Psalm 29:3 God's Voice

Psalm 29:3 The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.

 

Psalm 29, A psalm of David, must have been written during a tremendous thunder storm or reflecting on one anyway. David speaks six times in the psalm about The voice of the LORD (interestingly the LORD is named in almost every verse of the psalm, often twice in one verse - 18 references altogether in just 11 verses!). This voice of the LORD is clearly thunder as it is over the waters and is described as the God of glory thundering, the LORD thundering over the mighty waters. It is a powerful voice, a majestic voice. It breaks the cedars and makes mountains skip. It also strikes with flashes of lightning, shakes the desert and twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. It causes all in God's temple, the priests and Levites, to cry, Glory! So when children ask the question about thunder "Is that God?" we need to be very careful how we answer. Our instinct may be to say "No" but that is only a partial answer. The real answer is "yes and no" for although we know that the actual sound comes from rapid air expansion around a thunderbolt, it is in fact God who is behind the phenomenon and so thunder is, in a sense, his voice. We should not be afraid of thunder but recognise it as God speaking to us. In a thunder storm he shows that he is ruling over the waters even the mighty waters and so we must give him the glory due to his name. When we do so, the Lord will strengthen us and bless us with peace whatever storms may come upon us.