thundereth: the Lord is upon many waters.”_ Yes, great God, these
torrents of tears which flow down from my eyes announce thy divine
presence in my soul. This heart hitherto so dry, so arid, so hard; this
rock which thou hast struck a second time, will not resist thee any
longer, for out of it there now gushes healthful waters in abundance.
The selfsame voice of God which overturns the mountains, thunders,
lightens, and divides the heaven above the sinner, now commands the
clouds to pour forth showers of blessings, changing the desert of his
soul into a field producing a hundredfold; that voice I hear.—_J. B.
Massillon._
_Verses 3-10.—“The Lord,”_ etc. All things which we commonly say are the
effects of the natural powers of matter and laws of motion, are, indeed
(if we will speak strictly and properly), the effects of God’s acting
upon matter continually and at every moment, either immediately by
himself, or mediately by some created intelligent being. Consequently
there is no such thing as the cause of nature, or the power of
nature.—_Samuel Clarke_,[2] 1675-1729.
_Verses 3-10._—
The voice of the Lord on the ocean is known,
The God of eternity thundereth abroad;
The voice of the Lord from the depth of his throne
Is terror and power;—all nature is awed.
The voice of the Lord through the calm of the wood
Awakens its echoes, strikes light through its caves,
The Lord sitteth King on the turbulent flood,
The winds are his servants, his servants the waves.
_James Montgomery_, 1771-1854.
_Verses 3-11._—
Messiah’s voice is in the cloud,
The God of glory thunders loud.
Messiah rides along the floods,
He treads upon the flying clouds.
Messiah’s voice is full of power,
His lightnings play when tempests lower.
Messiah’s voice the cedars breaks,
While Lebanon’s foundation quakes.
Messiah’s voice removes the hills,
And all the plains with rivers fills.
The voice of their expiring God,
Shall make the rocks to start abroad;
Mount Zion and Mount Sirion,
Shall bound along with Lebanon:
The flames of fire shall round him wreathe,
When he shall on the ether breathe.
Messiah’s voice shall shake the earth,
And, lo! the graves shall groan in birth,
Ten thousand thousand living sons
Shall be the issue of their groans.
The peace of God, the gospel sounds;
The peace of God, the earth rebounds;
The gospel everlasting shines
A light from God that ne’er declines.
This is the light Jehovah sends,
To bless the world’s remotest ends.
_Barclays Paraphrase._
_Verse 4.—“The voice of the Lord.”_ These vehement repetitions resemble
a series of thunder-claps; one seems to hear the dread artillery of
heaven firing volley after volley, while peal on peal the echo follows
the sound.—_C. H. S._
_Verse 4.—“The voice of the Lord is powerful.”_ I would render unto God
the glory due unto his name, for the admirable change which he has
wrought in my heart. There was nothing to be found in me but an impious
hardness and inveterate disorder. From this helpless state he changed me
into a new man and made resplendent the glory of his name and the power
of his grace. He alone can work such prodigies. Unbelievers who refuse
to acknowledge the hand of God in creation must surely in this case
admit, that “this is the finger of God.” Yes, great God, chaos knows not
how to resist thee, it hears thy voice obediently, but the obdurate
heart repels thee, and thy mighty voice too often calls to it in vain.
