¹Ascribe to the Lord, O sons of the mighty, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. ²Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to His name; worship the Lord in holy array … ¹¹The Lord will give strength to His people; the Lord will bless His people with peace.

Hebrew is a language well suited for praise, being rich in its terminology, inviting an expansive expression of response to an infinite and wonderful God. How can we give anything to the Creator of an intricately designed, beautifully fashioned universe around us? He used the Hebrew word “tov” (“good” Gen. 1:31) in His assessment of creation; it was “pleasant and agreeable” to Him; what He made is well suited to reflect His glory. In the earlier Psalm 19, all creation is personified as glorifying God; indeed, we cannot help but see His glory written over every corner of the cosmos (see Romans 1:20).

Our present passage, Psalm 29, goes beyond recognizing that God’s creation is wonderful and beautiful; it gives us, who are created in His image, words suitable for our glorifying Him, the one who made everything (see John 1:3, Col. 1:16). Whereas He created everything and gave it all to us, we, in turn, give back to Him. That is the movement of this psalm, what we can offer to Him.

This passage is close to being a pure psalm of praise, focusing on who God is and not on what He has done for us. To be sure, we cannot escape the creaturely awareness that God is the great initiator of the relationship between Him and us. We cannot escape the fact that anything we do is responsive based on His movement toward us. So often, praise and worship exude from us because of what God has done for us in some circumstance. But the goal of everything God does for us is so that we would see how great He is. And this knowledge should lead us more and more to worshiping the Lord for who He is and less for what He has done for us. Only in the fullness of glory, when we transition into eternal life in heaven, will we be able to glorify Him most purely, simply for who He is.

So, now, we are invited (as the various English translations render the Hebrew word “yahab”) to ascribe (NASB), acknowledge (NET), honor (NLT), and give (NKJV) to the Lord glory and strength., or as the NET puts it, majesty and power. The Lord is already glorious, but the idea is to assign to Him what is already His. The phrase “sons of the mighty” refers most likely to the angelic world (see Job 1:6, 38:7, Gen. 6:2). If this is incumbent on angels, how much more so for us who are the children of God (John 1:12, 1 John 3:1)! We would do well to sit quietly and meditate on the Lord, using these words as a catalyst for our worship.

This psalm gives the remarkable impression of being written from a hillside in northern Israel while watching a storm blow in from the Mediterranean Sea. This picture fits with what we know of David, the author of this psalm, who spent much of his early life tending sheep on the hillsides around Bethlehem, and in his warring years on battlefields, bivouacking (camping) with his men from place to place. He was in the continuous audience of God’s display of “natural” glory. The “voice” (Hebrew “qol”) of the Lord is a Jewish expression to depict God’s power in creation. We can almost hear the roar of thunder in vss. 3-4 prompting David to praise God for His majestic power in nature.

David could see the storm moving inland across Lebanon to the north, the winds so fierce that the cedar trees of that area, renowned for their strength, were snapped as easily as a calf skipping along (vss. 5-6). He describes God’s power in the lightning (“flames of fire” vs. 7) and the terrifying “shaking” of the land with wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. Verse 9, the phrase “makes the deer to calve,” is obscure in the NASB and is better translated as “twists the oaks” (NIV) or “bends the large trees” (NET), either of which fits with the phrase “and strips the forests bare.” By now, the storm has moved down the Jordan valley to Kadesh in the south of Israel (vs. 8).

The entire storm scenario provokes in David praise for the glory of the Lord. Above all the storms of life, including the terrifying events of nature, God is enthroned and in control forever (vs. 10). The reference to God being in His temple does not refer to Solomon’s temple (which had not yet been built). David sees all of creation as the temple of God, His abode, and indeed the whole earth is filled with His glory (see Isaiah 6:3).

Finally, David concludes with a bookend complementary to the first part of the psalm. He began with the charge for us to ascribe or give to the Lord glory and strength. Now at the end (vs. 11), he proclaims what the Lord will give us, namely strength, the same word as in vs. 1, the strength we ascribe to the Lord. The verse has a hortatory sense, that is, an expectant desire for this to happen: “May the Lord give strength to His people” (as in ESV).

This psalm gives us an example of how we can look at the naturally occurring events around us and discern the Lord’s glory and character. But more so, this psalm gives us words of praise and worship. As we worship Him, we will be a blessed people.

Lord, I honor and praise You that even in the raging storms of life, Your glory and strength are my greatest desire, and it is my blessing.