Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 29:4
The voice of the LORD [is] powerful; the voice of the LORD [is] full of majesty.
4. is powerful is full of majesty ] Lit. is with power is with majesty.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The voice of the Lord is powerful – Margin, as in Hebrew: in power. That is, is mighty; or, has strength. Allusion may be made to what seems to be the effect of thunder in prostrating trees, or tearing off their limbs, or it may be merely to the loud sound of the thunder.
Is full of majesty – Margin, as in Hebrew, in majesty. That is, it is grand, sublime, overpowering.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 4. Is powerful] There is no agent in universal nature so powerful as the electric fluid. It destroys life, tears castles and towers to pieces, rends the strongest oaks, and cleaves the most solid rocks: universal animate nature is awed and terrified by it. To several of these effects the psalmist here refers; and for the illustration of the whole I must refer to the above notes on Job.
Full of majesty.] No sound in nature is so tremendous and majestic as that of thunder; it is the most fit to represent the voice of God.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Is an evident proof of Gods glorious majesty.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. powerful . . . majestyliterally,”in power, in majesty.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The voice of the Lord [is] powerful,…. Or “with power” a; as thunder, in the effect of it, shows; and so is the Gospel, when it comes, not in word only, but is attended with the power of God to the conversion and salvation of souls; it is then quick and powerful, Heb 4:12; and the word of Christ personal, when here on earth, was with power, Lu 4:32;
the voice of the Lord [is] full of majesty; Christ, in his state of humiliation, spake and taught as one having authority; and now, in the ministration of his Gospel by his servants, he goes forth with glory and majesty, Ps 45:3.
a “in potentia”, Pagninus, Montanus; “cum potentia”, Cocceius, Michaelis; “with able power”, Ainsworth.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(4) Powerful; full of majesty.Better literally, as in LXX. and Vulg., in might, in majesty.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 29:4 The voice of the LORD [is] powerful; the voice of the LORD [is] full of majesty.
Ver. 4. The voice of the Lord is powerful ] So that it shaketh heaven and earth, Heb 12:26 . Cogitent ergo principes quantum infra Deum subsidant, &c. (Validum est et vehemens tonitru. Vat. Beza). Let those that think themselves some great business consider God’s infinite power, putting forth itself in thunders and tempests, and they will soon be crest fallen.
The voice of the Lord is full of majesty
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
powerful = with power.
full of = with.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 29:4-5
Psa 29:4-5
“The voice of Jehovah is powerful;
The voice of Jehovah is full of majesty.
The voice of Jehovah breaketh the cedars;
Yea, Jehovah breaketh in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.”
“Yea, Jehovah breaketh in pieces the cedars” (Psa 29:5). Thunder in this psalm is metaphorically referred to as “The voice of Jehovah.” But in this clause and the very similar one in Psa 29:3, it is God Himself who is “upon the waters” and who “breaketh the cedars.”
It is really frightening to see first-hand what tremendous energies are unleashed in a bolt of lightning. This writer remembers a very large oak tree, some four or five feet in diameter, at least, that stood just west of his grandfather’s barn on the old Anderson Ranch in Taylor County, Texas. One night a bolt of lightning totally demolished that oak tree, reducing the several cords of strong oak wood in it to the equivalent of kindling. The neighbors for miles around came to view the remarkable sight.
“The voice of Jehovah is powerful” (Psa 29:4). Yes indeed, it was His voice that hurled the suns in space, that lifted up the Cross, that stilled the sea! It is His voice that shall at last summons the dead before the Great White Throne for the Final Judgment. It is that voice which shall sound over the tombs of land and sea, and the myriads of the dead shall “Come Forth,” even as Lazarus did at Bethany. It is important to understand that the psalmist here sees the hand and hears the voice of God in Nature, and especially in this great thunderstorm.
Oh yes, we live in a sophisticated age that knows all there is to know about thunderstorms, etc., and many arrogant human beings, intoxicated with a little knowledge, would doubtless find this psalm “unscientific,” However, as the same author declared, “This Psalm begins where science leaves off. Amen!
FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL
“Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies.
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower – but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is!”
– Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Rhodes saw that we have something of the same spiritual understanding in this psalm. “These verses are a poetic and theological interpretation of a thunderstorm as a revelation of the glory of God.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 29:4. Full of majesty means it is full of magnificence and glory. Because of this the psalmist declares the voice of God is powerful.
Psa 29:5. The cedar was noted for its size, strength and beauty. Referred to figuratively it stood for power of influence and demanded the attention and respect of other things in nature. But the voice of God was mightier than all of these things credited to the cedar.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
powerful: Heb. in power, Psa 33:9, Job 26:11-14, Jer 51:15, Jer 51:16, Luk 4:36, Luk 8:25
full of: Heb. in, Job 40:9-12, Isa 66:6, Eze 10:5
Reciprocal: Exo 9:28 – mighty thunderings 1Ch 29:11 – majesty Job 37:22 – with Psa 18:13 – Highest Pro 17:8 – gift
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 29:4-6. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty Is a very awful and evident proof of Gods glorious majesty. Breaketh the cedars By lightning, vulgarly called thunderbolts; which have torn asunder and destroyed trees and towers. The cedars of Lebanon A place famous for strong and lofty cedars. He maketh them also The cedars last mentioned; to skip like a calf For, being broken by the lightning, the fragments of them are suddenly and violently hurled about hither and thither; Lebanon also, and Sirion A high mountain beyond Jordan, joining to Lebanon: and these mountains may here be understood, either, 1st, Properly, and so they are said to skip and leap, both here and Psa 114:4, by a poetical hyberbole, very usual both in Scripture and other authors; or, 2d, Metonymically, being put for the trees or people of them, as the wilderness is to be understood, Psa 29:8; and as the earth, by the same figure, is frequently put for the inhabitants of it; like a young unicorn Hebrew reem: see Num 23:22; Psa 22:21.