Psalm 29: praise of the supreme power of God

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Psalm 29 is made of words of praise that employ strong language for affirmation of the supreme reign of God. In it, the psalmist David uses the poetic style and the Canaanite vocabulary to praise the living God in Israel. Check out the power of this psalm.

Psalm 29: the power of the sacred words of

Psalm 29

Read this psalm with great faith and attention:

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¹Ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
²Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.

³The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.
⁴The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is majestic.
⁵The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
⁶He makes Lebanon leap like a calf,
Sirion like a young wild ox.
⁷The voice of the Lord strikes
with flashes of lightning.
⁸The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;
the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
⁹The voice of the Lord twists the oaks
and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

¹⁰The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord is enthroned as King forever.
¹¹The Lord gives strength to his people;
the Lord blesses his people with peace.

Interpretation of psalm 29

Verse 1 and 2

In these verses David wants to show the power and sovereignty of the name of God, emphasizing his due Glory. When he says “worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness,” he uses Hebrew words similar to those in Job 1: 6, which also describe the angels who are in the presence of God.

Verses 3 to 5

In these three verses he dedicates himself to speaking of the voice of the Lord. He does not appear to anyone but makes himself felt and heard over the waters, over the storms, when breaking the cedars.

Both the language and the parallelism of this verse are directly inspired by Canaanite poetry. It was believed in Baal as the God of storms that thundered in the heavens. Here the sound of thunder is a symbol of the voice of God.

Verses 6 to 9

There is a dramatic energy in these verses, for they translate the movement of the storms that descended from northern Lebanon and Sirion to Kadesh in the south. The psalmist stresses that nothing prevents the storm, its effects are inevitable, from north to south. And so, all beings recognize the supreme glory of God.

Verses 10 and 11

In these final verses of Psalm 29, the psalmist again turns to Baal, who would have been victorious over the waters and then relate to God who truly overcomes everything. God controls the waters and can also be destructive, as in the Deluge. For David, there is no one who opposes his wonderful reign and only God can give power to His people.

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