Thou art not so great and wonderful in creating worlds out of nothing as
thou art when thou dost command a rebel heart to arise from its abyss of
sin, and to run in the ways of thy commandments. To disperse a chaos of
crime and ignorance by the majesty of thy word, to shed light on the
direst darkness, and by the Holy Ghost to establish harmonious order
where all was confusion, manifests in far greater measure thine
omnipotence than the calling forth of heavenly laws and celestial suns
from the first chaos.—_J. B. Massillon._
_Verse 4._—O may the evangelical “Boanerges” so cause the glorious sound
of the gospel to be heard under the whole heaven, that the world may
again be made sensible thereof; before that voice of the Son of Man,
which hath so often called sinners to repentance, shall call them to
judgment.—_George Horne._
_Verse 4._—Where the word of a king is, there is power, but what
imperial voice shall be likened unto the majestic thunder of the
Lord?—_C. H. S._
_Verse 5.—“The voice of Jehovah.”_ Philosophers think not that they have
reasoned skilfully enough about inferior causes, unless they separate
God very far from his works. It is a diabolical science, however, which
fixes our contemplations on the works of nature, and turns them away
from God. If any one who wished to know a man, should take no notice of
his face, but should fix his eyes only on the points of his nails, his
folly might justly be derided. But far greater is the folly of those
philosophers, who, out of mediate and proximate causes, weave themselves
vails lest they should be compelled to acknowledge the hand of God,
which manifestly displays itself in his works.—_John Calvin._
_Verse 5.—“The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars,”_ etc. Like as
tempests when they arise, and lightning, quickly and in a trice, hurl
down and overturn mountains and the highest trees; even so doth the Lord
bring down with a breakneck fall, the proud, haughty, arrogant, and
insolent, who set themselves against God, and seek the spoil of those
that be quiet and godly.—_Robert Cawdray._
_Verse 5.—“The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars.”_ The ancient
expositors remind us that the _breaking_ of the _cedar trees_ by the
wind, is a figure of the laying low of the lofty and proud things of
this world, by the rushing mighty wind of the Holy Spirit, given on that
day. _Confringit cedros Deus, hoc est humiliat superbos._ (S. Jerome,
and so S. Basil.)—_Christopher Wordsworth._
_Verse 5.—“The Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.”_—What a shame is it
then that our hard hearts break not, yield not, though thunder-struck
with the dreadful menaces of God’s mouth!—_John Trapp._
_Verse 5.—“Breaketh the cedars of Lebanon:”_—
When high in air the pine ascends,
To every ruder blast it bends.
The palace falls with heavier weight,
When tumbling from its airy height;
And when from heaven the lightning flies.
It blasts the hills that proudest rise.
_Horace, translated by Philip Francis, D.D._, 1765.
_Verse 5.—“The cedars of Lebanon.”_ These mighty trees of God, which for
ages have stood the force of the tempest, rearing their ever-green
colossal boughs in the region of everlasting snow, are the first objects
of the fury of the lightning, which is well known to visit first the
highest objects.—_Robert Murray M’Cheyne._
_Verse 6.—“He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion
like a young unicorn;”_ that is, the Lord by his thundering, powerful
voice, first, will make them skip, as frighted with fear; and secondly,
as revived with joy. Yet more (verse 7), “_The voice of the Lord
divideth the flames of fire_;” that is, will send and divide to every
one as they need (1 Cor. xii. 11), the Holy Spirit, who is compared to
and called _fire_ (Matt. iii. 11), and who came as with a thunder-storm
_of a rushing mighty wind_, and with the appearance of _cloven tongues,
like as of fire_, and sat upon each one of the apostles. Acts ii. 2, 3.
Nor did this voice of thunder, accompanied with divided flames of fire
reach Jerusalem only; for, as it follows (verse 8), “_The voice of the
Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of
Kadesh_;” that is, the Lord by the voice of the gospel shall go forth
with power to those Gentiles, who are like a wilderness, barren of
goodness, and unmanured in spirituals, though they dwell in
well-governed cities, and are well furnished with morals. It shall go
forth also to those Gentiles who inhabit waste wildernesses, and are not
so much as reduced to civility. These wildernesses, the thundering voice
of the Lord hath shaken heretofore, and doth shake at this day, and will
yet further shake, that the fulness of the Gentiles may come in. Many of
these wildernesses hath the Lord turned into fruitful fields, and
pleasant lands, by the voice of the gospel sounding among them. For in
these wildernesses (as it followeth, verse 9), “_The voice of the Lord
maketh the hinds to calve_;” that is, they that were as wild, as
untaught, and untamed as the _hind_, or any beast in the forest, he
brings to the sorrows of their new birth, to repentance and gospel
humiliation, and in doing this, “_he_ (as the Psalmist goes on),
_discovereth the forests_;” that is, opens the hearts of men, which are
as thick set and full grown with vanity, pride, hypocrisy, self-love,
and self-sufficiency, as also with wantonness and sensuality, as any
forest is overgrown with thickets of trees and bushes, which deny all
passage through, till cleared away with burning down or cutting up. Such
an opening, such a discovery, doth the Lord make in the forests of men’s
hearts, by the sword and fire, that is, by the word and spirit of the
gospel; and when all this is done, the forest becomes a _temple_, and as
that verse concludes, “_In his temple doth every one speak of his
glory_.” And if the _floods_ of ungodliness rise up against this people,
whom the thunder and lightning of the gospel have subdued to Christ, and
framed into a holy temple, then the Psalmist assureth us (verse 10),
“_The Lord sitteth upon the flood_,” that is, ’tis under his power, he
ruleth and overruleth it; “_Yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever_;” and
(verse 11), “_The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will
bless his people with peace_.” Thus, the Lord “thundereth marvellously”
(Job xxxvii. 5), and these are glorious marvels which he thundereth; he
converts sinners.
