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P S A L M S
PSALM XXIX.
It is the probable conjecture of some very good interpreters that David
penned this psalm upon occasion, and just at the time, of a great storm
of thunder, lightning, and rain, as the eighth psalm was his meditation
in a moon-light night and the nineteenth in a sunny morning. It is good
to take occasion from the sensible operations of God’s power in the
kingdom of nature to give glory to him. So composed was David, and so
cheerful, even in a dreadful tempest, when others trembled, that then
he penned this psalm; for, “though the earth be removed, yet will we
not fear.”
I. He calls upon the great ones of the world to give glory to God,
II. To convince them of the goodness of that God whom they were to
adore, he takes notice of his power and terror in the thunder, and
lightning, and thunder-showers
(ver. 3-9),
his sovereign dominion over the world
(ver. 10),
and his special favour to his church,
Great and high thoughts of God should fill us in singing this
psalm.
| The Glory of the Lord. | |
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A psalm of David.
1 Give unto the LORD, O ye mighty, give
unto the LORD glory and strength.
2 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the
LORD in the beauty of holiness.
3 The voice of the LORD is upon the waters: the God of glory
thundereth: the LORD is upon many waters.
4 The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD
is full of majesty.
5 The voice of the LORD breaketh the cedars; yea, the LORD
breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion
like a young unicorn.
7 The voice of the LORD divideth the flames of fire.
8 The voice of the LORD shaketh the wilderness; the LORD
shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.
9 The voice of the LORD maketh the hinds to calve, and
discovereth the forests: and in his temple doth every one speak
of his glory.
10 The LORD sitteth upon the flood; yea, the LORD sitteth King
for ever.
11 The LORD will give strength unto his people; the LORD will
bless his people with peace.
In this psalm we have,
I. A demand of the homage of the great men of the earth to be paid to
the great God. Every clap of thunder David interpreted as a call to
himself and other princes to give glory to the great God. Observe,
1. Who they are that are called to this duty: “O you mighty
(v. 1),
you sons of the mighty, who have power, and on whom that power is
devolved by succession and inheritance, who have royal blood running in
your veins!” It is much for the honour of the great God that the men of
this world should pay their homage to him; and they are bound to do it,
not only because, high as they are, he is infinitely above them, and
therefore they must bow to him, but because they have their power from
him, and are to use it for him, and this tribute of acknowledgment they
owe to him for it.
2. How often this call is repeated; Give unto the Lord, and
again, and a third time, Give unto the Lord. This intimates that
the mighty men are backward to this duty and are with difficulty
persuaded to it, but that it is of great consequence to the interests
of God’s kingdom among men that princes should heartily espouse them.
Jerusalem flourishes when the kings of the earth bring their glory
and honour into it,
Rev. xxi. 24.
3. What they are called to do–to give unto the Lord, not as if
he needed any thing, or could be benefited by any gifts of ours, nor as
if we had any thing to give him that is not his own already (Who
hath first given to him?), but the recognition of his glory, and of
his dominion over us, he is pleased to interpret as a gift to him:
“Give unto the Lord your own selves, in the first place, and
then your services. Give unto the Lord glory and strength;
acknowledge his glory and strength, and give praise to him as a God of
infinite majesty and irresistible power; and whatever glory or strength
he has by his providence entrusted you with offer it to him, to be used
for his honour, in his service. Give him your crowns; let them be laid
at his feet; give him your sceptres, your swords, your keys, put all
into his hand, that you, in the use of them, may be to him for a name
and a praise.” Princes value themselves by their glory and strength;
these they must ascribe to God, owning him to be infinitely more
glorious and powerful than they. This demand of homage from the mighty
must be looked upon as directed either to the grandees of David’s own
kingdom, the peers of the realm, the princes of the tribes (and it is
to excite them to a more diligent and constant attendance at God’s
altars, in which he had observed them very remiss), or to the
neighbouring kings whom he by his sword had made tributaries to Israel
and now would persuade to become tributaries to the God of Israel.
Crowned heads must bow before the King of kings. What is here said to
the mighty is said to all: Worship God; it is the sum and
substance of the everlasting gospel,
Now we have here,
(1.) The nature of religious worship; it is giving to the Lord the
glory due to his name,
v. 2.
