to the Jewish Religion; which was their Duty and Interest.

Marginal references: Heb. the Honour of his name.; Or, i[illegible: 1+ letters] his glo [illegible: 1+ letters] Sanctu [illegible: 1+ letters] ▪

3. The voyce of the LORD is upon the waters : the God of glory thundreth, the LORD is upon many waters .

(i. e.) Thunder, as is manifest from the next Clause, and the following Effects: which is oft called the Lords voyce, as Exod. 9. 23. 28, 29. Iob. 37. 21. 4, 5. Psal. 18. 14. and 46.

Either, 1. Upon the Seas; where its noise spreads, far and wide, and is very Terrible. But the following Verses speak of the Effects of it, upon the Earth only. Or rather, 2▪ Above in the Clouds, which are called Waters, Gen. 1. 7. Psal. 18. 11. because they are of a watry Substance. And this Circumstance is Considerable here, to magnifie the Divine power, which displayeth it self in those high places, which are far above the reach of all Earthly Potentates, and from whence he can easily and unavoidably smite all that dwell upon the Earth, and will not submit to him.

(i. e.) Upon the Clouds, in which there are vast Treasures of water, and upon which God is said to sit, or Ride, Psal. 18. 10, 11. and 104. 3.

Marginal references: Or, great [illegible: 1 word].

4. The voyce of the LORD is powerful: the voyce of the LORD is full of majesty .

Is an evident Proof of God's glorious Majesty.

Marginal references: Heb. i[illegible: 1+ letters] Pow [illegible: 1+ letters].; Heb. i[illegible: 1+ letters] Ma [illegible: 1+ letters].

5. The voyce of the LORD breaketh the cedars : yea, the LORD breaketh the cedars of Lebanon .

By Thunder-bolts; which have oft thrown down Trees and Towers.

A place Famous for strong and lofty Cedars, See 2 Chron. 2. 8. Cant. 3. 9. and 5. 15.

6. He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Syrion like a young unicorn .

The Cedars last mentioned: which being broken by the Thunder, the parts of them are suddenly and violently hurled about hither and thither.

An high Mountain beyond Iordan, joyning to Lebanon: of which see Deut. 3. 9. and 4. 48. Lebanon and Sirion are here understood: Either, 1. Properly: and so they are said to skip, Or, leap both here, and Psal. 114: 4. by a poetical Hyper[illegible: 1+ letters]ole very usual, both in Scripture and other Authors: Which is so known that it is needless to give any Instances of it. Or, 2. Metonymically for the Trees or people of them, as the Wilderness, v. 8. may seem to be taken; and as the Earth, by the same Figure, is frequently put for the people, which dwell in it.

Heb. Reem: Of which see on Numb. 23. 22. Psal. 22. 21.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word]. 3. 9.

7. The voyce of the LORD divideth the flames of fire.

Heb. Heweth out; (i. e.) It breaketh out of the Clouds, and thereby makes way for the Lightnings, which are suddenly dispersed over the face of the Earth.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] cutteth [illegible: 1 word]

8. The voyce of the LORD shaketh the wilderness : the LORD shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh .

(i. e.) Either the Trees, or rather the Beasts of the Wilderness, by a Metonymy as before, v. 6. Compare this with the next Verse.

Which he mentions as an eminent Wilderness, vast and Terrible, and well known to the Israelites, Numb. 20. 1. 16. and wherein possibly they had seen, and observed some such Effects of Thunder, as are here mentioned.

9. The voyce of the LORD maketh the hinds to calve , and discovereth the forests: and in his temple doth every one speak of his glory.

Through the Terror which it causeth, which hastens the Birth in these and other places: See 1 Sam. 4. 19▪ He nameth the Hinds, because they bring forth their young with Difficulty, Iob 39. 1, 2.

Heb. maketh bare, Either of its Trees, which it Either breaks or strips of their Leaves: Or, of the Beasts, which it forceth to run into their Dens.

Or, but▪ Having shewed the Terrible effects of God's power in other places, he now shews the Blessed priviledge of God's people, that are praising and glorifying God, and receiving the Comfortable influences of his Grace in his Temple, when the rest of the World are Trembling under the Tokens of his Displeasure. By which he secretly invites and perswades the Gentiles, for their own safety and Comfort, to own the true God, and to Worship him in his Sanctuary, as he did exhort them, v. 2. Or, therefore, (i. e.) Because of these and such like Discoveries, of Gods excellent Majesty and Power, h[illegible: 1+ letters] people fear and praise, and adore him in his Temple.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] to be in [illegible: 1 word]; [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] of it utter [illegible: 1+ letters], &c.

10. The LORD sitteth upon the flood : yea, the LORD sitteth King for ever.

He moderateth and ruleth (which is oft signified by sitting, this being the posture of a Judge, (or Ruler: of which see Psal. 9. 7, 8, 9. and 47. 9, Ioel 3. 12.) the most abundant and violent Inundations of Waters, which sometimes fall from the Clouds upon the Earth; where they would do much Mischief if God did not prevent it. And these are here fitly mentioned, as being many times the Companions of great Thunders. And this may be alledged as another Reason, why God's people did praise and Worship him in his Temple, because as he sendeth terrible Tempests and Thunders, and Floods, so he also restrains and over-rules them. But most Interpreters refer this to Noah's Flood, to whom the Word here used, is elsewhere Appropriated. And so the Words may be [illegible: 1+ letters]endred, The Lord did sit upon, Or, at the Flood, in Noah's time. When it is probable those Vehement Rains were accompanied with terrible Thunders. And so having spoken of the Manifestation of God's power, in Storms and Tempests in general, he takes an occasion to run back to that Ancient and most dreadful Example of that kind, in which the Divine power was most Eminently seen.▪ And having mentioned that instance, he Adds, that as God shewed himself to be the King, and the Judge of the World at that time, so he doth still sit▪ and will sit as King for ever, sending such Tempests when it pleaseth him. And therefore his people have great Reason to Worship and serve him.

Marginal references: Psal▪ 10 16,

11. The LORD will give strength unto his people; the LORD will bless his people with peace .

To support and preserve them in the most dreadful▪ Tempests, and Consequently in all other Dangers, and against all their Enemies.

Though now he sees fit to exercise them with some Troubles.

The Psalm of the Seven Thunders

The occasion of this Psalm is a thunderstorm; it is not, however, limited to the outward natural phenomena, but therein is perceived the self-attestation of the God of the redemptive history. Just as in the second part of Psa 19:1-14 the God of the revelation of salvation is called יהוה seven times in distinction from the God revealed in nature, so in this Psalm of thunders, קול ה is repeated seven times, so that it may be called the Psalm of the hepta' brontai' (Rev 10:3.). During the time of the second Temple, as the addition to the inscription by the lxx ἐξοδίου (ἐξόδου) σκηνῆς (= σκηνοπηγίας) seems to imply,The שׁיר of the Temple liturgy of the Shemini Azereth is not stated in the Talmud (vid., Tosefoth to B. Succa 47 a, where, according to Sofrim xix. §2 and a statement of the Jerusalem Talmud, Psa 6:1-10, or 12, it guessed at). We only know, that Psa 29:1-11 belongs to the Psalm-portions fore the intervening days of the feast of tabernacles, which are comprehended in the vox memorialis בהיהום (Succa 55 a, cf. Rashi on Joma 3 a), viz., Psa 29:1-11 ()ה; Psa 50:16 ()ו; Psa 94:16 ()מ; Psa 94:8 ()ב; Psa 81:7 ()ה; Psa 82:5 ()י. Besides this the treatise Sofrim xviii. §3 mentions Psa 29:1-11 as the Psalm for the festival of Pentecost and the tradition of the synagogue which prevails even at the present day recognises it only as a festival Psalm of the first day of Shabuoth Pentecost; the Psalm for Shemini Azereth is the 65th. The only confirmation of the statement of the lxx is to be found in the Sohar; for there (section )צ Psa 29:1-11 is referred to the pouring forth of the water on the seventh day of the feast of the tabernacles (Hosianna rabba), since it is said, that by means of the seven קולות (corresponding to the seven compassings of the altar) seven of the Sephiroth open the flood-gates of heaven. it was sung on the Shemini Azereth, the last day (ἐξόδιον, Lev 23:36) of the feast of tabernacles. Between two tetrastichs, in each of which the name יהוה occurs four times, lie three pentastichs, which, in their sevenfold קול ה, represent the peals of thunder which follow in rapid succession as the storm increases in its fury.

Psa 29:1-2

The opening strophe calls upon the celestial spirits to praise Jahve; for a revelation of divine glory is in preparation, which, in its first movements, they are accounted worthy to behold, for the roots of everything that takes place in this world are in the invisible world. It is not the mighty of the earth, who are called in Psa 82:6 בּני עליון, but the angels, who are elsewhere called בּני אלהים (e.g., Job 2:1), that are here, as in Psa 89:7, called בּני אלים. Since אלים never means God, like אלהים (so that it could be rendered sons of the deity), but gods, Exo 15:11, Dan. 9:36, the expression בּני אלים must be translated as a double plural from בּן־אל, after the analogy of בּתּי כלאים, Isa 42:22, from בּית כּלא (Ges. §108, 3), “sons of God,” not “sons of gods.” They, the God-begotten, i.e., created in the image of God, who form with God their Father as it were one family (vid., Genesis S. 1212), are here called upon to give unto God glory and might (the primary passage is Deu 32:3), i.e., to render back to Him cheerfully and joyously in a laudatory recognition, as it were by an echo, His glory and might, which are revealed and to be revealed in the created world, and to give unto Him the glory of His name, i.e., to praise His glorious name (Psa 72:19) according its deserts. הבוּ in all three instances has the accent on the ultima according to rule (cf. on the other hand, Job 6:22). הדרת קדשׁ is holy vestments, splendid festal attire, 2Ch 20:21, cf. Psa 110:3.The reading proposed in B. Berachoth 30b בּחרדּת (with holy trembling) has never been a various reading; nor has בּחצרת, after which the lxx renders it ἐν αὐλῇ ἁγίᾳ αὐτοῦ.

A revelation of the power of God is near at hand. The heavenly spirits are to prepare themselves for it with all the outward display of which they are capable. If Psa 28:2 were a summons to the church on earth, or, as in Psa 96:9, to the dwellers upon the earth, then there ought to be some expression to indicate the change in the parties addressed; it is, therefore, in Psa 28:2 as in Psa 28:1, directed to the priests of the heavenly היכל. In the Apocalypse, also, the songs of praise and trumpeting of the angels precede the judgments of God.

