“The voice / of Yhwh / is upon the waters. The god of glory / thunders. – Yhwh is upon / the might waters.” The opening of this section of the psalm begins rather ominously. There is this pregnant pause, but a pause filled with the churning chaos of water. “The waters” are almost nowhere viewed positively in the OT but rather are the source of chaos and destruction (this is why, in Daniel, the beasts come “out of the sea/waters”).With that said, the word order is important: were it to read “upon the waters is the voice of Yhwh”, it would lessen the authority Yhwh seems to exert over the waters, and ‘merely’ by his voice. The description is odd: a voice being ‘upon the waters’. It is almost as if they are his chariots, and he has them reigned in. It recalls the opening verses of Genesis where it says the‘spirit of God’ hovered over the waters. And, interestingly, there, immediately following this description God’s ‘voice’ emerges and creation begins. In both we see Yhwh’s utter control and dominance over the waters of chaos (in the first, by his spirit and then by his speaking; in the second (here) by his voice being upon the waters in thunder). In contrast to Genesis, however, here the voice upon the waters is the thunder. To state it this way, however, is to miss something important. The psalm does not say thunder is the voice of Yhwh. Rather, it says “the god of glory thunders”. This is an important distinction, especially in light of what we have said in the ‘intro’. We are not here to see merely a vision of creation. Rather, this is a victory hymn. Perhaps at this point we should point out what is to come: unlike in Genesis, when Yhwh’s voice creates, here Yhwh’s voice is a source of destruction/judgment. In the words of Isaiah, it “lays low” everything that is ‘high’ (cedars of Lebanon and the mountains of Sirion). Yhwh’s voice expresses it sovereignty here through its ability to submerge everything under its power (later, in “the flood”). This obviously points to Yhwh as the sovereign of history (meaning, he is the great Deliverer). For that reason, this initial image of Yhwh’s voice “thundering” must be understood within the context of Yhwh as deliverer: it is not merely an image of creation but one of deliverance. It is for that reason that it is important how this initial description has been portrayed: “the god of glory thunders”. We might say that the psalmist has taken images of Yhwh as Creator (his dominance over the waters of chaos; I’m leaving completely at the side for now allusions to other religious myths of Baal/Yam the psalm is either drawing from or responding to) and put it at the service of Yhwh as the Warrior King. This ‘thundering’ then points not to ‘thunder’ per se, but to the ‘thunder’ of Yhwh’s warrior ‘shout’. In essence, this ‘thunder’ is a battle cry (something similar to the ‘shout’ of Psalm 2). “The god of glory”: this is the third time in four verses that the word “glory” appears. Before ‘glory’ was ascribed to Yhwh; then, the sons of god were to ascribe to him the “glory of his name”. Now, he is the “god of glory”. It is evident that glory, in the context of this psalm, speaks to the overpowering and sovereign being of Yhwh (it is paired with ‘strength’ and, here, it is matched by the thunderous war cry of the Warrior King). Furthermore, the ‘glory’ of Yhwh is something that resides above the ‘waters of chaos’; it is in the ‘heavenly temple’ where the sons of glory praise Yhwh. This is the thunderous voice of the one King of Heaven.
“Yhwh is upon / the mighty waters. – The voice of Yhwh / is powerful; - the voice of Yhwh / is majestic.” Similar to the intro, these lines build upon, in a repetitive way, the previous lines. Before, it was the ‘voice’ upon the ‘waters’; now, it is Yhwh upon the ‘mighty waters’. Before, the god glory thundered; now, that voice is “powerful” and “majestic”. This is a building crescendo, like a tidal wave moving toward the land. As before, there is the sense that Yhwh himself being ‘upon’ the ‘mighty waters’ is that of a king upon his chariot. These ‘mighty waters’ of chaos are his tool, and the vehicle for his ‘voice’. At this point, Yhwh’s voice is made ‘active’. It is ‘powerful’. In the introduction, it was to ‘Yhwh’ that we found designations of power (glory and strength). Here, the ‘voice’ is now beginning to be unleashed, although we are only given an image of it abstractly at first. Might it be significant that this is not the ‘word’ of Yhwh (that creative word that goes forth from Yhwh)? Perhaps we are to see here the fact that Yhwh’s ‘voice’, as more like a ‘shout’, is the destructive yell and judgment of Yhwh. As we will see, this ‘voice’ “breaks”, “breaks up”, makes Lebanon “skip”, “strikes with flashes of lightning”, “makes the desert writhe”, “strips bare the forest”. The ‘word’ of Yhwh orders, shapes and builds; the ‘voice’ of Yhwh undoes and breaks down. This does make sense: a word is crafted speech; a ‘voice’ (or a shout) is unformed and, often, therefore, of judgment.
