Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 1 · Psalm 29
The Twenty Ninth Psalme.
A Psalm of David.
Paraphrase. The Twenty ninth Psalm seems to have been composed by David after his subduing the Kings and heathen people, 2 Sam. viii. the Philistims, Moabites, Syrians, &c. whom he therefore inviteth to the service of God, and thus bespeaketh them:
1. Give unto the Lord,a. ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and‖power or empire: see note on Ps. xcvi. b. strength.
2. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in†or, his holy majesty. theb. beauty of holiness.
O ye Governors of the heathen people, which have now experimented the power of God in subduing you, there is nothing so reasonable to be done by you, as to come in, and make your oblations and homage to his sanctuary, and acknowledge his supreme power and dominion over you; to magnifie him in all his glorious attributes, and adore him in that sacred Majesty, wherein he hath revealed himself to the world, but especially to the Jews his peculiar people.
3. c.The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the God of glory thundereth, the Lord is upon*or, great foreign many waters.
Gods thunder in the clouds is most terrible over all the people in the world, when it breaks out of them, it is an emblem of his majestick presence, and almighty power, by which he can subdue, when he pleaseth, the most puissant or populous nations on the earth.
4. The voice of the Lord is powerfull; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
If he send out these weapons of his, there is no possible resisting; they bring with them an awful reverence to all creatures.
5. The voice of the Lord breaketh the Cedars: yea, the Lord breaketh the Cedars of Lebanon.
This same thunder rends the stoutest and tallest Cedars in pieces, even those of Libanus, that is famous for them, (an essay, and evidence to all, that at his pleasure the most powerfull Princes are subdued; as was lately exemplified in the Syrians, which are neer to Lebanon, and were destroyed by David, twenty two thousand of them, that came out to succour the King of Zobah against David, 2 Sam. viii. 5. and became servants to David. v. 6.)
6. He maketh them also to skip like a calfe,d. Lebanon andd. Syrion like a young Unicorn.
Both these Syrians that border upon Lebanon, and all the other heathen nations neer Mount Hermon, the Amorites, &c. are vanquisht and put to slight, when he once appears to take the part of his anointed.
7. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.
His presence and interposition of his power, signified by this terrible majestick meteore, tears the aire, and casts out many darts, or flashes of lightning with it, at once a formidable sound and flames of fire, and withall a succession of those flames: such is the dreadful power, and presence of God against his enemies.
8. The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness ofe. Kadesh.
And the same omnipotence of his hath ingaged it selfe for his servant David against the Moabites and Idumaeans, and utterly subdued and subjected them to him;
9. The voice of the Lordf. maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forrest: and in his Temple doth every one speak of his glory.
Puts them into that terrible fright, into which the thunder puts the hinds, when it makes them calve; drives them out of their holds, as the same thunder frights the beasts of the forrest out of their thickets. This therefore is to admonish all the whole world, every man living, to acknowledge his power and glorious Majesty, and come in and worship him, in these or the like words:
10. The Lord sitteth upon theg. floud; yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever.
The Lord judgeth and ruleth in the clouds, and so he shall continue to doe for ever, and subject the proudest nations to his Kingdome.
11. The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.
And for those that he hath chosen and taken to himself, and that live constant and faithfull in his service, he will protect, and strengthen them, and bestow upon them all the prosperity and felicity in the world, subjecting all their enemies, and restoring them to a durable, lasting peace.
Annotations on Psalm XXIX.
