Psalms 29:4

"The voice of Jehovah is powerful;

The voice of Jehovah is full of majesty.

The voice of Jehovah breaketh the cedars;

Yea, Jehovah breaketh in pieces the cedars of Lebanon."

"Yea, Jehovah breaketh in pieces the cedars" (Psalms 29:5). Thunder in this psalm is metaphorically referred to as "The voice of Jehovah." But in this clause and the very similar one in Psalms 29:3, it is God Himself who is "upon the waters" and who "breaketh the cedars."

It is really frightening to see first hand what tremendous energies are unleashed in a bolt of lightning. This writer remembers a very large oak tree, some four or five feet in diameter, at least, that stood just west of his grandfather's barn on the old Anderson Ranch in Taylor County, Texas. One night a bolt of lightning totally demolished that oak tree, reducing the several cords of strong oak wood in it to the equivalent of kindling. The neighbors for miles around came to view the remarkable sight.

"The voice of Jehovah is powerful" (Psalms 29:4). Yes indeed, it was His voice that hurled the suns in space, that lifted up the Cross, that stilled the sea! It is His voice that shall at last summons the dead before the Great White Throne for the Final Judgment. It is that voice which shall sound over the tombs of land and sea, and the myriads of the dead shall "Come Forth," even as Lazarus did at Bethany. It is important to understand that the psalmist here sees the hand and hears the voice of God in Nature, and especially in this great thunderstorm.

Oh yes, we live in a sophisticated age that knows all there is to know about thunderstorms, etc., and many arrogant human beings, intoxicated with a little knowledge, would doubtless find this psalm "unscientific,"[15] However, as the same author declared, "This Psalm begins where science leaves off."[16] Amen!

<SIZE=2>FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL

"Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies.

I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower - but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is!"

- Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Rhodes saw that we have something of the same spiritual understanding in this psalm. "These verses are a poetic and theological interpretation of a thunderstorm as a revelation of the glory of God."[17]