Psalm 29 is an enthronement hymn. The date is from the period of the 900’s BC. “Yahweh” occurs 18 times and “voice” occurs 7 times. It declares the unrivaled authority and power of the Lord. Its use of an archaic poetic style and placenames in Lebanon and Syria enhance the intended effect, which is to make clear that the Canaanite god Baal is no rival. It portrays the Lord as a storm, an earthquake, themes associated with theophany like that on Mount Sinai and the giving of the Law. However, many consider the psalm a prayer for rain, such as would occur at the beginning of the planting season. It seems close to Ugaritic hymns to Baal or Hadad, the storm-god. The basic theme of a combat-myth in Ugarit and Mesopotamia seems in play, in which the hero-god defeats the forces of chaos and the other gods then proclaim him as their leader. This psalm is an early hymn to the God of the storm.[1] It refers to the self-manifestation of Yahweh through the voice. It evokes images of the power and glory of the Lord, subduing the enemies of Israel and assuring peace to the chosen people. This psalm has its basis in the religious experience of God's power found in the thunderstorm. The appearance of God brings the experience of both terror and joy. It shares with Psalm 24 the themes of the triumph of the Lord over the forces of chaos or primeval waters and the Lord enthroned as king in the temple.
Given the loudness of the voice of the Lord here, one would think it would be easy to hear. Our experience tells us this is not the case. We may think that we live in challenging times. We do. Yet, all human times are difficult. How shall we judge what to do in such times? As people always do, the struggle between good and evil has always been present for human beings. Our part is to discern between them.[2] Although this psalm focuses on the appearance of the Lord in the dramatic storm, one of the great lessons is that we discover the sacred in the ordinary, in our daily lives, in our neighbors, friends, family, and in the backyard. Here is the truly miraculous.[3]
I like the way Psalm 29 ends: May the Lord give strength to the people of God and bless the people with peace. I suspect many of us have prayed something like that. “By the way, could you grant me some strength and peace?” We lack so much of it here. In fact, most of the psalm is about hearing the voice of the Lord in the storm. I am glad for the psalmist. I think of other times where Scripture hears the voice of the Lord in an unusual way. Elijah was depressed, running away from an angry queen of Israel. As he stood near the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments and received them during a storm and earthquake, Elijah experienced the storm as well. He did not hear God, however, until a gentle breeze came his way. In another place, in Revelation 3:20, the risen Lord says that he will knock and speak. If anyone hears his voice, and opens the door, he will enter. When he does, he will have supper, an intimate meal.
In my life, I have heard the voice of the Lord far more like an intimate conversation than in the storms nature has brought my way. I am not making a judgment. I may be missing something. I admit that. In either case, however, I suspect we are looking for the same thing. We want some strength and peace for the journey through a human life.
Thus, in Psalm 29:1-2, the writer invites 1heavenly beings ( אֵלִ֑ים בְּנֵ֣י bene 'elim and in 89:7, sons of gods), those divine beings who are members of the heavenly court over which the Lord presides, functioning as the servants and worshippers of the Lord, all of whom worship the Lord and honor the strength of the Lord, thereby reflecting the henotheistic view of early Israel, to acknowledge or ascribe (yahav) to the Lord glory (kavod, divine radiance and visual manifestation) and strength. Some scholars suggest that the writer has overcome his polytheistic religion from which he came. The members of the heavenly court functioned as the retinue of the Lord ("servants and worshippers" according to C. A. Briggs), reflecting the henotheistic perspective of early Israelite religion, which took the existence of deities other than Yahweh for granted, even while it regarded Yahweh as supreme for Israel. 2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name. The heavenly beings are to worship the Lord in holy splendor (behadrat kodesh), or the splendor of holiness, which may refer to the courts of heaven. Psalm 96:7-8 and 1 Chronicles 16:28-29 have interesting parallels, with modifications, to these two verses. Under the monarchy, Israel seems to have had ideas of the lordship of God in relation to the political order. This was particularly the case with Jerusalem. At the latest period, with the transition to the founding of its own state, Israel must have transferred to the God of Israel the link it inherited from Canaanite religion between the political and judicial order on the one side, and the cosmic order on the other, that rested on belief in the kingship of the leading gods. In the process, it replaced the cosmological myth by a depiction of the rule of God from eternity over the cosmos.[4]
