Psalm 29

¹Give unto the Lord, O you mighty ones,
Give unto the Lord glory and strength.
² Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name;
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

³ The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
The God of glory thunders;
The Lord is over 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 breaks the cedars,
Yes, the Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon.
⁶ He makes them also skip like a calf,
Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox.
⁷ The voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire.

⁸ The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
The Lord shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh.
⁹ The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth,
And strips the forests bare;
And in His temple everyone says, “Glory!”

¹⁰ The Lord sat enthroned at the Flood,
And the Lord sits as King forever.
¹¹ The Lord will give strength to His people;
The Lord will bless His people with peace.

Give unto the Lord, O you mighty ones

My Bible notes that the “mighty ones” are heavenly beings. When a psalmist calls on even angels to back up God, we can be sure that this storm is going to be big.

The next three stanzas all begin with “the voice of the Lord…” It is powerful and breaks down whatever is in its way. The storm imagery lends power to it. We can imagine that God’s actual voice is huge and booming like thunder. We can also take it metaphorically. The words that come from God’s mouth are so powerful that nothing can stop them. They have an effect on the very land itself and all things in it.

Yes, the Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon

I always like seeing references to the cedars of Lebanon. If you’re a regular Bible reader, they’re probably familiar to you for a number of reasons. I see then and think of Gilgamesh. He is written about in one of the oldest things ever written, The Epic of Gilgamesh. It’s a Mesopotamian story of a king, Gilgamesh who goes on a series of epic quests, in case the title didn’t make that obvious. In one of his adventures, Gilgamesh and his buddy Enkidu go to the cedar forest in Lebanon and they get some trees and fight this great-big monster, the Humbaba. When they first see the trees, “there they stood still, they were struck dumb; they stood still and gazed at the forest. They saw the height of the cedar….the hugeness of the cedar rose in front of the mountain…” My point is, these are some famous trees. They are famous not only because cedar is a relatively rare and good wood, but because they are so darn huge. These aren’t measly little trees getting blown over by some wind. These are ginormous trees that God’s voice just cracks in half.

The Lord sat enthroned at the Flood, and the Lord sits as King forever

To be honest, I have yet to hear a satisfactory version of the Great Flood story. I know, “that’s just your stupid, modern, politically correct mind talking.” It’s still a story that bothers me, and I think it bothers a lot of people, since I haven’t really heard anyone talk about it since Sunday School when they could get away with me not asking too hard questions and since most explanations end on an “it is what it is” note. You know, there is a great flood in Gilgamesh too. In it, the gods decide to wipe out mankind because they are too loud and no one can get any sleep. (Yes, I’m serious.) And, one guy is told to build a boat and he does. Then, he sends out three birds, and the first is a dove that flies back to him because it can’t find a landing place. But enough about that. This is about the psalm. The point is that God rules over everything that happens in the earth. His voice, his word, goes out for whatever reasons our puny human brains can’t understand, and does what He wants it to. God rules over all events forever.