Psa 29:3-9

Now follows the description of the revelation of God’s power, which is the ground of the summons, and is to be the subject-matter of their praise. The All-glorious One makes Himself heard in the language (Rev 10:3.) of the thunder, and reveals Himself in the storm. There are fifteen lines, which naturally arrange themselves into three five-line strophes. The chief matter with the poet, however, is the sevenfold קול ה. Although קול is sometimes used almost as an ejaculatory “Hark!” (Gen 4:10; Isa 52:8), this must not, with Ewald (§286, f), be applied to the קול ה of the Psalm before us, the theme of which is the voice of God, who announced Himself from heaven - a voice which moves the world. The dull sounding קול serves not merely to denote the thunder of the storm, but even the thunder of the earthquake, the roar of the tempest, and in general, every low, dull, rumbling sound, by which God makes Himself audible to the world, and more especially from the wrathful side of His doxa. The waters in Psa 29:3 are not the lower waters. Then the question arises what are they? Were the waters of the Mediterranean intended, they would be more definitely denoted in such a vivid description. It is, however, far more appropriate to the commencement of this description to understand them to mean the mass of water gathered together in the thick, black storm-clouds (vid., Psa 18:12; Jer 10:13). The rumblingThe simple rendering of קול by “voice” has been retained in the text of the Psalm, as in the Authorised Version. The word, however, which Dr. Delitzsch uses is Gedröhn, the best English equivalent of which is a “rumbling.” - Tr. of Jahve is, as the poet himself explains in Psa 29:3, the thunder produced on high by the אל הכּבוד (cf. מלך הכבוד, Psa 24:7.), which rolls over the sea of waters floating above the earth in the sky. Psa 29:4 and Psa 29:4, just like Psa 29:3 and Psa 29:3, are independent substantival clauses. The rumbling of Jahve is, issues forth, or passes by; ב with the abstract article as in Psa 77:14; Pro 24:5 (cf. Pro 8:8; Luk 4:32, ἐν ἰσχύΐ Rev 18:2), is the ב of the distinctive attribute. In Psa 29:3 the first peals of thunder are heard; in Psa 29:4 the storm is coming nearer, and the peals become stronger, and now it bursts forth with its full violence: Psa 29:5 describes this in a general form, and Psa 29:5 expresses by the fut. consec., as it were inferentially, that which is at present taking place: amidst the rolling of the thunder the descending lightning flashes rive the cedars of Lebanon (as is well-known, the lightning takes the outermost points). The suffix in Psa 29:6 does not refer proleptically to the mountains mentioned afterwards, but naturally to the cedars (Hengst., Hupf., Hitz.), which bend down before the storm and quickly rise up again. The skipping of Lebanon and Sirion, however, is not to be referred to the fact, that their wooded summits bend down and rise again, but, according to Psa 114:4, to their being shaken by the crash of the thunder-a feature in the picture which certainly does not rest upon what is actually true in nature, but figuratively describes the apparent quaking of the earth during a heavy thunderstorm. שריון, according to Deu 3:9, is the Sidonian name of Hermon, and therefore side by side with Lebanon it represents Anti-Lebanon. The word, according to the Masora, has ש sinistrum, and consequently is isriyown, wherefore Hitzig correctly derives it from Arab. srâ , fut. i., to gleam, sparkle, cf. the passage from an Arab poet at Psa 133:3. The lightning makes these mountains bound (Luther, lecken, i.e., according to his explanation: to spring, skip) like young antelopes. ראם,On Arab. r'm vid., Seetzen’s Reisen iii. 339 and also iv. 496. like βούβαλος, βούβαλις, is a generic name of the antelope, and of the buffalo that roams in herds through the forests beyond the Jordan even at the present day; for there are antelopes that resemble the buffalo and also (except in the formation of the head and the cloven hoofs) those that resemble the horse, the lxx renders: ὡς υἱὸς μονοκερώτων. Does this mean the unicorn Germ. one-horn depicted on Persian and African monuments? Is this unicorn distinct from the one horned antelope? Neither an unicorn nor an one horned antelope have been seen to the present day by any traveller. Both animals, and consequently also their relation to one another, are up to the present time still undefinable from a scientific point of view.By ראם Ludolf in opposition to Bochart understands the rhinoceros; but this animal, belonging to the swine tribe, is certainly not meant, or even merely associated with it. Moreover, the rhinoceros Germ. nose-horn is called in Egypt charnin (from Arab. chrn = qrn), but the unicorn, charnit. “In the year 1862 the French archaeologist, M. Waddington, was with me in Damascus when an antiquary brought me an ancient vessel on which a number of animals were engraved, their names being written on their bellies. Among the well known animals there was also an unicorn, exactly like a zebra or a horse, but with a long horn standing out upon its forehead; on its body was the word Arab. chrnı̂t. M. Waddington wished to have the vessel and I gave it up to him; and he took it with him to Paris. We talked a good deal about this unicorn, and felt obliged to come to the conclusion that the form of the fabulous animal might have become known to the Arabs at the time of the crusades, when the English coat of arms came to Syria.” - Wetzstein.

Each peal of thunder is immediately followed by a flash of lightning; Jahve’s thunder cleaveth flames of fire, i.e., forms (as it were λατομεῖ) the fire-matter of the storm-clouds into cloven flames of fire, into lightnings that pass swiftly along; in connection with which it must be remembered that קול ה denotes not merely the thunder as a phenomenon, but at the same time it denotes the omnipotence of God expressing itself therein. The brevity and threefold division of Psa 29:7 depicts the incessant, zigzag, quivering movement of the lightning (tela trisulca, ignes trisulci, in Ovid). From the northern mountains the storm sweeps on towards the south of Palestine into the Arabian desert, viz., as we are told in Psa 29:8 (cf. Psa 29:5, according to the schema of “parallelism by reservation”), the wilderness region of Kadesh (Kadesh Barnea), which, however we may define its position, must certainly have lain near the steep western slope of the mountains of Edom toward the Arabah. Jahve’s thunder, viz., the thunderstorm, puts this desert in a state of whirl, inasmuch as it drives the sand (חול) before it in whirlwinds; and among the mountains it, viz., the strong lightning and thundering, makes the hinds to writhe, inasmuch as from fright they bring forth prematurely. both the Hiph. יהיל and the Pil. יחולל are used with a causative meaning (root חו, חי, to move in a circle, to encircle). The poet continues with ויּחשׂף, since he makes one effect of the storm to develope from another, merging as it were out of its chrysalis state. יערות is a poetical plural form; and חשׂף describes the effect of the storm which “shells” the woods, inasmuch as it beats down the branches of the trees, both the tops and the foliage. While Jahve thus reveals Himself from heaven upon the earth in all His irresistible power, בּהיכלו, in His heavenly palace (Psa 11:4; Psa 18:7), כּלּו (note how בהיכלו resolves this כלו out of itself), i.e., each of the beings therein, says: כבוד. That which the poet, in Psa 29:1, has called upon them to do, now takes place. Jahve receives back His glory, which is immanent in the universe, in the thousand-voiced echo of adoration.

Psa 29:10-11

Luther renders it: “The Lord sitteth to prepare a Flood,” thus putting meaning into the unintelligible rendering of the Vulgate and lxx; and in fact a meaning that accords with the language - for ישׁב ל is most certainly intended to be understood after the analogy of ישׁב למשׁפט, Psa 122:5, cf. Psa 9:8 - just as much as with the context; for the poet has not thus far expressly referred to the torrents of rain, in which the storm empties itself. Engelhardt also (Lutherische Zeitschrift, 1861, 216f.), Kurtz (Bibel und Astronomie, S. 568, Aufl. 4), Riehm (Liter. - Blatt of the Allgem. Kirchen-Zeit., 1864, S. 110), and others understand by מבול the quasi-flood of the torrent of rain accompanying the lightning and thunder. But the word is not למבול, but למּבול, and המּבּוּל (Syr. momûl) occurs exclusively in Gen 6-11 as the name of the great Flood. Every tempest, however, calls to mind this judgment and its merciful issue, for it comes before us in sacred history as the first appearance of rain with lightning and thunder, and of the bow in the clouds speaking its message of peace (Genesis, S. 276). The retrospective reference to this event is also still further confirmed by the aorist ויּשׁב which follows the perfect ישׁב (Hofmann, Schriftbeweis i. 208). Jahve - says the poet - sat (upon His throne) at the Flood (to execute it), and sits (enthroned) in consequence thereof, or since that time, as this present revelation of Him in the tempest shows, as King for ever, inasmuch as He rules down here upon earth from His throne in the heavens (Psa 115:16) in wrath and in mercy, judging and dispensing blessing. Here upon earth He has a people, whom from above He endows with a share of His own might and blesses with peace, while the tempests of His wrath burst over their foes. How expressive is בּשּׁלום as the closing word of this particular Psalm! It spans the Psalm like a rain-bow. The opening of the Psalm shows us the heavens opened and the throne of God in the midst of the angelic songs of praise, and the close of the Psalm shows us, on earth, His people victorious and blessed with peace (בּ as in Gen 24:1 The Holy One, blessed be He-says the Mishna, Uksin iii. 12, with reference to this passage in the Psalms-has not found any other vessel (כלי) to hold the blessing specially allotted to Israel but peace.) in the midst of Jahve’s voice of anger, which shakes all things. Gloria in excelsis is its beginning, and pax in terris its conclusion.

The Glory of the Lord.

1 Give unto the Lord , O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength. 2 Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. 3 The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the Lord is upon many waters. 4 The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. 5 The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. 6 He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. 7 The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. 8 The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. 9 The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests: and in his temple doth every one speak of his glory. 10 The Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever. 11 The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.

In this psalm we have,

I. A demand of the homage of the great men of the earth to be paid to the great God. Every clap of thunder David interpreted as a call to himself and other princes to give glory to the great God. Observe, 1. Who they are that are called to this duty: "O you mighty (v. 1), you sons of the mighty, who have power, and on whom that power is devolved by succession and inheritance, who have royal blood running in your veins!" It is much for the honour of the great God that the men of this world should pay their homage to him; and they are bound to do it, not only because, high as they are, he is infinitely above them, and therefore they must bow to him, but because they have their power from him, and are to use it for him, and this tribute of acknowledgment they owe to him for it. 2. How often this call is repeated; Give unto the Lord, and again, and a third time, Give unto the Lord. This intimates that the mighty men are backward to this duty and are with difficulty persuaded to it, but that it is of great consequence to the interests of God's kingdom among men that princes should heartily espouse them. Jerusalem flourishes when the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour into it, Rev. xxi. 24. 3. What they are called to do—to give unto the Lord, not as if he needed any thing, or could be benefited by any gifts of ours, nor as if we had any thing to give him that is not his own already (Who hath first given to him?), but the recognition of his glory, and of his dominion over us, he is pleased to interpret as a gift to him: "Give unto the Lord your own selves, in the first place, and then your services. Give unto the Lord glory and strength; acknowledge his glory and strength, and give praise to him as a God of infinite majesty and irresistible power; and whatever glory or strength he has by his providence entrusted you with offer it to him, to be used for his honour, in his service. Give him your crowns; let them be laid at his feet; give him your sceptres, your swords, your keys, put all into his hand, that you, in the use of them, may be to him for a name and a praise." Princes value themselves by their glory and strength; these they must ascribe to God, owning him to be infinitely more glorious and powerful than they. This demand of homage from the mighty must be looked upon as directed either to the grandees of David's own kingdom, the peers of the realm, the princes of the tribes (and it is to excite them to a more diligent and constant attendance at God's altars, in which he had observed them very remiss), or to the neighbouring kings whom he by his sword had made tributaries to Israel and now would persuade to become tributaries to the God of Israel. Crowned heads must bow before the King of kings. What is here said to the mighty is said to all: Worship God; it is the sum and substance of the everlasting gospel, Rev. xiv. 6, 7. Now we have here, (1.) The nature of religious worship; it is giving to the Lord the glory due to his name, v. 2. God's name is that whereby he has made himself known. There is a glory due to his name. It is impossible that we should give him all the glory due to his name; when we have said and done our best for the honour of God's name, still we come infinitely short of the merit of the subject; but when we answer that revelation which he has made of himself, with suitable affections and adorations, then we give him some of that glory which is due to his name. If we would, in hearing and praying, and other acts of devotion, receive grace from God, we must make it our business to give glory to God. (2.) The rule of the performance of religious exercises; Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, which denotes, [1.] The object of our worship; the glorious majesty of God is called the beauty of holiness, 2 Chron. xx. 21. In the worship of God we must have an eye to his beauty, and adore him, not only as infinitely awful and therefore to be feared above all, but as infinitely amiable and therefore to be loved and delighted in above all; especially we must have an eye to the beauty of his holiness; this the angels fasten upon in their praises, Rev. iv. 8. Or, [2.] The place of worship. The sanctuary then was the beauty of holiness, Ps. xlviii. 1, 2; Jer. xvii. 12. The beauty of the sanctuary was the exact agreement of the worship there performed with the divine appointment—the pattern in the mount. Now, under the gospel, solemn assemblies of Christians (which purity is the beauty of) are the places where God is to be worshipped. Or, [3.] The manner of worship. We must be holy in all our religious performances, devoted to God, and to his will and glory. There is a beauty in holiness, and it is that which puts an acceptable beauty upon all the acts of worship.