Verses 3-9 express the power of the Lord in the theophany. Such a power is the appearance of the Lord. In the Old Testament, the appearance of deity to humans, a theophany, often occurs in naturalistic ways. Thus, a theophany can occur in the sound of the afternoon breeze (Genesis 3:8), as a smoking pot (Genesis 15:17), as a burning bush (Exodus 3:2), as a lightning-filled storm cloud (Exodus 13:21) and, most commonly in the case of Yahweh, the storm itself (Exodus 20:18; Deuteronomy 4:12; I Kings 18:38 and many others). It focuses on 3The voice of the Lord (pars pro toto), which is over the waters, referring to the waters above the dome that separated the flat earth from the waters above the sky, the God (אֵֽל־ ) of glory thunders, the Lord, over mighty waters. The Lord battles the primeval forces of chaos. 4The voice of the Lord is powerful and full of majesty. 5It breaks the cedars (trees may refer to enemies of God) of Lebanon, known for their height and strength. 6The Lord makes Lebanon/Sirion skip like a calf and like a young wild ox. 7The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire, arrows of fire, 8shakes the wilderness of Kadesh, 8causes the oaks to whirl, and strips the forest bare (trees may refer to enemies of God). 9The writer invites people to say Glory in the temple. Thus, the geographical setting for this psalm is north of Israel. In addition to the mention of Lebanon, Sirion is the Phoenician name for Mount Hermon (a cluster of mountains on the border between Lebanon and Syria), and the Kadesh referred to is not the well-known oasis in Sinai (Numbers 20:1), but the desert east of the Syrian city of Kadesh on the Orontes River (site of the famous battle of 1274 B.C. between the Egyptians and the Hittites).
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man![5]
The absolute minimum conditions for worship are a sense of mystery, and an admission of pain (Robert Shaw). Worship acknowledges human limits and frailty. We experience a transcendent mystery, an unbelievable power that is capable of transforming the confusing, painful, terrifying stuff of our lives and our world into hope, freedom, and peace.
When a long-accepted explanation of how the world works breaks down or is shown to be flawed, what emotion most helps scientists delve further and leap into the unknown? That emotion, according to Helen De Cruz, professor of philosophy and humanities at Saint Louis University in Missouri, is awe. “Awe increases our tolerance for uncertainty and opens our receptivity to new and unusual ideas, which are crucial for paradigm change.” Noting that awe is also a spiritual and moral emotion, De Cruz cites the work of others who maintain that “all clear cases of awe” have two components: an experience of vastness and a need for a mental accommodation to that vastness. “Awe is a self-transcendent emotion because it focuses our attention away from ourselves and toward our environment.” She goes on to describe awe, along with curiosity and wonder, as emotions related to the search for knowledge and says that a person lacking such emotions “won’t have the drive to become a good scientist, who can change her mind on the basis of evidence.” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel insisted that awe is critical for not taking the world for granted and thus losing the ability to experience it with depth and reverence. That means awe is a pathway not only to knowledge, but also to wisdom and to God.[6]
Imagine yourself at a scenic vista somewhere on Earth, such as the rim of the Grand Canyon or the shore of an ocean stretching out past the horizon line. As your brain processes the view and its sheer vastness, feelings of awe kick in. Looking at a photo is not the same, but we might get a dose of that when we look at a particularly sparkly Hubble [Space Telescope] picture of a star cluster. The experience of awe, whether we’re standing at the summit of a mountain or sitting in front of a computer screen, can lead to “a diminished sense of self,” a phrase psychologists use to describe feelings of smallness or insignificance in the face of something larger than oneself. Alarming as that may sound, research has shown that the sensation can be a good thing: A shot of awe can boost feelings of connectedness with other people.