V. 1. Ye mighty] From foreign fortitude is foreign and foreign powerfull, strong, of which see note on Psal. xxii. a. And though that word come to signifie many other things, yet in the plural foreign foreignis sure the compellation of Princes, under the phrase of [son of the potent or strong.] Thus is Nebuchadonozor called foreign foreignthe Prince of the Nations, or the strong among the Nations, Ezek. xxxi. 11. Thus foreign the Princes, we render, the mighty men of Moab, Exod. xv. 15. and those particularly, in the number of those to whom David is supposed to speak in this Psalm, after his subduing them, 2 Sam. viii. so again 2 Kin. xxiv. 15. foreign the mighty of the land. The Chaldee paraphraseth this by foreign the assembly of Angels, sonnes of God, taking foreign for Angels. The Syriack read foreign, which is rendered filios arietum, young rams, in that notion of foreign for a ram; though as foreign in Hebrew, so in Chaldee and Syriack and Arabick, foreign is the male of any sort. The LXXII. at least these copies which we have of their translation, doe (as it is not unusual in other places) render the words twice; first in the vocative case, by way of compellation, foreign sons of God, and then in the accusative, foreign young rams, as doubtfull which was to have place, and therefore setting down both of them: and in this the Latine and Arabick and Aethiopick follow them. But the plain simple rendring it by [ye mighty, or, ye Princes] is most to be allowed of; and to those this Psalm is an invitation, that they will, being subdued by Gods power, come in to the acknowledgement and worship of him.
V. 2. Beauty of holinesse] Where the Hebrew reads foreign foreignin the glory or beauty of holiness, from foreign to honour or beautifie, the Lxxii. read foreign in his holy court, as if it were from foreign penetrale, thalamus, area, a closet, a marriage-chamber, a court; and so the Latine and Syriack follow them, and the Arabick, in his holy habitation: but the Chaldee have foreign in the splendor, or beauty of holiness, or in the holy beauty or majesty (as v. 4. the Lxxii. render the same word foreign majesty;) meaning thereby either the Arke, which the Priests and Levites with their Urim and Thummim carryed, and where God was gloriously present, as in the place of his worship, (see Ps. CX. note a.) or else the sacred majesty of God himself, sacrâ praeditum majestate Jovam, saith Castellio, Jehova indued with a sacred majesty, the God of heaven and earth, so glorious in all his attributes, that all, even heathen men, ought to give all glory and honour to him. This glory he here calls foreign foreignthe honour of his name, by which his attributes are to be understood, his power and dominion over all, &c. which for these heathen princes to acknowledge, is in effect to become his proselytes, and servants.
V. 3. The voice of the Lord] That foreign voice in scripture-style frequently signifies thunder, there is no question; and then there will be small cause of doubt, but that foreign foreignthe voice of the Lord here signifieth the same, when in the next words it follows, the God of glory thundereth. For this Psalm being plainly an acknowledgment of Gods majestick presence, and his thunders being in those dayes, 1. the instruments signally to attest that, (as to Joshua in the first conquest of Canaan, to Samuel against the Philistims, 1 Sam. xii. 15. and to David also against the same enemies, which therefore is called Gods rebuking the heathen) and 2. the ordinary means of conveying Gods oracles to them, which therefore were styled foreign the daughter of thunder, and 3. the ceremony of Gods giving the law from Sina…; it was very fit in this Psalm to make a peculiar elogy of this Majestick meteor, which is done throughout the Psalm. By analogy herewith,foreign the waters upon which this voice is said to be, and the many waters from which, in the next words, he is said to thunder, or to be upon them when he thunders, and the water-floods, upon which he is said to sit, v. 10. are still those waters (Gen. 1.) above the firmament, the clouds; agreeably to Psal. xviii. 11. He maketh darkness his secret place, with dark waters and thick clouds to cover him: At the brightness that was before him the clouds passed, (these watery clouds) hailstones and coals of fire (the thunder shafts:) The Lord also thundered, &c. And these opinions and doctrines of the Jewes might move the heathens, to think that they did adorare nubes, & coeli numen, adore the clouds, and that Deity of heaven, which is thus described in their Prophets to sit and dwell there.
