Psalm 29:9














There are many productions of poets and poetesses, celebrating the grandeur of nature, and the glory of God as manifested in the works of his hands; but there are none which, even in a poetical point of view, surpass those in Job 26., 28., 38.; Isaiah 40.; Psalm 104., 19., 147., and that in the psalm before us now, which rises to the very noblest heights of Hebrew poetry, in its symmetry and grandeur. Bishop Perowne (who acknowledges his obligations to Ewald therein) has a most interesting introduction to this psalm, in which he points out the beauty of its structure, as in its grand description of a tempest it shows the storm at its height of majesty, and then in its subsidence to comparative calm. And, verily, even on this lower ground of poetic beauty, he would be by no means to be envied who could read it without a strange commingling of rapture, wonder, and awe. We seem to hear the roll of the ocean, to listen to the pealing thunder, to watch the flash of the lightning, the crashing of the trees of the forest, the heaving of the mountains, as if they were loosed from their foundations by an earthquake, Lebanon and Sirion leaping as wild creatures free from all restraint. But while it is to the descriptions of all this grandeur and majesty that some expositors chiefly call our attention, neither nature's grandeur nor majesty is the main topic of the psalm. By no means; but rather the glory of HIM whose dominion extendeth over all! In the eye of the psalmist, all the forces of nature are under one sceptre; that sceptre is wielded by one hand; that hand is moved by one heart, even that of our redeeming God. Such is the theme before us.

I. HERE POWER IN VARIED MANIFESTATIONS IS TRACED TO ONE SOURCE. There are five thoughts which are presented cumulatively.

1. Power in nature's works and wonders specially as shown in storm and tempest, lightning and thunder, earthquake and mountain wave. Note: The larger our knowledge of natural science, the more capable shall we be of discoursing with interest, delight, and profit to others on these "wonderful works of God."

2. Power in providential administration. (Ver. 10.) "The Lord sat enthroned at the flood." This word rendered "flood" is the one applied to the Deluge of Noah, and only so applied. Hence it seems to include the specific thought that over and above all merely natural disclosures of power, there is a moral enthronement, whereby natural phenomena are made subservient to moral ends. Not only is every atom kept in harness, but the collocation of atoms is subsidiary to the discipline of souls.

3. There is gracious loving-kindness towards his own people. (Ver. 11.) "His people." There are those in the world marked off from the rest by tokens known to God alone. They are his, having "made a covenant with him by sacrifice" (Psalm 50:5). And with reference to them, there is a grace marvellous in its tenderness. The same Being who can thunder most loudly can also whisper most sweetly, and can also give out blessings to his own.

(1) Strength (cf. Isaiah 40:31; 2 Corinthians 12:9; Psalm 27:14).

(2) Peace. While the fiercest storm is raging without, God can and does give us peace within; a peace which becomes richer and fuller, till it is exceedingly abundant "above all we can ask or think." It is "the peace of God, passing all understanding" (John 14:27; Philippians 4:6, 7; Romans 5:1; Ephesians 2:14).

4. He who thus rules in nature, providence, grace, is the everlasting King. (Ver. 10.) "King for ever! 'The sceptre of universal power will never drop from his hands, nor will he ever transfer it to another (Psalm 97:1). The hand that upholds all will never become weary. The eye that watches all will never droop with fatigue. The arms that clasp believers in their embrace will never relax their hold. The voice that whispers, "Peace!" will never be stilled in death. The love that enriches with blessing will never be chilled. "King for ever!"

5. He who is this everlasting King is our redeeming God. The usual term for God as the God of nature is "Elohim" (Genesis 1:1). But here we are reminded that the God who thunders in the heavens and controls the swelling seas; that he who guides the forked lightning, is "Jehovah," the "I am that I am," the Lord who has thus revealed himself to his people as their God. And the great Ruler of nature is he who exercises loving-kindness, righteousness, and judgment in the earth, in order that he that glorieth may glory in the Lord.

