Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 29:1

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.