God’s name is that whereby he has made himself known. There is a glory
due to his name. It is impossible that we should give him all the glory
due to his name; when we have said and done out best for the honour of
God’s name, still we come infinitely short of the merit of the subject;
but when we answer that revelation which he has made of himself, with
suitable affections and adorations, then we give him some of that glory
which is due to his name. If we would, in hearing and praying, and
other acts of devotion, receive grace from God, we must make it our
business to give glory to God.
(2.) The rule of the performance of religious exercises; Worship the
Lord in the beauty of holiness, which denotes,
[1.] The object of our worship; the glorious majesty of God is called
the beauty of holiness,
2 Chron. xx. 21.
In the worship of God we must have an eye to his beauty, and adore him,
not only as infinitely awful and therefore to be feared above all, but
as infinitely amiable and therefore to be loved and delighted in above
all; especially we must have an eye to the beauty of his holiness; this
the angels fasten upon in their praises,
Or,
[2.] The place of worship. The sanctuary then was the beauty of
holiness,
Ps. xlviii. 1, 2; Jer. xvii. 12.
The beauty of the sanctuary was the exact agreement of the worship
there performed with the divine appointment–the pattern in the mount.
Now, under the gospel, solemn assemblies of Christians (which purity is
the beauty of) are the places where God is to be worshipped. Or,
[3.] The manner of worship. We must be holy in all our religious
performances, devoted to God, and to his will and glory. There is a
beauty in holiness, and it is that which puts an acceptable beauty upon
all the acts of worship.
II. Good reason given for this demand. We shall see ourselves bound to
give glory to God if we consider,
1. His sufficiency in himself, intimated in his name
Jehovah—I am that I am, which is repeated here no fewer
than eighteen times in this short psalm, twice in every verse but
three, and once in two of those three; I do not recollect that there is
the like in all the book of psalms. Let the mighty ones of the earth
know him by this name and give him the glory due to it.
2. His sovereignty over all things. Let those that rule over men know
there is a God that rules over them, that rules over all. The psalmist
here sets forth God’s dominion,
(1.) In the kingdom of nature. In the wonderful effects of natural
causes, and the operations of the powers of nature, we ought to take
notice of God’s glory and strength, which we are called upon to ascribe
to him; in the thunder, and lightning, and rain, we may see,
[1.] His glory. It is the God of glory that thunders (thunders is the
noise of his voice,
Job xxxvii. 2),
and it declares him a God of glory, so awful is the sound of the
thunder, and so bright the flash of its companion, the lightning; to
the hearing and to the sight nothing is more affecting than these, as
if by those two learning senses God would have such proofs of his glory
to the minds of men as should leave the most stupid inexcusable. Some
observe that there were then some particular reasons why thunder should
be called the voice of the Lord, not only because it comes from
above, is not under the direction or foresight of any man, speaks
aloud, and reaches far, but because God often spoke in thunder,
particularly at Mount Sinai, and by thunder discomfited the enemies of
Israel. To speak it the voice of the God of glory, it is here said to
be upon the water, upon many waters
(v. 3);
it reaches over the vast ocean, the waters under the firmament; it
rattles among the thick clouds, the waters above the firmament. Every
one that hears the thunder (his ear being made to tingle with it) will
own that the voice of the Lord is full of majesty
(Ps. xxix. 4),
enough to make the highest humble (for none can thunder with a voice
like him) and the proudest tremble–for, if his voice be so
terrible, what is his arm? Every time we hear it thunder, let our
hearts be thereby filled with great, and high, and honourable thoughts
of God, in the holy adorings and admirings of whom the power of
godliness does so much consist. O Lord our God! thou art very
great.