II. Good reason given for this demand. We shall see ourselves bound to give glory to God if we consider,

1. His sufficiency in himself, intimated in his name Jehovah—I am that I am, which is repeated here no fewer than eighteen times in this short psalm, twice in every verse but three, and once in two of those three; I do not recollect that there is the like in all the book of psalms. Let the mighty ones of the earth know him by this name and give him the glory due to it.

2. His sovereignty over all things. Let those that rule over men know there is a God that rules over them, that rules over all. The psalmist here sets forth God's dominion,

(1.) In the kingdom of nature. In the wonderful effects of natural causes, and the operations of the powers of nature, we ought to take notice of God's glory and strength, which we are called upon to ascribe to him; in the thunder, and lightning, and rain, we may see, [1.] His glory. It is the God of glory that thunders (thunders is the noise of his voice, Job xxxvii. 2), and it declares him a God of glory, so awful is the sound of the thunder, and so bright the flash of its companion, the lightning; to the hearing and to the sight nothing is more affecting than these, as if by those two learning senses God would have such proofs of his glory to the minds of men as should leave the most stupid inexcusable. Some observe that there were then some particular reasons why thunder should be called the voice of the Lord, not only because it comes from above, is not under the direction or foresight of any man, speaks aloud, and reaches far, but because God often spoke in thunder, particularly at Mount Sinai, and by thunder discomfited the enemies of Israel. To speak it the voice of the God of glory, it is here said to be upon the water, upon many waters (v. 3); it reaches over the vast ocean, the waters under the firmament; it rattles among the thick clouds, the waters above the firmament. Every one that hears the thunder (his ear being made to tingle with it) will own that the voice of the Lord is full of majesty (Ps. xxix. 4), enough to make the highest humble (for none can thunder with a voice like him) and the proudest tremble—for, if his voice be so terrible, what is his arm? Every time we hear it thunder, let our hearts be thereby filled with great, and high, and honourable thoughts of God, in the holy adorings and admirings of whom the power of godliness does so much consist. O Lord our God! thou art very great. [2.] His power (v. 4): The voice of the Lord is powerful, as appears by the effects of it; for it works wonders. Those that write natural histories relate the prodigious effects of thunder and lightning, even out of the ordinary course of natural causes, which must be resolved into the omnipotence of the God of nature. First, Trees have been rent and split by thunderbolts, v. 5, 6. The voice of the Lord, in the thunder, often broke the cedars, even those of Lebanon, the strongest, the stateliest. Some understand it of the violent winds which shook the cedars, and sometimes tore off their aspiring tops. Earthquakes also shook the ground itself on which the trees grew, and made Lebanon and Sirion to dance; the wilderness of Kadesh also was in like manner shaken (v. 8), the trees by winds, the ground by earthquakes, and both by thunders, of which I incline rather to understand it. The learned Dr. Hammond understands it of the consternations and conquest of neighbouring kingdoms that warred with Israel and opposed David, as the Syrians, whose country lay near the forest of Lebanon, the Amorites that bordered on Mount Hermon, and the Moabites and Ammonites that lay about the wilderness of Kadesh. Secondly. Fires have been kindled by lightnings and houses and churches thereby consumed; hence we read of hot thunderbolts (Ps. lxxviii. 48); accordingly the voice of the Lord, in the thunder, is here said to divide the flames of fire (v. 7), that is, to scatter them upon the earth, as God sees fit to direct them and do execution by them. Thirdly, The terror of thunder makes the hinds to calve sooner, and some think more easily, than otherwise they would. The hind is a timourous creature, and much affected with the noise of thunder; and no marvel, when sometimes proud and stout men have been made to tremble at it. The emperor Caligula would hide himself under his bed when it thundered. Horace, the poet, owns that he was reclaimed from atheism by the terror of thunder and lightning, which he describes somewhat like this of David, lib. 1, ode 34. The thunder is said here to discover the forest, that is, it so terrifies the wild beasts of the forest that they quit the dens and thickets in which they hid themselves are so are discovered. Or it throws down the trees, and so discovers the ground that was shaded by them. Whenever it thunders let us think of this psalm; and, whenever we sing this psalm, let us think of the dreadful thunder-claps we have sometimes heard, and thus bring God's words and his works together, that by both we may be directed and quickened to give unto him the glory due unto his name; and let us bless him that there is another voice of his besides this dreadful one, by which God now speaks to us, even the still small voice of his gospel, the terror of which shall not make us afraid.

(2.) In the kingdom of providence, v. 10. God is to be praised as the governor of the world of mankind. He sits upon the flood; he sits King for ever. He not only sits at rest in the enjoyment of himself, but he sits as King in the throne which he has prepared in the heavens (Ps. ciii. 19), where he takes cognizance of, and gives orders about, all the affairs of the children of men, and does all according to his will, according to the counsel of his will. Observe, [1.] The power of his kingdom: He sits upon the flood. As he has founded the earth, so he has founded his own throne, upon the floods, Ps. xxiv. 2. The ebbings and flowings of this lower world, and the agitations and revolutions of the affairs in it, give not the least shake to the repose nor to the counsels of the Eternal Mind. The opposition of his enemies is compared to the flood (Ps. xciii. 3, 4); but the Lord sits upon it; he crushes it, conquers it, and completes his own purposes in despite of all the devices that are in men's hearts. The word here translated the flood is never used but concerning Noah's flood; and therefore some think it is that which is here spoken of. God did sit upon that flood as a Judge executing the sentence of his justice upon the world of the ungodly that was swept away by it. And he still sits upon the flood, restraining the waters of Noah, that they turn not again to cover the earth, according to his promise never to destroy the earth any more by a flood, Gen. ix. 11; Isa. liv. 9. [2.] The perpetuity of his kingdom; He sits King for ever; no period can, or shall, be put to his government. The administration of his kingdom is consonant to his counsels from eternity and pursuant to his designs for eternity.

(3.) In the kingdom of grace. Here his glory shines most brightly, [1.] In the adorations he receives from the subjects of that kingdom (v. 9). In his temple, where people attend his discoveries of himself and his mind and attend him with their praises, every one speaks of his glory. In the world every man sees it, or at least may behold it afar off (Job xxxvi. 25); but it is only in the temple, in the church, that it is spoken of to his honour. All his works do praise him (that is, they minister matter for praise), but his saints only do bless him, and speak of his glory of his works, Ps. cxlv. 10. [2.] In the favours he bestows upon the subjects of that kingdom, v. 11. First, He will qualify them for his service: He will give strength to his people, to fortify them against every evil work and to furnish them for every good work; out of weakness they shall be made strong; nay, he will perfect strength in weakness. Secondly, He will encourage them in his service: He will bless his people with peace. Peace is a blessing of inestimable value, which God designs for all his people. The work of righteousness is peace (great peace have those that love thy law); but much more the crown of righteousness: the end of righteousness is peace; it is endless peace. When the thunder of God's wrath shall make sinners tremble the saints shall lift up their heads with joy.

PSAL. XXIX.

A Psalme of David.

GIve ye to Iehovah, sons of the mighties, give yee to Iehovah glory and strength. Give yee to Iehovah the glory of his Name: bow downe your selves to Iehovah, in the comely honour of the Sanctuary. The voice of Iehovah is upon the waters, the God of glory thundereth: Iehovah, upon many waters. The voice of Iehovah is with able power; the voice of Iehovah with comely honour. The voice of Iehovah breaketh the Cedars; and Iehovah breaketh asunder the Cedars of Lebanon. And hee maketh them leape like a calfe: Lebanon and Shirjon like a young Vnicorne. The voice of Iehovah striketh flames of fire. The voice of Iehovah maketh the wildernesse to tremble: Iehovah maketh the wildernesse of Kadesh to tremble. The voice of Iehovah maketh the Hindes tremblingly to travell, and maketh bare the forests, and in his Palace every one faith glory. Iehovah sate at the Floud, and Iehovah shal sit King for ever. Iehovah will give strength to his people; Iehovah will blesse his people with peace.

