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Articles 2014-2017
Over the years God has revealed in His Church many precious truths from Psalm 29. This article should be considered as neither exhaustive nor final but as simply one perspective contributed to the overall discussion.
Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
When David calls for the heavenly beings (the sons of the mighty – NAS) to give to the Lord glory and strength, he sees himself as encouraging and coordinating with the heavenly powers in their worship of the Lord. The Hebrew words for heavenly beings are BEN EL, or sons of God. Exactly who were these sons of God? In Job 38:7 they shouted for joy when God laid the foundation of the earth. So for the ESV to interpret “sons of God” as “heavenly beings” i.e., angels, seems appropriate here.
But when we get to the New Testament, Paul informs us that …all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Romans 8:14). Just like there were mighty spiritual beings/”sons of God” in the heavens in David’s day worshipping the Lord, so also now there is as well a growing number on earth of men and women filled with the Spirit and worshipping the Lord in coordination with heaven. In other words, God’s plan has been to see His will done on earth among men like it is among the angels. Indeed, since Calvary the worship occurring in the heavens has been breaking out on earth beyond the borders of Israel and increasing worldwide.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.
Like the holy angels, we are to ascribe glory and strength to our God. While many in the world denigrate His name and use it as a curse word, we who know Him must discern His amazing ability/His power to accomplish His stated purpose among us and then proclaim the beauty and perfection of His motives. And as we yield to His gracious initiatives, He will beautify us in His holiness.
When the Lord began His work among men, Adam rebelled and disobeyed God’s clear command. Following this grievous event, the earth over time became filled with great sin and violence. So God arose in devastating judgment in the flood of Noah’s day.
It is my suggestion that David had that specific event in mind when he wrote Psalm 29 and that he envisioned the new beginning of humanity’s story. Since God had judged mankind’s sin with an overwhelming deluge of water, the result did not seem to give Him much to work with. But the hope of the human race was not Noah; it was the One who had called him and spoken to him.
The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over many waters.
Starting again while the whole earth was covered with many waters, the Lord began to speak. Was His voice a tentative whisper? No.
The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
Starting in such an inauspicious situation, what could God possibly foresee as the culmination of His plan for mankind? The answer lies in the power and the majesty of His voice/His word. Because the garden where Adam and Eve had dwelt was authored through His word, the glory of what He would now produce among men by the same means would be as amazing and glorious. The main difference would be that while the first Adam was untried, and then failed the test the last Adam would be a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation (Isaiah 28:16).
In order to succeed, He established a strategic principle. Through His word He would bring brokenness, a shattering to the self-strength of His people, the material He would use in building His house. In the Old Testament He had built with the cedars of Lebanon.
The voice of the Lord breaks (Hebrew, SHABAR – to burst, to shatter) the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox.
The result of the Lord’s breaking process in His people was to be our growing recognition of the absolute inadequacy of our own human ability and strength to accomplish His purpose. It is only He who can bring to pass His desire for the earth. But by His grace He enables us to cooperate with Him. Here is our calling.
And as we submit to Him and move forward in the grace He provides, His purpose is to establish in us the proper foundation for true spiritual worship. As He shatters the self-strength of His “cedars”, Lebanon begins to skip like a calf. The picture that comes to mind is one of spontaneous joy and unrestrained celebration. For us, joyful and authentic worship is rooted both in His amazing mercy and also the growing recognition in us of our absolute need for it. Over the years, many have thought erroneously that because of their education, their personality, or their IQ, etc., they really did have something of value to contribute to God’s expanding kingdom on earth. But none of us do. And so He continues to speak to us causing a shattering of our trust in everything apart from Him. Only then, in seeing our absolute need for His mercy, will our worship begin to express on earth the reality of the throne room in heaven.
The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
Kadesh was outside but on the way to the Promised Land. And the wilderness was an uncultivated area where no one expected a fruitful harvest. But it was specifically there that the Lord’s voice would cause a great shaking. The Hebrew word for “shake” is CHUWL. It could also be translated as “to twist or whirl, to writhe in pain or to travail in birth.”
Could it be God’s strategy to cause through His spoken word great and painful shakings in the wilderness, the society around us in order to facilitate many spiritual births?
The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth (Hebrew, CHUWL)
Notice that David uses the same Hebrew word for shaking and giving birth. The shaking itself is the birth process. And just like the deer are the natural inhabitants of the wilderness, the forest, so also the people today belonging to the present fallen condition of our world system are experiencing earthquakes in the political, economic, and educational spheres of society. Our God is shaking up their world.
Because He continues to speak in our day, the nations are experiencing massive shakings, which I suggest just might be the beginning birth pangs of multitudes who are about to pass from death to spiritual life.
Can God actually bring forth life, a harvest in the wilderness? Consider our nation. What hope do we have that good can possibly come to fruition in our society? Are we not guaranteed that our future will see only greater evil, greater darkness? It is true that because of our sins, we have already experienced some degree of Heaven’s judgments among us. And for some, even greater destruction is on the way.
and strips the forests bare…
Notice that while the Lord’s voice caused the deer to give birth, it also brought great devastation to the surrounding forest. But clearly, great destruction was not the whole story. It seems that God’s intention was to reveal His mercy even in the midst of His judgments. If so, what must be the viewpoint of His people?
and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”
As the Lord reveals to us His perspective on the present national/international turbulence – that He is in the process of bringing many people to spiritual birth and extending His kingdom, our response must be to both recognize His glory and then to articulate what we see.
But because so many believers are focused on the shakings themselves instead of on God’s initiative in them and on His merciful motives behind them, they are unable to give account of an internal resident hope that the world so desperately needs to hear. Too many Christians seem as fearful of what is coming upon the earth as the unbelievers around them.
But David, referring back to the time of the great devastation in Noah’s day, described the event from a prophet’s perspective.
The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.
Here was a man who could speak with hope in his own generation because He could see the present implications of the sovereign rule of God in Israel’s history. Truly, it takes faith and a certain internal strength to stand in a storm and proclaim a peace that passes understanding.
May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!
Donald Rumble – April 2017
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