And now the violence begins: “The voice of Yhwh / breaks the cedars, - and Yhwh / breaks up / the cedars of Lebanon.” It is as if the power of the ‘mighty waters’ has been harnessed and placed at the service of Yhwh only to hear be unleashed upon the ‘cedars of Lebanon’. The ‘storm of Yhwh’ has now ‘hit land’. One gets a picture here of a hurricane blow to the trees. And, as in creation, one senses that whatever Yhwh wills to come about is immediately accomplished, except here in reverse. In Genesis, creation emerged effortlessly; here, destruction and judgment result without any intermediary battle. The victory is immediate, complete, and absolute—this is accomplished by referring not merely to any forest but to the ‘cedars’ of Lebanon, which were universally hailed as objects of stability, power and honor. Here, they are broken like so many match sticks. (This also mirrors the crescendo of the previous verse: voice breaks cedarsàYhwh breaks cedars of Lebanon.) Furthermore, we are given a northern reference here to “Lebanon”. As we will see, this will show the ‘length and breadth’ of Yhwh’s authority. In the next verses we will move to the south: Yhwh’s voice is king over the entire realm and with the same control and destructive power. It is not merely in the vegetative realm that Yhwh displays his power: “He makes Lebanon / skip / like a calf, - and Sirion / like a young wild ox.” I can not say for certain whether this image would have conjured up laughter, but I would not be surprised if it did. The image of the strong northern kingdoms ‘skipping like a calf’ is one of embarrassment and humiliation. It displays Yhwh’s ability, as in Psalm 2, to shame the powers of the world in the face of his sovereign authority. We are, again, in the realm of the effortless control of Yhwh in judgment (not creation). Notice how both countries (Lebanon and Sirion) are compared to young animals (the calf and the young ox). They are like immature creatures of Yhwh, subject to his complete control and mastery; they are servile in their fear (perhaps it is also the case that Lebanon is associated with the cow, and Sirion with the ox?). This mirrors the ‘match-stick’ like quality of Lebanon’s ‘cedars’—everything, in the face of Yhwh’s power, is powerless. He is, essentially, robbing the world of its glory.
“The voice / of Yhwh / strikes / with flashes of lightning.” As with the thunder, it is important to note that it does not say that Yhwh’s voice is “flashes of lightning”. Rather, the voice ‘strikes with flashes of lightning’. Yhwh is not the destructive power of nature, but uses the powers of nature in order to display his power. Here, the voice ‘strikes’; it makes contact. It becomes more than the hurricane blasts and the violent earthquake. It becomes the luminous flames of lightning, striking the earth. This heightens the sense fo Yhwh’s power by particularizing it in the lightning. Things have, in a sense, become much more concrete and focused. One carries a more particular image when one envisions this. “The voice of Yhwh / makes the desert writhe; - Yhwh makes / the holy desert writhe.” As noted above, this is following a pattern: voice of Yhwh upon waters à Yhwh upon mighty waters; voice of Yhwh breaks cedars à Yhwh breaks cedars of Lebanon; voice of Yhwh makes desert writhe à Yhwh makes the holy desert writhe. I think this pattern is getting at something: the first line describes the subject of Yhwh’s power/voice, the second line heightens it by referring to particular embodiments. And so, the ‘waters’ become ‘mighty waters’, ‘cedars’ become ‘cedars of Lebanon’ and the ‘desert’ becomes the ‘holy desert’. In all of these the second element seems to represent what would, in other cultures, have been a god (an absolute of some level). So, in the first line, it is the ‘voice’ accomplishing the act; however, when it comes to the second and more ‘powerful’ second line, Yhwh himself accomplishes it. By emphasizing both levels of sovereign control, the psalmist has effectively (I hesitate to use this term) de-mythologized (perhaps ‘robbed’ is a better term) the surrounding gods and placed their powers at the complete disposal of Yhwh (even his mere ‘voice’ controls them; reminiscent of the ‘speaking’ in Genesis which accomplishes precisely the same effect). The term ‘writhing’, to my knowledge, often refers to ‘labor pains’ which, in turn, is often an image of judgment. Here, the ‘striking’ of the lightning are like so many arrows, pelting the dessert (the ‘holy dessert’) causing anguish and pain. “The voice of Yhwh / makes hinds / writhe in travail – and he strips bare / the forests.” Why the pattern is broken here, I’m not sure. However, with the inclusion of the animal realm in the act of Yhwh’s impinging voice/judgment, it would seem as if much of the created realm has been subjected to his onslaught and dominion. The conclusion with the ‘forests’ provides a book-end to Yhwh’s action. The voice began its destructive force on the ‘forests’ and here it concludes it by ‘stripping it bare’. I am not sure but the image of ‘stripping bare’ in other contexts is an act of judgment through shaming; if that is to be heard here it would coincide with what we have seen. The ‘forests’, as traditional sacred places of the gods, are now ‘stripped bare’ by the effortless act of Yhwh
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