The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"give," Hebrew havu (הָבוּ), ascribe, render. The psalm opens with a summons to worship, addressed even to "the mighty", the angelic host or the great ones of earth. Three times it rings, "Give unto the LORD... give unto the LORD... Give unto the LORD", not that we could add anything to God, but that we are called to ascribe to Him, to render back in acknowledgment what is already His.

"glory," kavod (כָּבוֹד), weight, honour, splendour. The root idea is weight: God's glory is His sheer honour and splendour, the substance of who He is. It is not something we create; it is His already, and worship is the creature recognizing and returning it.

"due unto his name," kevod shemo (כְּבוֹד שְׁמוֹ). We are to give "the glory due unto his name" -- glory measured not by our estimate of God but by what His own name deserves. That is why the summons can be repeated three times without exaggeration.

"worship," hishtachavu (הִשְׁתַּחֲווּ), bow down, prostrate. The word is bodily: to bow low, to lie prostrate. True worship is not casual or careless; it goes down before God rather than standing at ease beside Him.

"beauty of holiness," hadrat-qodesh (הַדְרַת־קֹדֶשׁ), the splendour of holiness. "Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness." The worshipper bows clothed in holiness, awed by God's purity and splendour; there is a beauty proper to holiness, and God is to be adored in it. This opening call frames the whole psalm: before we hear the thunder of God's voice in the storm, we are summoned to give Him the glory that is His due and to bow in the beauty of holiness. All that follows, the majesty of the tempest, is meant to move us to this -- reverent, wholehearted worship of the God of glory.

Explanation

Notice who is being commanded to worship in the opening call, because it is not us first. Verse 1 summons "the mighty", literally the "sons of the mighty," the heavenly host, the angels. Worship in this psalm begins in the courts of heaven, among the greatest and most glorious creatures God ever made, and only then rolls down to earth. And here is the quiet lesson: even the angels are told to "give unto the LORD" the glory due His name, that is, to ascribe it, to render it back, for not even the highest creature can originate glory; it can only return what is God's already. If the mighty ones of heaven must bow, how much more the dust of earth. And see how the psalm is framed by sanctuary: it opens with the heavenly host worshiping "in the beauty of holiness" (v2), and it will close in God's temple where "every one speak of his glory" (v9). Between those two acts of worship rolls the whole thunderstorm. The tempest does not stand alone; it is bracketed by adoration, heaven's worship at the front, the temple's cry of "Glory" at the end, so that all the terror of the storm is held inside a frame of praise.

Gospel Focus

"Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness", the glory due to God's name is now revealed in the name of Jesus, and true worship in the beauty of holiness is offered through Him. For God hath "given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow" (Philippians 2:9-10); the glory due unto the name of the LORD is due unto Jesus, for He is the LORD come in flesh. The Father "seeketh such to worship him" who "worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23-24), and such worship is possible only through Christ, who by His blood opened the way into the holy place and makes us "an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5). The beauty of holiness in which we worship is not our own; it is the holiness of Christ, in whom we are clothed and accepted. And one day the whole redeemed creation will render Him the glory due unto His name, "Thou art worthy... for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood" (Revelation 5:9). So we give glory to the Lamb who is the LORD, bowing in the beauty of a holiness He purchased for us, and joining the worship that the storm, the angels, and all creation were made to render.

Word Study

"voice," Hebrew qol (קוֹל), voice, sound, thunder. Seven times in this psalm the phrase "the voice of the LORD" rolls like successive peals of thunder (vv3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9), a sevenfold thunder that fills the sky. The one Hebrew word covers both the voice that speaks and the thunder that is heard: the storm is God's voice made audible.

"of the LORD," YHWH. The thunder is not anonymous force but the utterance of the covenant God by name. The same voice that spoke creation into being, "he spake, and it was done" (Psalm 33:9), still speaks in the storm.

"powerful," bakoach (בַּכֹּחַ), with power, in strength. "The voice of the LORD is powerful." It comes upon the great waters (v3), breaks the mighty cedars of Lebanon and makes the mountains skip (vv5-6), splits the lightning into flames of fire (v7), shakes the wilderness (v8), and strips the forests bare (v9). Nothing in nature can withstand it; the strongest trees snap, the solid hills tremble.

"full of majesty," behadar (בֶּהָדָר), in splendour, in majesty. "The voice of the LORD is full of majesty." All this display is a picture of the sheer power and splendour of God's word. If the mere echo of God's voice in a storm can shatter cedars and shake the earth, how much more mighty is God Himself, and how reverently should we tremble at His word. The voice of the LORD is not to be trifled with; it is powerful and full of majesty.