“Some people do have the sense when they’re looking across millions of light-years, that our ups and downs are ultimately meaningless on that scale,” says David Yaden, a research scientist in psychopharmacology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and who has studied self-transcendent experiences, including in astronauts. “But I think [space images] can also draw our attention to the preciousness of local meaning — our loved ones, people close to us, this Earth. It’s not a leap that I think always occurs, but I think the benefits flow to people who do make that leap."[7]
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man.[8]
Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent and infinitely abundant Source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source.[9]
We live in an age where we do not allow very many experiences to awe us, and we take for granted wonders at which previous generations might have marveled. People have become more individualistic, more self-focused, more materialistic, and less connected to others. However, we cannot manufacture the experience of awe, unless we want to go the path of inauthenticity. Frederick Buechner illustrates awe by telling of seeing a forest of giant redwoods for the first time. “There were some small children nearby, giggling and chattering and pushing each other around. Nobody had to tell them to quiet down as we entered. They quieted down all by themselves. Everybody did. You could not hear a sound of any kind. It was like coming into a vast, empty room.” He was describing a paradigm shift: “Two or three hundred feet high the redwoods stood. They made you realize that all your life you had been mistaken. Oaks and ashes, maples and chestnuts and elms you had seen for as long as you could remember, but never until this moment had you so much as dreamed what a tree really was.” The kids did not have the life experience to identify what they were feeling as awe, but that emotion was there, and it struck them quiet. It would not be surprising if, in that moment, one of those kids had an awakening to think about God, about a career in ecology or nature, or simply fell in love with the outdoors, a love that would have a bearing on other choices he or she made in the future. Awe can set a direction for life and can even move a person toward God.[10]
God uses various gateways to come into our lives, and awe is one such gate. Saint Anselm (1033-1109) put it this way: God is greater than any conception of God we might have. Awe enables us to sense possibilities we had not imagined before — which is especially useful in scientific research — but can also enable us to get some sense of God. We may experience awe when we notice truly the beauty around us, the surge and thunder of the ocean, the quiet of a late summer evening, by poetry and music, or the smell of wood smoke in the crisp autumn air. Even the intricacy and effectiveness of the human body might awe us, as was the author of Psalm 139, who reflected upon the notion that the Lord formed him in his inward parts, knit him together in the womb of his mother, so he praises the Lord, for the Lord made him in a way that brings the experience of awe (vv. 13-14).
A sense of awe is where the impulse of religion often starts. Or, as De Cruz says, where we need to make “a mental accommodation to vastness.” The main thrust of De Cruz’s article was that “awe is required not only for the day-to-day working of science but is also crucial to help reorient scientists’ thinking in times of paradigm change.” But she also acknowledged that the emotional drive of awe is what matters in other fields as well, and that it might be “our only path to knowledge and wisdom.” It can also be a path to God.
Psalm 29:10-11 is an end that may surprise us a bit. 10The Lord sits (showing relaxation and calm) enthroned over the flood. The psalm twice refers to the waters. In Hebrew cosmology, the earth was flat, protected from the waters above (Genesis 1:7) by the sky. The earth rested on pillars (I Samuel 2:8), which held the earth above the watery abyss or the deep of Genesis 7:11. The vast waters of the seas and oceans were a part of the earth in which ancient Israel never felt at home. The Philistines and Canaanites cut them off from the Mediterranean. In this psalm, the waters above the heavens may be the object of the dominion of the Lord. In any case, the Lord is separate from the waters, relaxed and calm amid the chaos and tumult, a perspective that the writer hopes will give comfort to the people of the Lord. In this psalm, God has unrestricted power, creating without a struggle with chaos.[11] As a result, the people of the Lord can look at torrents, earthquakes, cataclysms, convulsions of nature, regardless of their mystery and lawlessness at first sight, as harmonious notes in the song of creation and varied expressions of the love the Lord has for them.[12] The people of the Lord can learn not to fear the storm, for they are learning to sail the ship.[13]
George MacLeod, founder of Scotland's Iona Community, was thinking of the powerful storms that sweep across that tiny Hebridean island when he wrote the following prayer, known as "The Glory in the Grey."