Annotations. A Psalme of David] The Greeke addeth to this title, Exodiou skenes, that is, of the solemne assemblie of th[illegible: 1 letter] Taber[illegible: 2 letters]cle, (or Booth.) for the solemne assembly at the Feast of Tabernacles, mentioned in Levit. 23. 36, called in Hebrew Ghnat s[illegible: 1 letter]reth, is there and in other places translated in Greeke Exod[illegible: 1 letter]on: so this title intimateth that this Psalme was sung at the feast of Tabernacles. And so Maimony in Misneh, tom. 3. in Tamidin, chap. 10. sect. 11. saith that every day of the daies of that feast they said a peculiar song for the addition of the day; and in the first of the working daies of the solemne feast, they said (Psalm. 29.) Give ye unto the LORD, sonnes of the mighties, &c. Sonnes of the mighties] that is, ye mighty men, or potentates. So Psal. 89. 7. The Chaldee referreth it to the company of Angels. strength] or strong praise. See Psal. 8. 3. and 1 Tim. 6. 16. Vers. 2. honour of the Sanctuary] that is, the honourable Sanctuary, (as the Greeke explaineth it, in his holy court) or, with honour of sanctuy, that is, with holy honour. So Psal. 96. 9. 1 Chron. 16. 29. This phrase is sometime used of Gods holy Majestie, 2 Chron. 20. 21. Vers. 3. The voice] that is, the thunder, as Exod. 20. 18. called Gods voice, Exod. 9. 28, 29. Yet voices and thundrings are sometimes distinct, as Revel. 4. 5. and 8. 5. and 11. 19. and 16. 18. This word voice is generally used for all noise or sound, 2. King. 7. 6. 1 Cor. 14. 10. upon the waters] which are above the firmament, Gen[illegible: 1 letter]. 7. where the thunder is heard. So waters meane watry clouds, in Psalm. 18. 12. Or above the waters, that is, a louder voice than the roaring of the waters; whereof see Ezek. 1. 24. and 43. 2. Rev. 1. 15. and 14. 2. and 19. 6. Gods voice shaketh heavens and earth, Hebr. 12. 26. Iehovah upon] that is, thundereth upon, or, his voice is above many waters. Vers. 5. Cedars of Lebanon] The Cedar is a tree tall, strong and durable; and for the drinesse of it, the timber rotteth not. They are called Cedars of God, Psal. 80. 11. and by him planted, Psal. 104. 16. Lebanon is a mountaine in Canaan, high, pleasant, and fruitfull, full of Cedars and other trees, the glory of that mount, 2 Chron. 2. 8. Song 3. 9. and 5. 15. Isa. 60. 13. Hos. 14. 6, 7, 8. It is called Lebanon, of whitenesse, for the snow that lieth on it, Ier. 18. 14. To this mount, and to the goodly trees thereon, great kingdomes and personages are compared, Ezek. 31. 3. and 17. 3. Ier. 22. 23. Iudg. 9. 15. 2 King. 14. 9. And the just mans estate in special, Psal. 92. 14. Vers. 6. Shirjon] this is mount Hermon, called of the Sidonians, Shirjon, and of the Amorites, Shenir, Deut. 3. 9. and by another name Sion, (not Tsijon, spoken of in Psal. 2. 6.) Deut. 4. 48. for this Shirjon or Hermon lay without the river Iarden, where Ogh reigned, Ios. 12. 1, 5. 1 Chron. 5. 23. Here also grew goodly trees, and many wilde beasts kept in it, Ezek. 27. 5. Song 4. 8. Of Hermon see more in Psal. 89. 13. and 133. 3. and 42. 7. a young Unicorne] a fierce untamed beast; see Psal. 22. 22. The Hebrew phrase is, son of the Vnicornes; the like is also, Psal. 114. 4. All young creatures, and things that come of, or belong to another, are in Hebrew called sons: so the sons of the cole, are sparkes, Job 5. 7. the sons of the quiver, are arrowes, Lam. 3. 13. the sonne of the morne, is the morning starre, Isa. 14. 12. the sonnes of S[illegible: 1 span], are the Citizens there, Psal. 149. 2. the sonnes of the wedding chamber, are the Bridegroomes friends, Matth. 9. 15. and many the like. Vers. 7. striketh] or cutteth [illegible: 3 letters]mes, as the flashes of lightning with the thunder. Vers. 8. maketh tremble] or quake, or paineth the wildernesse, that is, the wilde beasts there, which being frighted by Gods voice or thunder, doe travell and bring forth their young with paine and trembling. Kadesh] called also Paran and Zin, a desart thorow which the Israelites passed from Aegypt to Canaan, Numb. 13. 27. and 33. 36. and had the name of the citie Kadesh by which it lay, Numb. 20. 1, 16. The beasts of this wildernesse were cruell, Deut. 8. 15. and 32. 10. Vers. 9. the hindes] though of all other creatures they bring forth with great trouble, bowing themselves, bruising their young, and casting out their sorrowes, Iob 39. 4, 6. maketh bare] by driving the beasts with the thunder into their dens; as the Chaldee addeth, the beasts of the forest; or, by beating off the leaves and fruits of the trees. So the fig-tree is said to be made bare, Ioel 1. 7. every one] so the Greeke turneth it: or it may be read, every whit, or all of it, meaning of his people, vers. 11. which saith, glory to God, or all of it, that is, of his glory, he saith (that is, God declareth) in his Temple. The Chaldee saith, and in the Temple of the house of his Sanctuary which is above, all his ministers doe say his glory. Vers. 10. at the floud] meaning Noahs floud, Gen. 6. and 7. for to that onely both the Hebrew and Greeke word is applied. And here the Chaldee paraphraseth thus, The Lord at the generation of the s[illegible: 1 letter]oud, sate on the seat of judgement, to take vengeance on them: he sate also upon the seat of mercies, and delivered Noah, and reigneth over his sonnes for ever and ever. Vers. 11. with peace] or in peace; which word betokeneth integrity, perfection, a making whole and absolute; opposed both to warre and sword, Psalm. 120. 7. Matth. 10. 34. and to division, consusion, and [illegible: 1 letter]umu[illegible: 2 letters]uous disorder, Luke 12. 51. 1 Cor. 14. 33. It denoteth all prosperitie, safety, and welfare of soule and body, and specially that spoken of in Eph. 2. 14, 15. where Christ is our peace, which hath made of both one, and hath broken the stop of the partition wall, &c. to make of twaine, one new man in himselfe, so making peace.

PSAL. XXIX.

VErſ. 1. Give unto the Lord] Verbo & confeſſione, ſaith Kimchi; By word and confeſſion, as Joſh. 7.19. Jer. 13.16. acknowledge him the King immortal, inviſible, &c. and your ſelves his Vaſſals; as did thoſe three beſt Emperours, Conſtantine, Theodoſius, and Valentinian. Cedite, colite, ſtep back, ſtoop, humble and tremble before this dread Soveraign of the World; bear an awefull reſpect to the divine Majeſty, the High thunderer, the great Wonder-worker; unleſſe you will come ſhort of brute beaſts, and dumb Creatures.

O yee Mighty] Heb. Yee ſons of the Mighty, Grandees and Potentates, who are readieſt to rob God of his glory, and being tumour'd up by their worldly wealth and greatneſſe, to deem or rather dream themſelves demy Gods; ſuch as may do what they liſt, as not accountable to any mortall. The Septuagint render it, O yee Sons of Ramms. Theſe Bel-weathers ſhould not caſt their noſes into the air, and carry their creſt the higher, becauſe the ſhepheard hath beſtowed a bell upon them more than upon the reſt of the flock.

Give unto the Lord] Give, give, give; This ſheweth how unwilling ſuch are, uſually to give God his right; or to ſuffer a word of exhortation to this purpoſe.

Glory and ſtrength] By aſcribing all to him, caſting down your Crowns at his feet, ſetting up his ſincere ſervice where-ever ye have to do, &c.

Verſ. 2.Nominatiſſimam & celeberrimam. Jun. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name] Which yet you cannot do; for his name is above all praiſe, Pſal. 148.13. but you muſt aim at it. The Rabbines obſerve that Gods holy name is mentioned eighteen ſeverall times in this Pſalm; that great men eſpecially may give him the honour of his name, that they may ſtand in awe and not ſin, that they may bring preſents to Him, who ought to be feared, and thoſe alſo the very beſt of the beſt, ſith He is a great King, and ſtandeth much upon his ſeniority, Mal. 1.14.

Worſhip the Lord in the beauty of Holineſs] Or, In his glorious Sanctuary; therefore glorious, becauſe there they might ſee Gods face, and hear his voice in his ordinances. Away therefore with your ſuperſtitions, and will-worſhips; and bring your gifts to his beautifull Sanctuarie; for no where elſe will he receive them. Send a Lamb to this Ruler of the earth, Iſa. 16.1. as an homage-penny.

Verſ. 3. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters] Thunder is here called (and fitly) the voice of the Lord (being brought as one inſtance of thoſe many other glorious works of his in nature) becauſe it comes from him alone. Naturall cauſes there are aſſigned of it;The ancient Romans ſaid Deus tonat, Deus fulgurat, for which now Tonat, fulgurat. but we muſt not ſtick in them, as Epicurus and his Hoggs would have us. The beſt Philoſophy in this behalf, is to hear God Almighty by his thunder ſpeaking unto us from Heaven, as if hee were preſent; and to ſee him in his lightenings, as if he caſt his eyes upon us, to behold what we had been doing. This voice of the Lord is fitly inſtanced as an evidence of the divine power and Majeſty; becauſe it is ſo dreadfull, even to the greateſt Atheiſts; as it was to Caius Caligula that potent Emperour,Sueton. ready to run into a mouſe-hole in a time of thunder.

The God of glory thundereth] And men quake before him; as worms at ſuch a time wriggle into the corners of the earth. And yet your dive-dappers duck not at this rattle in the air, though they do at a farre ſmaller matter: So, many tremble not at Gods terrible threats, that yet are afraid of a penall ſtatute.

The Lord is upon many waters] viz. When he thundreth; De aquis pendulis loquitur, ſaith Vatablus; He ſpeaketh of the waters in the clouds, which are many, and of great force, as appeared in the generall deluge; and doth ſtill appear by that infinite inundation of rain that followeth upon the thunder claps. Some render it, The Lord, or, the voice of the Lord is above many waters, i. e. above the loud roaring of many waters, which is even drowned by the thunder.

Verſ. 4. The voice of the Lord is powerfull] So that it ſhaketh heaven and earth, Heb. 12.26.Validum eſt & vehemens tonitru. Vat. Beza. Cogitent ergo Principes quantum infra Deum ſubſidant, &c. Let thoſe that think themſelves ſome great buſineſſe, conſider Gods infinite power, putting forth it ſelf in thunders, and tempeſts, and they will ſoon bee creſt-faln.

The voice of the Lord is full of Majeſty] Heb. In Majeſty; it is magnificall, and immutable, though ſome fools have attempted to imitate it (as a certain King of Egypt, and Caligula the Emperour) by certain Engines and devices.

Verſ. 5. The voice of the Lord breaketh the Cedars] i. e. The thunder; and thoſe things that either go before it, or follow it, as lightenings, thunderbolts, ſtorm, tempeſt, &c. breaking and turning up by the roots huge trees.

The Lord breaketh the Cedars of Lebanon] Which are the talleſt, thickeſt and moſt durable of any place, in the habitable World. What a ſhame is it then that our hard hearts break not, yeeld not, though thunder-ſtruck with the dreadfull menaces of Gods mouth? Corripimur ſed non corrigimur, &c. A fearfull caſe. Let the tall Cedars ſee to it. Nam per Cedros intellig it [non-Latin text not transcribed] quicquid eſt eximium in mundo; Where is that hammer of the Nations Nebuchadnezzar? that terrour of the World, Tamerlan, &c? Are they not broken in pieces as a Potters Veſſell?

Verſ. 6. Hee maketh them alſo to skip like a Calf] Young living Creatures are full of motion. God by his thunder and earthquake thereupon (for ſo the Hebrews underſtand it) maketh not only thoſe huge trees, the ſplinters of them, to flie up into the air, but alſo the Mountaines whereupon they grow, to skip and jump out of their places, and aloft from their center.

Lebanon and Sirion, &c.] Or, Hermon, two known Mountaines.

Verſ. 7. The voice of the Lord divideth, (Heb. cutteth out) the flames of fire] i. e. The lightening which the thunder is ſaid to ſtrike, or cut out,Deut. 3. becauſe it cauſeth them to ſhoot and glide; it immediately followeth one flaſh, and goeth before another; diſperſing and darting them hither and thither.

Verſ. 8. The voice of the Lord ſhaketh the Wilderneſſe] i. e. The beaſts abiding in the Wilderneſſes, the moſt ſavage creatures, thoſe that lye in woods, and are moſt fearleſſe of men, are put to pain by thunder, and made to travell with trembling.

The Lord ſhaketh the wilderneſſe of Kadeſh] Thorough which the Iſraelites paſſed into Canaan, Num. 13.27. the beaſts whereof were cruel, Deut. 8.25. & 32.Animalia quantumvis horrifica. Jun.10. Beza paraphraſeth, & Arabum teſqua ſuccutit, it ſhaketh the Cottages of the Arabians.