Thus, though I like not their way who are given to allegorise the
Scriptures, yet I doubt not but we may make a profitable use of this and
many other Scriptures by way of allegory. This being an undeniable
truth, which is the ground of it—that the Lord puts forth, as it were,
the power of thunder and lightning in the preaching of his Word; these
two things are to be marked.—_Joseph Caryl._
_Verse 6.—“He maketh them also to skip like a calf.”_ That is to say, he
hath made the splinters and broken pieces of trees that have been struck
with lightning, to fly up into the air, or when they have been shaken by
the wind, storms, or by earthquakes.—_John Diodati._
_Verse 6._—The original is—
“And makes them skip like a calf,
Lebanon and Sirion, like a young buffalo.”
At first sight it might appear that the cedars were still meant, and
that Lebanon and Sirion were used by metonymy for the cedars which grew
upon them. But, 1. We never hear of cedars growing upon Sirion, or
Shenir, or Hermon, for it has all these names; and, 2. There is a
parallel passage where this interpretation will hardly answer in Psalm
cxiv. Describing the exodus of Israel, it says—
“The mountains skipped like rams,
And the little hills like lambs.”
The same verb occurs here, the verb which means “to skip, to dance,”
used in Nahum iii. 2, to signify the jolting of chariots, and also in
Joel ii. 5. In both these instances, rough motion, accompanied with
noise, seems intended. Now, though this may very well be understood as a
highly figurative description, as it undoubtedly is, of the usual
effects of a thunder-storm; yet it is interesting to compare it with the
following passage of Volney, which describes certain phenomena as
frequent in Mount Lebanon, which may give a new meaning to the
“_skipping of the mountains_:”—
“When the traveller,” says he, “penetrates the interior of these
mountains, the ruggedness of the roads, the steepness of the
declivities, the depth of the precipices, have at first a terrific
effect; but the sagacity of the mules which bear him soon inspires him
with confidence, and enables him to examine at his ease the picturesque
scenes which succeed one another, so as almost to bewilder him. There,
as in the Alps, he sometimes travels whole days to arrive at a spot
which was in sight when he set out. He turns, he descends, he winds
round, he climbs; and under the perpetual change of position, one is
ready to think that a magical power is varying at every step the
beauties of the landscapes. Sometimes villages are seen, ready as it
were to slide down the deep declivities, and so disposed that the roofs
of the one row of houses serve as a street to the row above. At another
time, you see a convent seated on an isolated cone, like Marshaia in the
valley of Tigré. Here a rock is pierced by a torrent, forming a natural
cascade as at _Nahr-el-Leban_; there another rock assumes the appearance
of a natural wall! Often on the sides, ledges of stones, washed down and
left by the waters, resemble ruins disposed by art. In some places, the
waters meeting with inclined beds, have undermined the intermediate
earth, and have formed caverns, as at Nahr-el-Kelb, near Antoura. In
other places, they have worn for themselves subterranean channels,
through which flow little rivulets during part of the year, as at Mar
Hama. Sometimes these picturesque circumstances have become tragical
ones. Rocks loosened or thrown off their equilibrium by thaw or
earthquake, have been known to precipitate themselves on the adjacent
dwellings, and crush the inhabitants. An accident of this kind, about
twenty years ago, buried a whole village near Mar Djordos, so as to
leave no trace of its existence. More recently, and near the same spot,
the soil of a hill planted with mulberry trees and vines detached itself
by a sudden thaw, and, sliding over the surface of the rock which it had
covered, like a vessel launched from the stocks, established itself
entire in the valley below,”—_Robert Murray M’Cheyne._
_Verse 7.—“The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.”_ By the
power of God, the “_flames of fire_” are “_divided_” and sent abroad
from the clouds upon the earth, in the terrible form of lightning, that
sharp and glittering sword of the Almighty, which no substance can
withstand. The same power of God goeth forth by his word, “quick and
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,” penetrating, melting,
enlightening, and inflaming the hearts of men. Acts ii. 3, Heb. iv.
12.—_George Horne._
_Verse 7.—“The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.”_ The
voice of the Lord is here said to _divide the flames_; literally, _to
hew out flames_, λατομεῖν φλόγας. The _Sept._ has διακόπτει φλόγα πυρός.