Almighty God, Sustainer:
Sun behind all suns,
Soul behind all souls,
Show to us in everything we touch
and in everyone we meet
the continued assurance of Thy presence round us:
lest ever we should think Thee absent.
In all created things Thou art there.
In every friend we have
the sunshine of Thy presence is shown forth.
In every enemy that seems to cross our path,
Thou art there within the cloud
to challenge us to love.
Show to us the glory in the grey.
Awake for us Thy presence in the very storm
till all our joys are seen as Thee
and all our trivial tasks emerge as priestly sacraments
in the universal temple of Thy love.[14]
The Psalm ends with a blessing that 11the Lord give strength, for the Lord has all the powers ascribed in this psalm, to the people of the Lord and bless the people of the Lord with peace. A prayer that focuses so much on the supreme power of the Lord ends with a prayer that the Lord will grant wellbeing to Israel. A Psalm that refers to the noise of so much shaking, rattling, and splitting will end in peace. Yet, we are not to think of this as the calm after the storm. Shalom is a peace that passes all understanding. It asks for that inner peace one receives when one experiences unity with the world, even if only for a moment.[15] It suggests that we can pray for the Lord to give us strength in the face of our challenges, and to grant us peace in the middle of our chaos.
How does God speak? The United Methodist Church continues to teach what it calls the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. If we want to hear the voice of God, the primary means is through the Bible. God has breathed life into this word. We often do not know the right questions to ask, so we need to get into the Word and let it shape us. The Bible is, obviously, not simply a set of propositions to memorize. We need some willingness to get into it and learn from it. The second part of the quadrilateral is tradition, which primarily means reflecting on the creeds and basic doctrines of Christian teaching. You do not need to become a theologian to become aware of what two thousand years to Christian teaching have led us believe. Yes, there are differences between denominations, but we agree on so much. Learn what that agreement is. The third part of the quadrilateral is reason, which means that we have a responsibility to our neighbors to explain in a reasonable way what we believe. Finally, and I think most importantly, we need to testify or witness to our own experience of how God has spoken to us. Each of us has different experiences. Yet, each of us can share the circumstances in which God has directed, comforted, strengthened, and challenged us. We need to make sure that each of these points of the quadrilateral need to work together in our lives. One does not cancel out the other.
How do we know it is God speaking? I am sure we have heard of criminals who have said they did crazy things because God told them. Most of us have many voices in our heads, such as a parent, a friend, a teacher, and on and on. Dallas Willard notes three ways by which we can know God's voice from others. 1) Quality. God's voice carries substance and weight. It makes an impact -- bringing peace, inclining us toward ascent and inspiring compliance. 2) Spirit. It is rarely loud, flashy, or dramatic. It does not argue, but rather, calmly assures us of itself. At this point, think of Elijah, who did not hear the voice of the Lord in the storm, but did hear the voice of God in the gentle breeze. 3) Content. Words from God will always conform to God's nature, God's Scripture, and his heart as revealed in Christ. God's voice will never tell you that you are worthless, encourage you to lie or mislead you about God's character. These factors are akin to the spirits of consolation and desolation in Ignatian spirituality. When a voice consoles us by bringing peace, calm, assurance, and worship, the voice is more likely from God because it draws us toward God. When a voice leaves us desolate by bringing us confusion, chaos, and anxiety, the voice is rarely from God because it pulls us away from God.
How do I listen for God's voice? Silence, solitude, journaling, mentors, and trial-and-error all create the space to listen for God. Nevertheless, it takes practice. You do not sit down to the piano and bang out Beethoven -- you first play scales and Chopsticks. You do not wake up and decide to run a marathon -- you walk-jog your first two-miler and build from there. Caveat: As someone has said, "Practice does not make perfect; it just makes things permanent." Still, without practice, things can be neither perfect nor permanent. You do not want to practice mistakes, or they become permanent mistakes, but making a practice of listening to the voice of God can lead, if not to perfection, to something that approaches it. We need to understand listening well for the voice of God in a comparable way. Living in wisdom, knowing the Scriptures, trusting community, making mistakes -- these are all part of learning to listen for God's voice over time.