II. SUCH THOUGHTS OF GOD MAY WELL EVOKE GRATEFUL SONG. They know not how much of gladness and inspiration they lose who cannot see God everywhere. To see law everywhere and God nowhere would be enough to crush us. To see God everywhere working by law inspires rest and joy: our "Father is at the helm." Note: Since we have such disclosures of God, we have:

1. Unity in diversity. The seemingly complicated question of" the origin of force " is settled once for all by the man who sees God. And this privilege is reserved for "the pure in heart" (Matthew 5:8).

2. Since one God is over all, natural phenomena as well as providential incident may be made fuel for the religious life. A thunderstorm may aid worship.

3. Since one Being is the Origin of all kinds of force, prayer for natural blessings and temporal mercies is perfectly reasonable; e.g. prayer for rain. It is quite true that prayer and rain lie in totally distinct spheres. But since the same Being who hears one sends the other, the spheres find their unity at his throne.

4. Since the God who governs all is One whom we know, we may read and sing of glory under all circumstances and everywhere. (Ver. 9.) "In his temple every whir of it uttereth glory; "or, "In his temple every one says, Glory!" Yes; we may triumph everywhere since our God is "King for ever!"

5. Holy awe may well combine with triumph, and loyalty with praise. For God "sits enthroned" - such is the sublime figure suggested here. And "his people" though we are by grace, his absolute sovereignty must never be forgotten by us (ver. 2); ever must we give unto the Lord "the glory due unto his Name," and "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness" - in holy attire, even in the "fine linen which is the righteousness of saints" (Revelation 19:8), "having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water" (Hebrews 10:22).

6. Amid all natural convulsions and national upheavings, let confidence and hope remain undisturbed. "King for ever!" Then, however gloomy the outlook of events, nothing can happen beyond the bounds of Divine control, nothing which he cannot make subservient to the inbringing of his everlasting kingdom. "Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea" (Psalm 46:2). - C.

In His temple doth every one speak of His glory.
"In His temple everything saith Glory!" The temple of which the psalmist here speaks is the temple of Nature. He believed that every object in the visible universe was engaged in singing paeans of praise to its Creator — "fire and hail." Too many of us lack almost entirely this sixth sense, "the vision and the faculty divine;" we hear scarce a whisper of this great shout of praise that goes up from all creation. But in what sense does everything in Nature cry, Glory! In what sense does the material universe sing the praises of God? It does so, I doubt not, directly. For God's pleasure all things are and were created, and doubtless the incense which arises from Nature's altars, the songs which are chanted in her leafy aisles, the perfume of her flowers, the beauty of her landscapes, are as grateful to the Creator as man's acts of worship. "The trees clap their hands, and She little hills rejoice together before the Lord." But there is another sense in which natural objects praise God, and it is this we shall meditate upon; they awaken gratitude in the heart of man and thus transmute themselves into conscious praise. Man's soul is the great organ upon which Nature plays her anthems of praise; the five senses are the keys; and through the medium of this instrument every created thing in God's Temple crieth, Glory!

I. NATURE INCITES MAN TO PRAISE BY HER BEAUTY, Think of one or two of those myriad appeals to our admiration which Nature makes, and which, for the most part, go unregarded.

1. Reflect how God's glory reacheth unto the clouds. The clouds, perhaps more than all other objects in Nature, teach us the immanence of God, teach us how His presence may penetrate and transfigure even what is most commonplace and familiar. For what are clouds? When they rest on the surface of the earth they are just choking fogs and clinging mists disfiguring everything they touch. But raise them away into the purer strata of the air to which they rightly belong; let the wind churn them into flakes of snow, and the moon pierce them with its silver arrows; and the sun suffuse them with its golden ardours; let them become the womb of the lightning and the chariot of the storm — and they present such visions of glory as can be seen nowhere else. Thus God would teach us that evil is but good in its wrong place, and that the fogs and mists of earth's sins and sorrows are the substance out of which God will weave hereafter golden visions of ethereal beauty.