Verſ. 9. The voice of the Lord maketh the Hindes to calve] Which they naturally do not, without a great deal of difficulty, Job 39.4, 5, 6. See the Note there.

And diſcovereth the Forreſts] By driving the beaſts into their dennes, baring the Forreſts of their leaves and fruits, turning up trees by the roots, and ſo making a clear proſpect thorough woods and groves, as one phraſeth it.

And in his Temple doth every one ſpeak of his glory] Heb. Every one, or, every whit of it ſaith Glory; Every godly man obſerving his dreadfull thunder,Moller. and other his ſtupendious works, ſaith, Glory bee to God on high. Some conceive that this Pſalm was appointed by David to be ſung in the Temple in time of thunder; which is not unlikely. There are that make God to be the Nominative caſe to the Verb speaketh, and render it thus; And in his Temple, or Palace, doth bee utter all his glory. Tremel. As if the Pſalmiſt ſhould ſay; Much of his glory God uttereth in his thunder; but all in his Temple. For whatſoever there he ſpeaketh with his mouth, he fulfilleth it with his hand, Pſal. 115.3. & 119.91. & 33.9. Iſa. 44.26. See a like collation of Gods works and word, with a praelation of this above thoſe, Pſal. 19.1-7. Pſal. 111.7.

Verſ. 10. The Lord ſitteth upon the flood] Hee reigned in that generall deluge in Noahs dayes, Gen. 6. & 7. and doth ſtill over thoſe horrible inundations that follow upon thunder and ſtrong-tempeſts; ruling that raging Element, and governing all by his providence, and ſoveraign power.

Yea the Lord ſitteth King for ever] And over all; therefore all, even the Mightieſt ſhould give him glory, as Verſ. 1.

Verſ. 11. The Lord will give ſtrength unto his people] To bear up their hearts in time of thunder, or other terrible occurrences.

The Lord will bleſſe his people with peace] Pace omnimoda, With peace internall,In tempore to nitru. Aben Ezra. externall, eternall; for godlineſſe hath the promiſes of both lives, of proſperity, ſafety and welfare, both of ſoul and body.

Give, i.e., ascribe. Neither men nor angels can confer anything upon Jehovah, but they should recognise his glory and might, and ascribe it to him in their songs and in their hearts. Unto the Lord, and unto him alone, must honour be given. Natural causes, as men call them, are God in action, and we must not ascribe power to them, but to the infinite Invisible who is the true source of all. O ye mighty. Ye great ones of earth and of heaven, kings and angels, join in rendering worship to the blessed and only Potentate; ye lords among men need thus to be reminded, for ye often fail where humbler men are ardent; but fail no longer, bow your heads at once, and loyally do homage to the King of kings. How frequently do grandees and potentates think it beneath them to fear the Lord; but, when they have been led to extol Jehovah, their piety has been the greatest jewel in their crowns. Give unto the Lord glory and strength, both of which men are too apt to claim for themselves, although they are the exclusive prerogatives of the self existent God. Let crowns and swords acknowledge their dependence upon God. Not to your arms, O kings, give ye the glory, nor look for strength to your hosts of warriors, for all your pomp is but as a fading flower, and your might is as a shadow which declineth. When shall the day arrive when kings and princes shall count it their delight to glorify their God? "All worship be to God only, "let this be emblazoned on every coat of arms.

Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name. A third time the admonition is given, for men are backward in glorifying God, and especially great men, who are often too much swollen with their own glory to spare time to give God his rightful praise, although nothing more is asked of them than is most just and right. Surely men should not need so much pressing to give what is due, especially when the payment is so pleasant. Unbelief and distrust, complaining and murmuring, rob God of his honour; in this respect, even the saints fail to give due glory to their King. Worship the Lord, bow before him with devout homage and sacred awe, and let your worship be such as he appoints. Of old, worship was cumbered with ceremonial, and men gathered around one dedicated building, whose solemn pomp was emblematic of the beauty of holiness; but now our worship is spiritual, and the architecture of the house and the garments of the worshippers are matters of no importance; the spiritual beauty of inward purity and outward holiness being far more precious in the eyes of our thrice holy God. O for grace ever to worship with holy motives and in a holy manner, as becometh saints! The call to worship in these two verses chimes in with the loud pealing thunder, which is the church bell of the universe ringing kings and angels, and all the sons of earth to their devotions.

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The thunder is not only poetically but instructively called "the voice of God, "since it peals from on high; it surpasses all other sounds, it inspires awe, it is entirely independent of man, and has been used on some occasions as the grand accompaniment of God's speech to Adam's sons. There is a peculiar terror in a tempest at sea, when deep calleth unto deep, and the raging sea echoes to the angry sky. No sight more alarming than the flash of lightning around the mast of the ship; and no sound more calculated to inspire reverent awe than the roar of the storm. The children of heaven have often enjoyed the tumult with humble joy peculiar to the saints, and even those who know not God have been forced into unwilling reverence while the storm has lasted. The glory of God thundereth. Thunder is in truth no mere electric phenomenon, but is caused by the interposition of God himself. Even the old heathen spake of Jupiter Tonans; but our modern wise men will have us believe in laws and forces, and anything or nothing so they may be rid of God. Electricity of itself can do nothing, it must be called and sent upon its errand; and until the almighty Lord commissions it, its bolt of fire is inert and powerless. As well might a rock of granite, or a bar of iron fly in the midst of heaven, as the lightning go without being sent by the great First Cause. The Lord is upon many waters. Still the Psalmist's ear hears no voice but that of Jehovah, resounding from the multitudinous and dark waters of the upper ocean of clouds, and echoing from the innumerable billows of the storm tossed sea below. The waters above and beneath the firmament are astonished at the eternal voice. When the Holy Spirit makes the divine promise to be heard above the many waters of our soul's trouble, then is God as glorious in the spiritual world as in the universe of matter. Above us and beneath us all is the peace of God when he gives us quiet.

The voice of the Lord is powerful. An irresistible power attends the lightning of which the thunder is the report. In an instant, when the Lord wills it, the force of electricity produces amazing results. A writer upon this subject, speaks of these results as including a light of the intensity of the sun in his strength, a heat capable of fusing the most compact metals, a force in a moment paralysing the muscles of the most powerful animals; a power suspending the all pervading gravity of the earth, and an energy capable of decomposing and recomposing the closest affinities of the most intimate combinations. Well does Thompson speak of "the unconquerable lightning, "for it is the chief of the ways of God in physical forces, and none can measure its power. As the voice of God in nature is so powerful, so is it in grace; the reader will do well to draw a parallel, and he will find much in the gospel which may be illustrated by the thunder of the Lord in the tempest. His voice, whether in nature or revelation, shakes both earth and heaven; see that ye refuse not him that speaketh. If his voice be thus mighty, what must his hand be! beware lest ye provoke a blow. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The King of kings speaks like a king. As when a lion roareth, all the beasts of the forest are still, so is the earth hushed and mute while Jehovah thundereth marvellously.

"It is listening fear and dumb amazement all."

As for the written word of God, its majesty is apparent both in its style, its matter, and its power over the human mind; blessed be God, it is the majesty of mercy wielding a silver sceptre; of such majesty the word of our salvation is full to overflowing.

The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars.

"Black from the stroke above, the smouldering pine

Stands a sad shattered trunk."

Noble trees fall prostrate beneath the mysterious bolt, or stand in desolation as mementoes of its power. Lebanon itself is not secure, high as it stands, and ancient as are its venerable woods: Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. The greatest and most venerable of trees or men, may not reckon upon immunity when the Lord is abroad in his wrath. The gospel of Jesus has a like dominion over the most inaccessible of mortals; and when the Lord sends the word, it breaks hearts far stouter than the cedars.

He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. Not only the trees, but the mountains themselves move as though they frisked and leaped like young bulls or antelopes. As our own poets would mention hills and valleys known to them, so the Psalmist hears the crash and roar among the ranges of Libanus, and depicts the tumult in graphic terms. Thus sings one of our own countrymen: —"Amid Carnavon's mountains rages loud

The repercussive roar: with mighty crash

Into the flashing deep, from the rude rocks

Of Penmaen Mawr, heaped hideous to the sky,

Tumble the smitten cliffs; and Snowdon's peak,

Dissolving, instant yields his wintry load.

Far seen, the heights of heathy Cheviot blaze,

And Thule bellows through her utmost isles."

The glorious gospel of the blessed God has more than equal power over the rocky obduracy and mountainous pride of man. The voice of our dying Lord rent the rocks and opened the graves: his living voice still works the like wonders. Glory be to his name, the hills of our sins leap into his grave, and are buried in the red sea of his blood, when the voice of his intercession is heard.

The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. As when sparks fly from the anvil by blows of a ponderous hammer, so the lightning attends the thundering strokes of Jehovah. "At first heard solemn over the verge of heaven,

The tempest growls; but as it nearer comes,

And rolls its awful burden on the wind,

The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more

The noise astounds: till overhead a sheet

Of livid flame discloses wide; then shuts

And opens wider; shuts and opens still

Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze."

The thunder seems to divide one flash from another, interposing its deepening roar between the flash which precedes it and the next. That the flashes are truly flames of fire is witnessed by their frequently falling upon houses, churches, etc., and wrapping them in a blaze. How easily could the Lord destroy his rebellious creatures with his hot thunderbolts! how gracious is the hand which spares such great offenders, when to crush them would be so easy! Flames of fire attend the voice of God in the gospel, illuminating and melting the hearts of men: by those he consumes our lusts and kindles in us a holy flame of ever aspiring love and holiness. Pentecost is a suggestive commentary upon this verse.

As the storm travelled, it burst over the desert. The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. God courts not the applause of men —his grandest deeds are wrought where man's inquisitive glance is all unknown. Where no sound of man was heard, the voice of God was terribly distinct. The vast and silent plains trembled with affright. Silence did homage to the Almighty voice. Low lying plains must hear the voice of God as well as lofty mountains; the poor as well as the mighty must acknowledge the glory of the Lord. Solitary and barren places are to be gladdened by the gospel's heavenly sound. What a shaking and overturning power there is in the word of God! even the conservative desert quivers into progress when God decrees it.

The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, those timid creatures, in deadly fear of the tempest, drop their burdens in an untimely manner. Perhaps a better reading is, "the oaks to tremble, "especially as this agrees with the next sentence, and discovereth the forests. The dense shades of the forest are lit up with the lurid glare of the lightning, and even the darkest recesses are for a moment laid bare.

"The gloomy woods

Start at the flash, and from their deep recesses

Wide flaming out, their trembling inmates shake."

Our first parents sought a refuge among the trees, but the voice of the Lord soon found them out, and made their hearts to tremble. There is no concealment from the fire glance of the Almighty —one flash of his angry eye turns midnight into noon. The gospel has a like revealing power in dark hearts, in a moment it lights up every dark recess of the heart's ungodliness, and bids the soul tremble before the Lord. In his temple doth everyone speak of his glory. Those who were worshipping in the temple, were led to speak of the greatness of Jehovah as they heard the repeated thunder claps. The whole world is also a temple for God, and when he rides abroad upon the wings of the wind, all things are vocal in his praise. We too, the redeemed of the Lord, who are living temples for his Spirit, as we see the wonders of his power in creation, and feel them in grace, unite to magnify his name. No tongue may be dumb in God's temple when his glory is the theme. The original appears to have the force of "every one crieth Glory, "as though all things were moved by a sense of God's majesty to shout in ecstasy, "Glory, glory." Here is a good precedent for our Methodist friends and for the Gogoniants of the zealous Welsh.

