Psalm 29
11 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Psalms 96×2Exodus 9×21 Chronicles 16×2Revelation 5×1Psalms 110×1Job 37×1
Summary
Chapter summary
The psalm of the sevenfold 'voice of Jehovah.' Ascribe unto Jehovah glory and strength; worship in holy array. The voice is upon the waters, powerful, full of majesty; it breaketh the cedars of Lebanon, heweth out flames of fire, shaketh the wilderness, and strippeth the forests bare, a storm marching from sea to sanctuary while in his temple everything saith, 'Glory.' Jehovah sat as King at the Flood; Jehovah will give strength unto his people; Jehovah will bless his people with peace.
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 29The history
The psalm follows a real weather pattern. Storms in that region form over the Mediterranean and drive inland from the west; this one comes over "many waters," hits the cedar forests of Lebanon, shakes the mountains, and passes on to the wilderness of Kadesh in the far south. Anyone living there had watched a front do exactly that.
The cedars of Lebanon were the great timber of the ancient world, shipped to Egypt and Mesopotamia for temples and palaces and prized by every king who could get them. Some stood well over a hundred feet. Breaking them is the psalm's way of measuring the voice that does it.
Israel's neighbors told these stories about Baal, the storm god of Canaan — the texts recovered at Ugarit on the Syrian coast describe him thundering, riding the clouds, and taking a throne. Psalm 29 uses the same weather and gives every stroke of it to the Lord by name, seven times over. It is a hymn built to take the storm away from a rival.
"Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty" translates a phrase meaning sons of God — the created spirit beings of the heavenly court, called elsewhere the host of heaven and the council. Some translations render it "mighty ones" or "heavenly beings." The command is that they, not merely people, ascribe glory to the Lord.
What it meant to them
An Israelite farmer's harvest depended on rain, and the temptation to hedge his worship toward whoever was thought to send it was constant. This psalm says the storm has one owner.
The last verse lands somewhere no storm hymn would be expected to: "the Lord will bless his people with peace." The voice that snaps cedars gives quiet to the people it belongs to.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David on Psalm 29
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 29. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.