In the words of Gesenius, “The voice of Jehovah _cutteth out flames_ of
fire, _i.e._, sendeth out divided flames of fire.” This is (as Theodoret
has observed) very descriptive of the divine action at Pentecost,
sending forth _divided flames_, like “_tela trisulca_,” in the tongues
of fire which were divided off from one heavenly source or fountain of
flame, and sat upon the heads of the apostles, and which filled them
with the fire of holy zeal and love.—_Christopher Wordsworth._
_Verse 7.—“Divideth the flames of fire.”_ Marg., _cutteth out_. The
Hebrew word חֹצֵב _khatzab_ means properly _to cut, to hew, to hew out_;
as for example, stones. The allusion here is undoubtedly to lightning;
and the image is either that it seems to be cut out, or cut into tongues
and streaks—or, more probably, that the _clouds_ seem to be cut or
hewed, so as to make openings or paths for the lightning. The eye is
evidently fixed on the clouds, and on the sudden flash of lightning, as
if the clouds had been _cleaved_ or _opened_ for the passage of it. The
idea of the Psalmist is, that the “_voice of the Lord_,” or the thunder,
seems to cleave or open the clouds for the flames of fire to play amidst
the tempest.—_Albert Barnes._
_Verse 8.—“The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.”_ That
Kadesh-Naphtali is meant, the geographical position of Lebanon would
make us believe, though this is not necessary. And, although Syria is
much exposed to earthquakes—as, for example, that of Aleppo, in 1822,
which was sensibly felt at Damascus—yet it does not seem necessary to
imagine anything farther than the usual effects of a thunder-storm. The
_oaks and forests_ of verse 9, suit well with the description given of
the lower limbs of Lebanon, which abound in “thickets of myrtle, woods
of fir, walnut trees, carob trees, and Turkish oaks.” And the
_rain-torrent_ of verse 10 is admirably descriptive of the sudden swell
of the thousand streams which flow from Lebanon. According to modern
travellers, the number of water-courses descending from Lebanon is
immense; and the suddenness of the rise of these streams may be gathered
from the contradictions in their accounts. The Nahr-el-Sazib is
described by one as “a rivulet, though crossed by a bridge of six
arches;” by another it is called “a large river.” The Damour (the
ancient Tamyras), which flows immediately from Lebanon, is “a river,”
says Mandrell, “apt to swell much upon sudden rains; in which case,
precipitating itself from the mountains with great rapidity, it has been
fatal to many a passenger.” He mentions a French gentleman, M. Spon,
who, a few years before, in attempting to ford it, was hurried down by
the stream, and perished in the sea. This is one instance of very many
in the mountains of Lebanon, where the brook, which is usually nearly
dry, becomes all at once an impassable torrent. When Volney looked upon
the rivers of Syria in summer, he doubted whether they could be called
rivers. But had he ventured to cross them after a thunder-storm, his
scepticism would no longer have had room or time to exercise itself, and
he would have felt the propriety of the Psalmist’s painting, where he
says—
“Jehovah sitteth on the rain-torrents,
Jehovah sitteth a King for ever.”
_Robert Murray M’Cheyne._
_Verse 8.—“The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness.”_ Great God, I
have laboured to escape thee! I sought refuge for my remorse in a
retreat where nothing might recall me to my God. Far away from the
succours of religion, remote from all the channels which bring to me the
waters of grace, apart from all whose reproving witness might restrain
me from iniquity; yet even there, Great God, where I believed that I had
found an asylum inaccessible to thine eternal mercy, wherein I could sin
with impunity, even there, in that wilderness, thy voice arrested me and
laid me at thy feet.—_J. B. Massillon._
_Verse 9.—“The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve.”_ With
respect to the sense conveyed by the common reading, it may be observed,
that hinds bring forth their young with great difficulty and pain,
“bowing themselves, bruising their young ones, and casting out their
sorrows” (Job xxxix. 4, 6); and it therefore heightens the description
given of the terrific character of the thunder-storm, when the thunder
which is here called “the voice of God” is represented as causing,
through the terror which it inspires, the hinds in their pregnant state
prematurely to drop their young; although, according to our ideas of
poetical imagery, this may not accord so well with the other images in
the passage, nor appear so beautiful and sublime as the image of the
oaks trembling at the voice of Jehovah.—_John Calvin._
_Verse 9.—“The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve.”_ The care
and tenderness of God towards beasts turns to his praise, as well as the
care which he hath of, and the tenderness which he shows to believers.
