Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 29:8
The voice of the LORD shaketh the wilderness; the LORD shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.
8. shaketh the wilderness ] Or, maketh the wilderness tremble. Cp. Psa 96:9; Psa 97:4; Psa 114:7.
the Lord the wilderness of Kadesh ] Again with poetical effect emphasising and specialising the idea of the previous line. The storm sweeps down to the desert in the far south. Kadesh, famous in the history of Israel’s wanderings, was the eastern part of the desert toward the border of Edom (Num 20:16), though its exact position is disputed.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Shaketh the wilderness – Causes it to shake or to tremble. The word used here means properly to dance; to be whirled or twisted upon anything; to twist – as with pain – or, to writhe; and then, to tremble, to quake. The forests are made to tremble or quake in the fierceness of the storm – referring still to what the thunder seems to do.
The wilderness of Kadesh – As in referring Psa 29:5-6 to the effect of the storm on lofty trees, the psalmist had given poetic beauty to the description by specifying Lebanon and Sirion, so he here refers, for the same purpose, to a particular forest as illustrating the power of the tempest – to wit, the forest or wilderness of Kadesh. This wilderness or forest was on the southeastern border of the promised land, toward Edom; and it is memorable as having been the place where the Israelites twice encamped with a view of entering Palestine from that point, but from where they were twice driven back again – the first time in pursuance of the sentence that they should wander forty years in the wilderness – and the second time, from the refusal of the king of Edom to allow them to pass through his territories. It was from Kadesh that the spies entered Palestine. See Num 13:17, Num 13:26; Num 14:40-45; Num 21:1-3; Deu 1:41-46; Jdg 1:7. Kadesh was on the northern border of Edom, and not far from Mount Hor. See Robinsons Biblical Researches in Palestine, vol. ii. pp. 582, 610, 662; Kitto, Cyclo-Bib. in the article, Kadesh; and the Pictorial Bible on Num 20:1. There seems to have been nothing special in regard to this wilderness which led the author of the psalm to select it for his illustration, except that it was well known and commonly spoken of, and that it would thus suggest an image that would be familiar to the Israelites.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. The wilderness of Kadesh.] This was on the frontiers of Idumea and Paran. There may be a reference to some terrible thunder-storm and earthquake which had occurred in that place.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The wilderness, i.e. either the trees, or rather the beasts of the wilderness, by a metonymy, as before, Psa 29:6. Compare this with the next verse.
Kadesh; which he mentions as an eminent wilderness, vast and terrible, and well known to the Israelites, Num 20:1,16, and wherein possibly they had seen and observed some such effects of thunder as are here mentioned.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. the wildernessespeciallyKadesh, south of Judea, is selected as another scene of this displayof divine power, as a vast and desolate region impresses the mind,like mountains, with images of grandeur.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness,…. The ground of it, the trees in it, and the beasts that harbour there; and causes them to be in pain, and to bring forth their young, as the g word signifies, and as it is rendered in Ps 29:9; all which effects thunder produces, and may mystically signify the preaching of the Gospel among the Gentiles, and the consequence of it. The Gentile world may be compared to a wilderness, and is called the wilderness of the people,
Eze 20:35; the inhabitants of it being ignorant, barren, and unfruitful; and the conversion of them is expressed by turning a wilderness into a fruitful land, Isa 35:1; and the Gospel being sent thither has been the means of shaking the minds of many with strong and saving convictions; which made them tremble and cry out, what shall we do to be saved?
the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh; which was the terrible wilderness that the children of Israel passed through to Canaan’s land; the same with the wilderness of Zin, Nu 33:36; and was called Kadesh from the city of that name, on the borders of Edom, Nu 20:1; the Targum paraphrases it,
“The word of the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Rekam;”
in the Targum in the King’s Bible it is,
“makes the serpents in the wilderness of Rekam to tremble;”
but that thunder frightens them, I have not met with in any writer.
g “parturire faciet”, Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Michaelis; “dolore parturientis afflicit”, Piscator.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(8) The voice of the Lord shaketh.Literally, maketh to tremble. The allusion is, doubtless, to the effect of the storm on the sands of the desert. The tempest has moved southward over Palestine, and spends its last fury on the southern wilderness, and the poet seizes on what is one of the most striking phenomena of a storm in such a districtthe whirlwind of sand. But soon Red Sea and all were lost in a sandstorm, which lasted the whole day. Imagine all distant objects entirely lost to view, the sheets of sand fleeting along the surface of the desert like streams of water, the whole air filled, though invisibly, with a tempest of sand, driving in your face like sleet (Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 67). For Kadesh, see Num. 13:26. Here the term appears to be used in a large and general sense for the whole southern desert.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. Shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh The describer has now followed the track of the storm from Lebanon in the north to Kadesh in Arabia in the south, about two hundred miles, through the utmost extent of the Promised Land. This answers to the historic occasion we have assumed for the psalm, when a three years’ famine, as a judgment, had wasted the earth, and it is said: “After that God was entreated for the land.” 2Sa 21:14.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 29:8 The voice of the LORD shaketh the wilderness; the LORD shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.
Ver. 8. The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness ] i.e. The beasts abiding in the wildernesses; the most savage creatures, those that lie in woods, and are most fearless of men, are put to pain by thunder, and made to travail with trembling.
The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Kadesh: i.e. Kadesh-Naphtali, near Lebanon (Psa 29:6); not Kadeshbarnea.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
shaketh: Psa 18:7, Psa 46:3, Job 9:6, Isa 13:13, Joe 3:16, Hag 2:6, Hag 2:21, Heb 12:26
Kadesh: Num 13:26
Reciprocal: Gen 20:1 – Kadesh Num 20:1 – Kadesh
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
29:8 The voice of the LORD shaketh the wilderness; the LORD shaketh the wilderness of {f} Kadesh.
(f) In places most desolate, where it seems there is no presence of God.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
As the storm moved eastward into the wilderness area near Kadesh north of Damascus, it shook the earth. It made the deer give birth to their calves prematurely and blew the leaves off the trees. Consequently, all God’s angelic host glorified Him for His great power.
It is probably significant that the phrase "voice of the Lord" occurs seven times in Psa 29:3-9. The Israelites often regarded things done seven times as perfect acts of God, such as the creation that God accomplished in seven days.