Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 107:29
He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
He maketh the storm a calm – God does this, and God only can do it. The fact, therefore, that Jesus did it Mat 8:26, proves that he was divine. There can be no more striking proof of divine power than the ability to calm the raging waves of the ocean by a word. This is literally, He places the tempest to silence.
So that the waves thereof are still – Are lulled. The ocean ceases to be agitated, and the surface becomes smooth. Nothing is more still than the ocean in a calm. Not a breath of air seems to stir; not a ripple agitates the surface of the sea; the sails of the vessel hang loose, and even the vessel seems to be perfectly at rest: As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. So God can calm down the tempest of the soul. He can make the mind which was heaving and tossed, like the ocean, with anguish on account of guilt, and which trembled in view of the coming judgment, as calm as the ocean is when in its state of perfect repose. God can do this, and none but God can do it; and as Jesus thus stills the agitation of the guilty soul, as he did the waves of the sea, this proves also that he is divine.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 29. He maketh the storm a calm] He causes the storm to stand dumb, and hushes the waves. See the original, where sense and sound emphatically meet: –
galleyhem vaiyecheshu lidemamah searah yakem
He shall cause the whirlwind to stand dumb, and he shall hush their billows.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
29-32. He maketh . . . calmor,”to stand to stillness,” or “in quiet.” Insteadof acts of temple-worship, those of the synagogue are here described,where the people with the
assemblyor session ofelders, convened for reading, singing, prayer, and teaching.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He maketh the storm a calm,…. As Christ did by a word speaking, Mr 4:39.
So that the waves thereof are still; and roar and toss no more, but subside; and the sea becomes smooth and quiet, its raging ceases: the angry sea, as Horace p calls it, becomes calm and peaceable; see
Ps 89:9.
p “Nec horret iratum mare”, Horat. Epod. Ode 2. v. 6. “Nec maris ira manet”, Ovid. Metamorph. l. 12. Fab. 7.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
29. He maketh the storm a calm A profane author, in narrating the history of such an event, would have said, that the winds were hushed, and the raging billows were calmed; but the Spirit of God, by this change of the storm into a calm, places the providence of God as presiding over all; thereby meaning, that it was not by human agency that this violent commotion of the sea and wind, which threatened to subvert the frame of the world, was so suddenly stilled. When, therefore, the sea is agitated, and boils up in terrific fury, as if wave were contending with wave, whence is it that instantly it is calm and peaceful, but that God restrains the raging of the billows, the contention of which was so awful, and makes the bosom of the deep as smooth as a mirror? (286) Having spoken of their great terror, he proceeds next to mention their joy, so that their ingratitude may appear the more striking, if they forget their remarkable deliverance. For they are not in want of a monitor, having been abundantly instructed by the storm itself, and by the calm which ensued, that their lives were in the hand and under the protection of God. Moreover, he informs them that this is a species of gratitude which deserves not only to be acknowledged privately, or to be mentioned in the family, but that it should be praised and magnified in all places, even in the great assemblies. He makes specific mention of the elders, intimating that the more wisdom and experience a person has, the more capable is he of listening to, and being a witness of, these praises.
(286) Among the circumstances selected by the prophet in this striking description of a storm at sea, God’s agency, both in raising and calming it, is not to be overlooked. He is introduced as first causing, by His omnipotent command, the tempest to sweep over the ocean, whose billows are thus made to rise in furious agitation mountains high: and, again, as hushing the winds into a calm, and allaying the agitation of the waves. The description would be utterly mutilated were the special reference to the Divine power in such phenomena omitted. “How much more comfortable, as well as rational, is the system of the Psalmist, than the Pagan scheme in Virgil, and other poets, where one deity is represented as raising a storm, and another as laying it. Were we only to consider the sublime in this piece of poetry, what can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being, thus raising a tumult among the elements, and recovering them out of their confusion, thus troubling and becalming nature?” — Spectator, Number 485.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Psa 107:29. He maketh the storm a calm He maketh the storm to stand in silence. Mudge.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 107:29 He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
Ver. 29. He maketh the storm a calm ] “He,” that is, God Almighty, whose the sea is, and he made it, Psa 95:5 ; not the Pagans Neptune, or the papagans’ St Nicholas.
So that the waves thereof are still
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 65:7, Psa 89:9, Jon 1:15, Mat 8:26, Mar 4:39-41, Luk 8:23-25
Reciprocal: Ecc 1:6 – The wind Jon 1:6 – arise Mat 14:32 – come Joh 3:8 – wind