May 3rdLord of the Storm
From one perspective, it may seem that the poet who composed Psalm 29 was an ancient version of what we might today call a storm-chaser. Or maybe it was inspired by a thunderstorm David experienced as he camped out at night tending his father’s sheep?
Psalm 29 is an ode to a thunderstorm. But this poem is not just that. The primary aim here is to move through the storm to the Lord of the storm, to the King of Creation, to the one, only true, sovereign God: Yahweh. As such, Psalm 29, for all its lyrical and poetic beauty, is actually a fairly feisty argument against Israel’s neighbours and their worship of Baal who was the Canaanite god of thunderstorms.
I remember - our now - 20 year-old granddaughter as a young girl and her reaction to thunderstorms. She sought comfort in her Ina’s lap as the sky roiled and rumbled. Ina and Papa were her ‘security blanket’ in the midst of the storm.
The psalmist asserts that the God of Israel is the One who creates all those wonders. This is the only Old Testament text that so extensively identifies God directly with what people today might call “natural phenomena.” The thunder simply is the voice of God, the lightning just is the strike of God’s voice, the wind is the effective speech of God that is so stunning, it twists even the mightiest of oaks the way a child might mold Playdoh.
But the psalmist is careful not to identify God as the storm. No, this God is seen as seated in glory on his throne above it all. Though something of God’s (Yahweh’s) glory and strength can be seen in the storm, all of that is at best but the faintest of hints as to Yahweh’s true grandeur. It is almost as though the psalmist points to the magnificence of the storm and then says, “If you think that’s something, you ought to consider the God who doesn’t even break a sweat in producing such wonders!”
To keep the ultimate focus on God, this psalm begins and ends with pairs of verses that direct us to think about Yahweh. Verses 1 and 2 open the psalm with a call to render Yahweh alone glory.
1 Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name;
worship the Lord in holy splendour.
Then in conclusion verses 10 and 11 redirect us to the heavenly court of Yahweh, where God rules as the supreme King.
10 The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord sits enthroned as king for ever.
11 May the Lord give strength to his people!
May the Lord bless his people with peace!
Thunderstorms are incredible meteorological phenomena. Even as you read these words, there are likely upwards of 2,000 thunderstorms going on across the earth. On average, each day 45,000 such storms occur. They are among the most powerful forces we know. The forces within these thunderstorms also give rise to lightning (which actually cause the sound of thunder) which is itself amazing. Lasting only 30 microseconds, energy from a lightning channel heats the air briefly to around 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, much hotter than the surface of the sun! AMAZING! [National Severe Storms Lab online]
But note, the last Hebrew word of Psalm 29 is shalom. This is not “peace and quiet” but rather the peace that passes all understanding. This is the inner peace you get when you know that all is right with the world, the sense that all is well. All is well and all will be well because Yahweh God sits enthroned as the Lord even of the storm.
Last week driving down McOrmond Drive we were passed by a truck with markings identifying it as the Tornado Hunter. For an interview, see below.