Explanation

There is a wordplay here that an English reader never hears. The Hebrew word for "voice," qol, is also the ordinary word for thunder; to an Israelite, thunder simply was "the voice." So when this psalm says seven times "the voice of the LORD," it is naming every crash and peal of the storm as God speaking. And that naming is pointed. The nations all around Israel credited the thunderstorm to Baal, the storm-god, and imagined every lightning bolt as his. This psalm answers them, deliberately, peal by peal: not Baal, but "the voice of the LORD"; not Baal, but YHWH; seven times over, the whole storm is claimed for the one true God. Seven is the number of completeness, so this is a complete thunder, a full sevenfold declaration that leaves no clap of it for any rival deity. What the pagan world trembled at as the rage of a lesser god, the believer hears as the majestic speech of the LORD who made heaven and earth. The next time the sky breaks open, the psalm would have you hear not chaos, and not some idol, but the powerful, majestic voice of your God.

Gospel Focus

"The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty", this mighty voice is the voice of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, whose speech carries the same creating and commanding power. He who is "the Word" and by whom "all things were made" (John 1:1-3) spoke on earth with the very voice of the LORD: He rebuked the storm, "Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm" (Mark 4:39), so that the disciples asked, "What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" His word cast out devils, healed the sick, and raised the dead, "Lazarus, come forth" (John 11:43), for the voice that shakes the wilderness is the voice that calls the dead to life. That same powerful voice will one day sound the last trumpet: "the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout... and the dead in Christ shall rise" (1 Thessalonians 4:16); "all that are in the graves shall hear his voice" (John 5:28). The voice full of majesty in the storm is the voice of our Saviour, powerful to save, powerful to command, powerful to raise the dead. So we do well both to tremble at His word and to trust it, for the God of glory whose thunder breaks the cedars speaks to us in Christ, and His voice, so mighty, says, "Come unto me... and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28).

Word Study

"give," Hebrew yitten (יִתֵּן). After the thunder comes the calm, and it is exquisite. The God who sits enthroned "upon the flood" as "King for ever" (v10), whose voice shatters cedars and shakes the wilderness, now turns that same almighty power outward as a gift: "The LORD will give strength unto his people."

"strength," oz (עֹז), might. What He gives is His own might to uphold them. Here is the tender surprise of the psalm: the power on display in the storm is not raw, indifferent force, but the power of a God who loves His people and bends His omnipotence to their good.

"his people," ammo (עַמּוֹ). The recipients are named twice over in this closing verse. The believer who has watched the storm of God's majesty need not cower; the God of the thunder is his God, and that infinite power is pledged to him.

"bless," yevarekh (יְבָרֵךְ). Alongside the giving of strength stands a blessing: "the LORD will bless his people with peace." The psalm that began by summoning the mighty to worship ends by cradling the people of God in His favour.

"peace," shalom (שָׁלוֹם), wholeness, well-being, peace. The same voice that terrifies the wilderness speaks shalom to His children -- wholeness and well-being, not merely the absence of trouble. Notice how the two gifts meet our two great needs: strength for the battle, and peace for the soul.

Explanation

Listen to the very last word of this thunderous psalm: shalom, "peace." After seven crashing "voices," after cedars splintered and mountains made to skip and the wilderness shaken, the storm does not end with one more deafening clap. It ends with a whisper of peace spoken over God's people. That is the surprise the whole psalm has been building toward. And look at the first of the two gifts, "strength", the Hebrew is oz, the same word used of the sheer might of the storm itself. The power that snapped the great trees of Lebanon is not spent uselessly on the forest; God turns it inward and hands it to His people: "The LORD will give strength unto his people." The very force that shattered the cedars now steadies the trembling worshiper. And He gives it as the King enthroned "upon the flood" (v10), the Hebrew word mabbul, used almost nowhere else but of Noah's deluge, the waters of judgment and chaos. God sits as King above the very flood that once drowned the world. So the peace He speaks to His people is not a fragile calm between storms; it rests on a throne set over chaos and judgment themselves, unmovable, "the LORD sitteth King for ever." The God of the thunder is the God of your peace.

Gospel Focus

"The LORD will give strength unto his people; the LORD will bless his people with peace", this strength and peace are given to us in Jesus Christ, our strength and our peace. He strengthens His people with His own might, "my grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9), and "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Philippians 4:13). And He is Himself our peace, for "he is our peace" (Ephesians 2:14), having "made peace through the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20). The very God whose voice thundered on Sinai and shakes the wilderness came in flesh to give the peace the world cannot give: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth" (John 14:27); and "being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1). The storm of God's wrath against sin, which the tempest of Psalm 29 faintly pictures, fell not on His people but on Christ at the cross, so that for us there remains only the calm after the storm, strength and peace. So the psalm ends where the gospel rests us: the almighty God, King for ever upon the flood, bends His infinite power to give His people, through Jesus, the strength to stand and the peace that passes understanding.