So I was looking through the bible verse of the day websites, and I found a verse I liked in the Psalms, and then just started reading other psalms. I came upon Psalm 29 and thought it was very interesting, and felt the need to share my thoughts on it.
The first verse is what caught my eye. It says “Ascribe to the Lord, O mighty ones, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.” Now I’ll admit, I didn’t know what ascribe meant, so I looked it up. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary app, ascribe means “to refer to a supposed cause, source, or author.”
What I get from that in accordance to the verse is that we are to give God all the glory and strength. The verse mentions “mighty ones” in it, and I think what David means is anyone who has God in their hearts. God makes us mighty people when we follow Him. The verse also says “ascribe to the Lord” twice, to reinforce David’s point I think.
Verse 2 goes on to say “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.” I really like how David puts “due his name.” God really deserves an enormous amount of respect. You don’t really think too much about respecting God too much, cuz it’s almost a given. But it’s something to think about though: are we giving God the respect He deserves? Everything that we do is because of what He has done, so we should always refer to God for everything. God is ever so holy, so we should worship Him above all things. Actually to me, I feel that giving God the credit for something you’ve just done is a form of worship. We should always be giving God the credit, and by doing so, we are worshiping Him in all His splendor.
Verses 1 and 2 go together, while I feel verse 3 kind of stands out by itself. It reads, “The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.” It’s kind of a mysterious yet intriguing thing to think about the voice of God. According to the verse, God’s voice is everywhere, in particular over the waters. I like to think of the movie “The Perfect Storm” in this verse. There were some ginormous waves and just ever so powerful and roaring waters just crashing over the boat. And to think, the voice of God is even bigger and louder than that. You’d never think to hear his voice in that noise, but if God spoke then, you would definitely be able to hear it. Or even if it’s not volume loud, a thought in your head can drown out everything around you. I just think that’s pretty interesting and awesome.
Verse 4 I think reinforces verse 3 while also adding to it. It reads, “The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic.” In verse 3 we figured out that God’s voice is most definitely powerful, but now we read that it’s also majestic. There are quite a few animals that could fit that description; powerful yet majestic. Whales, big cats, horses, those are what I could come up with. These animals are capable of destruction and power. Yet when you look at them just swimming or running around, you just want to say wow how majestic. Well maybe you don’t, but just imagine you do at least. This is the same thing with God’s voice. It’s extremely powerful, yet very majestic, and you’re just in awe of hearing it.
Verses 5 and 6 go together, and they are, “The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, Sirion like a young wild ox.” I’ll admit, I had to look some of this up, cuz I didn’t really understand it. But from what I’ve read, cedars just refers to the trees. And the cedars of Lebanon are a bunch of trees, but I guess this particular forest in Lebanon is especially abundant and full. I feel that this big forest could apply to any big forest really. Just think of a forest that you think to be really big and dense and not easily torn apart. Well God’s voice has the ability to tear through it if need be. God makes these places just shiver, almost like a giant earthquake is how I picture this. Instead of plate tectonics making the earth move and crumble, it’s the voice of God.
This verse I think ties in well with verses 7-9. They read, “The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert; the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. And in his temple all cry, ‘Glory!'”
Verse 7 is just really short, only one sentence, but yet holds so much in it. Lightning is always considered powerful and can be destructive, but also very marvelous to watch. To think God’s voice is like lightning almost brings shivers, both from fear and excitement. Going on to verses 8 and 9, I go back to verses 5 and 6. It’s almost the same thing really, just giving another example I guess you could say. God’s voice is like an earthquake that can just destroy everything. I think also of an extreme wind that flow through a forest ripping leaves and bark from all the trees. Just powerful stuff going on here really.
I really like the latter half of verse 9, with everyone in God’s temple shouting “Glory!” To think that God has the power to destroy everything in His path with His voice is just stunning and also somewhat scary. But while His voice is extremely powerful and destructive to everything, it’s also majestic. It is elegant and beautiful to behold, therefore you just want to shout “Glory!”
The last two verses, verses 10 and 11 go together visually, but I feel they are separate. Verse 10 reads, “The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord is enthroned as King forever.”
This is interesting, as David is comparing God’s voice to a flood. When God speaks, it’s just a flood covering all the earth. But the best part is when the whole earth is covered and nothing is to be scavenged, God sits on top of it all as ruler. It doesn’t matter what He covered up, what matters is that God is on top of it all and is our one and only King. We are to put all our focus on Him and not worry about anything else.
Verse 11 is the ending and I think almost puts a twist on the psalm. It reads, “The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.”
Ok now this is my interpretation, but I feel that all this stuff happening about power and destruction isn’t actually happening. I feel that it’s what feels like is happening. God gives us strength, and to give us strength, he speaks to us. It could be just a simple conversation with someone, or like an actual miracle that happened.
When we get this feeling that wow I feel God is speaking to me, and I am now filled with strength, this psalm applies. Like for me, I feel that if I am in need of help, and I ask God for it, everything seems to stop. At this moment in time that I am asking God for help, I am giving Him all of me. God wants to help me and will stop everything in my life so that I get His message. For all I care, the earth could be completely destroyed and underwater, but it doesn’t matter. God has given me strength and peace.
I don’t know if this makes sense to anyone. Like the way I see it, I’ve never actually heard God’s voice and been on this earth as it’s being destroyed as this psalm is expressing. But I have received strength and peace from God, and I have gotten these things because God is all powerful and mighty. It goes back to the first two verses. We are to worship God by giving Him the glory and praise. God is everywhere, and He speaks to us through all of His creation. By giving God the credit for everything, and only focusing on Him, we are instilling a relationship with Him that is unbreakable.
God’s voice is everywhere, and is powerful enough to destroy the earth. Another way to think of it is when you’re conversing with God, the world around you just fades away. God is speaking to you, so nothing else matters. He is the ruler over all, and our focus should only be on Him. So when He speaks to us, His voice just destroys the earth around us so that we may not be distracted by it. This might not be even close to what David originally meant, or it could be spot on. This is just my interpretation of this passage.
I think this psalm is also directing us to fear God. He is ever so powerful and can destroy the earth in less than a second. But he destroys the earth for us all the time so that we may be more focused on Him and give Him all the credit. His destroying the earth is a beautiful thing. As we are focused on God, He gives us strength and peace. So basically, we are to refer to God’s ever so powerful voice to lift us up and gain strength and peace.
In other words, Ascribe to the Voice of the Lord! 🙂
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