2. Think what praise we owe God for the loveliness of all watery forms with which He has robed and adorned the earth, and of which clouds are but a part. The brooklet seeks the river, and the river empties itself into the sea, and the sea sends aloft its multitude of clouds, and the clouds form themselves anew on the face of the earth. That which is part of a stagnant ditch to-day may be a radiant dewdrop tomorrow, and what is now a peaceful pool may anon be a part of the stormy ocean which writhes its white fingers in the shrouds of sinking ships. But whether in forms of sublimity or of tenderness, how varied is its loveliness, and how varied are the notes of praise it should educe from man. Think of it as the iceberg and the glacier; as the snow that robes the mountain, and the hoar-frost that bejewels the branches; as the foam ball upon the torrent and the dewdrop on the rose; as the cataract spanned by the rainbow, and the crystal pool, the mirror of the woods 1 And then, perceiving how beautiful these things are in themselves, and what a throb of gratitude they awaken in the heart of him who feels their beauty, you will be impelled to link the gratitude of conscious and unconscious nature together, and to cry with the psalmist, "All Thy works praise Thee, O God, and Thy saints give thanks unto Thee."

3. Whether we gaze downward at our feet, where God has covered the earth with a carpet of emerald, and embroidered it with flowers, and, lest we should weary of their colours, has decreed that they shall bloom and fade, and be succeeded by others, month by month, and season by season; or visit those mountain regions which are, as an eminent writer has said, "the great cathedrals of the earth, with their gates of rock, pavements of cloud, choirs of stream and stone, altars of snow, and vaults of purple traversed by the continual stars"; whether it be the lichen which softens the scarred ruin or the forest which clothes a mountain side which engages our attention; the insect which flutters its hour of sunshine and is gone, or the star whose light takes a thousand years to bridge the space between it and us — alike, if we have indeed ears to hear, shall we be impelled to confess that everything in God's temple crieth, "Glory!" — alike we shall declare with the psalmist, "Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through Thy works, and I will rejoice in giving praise for the operation of Thy hands."

II. NATURE INCITES US TO PRAISE BY HER BOUNTY. The beauty of those natural objects of which I have spoken appeals to our higher nature, but our lower nature also needs ministering to. "Man shall not live by bread alone," but without bread he cannot live at all. And, therefore, Nature awakens our gratitude by her material as well as her spiritual gifts. The clouds not only delight the eye; they are, as a psalmist calls them, "the river of God," and rain plenteousness on the earth. The flowers of the field do not merely charm us by their loveliness, they yield up to us their colours and their perfumes; they serve us with their seeds and their fibres; they give us medicine to heal our sickness. The oak, the pine, the cedar, and the ash are not only types of strength and gracefulness; they yield timber for the ships and rafters for the homestead. The mountains serve not only to sanctify and delight the human heart by their sublimity, they help to make the earth habitable by purifying the air and giving birth to the rivers; without them the ground would become stagnant morass and the atmosphere would breathe pestilence. The mighty ocean, which is, in calm, as a waving veil of iridescent colours, and in storm —

The mirror where th' Almighty's form

Glasses itself in tempests,

is also the helper of man, bearing on its bosom the argosies of many nations, and in its depths the harvest of the sea, without which the harvest of the land would be insufficient for our needs. All nature thus ministers to us —

The whole is either our cupboard of food,

Or cabinet of pleasure,

And, moreover, nothing is too insignificant to be serviceable. Says Dr. Macmillan: "Even the hoary lichen on the dusky rock, that has drunk ill all the hues of the spectrum and made no sign, yields, when artificially treated, its hidden store of colour, and produces a violet and golden hue not unworthy of the fairest garden flower."

