Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 29:7

"The voice of Jehovah cleaveth the flames of fire." — Psalms 29:7 (ASV)

The voice ... —Literally, the voice of Jehovah cleaving flames of fire. This word is used for hewing stone and wood (Isaiah 10:15). The reference to lightning in this verse is universally admitted, with some even seeing an allusion to the brief and sudden flash in the single clause of which the sentence is composed.

However, various explanations are given for the image used. One of these—that of beating out as from an anvil—may be set aside as clumsy and unworthy of the poet. But the comparison with Isaiah 51:9 and Hosea 6:5, where the same verb is used for God’s “judgments,” makes it possible that the lightnings here are regarded as “thought-executing fires.” If language would allow, we might translate it as “hewing with flames of fire,” and illustrate with:

“And now and then some bright white shaft
Burnt through the pine-tree roof, here burnt and there,
As if God’s messenger through the close wood screen
Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture,
Feeling for guilty you and me.”

BROWNING: Pippa Passes.

But this, though the usual ancient translation, is now generally rejected in favour of the allusion to “forked lightning,” as we call it, the ignes trisulci of Ovid, a natural metaphor to represent the “nimble stroke of quick cross-lightnings.” For the apparent physical mistake in making thunder the agent in producing the lightning, see Note on Psalms 29:5.