V. 6. Lebanon] Two things are here to be observed of Lebanon. foreignFirst, that it was a very high mountain, and seems thence to have taken the name from foreign white, in respect of the snow (mentioned on Lebanon Jer. xviii. 14.) that is alwayes, even in the summer, white on the top of it. Thus saith Saint Hierome on Jerem. L. iv. Nix de Libani summitatibus deficere non potest, nec ullo, ut omnis liquescat, solis ardore superatur: Snow cannot sail on the tops of Lebanon, nor is it by any heat of the sun overcome that it should melt. The Chaldee Paraphrase Cant. iv. 11. useth the word foreign Olbanem in the same notion, from foreign Olben, which is the Syriack formation of foreign white. And with this the name of the Alpes, those very high hills, seems to have affinity. Album, saith Festus, quod nos dicimus, à Graeco, quod est foreign, est appellatum, Sabini tamen Alpum dixerant; unde credi potest nomen Alpium à candore nivium vocitatum. The word Album, white, is from Alphon a Greek word, which the Sabines called Alpum; whence the name of the Alpes may be believed to come, so called from the whiteness of the snow. And so the Etymologicum; foreign, from the multitude of the white snow the name of the Alpes is taken. Thus in Crete the tops of Mount Ida, a very high mountain, are called foreign white, on the same account, saith Theophrastus de hist. Plant. l. iv. c. 1. foreign, on the top of them there never wants snow. The second thing to be noted of this high hill is, the situation of it, that it is in Syria: foreign, saith Stephanus, Libanus is a mountain of Syria. So Strabo l. xvi.p. 519. There are, saith he, two mountains that inclose Coelo-Syria, Libanus and Antilibanus; Damascus is in Libanus, Zidon in Antilibanus. By both these put together we may conclude, what is poetically here meant by the mention of Libanus, viz. the Kings or chief cities of Syria, first slaughtered in great multitudes, and then subdued by David, 2 Sam. viii. 6. With this is joyned Syrion v. 6. another high mountain, foreignknown also both by the name of Hermon, and Shenir, Deut. iii. 9. (which Hermon the Sidonians call Syrion, and the Ammonites call it Shenir.) So Cant. iv. 8. from the top of Shenir and Hermon. From Shenir it is that the Syriack here call it Sinir: of this S. Hierome de Loc. Hebr. tells us also, as of Lebanon, that it was so high a mountain, that snow was to be found on it in the summer; and therefore the Chaldee, Deut. iii. 9. call it foreign, the mount of snow, and so also Cant. iv. 8. but here foreign the mountain producing fruit, in respect of the great sertility of the valleys, which was caused by the snow-water that came down from it. The snow of this mountain, saith S. Hierome, de loc. Heb. was carried to Tyre, and sold there for the cooling of their wines, and was much desired for the deliciousness thereof; and in that respect possibly may by the Lxxii. be here rendred foreign the beloved (and thence by the Latine, and Arabick, and Aethiopick;) or rather because foreign might by them be deduced from foreign and foreign in the notion of looking earnestly upon, as on ones most beloved, from whence foreign Jeschiron or Jeschuron (the title of Israel) being by some*Schindl. Pentagl. p. 1832. A. learned men deduced, and convertible into foreign, by transposition of וfrom the middle to the beginning of the word, is by the LXXII. rendred (as Syrion here) foreign the beloved, Isa. xLiv. 2. and Deut. xxxii. 15. This mountaine was neer unto Libanus, Pameadi imminens, saith ‖De loc. Hebr.S. Hierome, hanging over the City Pameas (or Paneas, called foreign by Ptolemee) and placed at the root of Libanus. And that gives an account of the conjunction of it here with Lebanon, and being all one with Hermon and Sion, by all which 'tis called by the several nations bordering on it, the Amorites, &c. and having on the top of it, saith S. Hierome, De loc. Hebr. p. 414. c.Templum insigne quod ab Ethnicis cultui habetur, a famous Temple used for their worship by the heathens, it is here poetically set to denote the heathen nations lying next that mountain on the east of the holy land, Ibid.(Hermon mons Amorrhaeorum, saith S. Hierome) &c. As for foreign foreignhe made them leap, from foreign to leap or dance (agreeable to Psal. cxiv. 4. the mountains foreign skipped like Rams, &c.) the Lxxii. that render it Psal. cxiv. foreign leaped, doe yet here render it foreign, shall beat to pouder, reading it, saith the Learned Schindler, Pentagl. p. 1768. 1.foreign, from foreign used in that sense; he should have said from foreign (which is a little more remote, כ for ק as well as ד for ר) for that is it which he renders contudit, contrivit, beating to pouder, from Job XL. But to me it seems more probable, that they should use this word rather to paraphrase, than to translate the Hebrew; meaning thereby to signifie the putting those nations to flight, dissipating and subduing, and so beating them small, as when an Armie is routed, it is beaten to pieces.
