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For my weekly quiet time this week, I will blog about Psalm 29.
Many academics would sneeze at Matthew Henry's commentary, but one of his insights was actually my favorite thought that I encountered in my study of Psalm 29. Matthew Henry speculated that David wrote Psalm 29 during a thunderstorm, as he wrote Psalm 8 on a starry night, and Psalm 19 on a sunny morning. Nature is directing the Psalmist's attention towards God. Regarding Psalm 8, when the Psalmist looks at the starry night, he realizes how insignificant humanity is in comparison with the vast cosmos, and he inquires why God is even mindful of human beings. And yet, he acknowledges that God indeed is mindful of people, for God has given humanity stewardship over nature. On Psalm 19, when the Psalmist sees the sun on a sunny morning, he admires the sun as something that God has created. And yet, the sun also teaches him about God's law and how it enlightens human beings.
Regarding Psalm 29, the Psalmist is experiencing a thunderstorm, which reminds him of God's power and glory. At the same time, the Psalmist does not assume that God is merely about ripping apart the fabric of nature; rather, the Psalmist concludes that God is sovereign over the chaotic floods and blesses his people with strength and peace. In a chaotic world of natural disasters and enemies---both individual and national---it was comforting to Israel that a God so powerful was on her side. Bob MacDonald states in his post on Psalm 29, "I like to note that this psalm is an answer to the fear of silence in psalm 26." The Psalmist in the preceding Psalms fears God's silence and wants God to vindicate him and punish his oppressors. And, in Psalm 29, God is not silent, for this Psalm refers seven times to the voice of the LORD and its powerful effects.
Moreover, God in Psalm 29 is not only sovereign over the human and the national realms. (Interpreters have said that the trees God breaks and strips in Psalm 29 represent nations, as they do in such passages as Amos 2:9, and the interpreters also note that the LORD in Psalm 29 really humbles the area of Syria.) In addition, God is supreme over the supernatural realm, for the very first verse commands divine beings (benei elim) to ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
Much of Psalm 29 has parallels with other ancient Near Eastern ideas, although the idea that Psalm 29 was originally a Phoenician or Ugaritic Psalm to Baal that was later applied by the Israelites to YHWH is no longer as popular as it once was (see my post here). Like YHWH in Psalm 29, Baal was considered to be a god with a voice of thunder, and he was also a god of war; not surprisingly, in the Hebrew Bible, God's thunderous activity is associated with his victory in battle against Israel's oppressors (see Exodus 15:8, 10; Judges 5:4-5, 19-21). Psalm 29:10 affirms that the LORD is enthroned over the floods, and, similarly, the Akkadian god Ninurta was said to sit on the cosmic waters of heaven. There was also an ancient belief that thunderstorms induced childbirth, a notion that Psalm 29:9 may reflect.
One can say that the Israelites were simply copying other nations. But, in my opinion, the Israelites were recognizing that life was insecure, and they were seeking comfort and guidance in a power greater than themselves. If the thunderstorm and the motifs of surrounding cultures gave them the vocabulary to express their faith and to meet their needs, does that invalidate their faith? I don't think so.
At the same time, the Israelites were asserting that God was on their side, whereas other nations---appealing to similar concepts---were proclaiming that a powerful god was on their side. In some cases, perhaps God was on the side of Israel. When the Assyrians sought to invade helpless Jerusalem, God very well could have been on the side of the vulnerable, against the bullies. (And I should note that the fourth century Antiochian exegete, Theodore of Mopsuestia, applies Psalm 29 to God's deliverance of Jersualem from Sennacherib; but this is not surprising, for Theodore seems to relate many Psalms to this particular historical event.) But I have problems with using God for nationalistic purposes, by claiming that God is on the side of certain nations. There may be times when God has to intervene and dramatically punish oppression (though, unlike some preachers I heard, I would not say that all hurricanes are God's punishment on sinful human beings). But I like how Augustine interprets Psalm 29: God breaks and humbles the mighty by bringing them to repentance through the cross, seeks to dwell in people (whom the floods of Psalm 29:10 represent, according to Augustine), and protects his people in the midst of the storms. For Augustine, Psalm 29 is about God's love for all kinds of people, of different nationalities. Personally, I'd like to take Augustine's ideas further by interpreting Psalm 29 in light of God's love for all of humanity, if I indeed can.