As Jesus left his disciples behind, he told them he had much more to say to them. However, he left that speaking to the work of the Spirit (John 16). God still wants us to hear from him today -- through the Scriptures and through his internal leading voice.
Realistically, how can we discern the voice of the Lord? As powerful as the word of the Lord is, it can be hard for us, at times, to hear its echo in our daily lives. We get used to hearing what we want to hear. We remain deaf to what it would be well for us to hear. It can be hard to break the habit. However, if we keep our hearts, minds, and ears open, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then we come to recognize that the Lord is speaking to us. We may have little understanding of it. Yet, the word of the Lord to each of us is both recoverable and precious.[16]Hearing the voice of the Lord requires discerning, an ancient notion arising out of the contemplative life. Regardless of what we sense, we need to have a calm moment to reflect. Is it consistent with the Bible? Does it serve the purposes of the Lord, spread the good news, or build up the church? Does it grow me in humility? Is it consistent with what others in the community are discerning? Is it consistent with the life described in the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the fruit of the Spirit? Is it consistent with building up faith, hope, and love? Does it increase my love for the Lord and my love for others?
[1] Although Psalm 29 itself is probably a late addition to the Psalter — Charles Briggs suggests it's from the Persian period (539-330 B.C.) — the other two biblical occurrences of a portion of this psalm are probably borrowings from it, rather than the other way around. One of Briggs' arguments for this history of development is the reference to the "heavenly beings" in the first verse (literally "sons of gods"), which is changed to "families of the peoples" in Psalm 96:7 and 2 Chronicles 16:28 (an expression found only in these two passages). Moving from a more highly developed angelology to a more pedestrian terrestrial reference is easier to envision historically, in Briggs' view, than the reverse (see C. A. Briggs, Psalms [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1907], vol. 1, 252). This view of Israel's religious development — from the more mythological to the more historical — has been questioned in recent decades (by, among others, F. M. Cross), so the relative dating of Psalms 29 and 96 and 2 Chronicles 16 is far from certain.
[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers (Del Rey, 2012), 440-41.
[3] Abraham Maslow, Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences (Important Books, 2014)
[4]
[5] —King Lear, speaking to the Fool as they are wandering across the moor amidst the storm, in William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act III, Scene 2.
[6] De Cruz, Helen. “The necessity of awe.” Aeon, July 10, 2020, https://aeon.co. Retrieved November 24, 2020.
[7] —Marina Koren, “Galaxy Brain Is Real: Looking at the long views from the Hubble space telescope might be good for you,” The Atlantic, December 1, 2020.
[8] —Albert Einstein, The World As I See It (Samaira Publishers, 2018).
[9] —Thomas Merton, Essential Writings (Orbis, 2000), 58.
[10] Buechner, Frederick. “Awe,” www.frederickbuechner.com. Retrieved November 24, 2020.
[11]
[12] John Muir, "The fountains and streams of the Yosemite National Park," Atlantic Monthly, vol. LXXXVII, no. 519 (January, 1901), 565.
[13] I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship. --Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (Little, Brown & Co., 1922), 369.
[14] George MacLeod, cited in The Complete Book of Christian Prayer (Continuum, 1996), 281.
[15] Scott Hoezee, "All Cry Glory!" Calvin Christian Reformed Church Website, August 22, 2004, http://calvincrc.calvin.edu.
[16] Buechner, Frederick. Now and Then. Harper Collins, 2010, 3.
like your comment on how you have heard tyhe voice of God. I would think this would be a good area for expansion. As far as the voice of Glod in thunder etc. this is just a typical mid east view of God and how he speaks. Baal spoke this way too.I see you address some of this in the next paragraph. BTW liked that one. I see God revealing himself to man as man is able to comprehend hence Yahweh emerges out of the pagan religions . As I read on I see you did develop how God speaks. This is very good I like it a lot. Like the Methodist quadlateral. I thing this is a good take on a powerful Psalm. -Lyn Eastman
ReplyDelete