V. 8. Kadesh] The wilderness of Kadesh was a vast desert in Arabia, foreignin part whereof the Israelites wandered so many years, that part wherein is the city of Kadesh. Of that City it appears by Numb. xx. 16. that it is situate in the utmost of the borders of the Edomites. (The wilderness of Zin in which that is, v. 1. and c. xxvii. 14. is this wilderness of Kadesh, Numb. xxxiii. 36. Zin which is Kadesh) It borders also upon the Moabites; and accordingly Jud. xi. from Kadesh the Israelites are said to have sent (as to the Edomites v. 17. so) to the King of Moab, in the end of the verse, for his consent to pass through their land; and neither of them consenting, they went along through the wilderness (this wilderness of Kadesh, or Zin, called also here by the Chaldee, Recham) and compast the land of Edom, and of Moab, and pitched on the other side of Arnon, the border of Moab, v. 18. This wilderness therefore of Kadesh is here very fit to signifie poetically the Kings or people both of the Edomites and Moabites, both which were terribly shaken, i. e. subdued by him, 2 Sam. viii. Moab he smote— casting them down to the ground, and so the Moabites became Davids servants, v. 2. and he put garisons throughout all Edom, and all they of Edom became Davids servants, ver. 14.
V. 9. To calve] As foreign foreign, from foreign to be moved or shaken with griefs or fear, signifies the subduing and subjecting the Moabites, v. 8. so from that there is another Synecdochical signification of the word, for pangs of travail or bringing forth; and so in Hiphil foreign signifies to force, or make bring forth: and in this notion the Chaldee understands foreign foreignhere, applyed to the Hinds, that the voice of the Lord, i. e. the thunder, makes them bring forth their young ones. For thus it is observed of that beast, that through the hardness of the womb they bring forth with much difficulty; but that the noise of thunder affrighting them, the womb opens, and they bring forth presently. This seems to be the meaning of the Lxxii. also, that render it foreign preparing the hinds, viz. to bring forth. This is here set poetically to express the great consternation that the Moabites and Edomites (intimated in the former verse) were in.
V. 10. The floud] That foreign foreign, from foreign to wither, signifies a floud of waters or d luge that layes all wast, is certain. Such was that in Noahs time, vulgarly, and by way of eminence thus styled, foreign the deluge: and of that the Chaldee understands this place, God say they, foreign in the generation of the deluge sat in judgement, and the Lxxii. foreign, God shall make the deluge to be inhabited, or make the world habitable after it: foreign called back the deluge, saith the Syriack; restrained it, saith the Arabick (rendering foreign sits, in the notion of foreign habitavit.) And thus it may properly be understood here, (the only place where the word is used, save in the story of Noah) as reflecting on the great judgements of God on the old heathen sinful world, which he still continues (although not in the same way of execution) upon the heathen princes, Davids and his enemies. But it is also possible, that as [waters] and many waters] signifie no more then the clouds, (see note c.) so here the floud, which is still but a multitude of waters, may be taken for those waters above the firmament, the clouds or watery meteors, which when they were let loose upon the old world, the windows of heaven were said to be opened. But these withall very fit, poetically to signifie the armies of Davids and Gods enemies, which also, if not represt, lay wast as a flood, and come in like a deluge. So a flood of mighty waters signifies, Isa. xxviii. 2. and the enemies coming in like a flood, Isa. Lix. 29. See Jer. xLvi. 7, 8. and XLvii. 2. Dan. ix. 26. and xi. 22. Am. ix. 5. Nah. 1.8. And in the like, though not the same style, David speaks of his enemies Psal. Lxix. 2. and Psal. cxxiv. 4. And then Gods sitting on them, will be his judging and executing punishments upon them, i. e. these heathen people here formerly mentioned.