The Lord sitteth upon the flood. Flood follows tempest, but Jehovah is ready for the emergency. No deluge can undermine the foundation of his throne. He is calm and unmoved, however much the deep may roar and be troubled: his government rules the most unstable and boisterous of created things. Far out on the wild waste of waters, Jehovah "plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm, "Yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever. Jesus has the government upon his shoulders eternally: our interests in the most stormy times are safe in his hands. Satan is not a king, but Jehovah Jesus is; therefore let us worship him, and rejoice evermore.

Power was displayed in the hurricane whose course this Psalm so grandly pictures; and now, in the cool calm after the storm, that power is promised to be the strength of the chosen. He who wings the unerring bolt, will give to his redeemed the wings of eagles; he who shakes the earth with his voice, will terrify the enemies of his saints, and give his children peace. Why are we weak when we have divine strength to flee to? Why are we troubled when the Lord's own peace is ours? Jesus the mighty God is our peace —what a blessing is this today! What a blessing it will be to us in that day of the Lord which will be in darkness and not light to the ungodly! Dear reader, is not this a noble Psalm to be sung in stormy weather? Can you sing amid the thunder? Will you be able to sing when the last thunders are let loose, and Jesus judges quick and dead? If you are a believer, the last verse is your heritage, and surely that will set you singing.

Whole Psalm. In this Psalm, the strength of Jehovah is celebrated; and the exemplification of it is evidently taken from a thunderstorm in Lebanon. The Psalm seems to be addressed to the angels. See Ps 89:7. It thus begins: —

"Render unto Jehovah, ye sons of the mighty,

Render unto Jehovah glory and strength;

Render to Jehovah the glory of his name;

Bow down to Jehovah in the majesty of holiness!"

Immediately follows the description of the thunderstorm, in which it does not seem fanciful to observe the historical progression which is usual on such occasions. The first lines seem to describe only the noise of the thunder, the description growing more intense as the rumbling draws nearer.

"The voice of Jehovah is above the waters;

The God of glory thundereth,

Jehovah is louder than many waters,

The voice of Jehovah in strength,

The voice of Jehovah in majesty!"

But now the effects become visible; the storm has descended on the mountains and forests: —

"The voice of Jehovah shivers the cedars,

Even shivers Jehovah the cedars of Lebanon;

And makes them to skip, like a calf;

Lebanon and Sirion, like a young buffalo,

The voice of Jehovah forks the lightning's flash!"

From the mountains the storm sweeps down into the plains, where, however, it effects are not so fearful as on the mountains —

"The voice of Jehovah causeth the desert to tremble —

The voice of Jehovah causeth to tremble the desert of Kadesh —

The voice of Jehovah causeth the oaks to tremble,

And lays bare the forests!

Therefore, in his temple every one speaks of his glory."

The description of the swollen torrents closes the scene —

"Jehovah upon the rain torrent sitteth.

Yea, sitteth Jehovah a king for ever."

And the moral of application of the whole is —

"Jehovah to his people will give strength,

Jehovah will bless his people with peace." —Robert Murray Macheyne, 1813-1843.

Whole Psalm. There is no phenomenon in nature so awful as a thunderstorm, and almost every poet from Homer and Virgil down to Dante and Milton, or rather down to Grahame and Pollok, has described it. In the Bible, too, we have a thunderstorm, the twenty-ninth Psalm —the description of a tempest, which, rising from the Mediterranean, and travelling by Lebanon and along the inland mountains, reaches Jerusalem, and sends the people into the temple porticoes for refuge; and; besides those touches of terror in which the geographical progress of the tornado is described, it derives a sacred vitality and power from the presence of Jehovah in each successive peal. James Hamilton, D.D., in "The Literary Attractions of the Bible," 1849.

Whole Psalm. A glorious Psalm of praise sung during a tempest, the majesty of which shakes universal nature, so much so that the greatness of the power of the Lord is felt by all in heaven and on earth. This Lord is the God of his people, who blesses them with strength and peace. To rightly appreciate the feelings of the bard, one ought to realise an Oriental storm, especially in the mountainous regions of Palestine, which, accompanied by the terrific echoes of the encircling mountains, by torrents of rain like waterspouts, often scatters terror on man and beast, destruction on cities and fields. Wilson, the traveller, describes such a tempest in the neighbourhood of Baalbek: "I was overtaken by a storm, as if the floodgates of heaven had burst; it came on in a moment, and raged with a power which suggested the end of the world. Solemn darkness covered the earth: the rain descended in torrents, and sweeping down the mountain side, became by the fearful power of the storm transmuted into thick clouds of fog." Compare also our Lord's parable, taken from life, in Mt 7:27. Augustus F. Tholuck, in loc.

Give unto the Lord. Give, give, give. This showeth how unwilling such are usually to give God his right, or to suffer a word of exhortation to this purpose. John Trapp.

O ye mighty. The Septuagint renders it, O ye sons of rams! These bell wethers should not cast their noses into the air, and carry their crest the higher, because the shepherd hath bestowed a bell upon them, more than upon the rest of the flock. John Trapp.

Verses 1-2. There are three gives in these two verses: —Give unto the Lord, give unto the Lord, give unto the Lord the glory that is due unto his name. Glory is God's right, and he stands upon his right; and this the sincere Christian knows, and therefore he gives him his right, he gives him the honour and the glory that is due unto his name. But pray do not mistake me. I do not say that such as are really sincere do actually eye the glory of Christ in all their actions. Oh, no! This is a happiness desirable on earth, but shall never be attained till we come to heaven. Bye and base ends and aims will be still ready to creep into the best hearts, but all sincere hearts sigh and groan under them. They complain to God of them, and they cry out for justice, justice upon them; and it is the earnest desire and daily endeavours of their souls to be rid of them; and therefore they shall not be imputed to them, nor keep good things from them. But now take a sincere Christian in his ordinary, usual, and habitual course, and you shall find that his aims and ends in all his actions and undertakings are to glorify God, to exalt God, and to lift up God in the world. If the hypocrite did in good earnest aim at the glory of God in what he does, then the glory of God would swallow up his bye aims and carnal ends, as Aaron's rod swallowed up the magician's rods. Ex 7:10-12. Look, as the sun puts out the light of the fire, so the glory of God, where it is aimed at, will put out and consume all bye and base ends. This is most certain, that which is a man's great end, that will work out all other ends. He that sets up the glory of God as his chief end, will find that his chief end will by degrees eat out all low and base ends. Look, as Pharaoh's lean kine ate up the fat Ge 31:4, so the glory of God will eat up all those fat and worldly ends that crowd in upon the soul in religious work. Where the glory of God is kept up as a man's greatest end, there all bye and base ends will be kept at an under. Thomas Brooks.

Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name. Which yet you cannot do, for his name is above all praise! Ps 148:13; but you must aim at it. The Rabbins observe that God's holy name is mentioned eighteen several times in this Psalm; that great men especially may give him the honour of his name, that they may stand in awe and not sin, that they may bring presents to him who ought to be feared, and those also the very best of the best, since he is a great king, and standeth much upon his seniority. Mal 1:14. John Trapp.

Worship the Lord. If any should ask, Why is the Lord to be worshipped? Why must he have such high honours from those that are high? What doth he in the world that calls for such adoration? David answereth meteorologically as well as theologically, he answers from the clouds Ps 29:3-4, "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty; "as if he had said, Although the Lord Jesus Christ will not set up an outward, pompous, political kingdom, such as that of Cyrus, Alexander, etc., yet by the ministry of the gospel he will erect a spiritual kingdom, and gather to himself a church that shall abide for ever, out of all the nations of the earth; for the gospel shall be carried and preached, to not only the people of Israel, the Jews, but to the Gentiles, all the world over, that the minds of men may be enlightened, awakened, and moved with that unheard of doctrine of salvation by Christ, which had been hid from ages and generations. Joseph Caryl.

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the Lord is upon many waters. Yes, great God, these torrents of tears which flow down from my eyes announce thy divine presence in my soul. This heart hitherto so dry, so arid, so hard; this rock which thou hast struck a second time, will not resist thee any longer, for out of it there now gushes healthful waters in abundance. The selfsame voice of God which overturns the mountains, thunders, lightens, and divides the heaven above the sinner, now commands the clouds to pour forth showers of blessings, changing the desert of his soul into a field producing a hundredfold; that voice I hear. J. B. Massillon.

Verses 3-10. The Lord, etc. All things which we commonly say are the effects of the natural powers of matter and laws of motion, are, indeed (if we will speak strictly and properly), the effects of God's acting upon matter continually and at every moment, either immediately by himself, or mediately by some created intelligent being. Consequently there is no such thing as the cause of nature, or the power of nature. Samuel Clarke, 1675-1729. "The friend and disciple of Newton."

Verses 3-10.

The voice of the Lord on the ocean is known,

The God of eternity thundereth abroad;

The voice of the Lord from the depth of his throne

Is terror and power; —all nature is awed.

The voice of the Lord through the calm of the wood

Awakens its echoes, strikes light through its caves;

The Lord sitteth King on the turbulent flood,

The winds are his servants, his servants the waves. —James Montgomery, 1771-1854.

Ver. 3-11 —

Messiah's voice is in the cloud,

The God of glory thunders loud.

Messiah rides along the floods,

He treads upon the flying clouds.

Messiah's voice is full of power,

His lightnings play when tempests lower.

Messiah's voice the cedars breaks,

While Lebanon's foundation quakes.

Messiah's voice removes the hills,

And all the plains with rivers fills.

The voice of their expiring God,

Shall make the rocks to start abroad;

Mount Zion and Mount Sirion,

Shall bound along with Lebanon:

The flames of fire shall round him wreathe,

When he shall on the ether breathe.

Messiah's voice shall shake the earth,

And, lo! the graves shall groan in birth,

Ten thousand thousand living sons

Shall be the issue of their groans.

The peace of God the gospel sounds;

The peace of God, the earth rebounds,

The gospel everlasting shines

A light from God that never declines.

This is the light Jehovah sends,

To bless the world's remotest ends. —Barclay's Paraphrase.

The voice of the Lord. These vehement repetitions resemble a series of thunderclaps; one seems to hear the dread artillery of heaven firing volley after volley, while peal on peal the echo follows the sound. C. H. S.

The voice of the Lord is powerful. I would render unto God the glory due unto his name, for the admirable change which he has wrought in my heart. There was nothing to be found in me but an impious hardness and inveterate disorder. From this helpless state he changed me into a new man and made resplendent the glory of his name and the power of his grace. He alone can work such prodigies. Unbelievers who refuse to acknowledge the hand of God in creation must surely in this case admit that "this is the finger of God." Yes, great God, chaos knows not how to resist thee, it hears thy voice obediently, but the obdurate heart repels thee, and thy mighty voice too often calls to it in vain. Thou art not so great and wonderful in creating worlds out of nothing as thou art when thou dost command a rebel heart to arise from its abyss of sin, and to run in the ways of thy commandments. To disperse a chaos of crime and ignorance by the majesty of thy word, to shed light on the direst darkness, and by the Holy Ghost to establish harmonious order where all was confusion, manifests in far greater measure thine omnipotence than the calling forth of heavenly laws and celestial suns from the first chaos. J. B. Massillon.

