Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 29

You mighty. —Heb., benê-elîm. Literally, sons of gods (not sons of God, since elîm is never used by itself like Elohîm for God).

If, however, it is used (which is possible) in a general sense for beings of supernatural power but inferior to God, the expression benê-elîm for angels would be intelligible. This means angels (Isaiah 6:3) in the widest sense as ministers of God, and thus including the lightning and storm .

The poet calls on the grand forces of nature themselves to offer praise to their Divine Master for the glory they have been commissioned to reveal.

It is they who, at the beginning and end of the psalm alike, sing the praises of Him who summoned them to speak to people in His name and make His voice heard.

The Prayer Book version, “bring young rams,” comes from the Septuagint and Vulgate. The reading probably arose from a marginal gloss and is the reading of five manuscripts of Kennicott and five of De Rossi.

In the beauty of holiness. —Better, in holy attire; an image borrowed from the splendid vestments of the priests and Levites (2 Chronicles 20:21; Psalms 110:3). So the presences that attend the courts of heaven are called to be robed in their most magnificent attire, as for a high and sacred ceremony.

The voice. —Once the invocation to the angels is over, the storm bursts, and seven successive peals of thunder mark its course of fury and destruction. It is first heard rolling over the waters from the west (compare 1 Kings 18:44), unless the “waters” and “many waters,” as in Psalms 18:11-12, refer to the gathered masses of rain-cloud, in which case we might compare

“Then broke the thunder
Like a whole sea overhead.”

BROWNING: Pippa Passes.

The Hebrew kôl (“voice”), used also of any loud sound (2 Samuel 15:10, of the trumpet; Ezekiel 1:24, of water), is sometimes used (Genesis 4:10; Isaiah 52:8) to call attention, like our “Hark!” So Ewald here. Others refer it to the thunder, as in Psalms 77:18; but it seems better to take it for the combined noise of the storm, thunder, wind, and rain, as in Shakespeare—

“The gods who keep this pudder over our heads.”

Powerful; full of majesty. —Better literally, as in Septuagint and Vulgate, in might, in majesty.

The voice of the Lord breaketh. —Better more literally, The voice of Jehovah breaking the cedars, and Jehovah has shivered the cedars of Lebanon. (The verb in the second clause is an intensive of that used in the first.) The range of Lebanon receives the first fury of the storm. Its cedars, mightiest and longest-lived of Eastern trees, crash down, broken by the violence of the wind. (For cedar, see 2 Samuel 7:2.) It has been objected that the thunder should not be made the agent in the destruction; but compare Shakespeare—

“And you, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity of the world!
Crack Nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once.
That make ungrateful man!”—King Lear,Acts 3, Scene 2.