As it doth exceedingly advance the glory of God, that he takes care of
wild beasts, so it may exceedingly strengthen the faith of man that he
will take care of him. Doth the Lord take care of _hinds_? then
certainly he takes care of those that particularly belong to him. There
is a special providence of God towards these and such like creatures for
the production of their young. He—if I may so speak with reverence—shows
his midwifery in helping these savage beasts when their pains come upon
them. As the Lord takes man, in an eminent manner, “out of the womb”
(Psalm xxii. 9), so in a manner he takes beasts out of the womb too.
“The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the
wilderness of Kadesh;” so we translate it; but the word which we render
“_shaketh_” is the same with that in Job xxxix. 2, which signifieth _to
bring forth_; and hence, some very learned in the Hebrew tongue do not
render as we, “The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness,” but “The
voice of the Lord maketh the wilderness _to bring forth_; the Lord
maketh the wilderness of Kadesh _to bring forth_;” which is not to be
understood of the vegetative creatures (that’s a truth, the Lord makes
the trees of the forest to bring forth both leaves and fruit), but it is
meant of animals or living creatures there. And then when he saith, “The
voice of the Lord maketh the wilderness to bring forth,” the meaning is,
the Lord makes the wild beast of the wilderness to bring forth; which
seems to be the clear sense of the place by that which followeth; for
the Psalmist having said this in general at the eighth verse, “_The
voice of the Lord maketh the wilderness to bring forth_,” he in the
ninth verse gives the special instance of the _hind_: “_The voice of the
Lord maketh the hinds to calve_.”—_Joseph Caryl._
_Verse 9.—“The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve.”_ It is with
great propriety, says one of the ancients, that Jehovah demands, “The
birth of the hinds dost thou guard?” (Job xxxix. 1), for since this
animal is always in flight, and with fear and terror always leaping and
skipping about, she could never bring her young to maturity without such
a special protection. The providence of God, therefore, is equally
conspicuous in the preservation of the mother and the fawn; both are the
objects of his compassion and tender care; and, consequently, that
afflicted man has no reason to charge his Maker with unkindness, who
condescends to watch over the goats and the hinds. It seems to be
generally admitted, that the hind brings forth her young with great
difficulty; and so much appears to be suggested in the verse, “They bow
themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast out their
sorrows.” But if Pliny, and other naturalists are worthy of credit,
divine providence has been graciously pleased to provide certain herbs,
which greatly facilitate the birth; and by instinct, he directs the hind
to feed upon them, when the time of gestation draws towards a close.
Whatever truth there may be in this assertion, we know from higher
authority, that providence promotes the parturition of the hind, by
awakening her fears, and agitating her frame by the rolling
thunder:—“_The voice of Jehovah_ (a common Hebrew phrase, denoting
thunder) _maketh the hinds to calve_.” Nor ought we to wonder, that so
timorous a creature as the hind, should be so much affected by that
awful atmospheric convulsion, when some of the proudest men that ever
existed, have been known to tremble. Augustus, the Roman Emperor,
according to Suetonius, was so terrified when it thundered, that he
wrapped a seal-skin round his body, with the view of defending it from
the lightning, and concealed himself in some secret corner till the
tempest ceased. The tyrant Caligula, who sometimes affected to threaten
Jupiter himself, covered his head, or hid himself under a bed; and
Horace confesses he was reclaimed from atheism by the terror of thunder
and lightning, the effects of which he describes with his usual
felicity. (Odes, b. i. 34.)—_George Paxton’s “Illustrations of
Scripture.”_
_Verse 9.—“The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve.”_ “_Cervi
sunt predicatores_” says S. Jerome, who bring forth souls to Christ by
the gospel which is God’s _voice_; and the stripping of the leaves of
the forest by the voice of the Lord, represents their work in humbling
the strong oaks and lofty cedars of the world by the power of the
gospel, and in stripping the souls of the worldly-minded of their
manifold disguises (S. Basil). Others apply it to the act of the
preachers of God’s word, disclosing the dark thickets of divine
mysteries in the holy Scriptures by evangelical light set forth by the
Holy Ghost (S. Jerome).—_Christopher Wordsworth._
_Verse 9 (first clause).—“The voice of Jehovah makes havoc of the oaks,
and strippeth bare the forests.”—Samuel Horsley._