O may the evangelical "Boanerges" so cause the glorious sound of the gospel to be heard under the whole heaven, that the world may again be made sensible thereof; before that voice of the Son of Man, which hath so often called sinners to repentance, shall call them to judgment. George Horne.

Where the word of a king is, there is power, but what imperial voice shall be likened unto the majestic thunder of the Lord? C. H. S.

The voice of Jehovah. Philosophers think not that they have reasoned skilfully enough about inferior causes, unless they separate God very far from his works. It is a diabolical science, however, which fixes our contemplations on the works of nature, and turns them away from God. If any one who wished to know a man, should take no notice of his face, but should fix his eyes only on the points of his nails, his folly might justly be derided. But far greater is the folly of those philosophers, who, out of mediate and proximate causes, weave themselves vails lest they should be compelled to acknowledge the hand of God, which manifestly displays itself in his works. John Calvin.

The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars, etc. Like as tempests when they arise, and lightnings, quickly and in a trice, hurl down and overturn mountains and the highest trees; even so doth the Lord bring down with a break neck fall, the proud, haughty, arrogant, and insolent, who set themselves against God, and seek the spoil of those that be quiet and godly. Robert Cawdray.

The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars. The ancient expositors remind us that the breaking of the cedar trees by the wind, is a figure of the laying low of the lofty and proud things of this world, by the rushing mighty wind of the Holy Spirit, given on that day. Confringit cedros Deus, hoc est humiliat superbos. (S. Jerome, and so S. Basil.) Christopher Wordsworth.

The Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. What a shame is it then that our hard hearts break not, yield not, though thunder struck with the dreadful menaces of God's mouth! John Trapp.

"Breaketh the cedars of Lebanon:" —

When high in the air the pine ascends,

To every ruder blast it bends.

The palace falls with heavier weight,

When tumbling from its airy height;

And when from heaven the lightning flies,

It blasts the hills that proudest rise. —Horace, translated by Philip Francis, D.D., 1765.

The cedars of Lebanon. These mighty trees of God, which for ages have stood the force of the tempest, rearing their evergreen colossal boughs in the region of everlasting snow, are the first objects of the fury of the lightning, which is well known to visit first the highest objects. Robert Murray Macheyne.

He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn; that is, the Lord by his thundering, powerful voice, first, will make them skip, as frightened with fear; and secondly, as revived with joy. Yet more Ps 29:7, "The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire; "that is, will send and divide to every one as they need 1Co 12:11, the Holy Spirit, who is compared to and called fire Mt 3:11, and who came as with a thunderstorm of a rushing mighty wind, and with the appearance of cloven tongues, like as of fire, and sat upon each one of the apostles. Ac 2:2-3. Nor did this voice of thunder, accompanied with divided flames of fire reach Jerusalem only; for, as it follows Ps 29:8, "The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh; "that is, the Lord by the voice of the gospel shall go forth with power to those Gentiles, who are like a wilderness, barren of goodness, and not fertilized in spirituals, though they dwell in well governed cities, and are well furnished with morals. It shall go forth also to those Gentiles who inhabit waste wildernesses, and are not so much as reduced to civility. These wildernesses, the thundering voice of the Lord hath shaken heretofore, and doth shake at this day, and will yet further shake, that the fulness of the Gentiles may come in. Many of these wildernesses hath the Lord turned into fruitful fields, and pleasant lands, by the voice of the gospel sounding among them. For in these wildernesses (as it followeth, Ps 29:9), "The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve; "that is, they that were as wild, as untaught, and untamed as the hind, or any beast in the forest, he brings to the sorrows of their new birth, to repentance and gospel humiliation, and in doing this, "he (as the psalmist goes on), discovereth the forests; " that is, opens the hearts of men, which are as thick set and full grown with vanity, pride, hypocrisy, self love, and self sufficiency, as also with wantonness and sensuality, as any forest is overgrown with thickets of trees and bushes, which deny all passage through till cleared away with burning down or cutting up. Such an opening, such a discovery, doth the Lord make in the forests of men's hearts, by the sword and fire, that is, by the word and spirit of the gospel; and when this is done, the forest becomes a temple, and as that verse concludes, "In his temple doth every one speak of his glory." And if the floods of ungodliness rise up against the people, whom the thunder and lightning of the gospel have subdued to Christ, and framed into a holy temple, then the psalmist assures us Ps 29:10, "The Lord sitteth upon the flood, "that is, it is under his power, he rules and overrules it; "Yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever; "and Ps 29:11, "The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace." Thus the Lord "thundereth marvellously" Job 37:5, and these are glorious marvels which he thundereth; he converts sinners. Thus, though I like not their way who are given to allegorize the Scriptures, yet I doubt not but we may make a profitable use of this and many other Scriptures by way of allegory. This being an undeniable truth, which is the ground of it —that the Lord puts forth, as it were, the power of thunder and lightning in the preaching of his Word; these two things are to be marked. Joseph Caryl.

He maketh them also to skip like a calf. That is to say, he hath made the splinters and broken pieces of trees that have been struck with lightning, to fly up into the air, or when they have been shaken by the wind, storms, or by earthquakes. John Diodati.

The original is —

"And makes them skip like a calf,

Lebanon and Sirion, like a young buffalo."

At first sight it might appear that the cedars were still meant, and that Lebanon and Sirion were used by metonymy for the cedars which grew upon them. But, 1. We never hear of cedars growing upon Sirion, or Shenir, or Hermon, for it has all these names; and, 2. There is a parallel passage where this interpretation will hardly answer in Psalm 114. Describing the exodus of Israel, it says —

"The mountains skipped like rams,

And the little hills like lambs."

The same verb occurs here, the verb which means "to skip, to dance, " used in Na 3:2, to signify the jolting of chariots, and also in Joe 2:5. In both these instances, rough motion, accompanied with noise, seems intended. Now, though this may very well be understood as a highly figurative description, as it undoubtedly is, of the usual effect of a thunderstorm; yet it is interesting to compare it with the following passage of Volney, which described certain phenomena as frequent in Mount Lebanon, which may give a new meaning to the "skipping of the mountains:" —"When the traveller, "say he, "penetrates the interior of these mountains, the ruggedness of the roads, the steepness of the declivities, the depth of the precipices, have at first a terrific effect; but the sagacity of the mules which bear him soon inspires him with confidence, and enables him to examine at his ease the picturesque scenes which succeed one another, so as almost to bewilder him." There, as in the Alps, he sometimes travels whole days to arrive at a spot which was in sight when he set out. He turns, he descends, he winds round, he climbs; and under the perpetual change of position, one is ready to think that a magical power is varying at every step the beauties of the landscapes. Sometimes villages are seen, ready as it were to slide down the deep declivities, and so disposed that the roofs of the one row of houses serve as a street to the row above. At another time, you see a convent seated on an isolated cone, like Marshaia in the valley of Tigre. Here a rock is pierced by a torrent, forming a natural cascade, as at Nahr el Leban; there another rock assumes the appearance of a natural wall! Often on the sides, ledges of stones, washed down and left by the waters, resemble ruins disposed by art. In some places, the waters meeting with inclined beds, have undermined the intermediate earth, and have formed caverns, as at Nahr el Kelb, near Antoura. In other places, they have worn for themselves subterranean channels, through which flow little rivulets during part of the year, as at Mar Hama. Sometimes these picturesque circumstances have become tragical ones. Rocks loosened or thrown off their equilibrium by thaw or earthquake, have been known to precipitate themselves on the adjacent dwellings, and crush the inhabitants. An accident of this kind, about twenty years ago, buried a whole village near Mar Djordos, so as to leave no trace of its existence. More recently, and near the same spot, the soil of a hill planted with mulberry trees and vines detached itself by a sudden thaw, and, sliding over the surface of the rock which it had covered, like a vessel launched from the stocks, established itself in the valley below. Robert Murray Macheyne.

The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. By the power of God, the "flames of fire" are "divided" and sent abroad from the clouds upon the earth, in the terrible form of lightning, that sharp and glittering sword of the Almighty, which no substance can withstand. The same power of God goeth forth by his word, "quick and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword." penetrating, melting, enlightening, and inflaming the hearts of men, Ac 2:3 Heb 4:12. George Horne.

The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord is here said to divide the flames; literally, to hew out flames, (latomein flav). The Septuagint has (diakoptei floga puroz). In the words of Gensenius, "The voice of Jehovah cutteth out flames of fire, "i.e., "sendeth out divided flames of fire." This is (as Theodoret has observed) very descriptive of the divine action at Pentecost, sending forth divided flames, like "tela trisulca, "in the tongues of fire which were divided off from one heavenly source or fountain of flame, and sat upon the heads of the apostles, and which filled them with the fire of holy zeal and love. Christopher Wordsworth.

Divideth the flames of fire. Margin, cutteth out. The Hebrew word (bux) khatzab means properly to cut, to hew, to hew out; as for example, stones. The allusion here is undoubtedly to lightning; and the image is either that it seems to be cut out, or cut into tongues and streaks —or, more probably, that the clouds seem to be cut or hewed, so as to make openings or paths for the lightning. The eye is evidently fixed on the clouds, and on the sudden flash of lightning, as if the clouds has been cleaved or opened for the passage of it. The idea of the psalmist is, that the "voice of the Lord, "or the thunder, seems to cleave or open the clouds for the flames of fire to play amidst the tempest. Albert Barnes.

The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. That Kadesh Naphtali is meant, the geographical position of Lebanon would make us believe, though this is not necessary. And, although Syria is much exposed to earthquakes —as, for example, that of Aleppo, in 1822, which was sensibly felt at Damascus —yet it does not seem necessary to imagine anything farther than the usual affects of a thunderstorm. The oaks and forests of Ps 29:9, suit well with the description given of the lower limbs of Lebanon, which abound in "thickets of myrtle, woods of fir, walnut trees, carob trees, and Turkish oaks." And the rain torrent of Ps 29:10 is admirably descriptive of the sudden swell of the thousand streams which flow from Lebanon. According to modern travellers, the number of water courses descending from Lebanon is immense; and the suddenness of the rise of these streams may be gathered from the contradictions in their accounts. The Nahr el Sazib is described by one as "a rivulet, though crossed by a bridge of six arches; "by another it is called "a large river." The Damour (the ancient Tamyras), which flows immediately from Lebanon, is "a river, "says Mandrell, "apt to swell much upon sudden rains; in which case, precipitating itself from the mountains with great rapidity, it has been fatal to many a passenger." He mentions a French gentleman, M. Spon, who, a few years before, in attempting to ford it, was hurried down by the stream, and perished in the sea. This is one instance of very many in the mountains of Lebanon, where the brook, which is usually nearly dry, become all at once an impassable torrent. When Volney looked upon the rivers of Syria in summer, he doubted whether they could be called rivers. But had he ventured to cross them after a thunderstorm, his scepticism would no longer have had room or time to exercise itself, and he would have felt the propriety of the psalmist's painting, where he says —

"Jehovah sitteth on the rain torrents,

Jehovah sitteth a King for ever."

Robert Murray Macheyne.