III. NATURE INCITES TO PRAISE BY THE MORAL QUALITIES SHE EDUCES IN MAN. This is Nature's chief glory, her highest honour, that she is the instrument by which God educates human souls and fits them for their immortal destiny, For we are placed here under the discipline of Nature, and she is a severe task-mistress, from whom nothing is to be had for the mere asking. Nature exacts laborious toil in exchange for all her gifts. She hides her pearls in the depths of the sea, her gold in the sands of the river or the crevices of the rocks; she buries the metals, man's most useful allies, and the coal to smelt those metals, deep down in the heart of the earth; she secretes her balms and her subtle essences where even the cunning chemist can scarce track them. Her most powerful forces, such as electricity, are ever the most elusive and the hardest to be subdued. Everything man extorts from Nature he must win, not only by the sweat of his brow, but by the sweat of his brain. He wrestles with her for her blessing as Jacob wrestled with the angel at Penuel, till almost he seems crippled with the strain. But the conflict proves at last that as a prince he has power with God and has prevailed; he wins the blessing, and, lo! it is not only corn and oil and wine, but rich endowments of mind and heart as well. Think about it, and you will see that almost all the highest moral qualities of our race — patience, endurance, forethought, courage, mutual helpfulness — are the outcome of the necessity to work which Nature lays upon us.

(A. M. Mackay, B. A.)

I. The statement of this verse holds good when we consider THE TEMPLE OF THE UNIVERSE. In it everything says, Glory! The whole universe is, to the devout mind, as one huge sanctuary in which all things show forth the praise of their Creator. Incline your ears to listen, open your hearts to catch the sweet sounds, as flowers, and clouds, and beasts, and birds, rocks, hills and trees, declare that God is worthy to be praised! We must not let them sing alone. We'll take our key from them, and say, Glory, too.

II. IN THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM everything saith, Glory. I know that when this psalm was written the wondrous pile on Zion's hill had not been commenced. But it was already in David's heart to build it, and, for aught I know, some of the plans of the sacred premises were by this time in his hands. With a prophet's eye he foresaw the building of that holy Temple — its grace, and its grandeur. As Abraham saw Christ's day and was glad, so David, with a seer's vision, perceived the temple crowning Mount Moriah, and said of it, "In His temple everything saith, Glory."

III. We may refer this also to OUR BLESSED SAVIOUR, for Jesus called His body the Temple of God. I sometimes think that David, who already foresaw his greater Son, may have thought of Jesus when he said, "Everything in His Temple saith, Glory." A greater than the temple is here. Study Christ's life, and you will find that He lived to God's glory from first to last. At His birth the angels sang, "Glory to God in the highest." In His boyhood He must be about His Father's business, and all through life He did always the things that pleased Him. Everything about Christ, God's Temple, said, Glory: every word was to the praise of the Father, every work glorified Him upon the earth, every grace and characteristic reflected the glory of God the Father, for Christ was the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person. "Twas when He came to die that His body, broken for our sakes, said, Glory! loudest and most emphatically.

IV. Is CHRIST'S CHURCH EVERYTHING SAYS, GLORY. Oh, to get out of the set-Hess of our proprieties. "Everything in His temple saith, Glory."

V. This brings me to a still more personal matter, viz. THE TEMPLES OF OUR PERSONS. "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" Does everything in the temple say, Glory? Are all your powers devoted to the service of God? Are all the wondrous influences that you exercise employed to the praise of Jesus? Is the royal standard flying over every gate of Mansoul? Does it float above the citadel? Do our highest faculties of thought, and memory, and affection, and imagination, pay to God the homage that is due unto His Name? "The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever." Oh, for this full consecration, this entire surrender.

VI. Let me remind you of THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE to which, as the years fly past, we are hastening on. Oh, for a peep into the land of light. John helps us, for it was his privilege to gaze right into the Glory. There His servants serve Him day and night in His Temple. There the hearts of the redeemed sing out His praise, like the voice of many waters.

(T. Spurgeon.)

