Psalm 29 says Praise The Lord For His Glory And Strength. Is that what we think of? Or do we think first of the things God did for us? Or what God’s going to do for us?
When we’re in the middle of a storm, especially one of life’s storms, it’s good to remember God’s strength.
That Jesus can calm the storm. Or maybe that Jesus will help us weather the storm.
Jesus Calms the Storm – Matthew
8:23-27 pp — Mk 4:36-41; Lk 8:22-25
8:23-27 Ref—Mt 14:22-33
Mt 8:23 Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. 24 Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. 25 The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”
Mt 8:26 He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.
Mt 8:27 The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”
Hold onto that thought of a storm. It’s coming up, in one sense, in verse 3. In a deeper sense after that.
Psalm 29
A psalm of David.
Ps 29:1 Ascribe to the LORD, O mighty ones,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
Ps 29:2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.
Ps 29:3 The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.
Ps 29:4 The voice of the LORD is powerful;
the voice of the LORD is majestic.
Ps 29:5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;
the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
Ps 29:6 He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,
Sirion like a young wild ox.
Ps 29:7 The voice of the LORD strikes
with flashes of lightning.
Ps 29:8 The voice of the LORD shakes the desert;
the LORD shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
Ps 29:9 The voice of the LORD twists the oaks
and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”
Ps 29:10 The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD is enthroned as King forever.
Ps 29:11 The LORD gives strength to his people;
the LORD blesses his people with peace.
Sure, the morning glory in the adjacent image is one reason to give God glory.
But even from a cursory reading of the Psalm shows there are a whole lot more reasons.
Some of those things, like the trees and lightning, we can see with our eyes. Some are spiritual in nature, and can’t be seen like that.
But for us today, as Christians with a hope of spending eternity with God, take another look at the morning glory picture. Think about what’s in there. Now, think about what won’t be there in the next life. The yellow/dying leaves. They represent death.
Will flowering plants in the next life have leaves that turn yellow and die? We just don’t know. However, we do know that we, with our new resurrection bodies, won’t die. That’s another reason to give glory to God, above and beyond anything David wrote about.
Background on Psalm 29
I do not know of any book of the Bible that requires more knowledge, more experience of life, and more skill of interpretation to understand it well than the Book of Psalms. It is because the psalms are so diverse. They cover the vast range of biblical theology and the full scope of human experience—from doubt to faith, suffering to jubilation, defeat to victory—and they do so in an amazing variety of poetic forms. The psalms are so deep, so diverse, so challenging that I do not believe anyone can ever really master them.
Moreover, as soon as the student begins to get hold of one type of psalm and thinks he understands it, he is suddenly confronted with another that is quite different.
An Extraordinary Poem
That is what happens as we come to Psalm 29. This psalm is unlike any we have seen before. To begin with, it consists entirely of praise to God. Other psalms praise God, of course. But almost all mix praise with something else, frequently with appeals to God to help the psalmist or applications from the greatness of God to how we should live now. This psalm has no other elements. It is pure praise. It does not call upon us to do anything, because the psalm is itself doing the only thing it is concerned about. It is praising God.
Second, the psalm is pure poetry. To be sure, all psalms are poetry. But this psalm reaches new poetic heights. You will recall that the chief elements in Hebrew poetry are repetition and parallelism. We have seen these to some degree in every psalm thus far. This entire psalm is built upon them. 1Boice, J. M. (2005). Psalms 1–41: An Expositional Commentary (p. 254). Baker Books.
Ascribe to the Lord
P 29:1 Ascribe to the Lord…
That’s how the Psalm begins. But who uses language like “ascribe to the Lord”? Not too many people. Not anymore. And yet, even the 2010 NIV uses “ascribe to the Lord”.
So let’s try something else. Praise the LORD. That’s from the NIRV – New International Reader’s Version.
There’s a problem with that translation though. It doesn’t really get to the point. It’s not what the Psalmist actually wanted to portray. Ascribe truly is a different word.
It would be more realistic, in today’s English, to say “Give credit to the Lord…” Because that’s what this is really about. Acknowledging that the things in the first 3 lines are representative of the Lord. And then, because of that, as line four says, the Lord deserves praise.
Who are the mighty ones?
When we read the mighty ones, some will want to say it’s addressed to us. To people. Part of that may be because we just expect that all of the Psalms, in one way or another, are about God and us. Others might take the mighty ones to be people, out of a belief that it must be us because we’re God’s greatest creation.
However, the mighty ones isn’t us. It’s heavenly beings. For instance, the angels.
So what is Psalm 29 about?
This one’s really hard to get without a whole lot of background and help. To that end – here’s some of both.
The psalm opens with a two-verse introduction in which heavenly beings or angels are called upon to praise God. This will seem strange to us if we are approaching the psalm in a rationalistic rather than a poetic frame of mind, for, of course, praising God is what the angels of God are employed in doing constantly. Strictly speaking, it is human beings, not angels, who need to be urged to praise God. Hearing a mere human being do the urging only seems to make the situation bizarre.
