Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 77:17
The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad.
17. God came in storm and earthquake. So the poet develops the thought of Exo 14:24-25. Cp. Psa 18:7 ff; Psa 97:3 ff.; and the parallel passage in Hab 3:10-11, where tempest (R.V.) is the cognate substantive to the verb rendered poured out here.
sent out a sound ] Better (cp. Hab.), uttered a voice, i.e. thundered. God’s arrows are the flashes of lightning.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The clouds poured out water – Margin, The clouds were poured forth with water. The translation in the text is the more correct. This is a description of a storm; but to what particular storm in history does not appear. It was evidently some exhibition of the divine greatness and power in delivering the children of Israel, and may have referred to the extraordinary manifestation of God at Mount Sinai, amidst lightnings, and thunders, and tempests. Exo 19:16. For a general description of a storm, as illustrating this passage, see Job 36:26-33, notes; Job 37:1-5, notes; and Psa 29:1-11.
The skies sent out a sound – The voice of thunder, which seems to come from the sky.
Thine arrows also – The lightnings – compared with burning or ignited arrows. Such arrows were anciently used in war. They were bound round with rags, and dipped in some combustible substance – as turpentine – and shot into houses, grain-fields, haystacks, or towns, for the purpose of setting them on fire. It was not unnatural to compare the rapid lightnings with such blazing arrows.
Went abroad – They moved rapidly in all directions.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 17. The clouds poured out water] It appears from this that there was a violent tempest at the time of the passage of the Red Sea. There was a violent storm of thunder, lightning, and rain. These three things are distinctly marked here.
1. “The skies sent out a sound:” the THUNDER.
2. “Thine arrows went abroad:” the LIGHTNING.
3. “The clouds poured out water:” the RAIN. In the next verse we have,
4. An EARTHQUAKE: “The earth trembled and shook,” Ps 77:18.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The clouds poured out water, when the Israelites passed over the sea; in respect whereof the Israelites are said to have been baptized in the cloud (i.e. sprinkled with water poured forth from the clouds) and in the sea, 1Co 10:2.
Thine arrows; either hail-stones, or rather lightnings or thunder-bolts, which are called Gods arrows, Psa 18:14; 144:6.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
The clouds poured out water,…. This, with some other circumstances which follow, are not related by Moses in the history of this affair; but as they are here recorded by an inspired penman, there is no doubt to be made of the truth of them; besides Josephus a relates the same things; he says, that at the time when the Egyptians were drowned in the Red sea, rains descended from heaven, and there were terrible thunders, lightnings, and thunderbolts; this was when the Lord looked through the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians,
Ex 14:24,
the skies sent out a sound; or the airy clouds, the lighter ones, and which were higher in the heavens, as the others before mentioned were thick clouds, full of water, and hung lower; these were thunderclouds, and thunder is the sound which they sent forth, as in the following verse:
thine arrows also went abroad: that is, lightnings, as in
Ps 18:14, so Aben Ezra; but Kimchi interprets them of hailstones.
a Antiqu. l. 2. c. 16. sect. 3.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
17. The clouds poured out waters. As the noun מים, mayim, cannot be taken in the construct state, the verb, I have no doubt, is put transitively; but it makes little difference as to the sense, whether we take this view, or read as if מים, mayim, were in the construct state and the verb passive; that is, whether we read, The clouds poured out waters, or, The waters of the clouds were poured out. The meaning obviously is, that not only the sea and the river Jordan, but also the waters which were suspended in the clouds, yielded to God the honor to which he is entitled, the air, by the concussion of the thunder, having poured forth copious showers. The object is to show, that, to whatever quarter men turn their eyes, the glory of God is illustriously manifested, that it is so in every part of creation, above and beneath, from the height of heaven to the depths of the sea. What history is here referred to is involved in some degree of uncertainty. (304) Perhaps it is that which is recorded in Exo 9:23; where we are informed, that hail mingled with thunder and lightning was one of the dreadful plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians. The arrows which went abroad are, no doubt, to be taken metaphorically for lightnings. With this verse we are to connect the following, in which it is said, that the voice of the thunder was heard in the air, and that the lightnings illumined the world, so that the earth trembled The amount is, that at the departure of the people from Egypt, ample testimony was borne to the power of God, both to the eyes and the ears of men; peals of thunder having been heard in every quarter of the heavens, and the whole sky having shone with flashes of lightning, while at the same time the earth was made to tremble.
(304) As in the three preceding verses the deliverance of the chosen people from Egypt, and the drying up of the Red Sea, to make a way for them to pass through, are the subjects celebrated, it is very natural to suppose that the 17 and 18 verses refer to the tempestuous rain, the thunder, lightning, and earthquake, by which God testified his wrath against the Egyptians, and by which that ruthless host were filled with dismay, when they went into the midst of the Red Sea after the Israelites. Of these particular circumstances, we have indeed no distinct information in the narrative of Moses; but from a comparison of what is here stated, with what is said in Exo 14:24, “And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians,” it seems highly probable that they took place on that occasion. With this corresponds the representation given by Josephus of this part of Jewish History. “As soon as ever the whole Egyptian army was within it, the sea flowed to its own place, and came down with a torrent raised by storms of wind, and encompassed the Egyptians. Showers of rain also came down from the sky, and dreadful thunders and lightning, with flashes of fire. Thunder-bolts also were darted upon them; nor was there any thing which used to be sent by God upon men, as indications of his wrath, which did not happen at that time; for a dark and dismal night oppressed them.” — Antiquities of the Jews, Book II. chapter 16, section 3.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
17. The clouds poured out water The rain refers to the desert life of the people, not to the passage of the Red Sea, which was not in a thunderstorm. Psa 68:7-9, where see note.
A sound Thunder.
Arrows Lightnings. A beautiful poetic conception. Psa 77:18; Hab 3:11; Psa 18:14
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 77:17 The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad.
Ver. 17. The clouds poured out water, the skies, &c. ] Calvin taketh this to be a description of that hideous tempest, Exo 9:18-26 , the seventh plague of Egypt. But others with more probability hold, that the prophet here hath respect to that very time mentioned in the former verse, when the Lord looked upon the host of the Egyptians out of the fiery and cloudy pillar, and so troubled and turmoiled them with stormy tempests, that their chariot wheels fell off, and themselves sank as lead in the mighty waters, Exo 14:24-25 ; Exo 15:10 . Of these terrible tempests mention is made also by Justin.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
clouds = the thick or dark clouds.
arrows. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Adjunct), App-6, for lightnings, mentioned below.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
poured out like water, Heb. were poured forth with water, Psa 68:8, Psa 68:9
thine: Psa 18:14, Psa 144:6, 2Sa 22:15, Hab 3:11
Reciprocal: Jos 10:11 – the Lord Jdg 5:4 – dropped Jdg 5:20 – fought Psa 68:33 – his voice Eze 10:5 – the voice Zec 9:14 – his
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
77:17 The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a {l} sound: thine arrows also went abroad.
(l) That is, thundered and lightninged.