The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness. Great God, I have laboured to escape thee! I sought refuge for my remorse in a retreat where nothing might recall me to my God. Far away from the succours of religion, remote from all the channels which bring to me the waters of grace, apart from all whose reproving witness might restrain me from iniquity; yet even there, Great God, where I believed that I had found an asylum inaccessible to thine eternal mercy, wherein I could sin with impunity, even there, in that wilderness, thy voice arrested me and laid me at thy feet. J. B. Massillon.

The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve. With respect to the sense conveyed by the common reading, it may be observed, that hinds bring forth their young with great difficulty and pain, "bowing themselves, bruising their young ones, and casting out their sorrows" Job 39:4,6; and it therefore heightens the description given of the terrific character of the thunderstorm, when the thunder which is here called "the voice of God, "is represented as causing, through the terror which it inspires, the hinds in their pregnant state prematurely to drop their young; although, according to our ideas of poetical imagery, this may not accord so well with the other images in the passage, nor appear so beautiful and sublime as the image of the oaks trembling at the voice of Jehovah. John Calvin.

The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve. The care and tenderness of God toward beasts turns to his praise, as well as the care which he hath of, and the tenderness which he shows to believers. As it doth exceedingly advance the glory of God, that he takes care of wild beasts, so it may exceedingly strengthen the faith of man that he will take care of him. Doth the Lord take care of hinds? then certainly he takes care of those who particularly belong to him. There is a special providence of God towards these and such like creatures for the production of their young. He —if I may so speak with reverence —shows his midwifery in helping these savage beasts when their pains come upon them. As the Lord takes man, in an eminent manner, "out of the womb" Ps 22:9, so in a manner he takes beasts out of the womb too. "The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh; "so we translate it; but the word which we render "shaketh" is the same with that in Job 39:2, which signifieth to bring forth; and hence, some very learned in the Hebrew tongue do not render as we, "The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness, "but "The voice of the Lord maketh the wilderness to bring forth; the Lord maketh the wilderness of Kadesh to bring forth; "which is not to be understood of the vegetative creatures (that's a truth, the Lord makes the trees of the forest to bring forth both leaves and fruit), but it is meant of animals or living creatures there. And then when he saith, "The voice of the Lord maketh the wilderness to bring forth, " the meaning is, the Lord makes the wild beast of the wilderness to bring forth; which seems to be the clear sense of the place by that which followeth: for the psalmist having said this in general at the eighth verse, "The voice of the Lord maketh the wilderness to bring forth, "he in the ninth verse gives the special instance of the hind: "The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve." Joseph Caryl.

The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve. It is with great propriety, says one of the ancients that Jehovah demands, "The birth of the hinds dost thou guard"? Job 39:1, for since this animal is always in flight, and with fear and terror always leaping and skipping about, she could never bring her young to maturity without such a special protection. The providence of God, therefore, is equally conspicuous in the preservation of the mother and the fawn; both are the objects of his compassion and tender care; and, consequently, that afflicted man has no reason to charge his Maker with unkindness, who condescended to watch over the goats and the hinds. It seems to be generally admitted, that the hind brings forth her young with great difficulty; and so much appears to be suggested in the verse, "They bow themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast out their sorrows." But if Pliny and other naturalists are worthy of credit, divine providence has been graciously pleased to provide certain herbs, which greatly facilitate the birth; and by instinct, he directs the hind to feed upon them, when the time of gestation draws towards a close. Whatever truth there may be in this assertion, we know from higher authority, that providence promotes the parturition of the hind, by awakening her fears, and agitating her frame by the rolling thunder: —"The voice of Jehovah (a common Hebrew phrase, denoting thunder) maketh the hinds to calve." Nor ought we to wonder, that so timorous a creature as the hind, should be so much affected by that awful atmospheric convulsion, when some of the proudest men that ever existed, have been known to tremble. Augustus, the Roman emperor, according to Suetonius, was so terrified when it thundered, that he wrapped a seal skin round his body, with the view of defending it from the lightning, and concealed himself in some secret corner till the tempest ceased. The tyrant Caligula, who sometimes affected to threaten Jupiter himself, covered his head, or hid himself under a bed; and Horace confesses he was reclaimed from atheism by the terror of thunder and lightning, the effects of which he describes with his usual felicity. (Odes, b. 1 34.) George Paxton's "Illustrations of Scripture."

The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve. "Cervi sunt predicatores, "says S. Jerome, who bring forth souls to Christ by the gospel which is God's voice; and the stripping of the leaves of the forest by the voice of the Lord, represents their work in humbling the strong oaks and lofty cedars of the world by the power of the gospel, and in stripping the souls of the worldly minded of their manifold disguises (S. Basil). Others apply it to act of the preachers of God's word, disclosing the dark thickets of divine mysteries in the holy Scriptures by evangelical light set forth by the Holy Ghost (S. Jerome). Christopher Wordsworth.

(first clause). "The voice of Jehovah makes havoc of the oaks, and strips bare the forests." Samuel Horsley.

In his temple. Some conceive that this Psalm was appointed by David to be sung in the temple in time of thunder, which is not unlikely. There are writers who make God to be the nominative case to the verb speaketh; and render it thus, in his temple doth he utter all his glory. As much as to say, much of his glory God uttereth in his thunder, but all in his temple, for whatsoever there he speaketh with his mouth he fulfils it with his hand. John Trapp.

(last clause). David speaking in the former part of the Psalm of the effects of natural thunder only, towards the close of the Psalm applies it to the Word of God, while he saith, And in his temple doth every one speak of his glory; that is, the word and ordinances of God, ministered in his church or temple, will put every one to acknowledge and speak of the glorious power of God, even much more than the mighty thunder which sounds in our ears, or the subtle lightning which flashes in our eyes. There is far more royal power in the thunder of the Word, than in the word of thunder. This terrifies only to conviction, but that terrifies to salvation; for after God speaks terror there in his threatenings, he speaks comfort in the promises; and when he hath affrighted us with a sense of our sins and of his wrath due to us for our sins, as with an horrible tempest, he presently refresheth us with the gentle gales of revealed grace, and with the pleasant amiable sunshine of his favour by Jesus Christ. Joseph Caryl.

The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace; i.e., he is in war their strength, and their felicity in peace; in war he is the Author of all that power wherewith they are enabled to oppose and overcome potent enemies; and in peace, he is their truly felicitating good, and makes them, by his own vouchsafed presence, a truly blessed people. John Howe.

The Lord will bless his people with peace. Though some precious souls that have closed with Christ, and embraced the gospel, be not at present brought to rest in their own consciences, but continue for awhile under some dissatisfaction and trouble in their own spirits, yet even then they have peace of conscience in a threefold respect; in pretio, in promisso, in semine. First, every true believer hath peace of conscience in pretio; the gospel puts that price into his hand, which will assuredly purchase it, and that is the blood of Christ. We say that is gold which is worth gold, which we may anywhere exchange for gold; such is the blood of Christ; it is peace of conscience, because the soul that hath this may exchange it for this. God himself cannot deny the poor creature that prays on these terms: Lord, give me peace of conscience; here is Christ's blood, the price of it. That which could pay the debt, surely can procure the receipt. Peace of conscience is but a discharge under God's hand, that the debt due to divine justice is fully paid. The blood of Christ hath done that the greater for the believer, it shall therefore do this the less. If there were such a rare potion that did infallibly procure health to every one that takes it, we might safely say, as soon as the sick man hath drunk it down, that he hath drunk his health, it is in him, though at present he doth not feel himself to have it: in time it will appear. Secondly, In promisso. Every true believer hath peace of conscience in the promise, and that we count as good as ready money in the purse, which we have sure bond for. The Lord will bless his people with peace. He is resolved on it, and then who shall hinder it? It is worth your reading the whole Psalm, to see what weight the Lord gives to this sweet promise, for the encouragement of our faith in expecting the performance thereof. Nothing more hard to enter into the heart of a poor creature (when all is in an uproar in his bosom, and his conscience threatening nothing but fire and sword, wrath, vengeance, from God for his sins), than thoughts or hopes of peace and comfort. Now the psalm is spent in showing what great things God can do, and that with no more trouble to himself than a word speaking, "The voice of the Lord is full of majesty" Ps 29:4, "It breaks the cedars, it divides the flames, it shakes the wilderness, it makes the hinds to calve." This God that does all this, promises to bless his people with peace, outward and inward; for without this inward peace, though he might give them peace, yet could he never bless them with peace as he there undertakes. A sad peace, were it not, to have quiet streets, but cutting of throats in our houses? yet infinitely more sad to have peace both in our streets and houses, but war and blood in our guilty consciences. What peace can a poor creature taste or relish while the sword of God's wrath lies at the throat of conscience? not peace with God himself. Therefore Christ purchased peace of pardon, to obtain peace of conscience for his pardoned ones, and accordingly hath bequeathed it in the promise to them, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." Joh 14:27. Where you see he is both the testator to leave, and the executor of his own will, to give out with his own hands what his love hath left believers; so that there is no fear but his will shall be performed to the full, seeing himself lives to see it done. Thirdly, In semine. Every believer hath this untoward peace in the seed. "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." Ps 97:11. Where sown, but in the believer's own bosom, when principles of grace and holiness were cast into it by the Spirit of God? Hence it is called "the peaceable fruit of righteousness." Heb 12:11. It shoots as naturally from holiness, as any fruit in its kind doth from the seed proper to it. It is, indeed, most true, that the seed runs and ripens into this fruit sooner in some than it doth in others. This spiritual harvest comes not alike soon to all, no more than the other that is outward doth; but here is the comfort —whoever hath a seed time of grace pass over his soul, shall have his harvest time also of joy. William Gurnall.

Peace. There is a threefold "peace, "externa, interna, aeterna; temporal, spiritual, celestial peace. There is outward peace, the blessing; inward peace, the grace; and everlasting peace, of glory. And as in a stately palace there is a lodge or court that leads into the inmost goodly rooms, so external peace is the entrance or introduction to the inward lodgings of the sweet peace of conscience and of that external rest in which our peace in heaven shall be happy, inasmuch as external peace affords us many accommodations and helps to the gaining and obtaining both the one and the other. Ephraim Udall, 1642.

The duty of ascribing our strength and the honour of it to God; the penalty of neglecting to do so; the pleasure of so doing.

National glorying should be in the Lord.

(first clause). Royal dues, the royal treasury, loyal subjects paying their dues, the king receiving them. Smugglers and preventive men.

(second clause). Inspired ritualism. What to do? Worship. Whom? The Lord. How? In the beauty of holiness. Absence of all allusions to place, time, order, words, form, vestments, etc.

God's voice heard in trouble and above trouble, or in great personal and national calamities.

Power and majesty of the gospel. Illustrate by succeeding verses.

(last clause). "The majestic voice." See Spurgeon's Sermons, No. 87.

The breaking power of the gospel.

The unsettling power of the gospel.

The fire which goes with the word. This is a wide subject.

The arousing and alarming of godless places by the preaching of the word.

The revealing power of the word of God in the secrets of man's heart, and its regenerating force.

Verse 9 (last clause). 1. Matchless temple.

2. Unanimous worship.

3. Forcible motive.

4. General enthusiasm, "glory."

The ever present and undisturbed government of God.

The twin blessings from the same source; their connection, and their consummation.

The two wills, the two blessings, the one people, the one Lord.