Why does David call on the angels, then? As soon as we think of this poetically the reason is obvious. It is because he feels that his praise and that of other mere human beings is not adequate. David is overwhelmed with the majesty of God revealed in the storm that he has witnessed and is now going to describe. He feels that he needs help to praise God properly. To praise God adequately the entire created order must join in, and even then sufficient praise will be lacking.
David’s appeal to the angels does indicate something significant about worship, however, something we must keep in mind. (The angels already know it.) The appeal describes the praise of God as consisting of two things: ascribing glory to him, that is, acknowledging his supreme worth with our minds, and worshiping or bowing down to him (the Hebrew word means “to bow down”), which means a subordination of our wills and minds to his. The two belong together, and each is essential. So what the angels do naturally, we also must learn to do if the glory of God is to make its proper impact upon us and we are to worship him properly. 2Boice, J. M. (2005). Psalms 1–41: An Expositional Commentary (p. 256). Baker Books.
Who gets the credit?
On an old site of mine, I used to have an entire section on “who gets the credit”. It was about all the things we “accomplished”. All the things we “figured out” or “learned”. And all the while, ignoring the fact that the one who really gets credit it all that, and more, is God.
The thought here is more obvious in passages like the one below from Paul:
God’s Wrath Against Mankind
Ro 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Ro 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Ro 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Ro 1:26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Ro 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
But that’s, obviously, a harsh passage. It’s not all bad. And it’s certainly not untrue. However, in the midst of our feelings and probably anger over what it says, it can be difficult to find the good news. The way to avoid God’s wrath.
The good news in Psalm 29
Here’s the thing about Psalm 29 though. It’s all good. There’s nothing of God’s wrath in here. It’s for those who truly want to know and follow God. The first couple of verses are about God. His characteristics.
Verses 3 through 9 are the evidence of God that Paul wrote about. It should be obvious. But to so many, it’s not. I feel like a fair amount of that has to do with our focus on ourselves instead of on the One who created us, sustains us, and will bring us to the better life most of us want, but few really search for in the right places.
Below is part of the reason for that. We’re often too focused on things we can see and “know” and figure out. Not so much on faith, God, and wondrous things. It talks about storms. We think about literal storms, like thunder & lightning, hurricanes, etc. But there are plenty of “storms” in life as well. That’s how we need to look at this. And I can tell you from experience, it’s in the middle of the storms that it’s sometimes the easiest to find God – maybe because that’s when we need Him the most.
Psalm 29 is not particularly well known or appreciated. But the more I study it, the less surprised I am that Harry Ironside called Psalm 29 probably the finest poem in the Bible and “one of the loveliest poems I have ever seen.”
If you do not have a poetic spirit, you will never appreciate this psalm. For this is not a poem to be critically analyzed, above all not in a scientific frame of mind. If you keep telling yourself that the voice of God is not in thunder, that thunder is only the clashing of differently charged electronic particles, you will miss it all. To appreciate this psalm we have to get out in the fields, watch the majesty of some ferocious storm, and recall that God is in the storm, directing it, as he is in all other natural and historical phenomena.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon has a great poetic soul, and here is what he advised: “Just as the eighth psalm is to be read by moonlight, when the stars are bright, as the nineteenth needs the rays of the rising sun to bring out its beauty, so this can be best rehearsed beneath the black wing of tempest, by the glare of the lightning, or amid that dubious dusk which heralds the war of elements. The verses march to the tune of thunderbolts. God is everywhere conspicuous, and all the earth is hushed by the majesty of his presence.”
The commentators tell us that in the early church this psalm was often read to children or to an entire congregation during storms. 3Boice, J. M. (2005). Psalms 1–41: An Expositional Commentary (pp. 255–256). Baker Books.
Conclusion – Psalm 29 – Praise The Lord For His Glory And Strength
There’s some irony in my opening.
Psalm 29 says Praise The Lord For His Glory And Strength. Is that what we think of? Or do we think first of the things God did for us? Or what God’s going to do for us?
If we think first of who God is, what He has done, including creating us, and don’t worry about what He’s going to do for us” – then we will experience the last verse of the Psalm.
Ps 29:11 The LORD gives strength to his people;
the LORD blesses his people with peace.
Reminds me of something Jesus said, especially the verse I underlined:
Do Not Worry – Matthew
6:25-33 pp — Lk 12:22-31
Mt 6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
Mt 6:28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Seek first God’s Kingdom. Then everything we need will be provided by God. One of the ways we can see God, right here on earth, is through His creation. Psalm 29 tells us where to look for God in what He created. But give credit to God, not to what He created. Worship God, not what He created. Because He deserves it.
Image by DALL-E Bing – “make me a painting of a thunderstorm over the ocean with lots of lightning bolts”
Footnotes
- 1Boice, J. M. (2005). Psalms 1–41: An Expositional Commentary (p. 254). Baker Books.
- 2Boice, J. M. (2005). Psalms 1–41: An Expositional Commentary (p. 256). Baker Books.
- 3Boice, J. M. (2005). Psalms 1–41: An Expositional Commentary (pp. 255–256). Baker Books.