People
David, Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Bare, Birth, Calve, Cry, Deer, Discovereth, Forests, Glory, Hinds, Layeth, Leaves, Makes, Maketh, Oaks, Paineth, Roes, Says, Speak, Strippeth, Strips, Temple, Trees, Twists, Voice, Whirl
Outline
1. David exhorts princes to give glory to God
3. by reason of is power
11. and protection of his people

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 29:9

     4448   forests
     4528   trees

Psalm 29:3-9

     1193   glory, revelation of
     5196   voice

Library
March 25. "The Beauty of Holiness" (Ps. xxix. 2).
"The beauty of holiness" (Ps. xxix. 2). Some one remarked once that he did not know more disagreeable people than sanctified Christians. He probably meant people that only profess sanctification. There is an angular, hard, unlovely type of Christian character that is not true holiness; at least, not the highest type of it. It is the skeleton without the flesh covering; it is the naked rock without the vines and foliage that cushion its rugged sides. Jesus was not only virtuous and pure, but He was
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Note C. The Holiness of God.
There is not a word so exclusively scriptural, so distinctly Divine, as the word holy in its revelation and its meaning. As a consequence of this its Divine origin, it is a word of inexhaustible significance. There is not one of the attributes of God which theologians have found it so difficult to define, or concerning which they differ so much. A short survey of the various views that have been taken may teach us how little the idea of the Divine Holiness can be comprehended or exhausted by human
Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ

The Majestic Voice
"The God that rules on high, And thunders when he please, That rides upon the stormy sky And manages the seas; This awful God is ours, Our Father and our love, He shall send down his heavenly powers To carry us above." He is our God, and I like to sing that, and think of it: but there is something so terrible in the tone of that voice when God is speaking, something so terrific to other men, and humbling to the Christian, that he is obliged to sink very low in his own estimation; then he looks up
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856

A Song of the Temple
"In His Temple doth every one speak of His glory."--Ps. xxix. 9. R. Rolle, 1349. tr., Emma Frances Bevan, 1899 In Thy tabernacle, Lord, I offer Sacrifice of psalmody and song-- Thine uncounted mercies there recalling, Praising Thee with music sweet and strong. With a marvellous, a mighty gladness, For the love of Christ is shed abroad In the soul that is His holy temple, And she singeth therefore unto God. She ascends aloft to join the singing, Heard afar from God's Jerusalem-- [2] Blessed music
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series)

Of Meditation Upon the Hidden Judgments of God, that we May not be Lifted up Because of Our Well-Doing
Thou sendest forth Thy judgments against me, O Lord, and shakest all my bones with fear and trembling, and my soul trembleth exceedingly. I stand astonished, and remember that the heavens are not clean in thy sight.(1) If Thou chargest Thine angels with folly, and didst spare them not, how shall it be unto me? Stars have fallen from heaven, and what shall I dare who am but dust? They whose works seemed to be praiseworthy, fell into the lowest depths, and they who did eat Angels' food, them have
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

Appendix xvi. On the Jewish views About Demons' and the Demonised,' Together with Some Notes on the Intercourse Between Jews and Jewish Christians in the First Centuries.
IT is not, of course, our purpose here to attempt an exhaustive account of the Jewish views on demons' and the demonised.' A few preliminary strictures were, however, necessary on a work upon which writers on this subject have too implictly relied. I refer to Gfrörer's Jahrhundert des Heils (especially vol. i. pp. 378-424). Gfrörer sets out by quoting a passage in the Book of Enoch on which he lays great stress, but which critical inquiries of Dillmann and other scholars have shown to be
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

How the Preacher, when He Has Accomplished all Aright, Should Return to Himself, Lest Either his Life or his Preaching Lift Him Up.
But since often, when preaching is abundantly poured forth in fitting ways, the mind of the speaker is elevated in itself by a hidden delight in self-display, great care is needed that he may gnaw himself with the laceration of fear, lest he who recalls the diseases of others to health by remedies should himself swell through neglect of his own health; lest in helping others he desert himself, lest in lifting up others he fall. For to some the greatness of their virtue has often been the occasion
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Period ii. The Church from the Permanent Division of the Empire Until the Collapse of the Western Empire and the First Schism Between the East and the West, or Until About A. D. 500
In the second period of the history of the Church under the Christian Empire, the Church, although existing in two divisions of the Empire and experiencing very different political fortunes, may still be regarded as forming a whole. The theological controversies distracting the Church, although different in the two halves of the Graeco-Roman world, were felt to some extent in both divisions of the Empire and not merely in the one in which they were principally fought out; and in the condemnation
Joseph Cullen Ayer Jr., Ph.D.—A Source Book for Ancient Church History