[2.] His power
(v. 4):
The voice of the Lord is powerful, as appears by the effects of
it; for it works wonders. Those that write natural histories relate
the prodigious effects of thunder and lightning, even out of the
ordinary course of natural causes, which must be resolved into the
omnipotence of the God of nature. First, Trees have been rent
and split by thunderbolts,
The voice of the Lord, in the thunder, often broke the
cedars, even those of Lebanon, the strongest, the stateliest. Some
understand it of the violent winds which shook the cedars, and
sometimes tore off their aspiring tops. Earthquakes also shook the
ground itself on which the trees grew, and made Lebanon and
Sirion to dance; the wilderness of Kadesh also was in like
manner shaken
(v. 8),
the trees by winds, the ground by earthquakes, and both by thunders, of
which I incline rather to understand it. The learned Dr. Hammond
understands it of the consternations and conquest of neighbouring
kingdoms that warred with Israel and opposed David, as the Syrians,
whose country lay near the forest of Lebanon, the Amorites that
bordered on Mount Hermon, and the Moabites and Ammonites that lay about
the wilderness of Kadesh. Secondly. Fires have been kindled by
lightnings and houses and churches thereby consumed; hence we read of
hot thunderbolts
accordingly the voice of the Lord, in the thunder, is here said to
divide the flames of fire
(v. 7),
that is, to scatter them upon the earth, as God sees fit to direct them
and do execution by them. Thirdly, The terror of thunder makes
the hinds to calve sooner, and some think more easily, than otherwise
they would. The hind is a timourous creature, and much affected with
the noise of thunder; and no marvel, when sometimes proud and stout men
have been made to tremble at it. The emperor Caligula would hide
himself under his bed when it thundered. Horace, the poet, owns that he
was reclaimed from atheism by the terror of thunder and lightning,
which he describes somewhat like this of David, lib. 1,
ode 34. The thunder is said here to discover the forest,
that is, it so terrifies the wild beasts of the forest that they quit
the dens and thickets in which they hid themselves are so are
discovered. Or it throws down the trees, and so discovers the ground
that was shaded by them. Whenever it thunders let us think of this
psalm; and, whenever we sing this psalm, let us think of the dreadful
thunder-claps we have sometimes heard, and thus bring God’s words and
his works together, that by both we may be directed and quickened to
give unto him the glory due unto his name; and let us bless him that
there is another voice of his besides this dreadful one, by which God
now speaks to us, even the still small voice of his gospel, the terror
of which shall not make us afraid.
(2.) In the kingdom of providence,
God is to be praised as the governor of the world of mankind. He
sits upon the flood; he sits King for ever. He not only sits at
rest in the enjoyment of himself, but he sits as King in the throne
which he has prepared in the heavens
(Ps. ciii. 19),
where he takes cognizance of, and gives orders about, all the affairs
of the children of men, and does all according to his will, according
to the counsel of his will. Observe,
[1.] The power of his kingdom: He sits upon the flood. As he has
founded the earth, so he has founded his own throne, upon the floods,
The ebbings and flowings of this lower world, and the agitations and
revolutions of the affairs in it, give not the least shake to the
repose nor to the counsels of the Eternal Mind. The opposition of his
enemies is compared to the flood
but the Lord sits upon it; he crushes it, conquers it, and completes
his own purposes in despite of all the devices that are in men’s
hearts. The word here translated the flood is never used but
concerning Noah’s flood; and therefore some think it is that which is
here spoken of. God did sit upon that flood as a Judge executing the
sentence of his justice upon the world of the ungodly that was swept
away by it. And he still sits upon the flood, restraining the waters
of Noah, that they turn not again to cover the earth, according to his
promise never to destroy the earth any more by a flood,
Gen. ix. 11; Isa. liv. 9.
[2.] The perpetuity of his kingdom; He sits King for ever; no
period can, or shall, be put to his government. The administration of
his kingdom is consonant to his counsels from eternity and pursuant to
his designs for eternity.
(3.) In the kingdom of grace. Here his glory shines most brightly,
[1.] In the adorations he receives from the subjects of that kingdom
(v. 9).
In his temple, where people attend his discoveries of himself
and his mind and attend him with their praises, every one speaks of
his glory. In the world every man sees it, or at least may
behold it afar off
but it is only in the temple, in the church, that it is spoken of to
his honour. All his works do praise him (that is, they minister
matter for praise), but his saints only do bless him, and speak of his
glory of his works,
[2.] In the favours he bestows upon the subjects of that kingdom,
First, He will qualify them for his service: He will give
strength to his people, to fortify them against every evil work and
to furnish them for every good work; out of weakness they shall be made
strong; nay, he will perfect strength in weakness. Secondly, He
will encourage them in his service: He will bless his people with
peace. Peace is a blessing of inestimable value, which God designs
for all his people. The work of righteousness is peace (great peace
have those that love thy law); but much more the crown of
righteousness: the end of righteousness is peace; it is endless peace.
When the thunder of God’s wrath shall make sinners tremble the saints
shall lift up their heads with joy.
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