Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 29:5

"The voice of Jehovah breaketh the cedars; Yea, Jehovah breaketh in pieces the cedars of Lebanon." — Psalms 29:5 (ASV)

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.