The History Books
[Illustration: (drop cap T) Assyrian idol-god] Thus little by little the Book of God grew, and the people He had chosen to be its guardians took their place among the nations. A small place it was from one point of view! A narrow strip of land, but unique in its position as one of the highways of the world, on which a few tribes were banded together. All around great empires watched them with eager eyes; the powerful kings of Assyria, Egypt, and Babylonia, the learned Greeks, and, in later times,
Mildred Duff—The Bible in its Making

Exegetic.
(i) As of the De Spiritu Sancto, so of the Hexæmeron, no further account need be given here. It may, however, be noted that the Ninth Homily ends abruptly, and the latter, and apparently more important, portion of the subject is treated of at less length than the former. Jerome [472] and Cassiodorus [473] speak of nine homilies only on the creation. Socrates [474] says the Hexæmeron was completed by Gregory of Nyssa. Three orations are published among Basil's works, two on the creation
Basil—Basil: Letters and Select Works

Man's Chief End
Q-I: WHAT IS THE CHIEF END OF MAN? A: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever. Here are two ends of life specified. 1: The glorifying of God. 2: The enjoying of God. I. The glorifying of God, I Pet 4:4: That God in all things may be glorified.' The glory of God is a silver thread which must run through all our actions. I Cor 10:01. Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' Everything works to some end in things natural and artificial;
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Acceptable Sacrifice;
OR, THE EXCELLENCY OF A BROKEN HEART: SHOWING THE NATURE, SIGNS, AND PROPER EFFECTS OF A CONTRITE SPIRIT. BEING THE LAST WORKS OF THAT EMINENT PREACHER AND FAITHFUL MINISTER OF JESUS CHRIST, MR. JOHN BUNYAN, OF BEDFORD. WITH A PREFACE PREFIXED THEREUNTO BY AN EMINENT MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL IN LONDON. London: Sold by George Larkin, at the Two Swans without Bishopgates, 1692. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. The very excellent preface to this treatise, written by George Cokayn, will inform the reader of
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Peace
Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. I Pet 1:1. Having spoken of the first fruit of sanctification, assurance, I proceed to the second, viz., Peace, Peace be multiplied:' What are the several species or kinds of Peace? Peace, in Scripture, is compared to a river which parts itself into two silver streams. Isa 66:12. I. There is an external peace, and that is, (1.) (Economical, or peace in a family. (2.) Political, or peace in the state. Peace is the nurse of plenty. He maketh peace in thy borders,
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Among the People, and with the Pharisees
It would have been difficult to proceed far either in Galilee or in Judaea without coming into contact with an altogether peculiar and striking individuality, differing from all around, and which would at once arrest attention. This was the Pharisee. Courted or feared, shunned or flattered, reverently looked up to or laughed at, he was equally a power everywhere, both ecclesiastically and politically, as belonging to the most influential, the most zealous, and the most closely-connected religions
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

Links
Psalm 29:9 NIV
Psalm 29:9 NLT
Psalm 29:9 ESV
Psalm 29:9 NASB
Psalm 29:9 KJV

Psalm 29:9 Bible Apps
Psalm 29:9 Parallel
Psalm 29:9 Biblia Paralela
Psalm 29:9 Chinese Bible
Psalm 29:9 French Bible
Psalm 29:9 German Bible

Psalm 29:9 Commentaries

Bible Hub
Psalm 29:8
Top of Page
Top of Page