BibleTools.info

The Lord will give strength - Prosperity in our secular affairs; success in our enterprises; and his blessing upon our fields and cattle.

The Lord will bless his people with peace - Give them victory over their enemies, and cause the nations to be at peace with them; so that they shall enjoy uninterrupted prosperity. The plentiful rain which God has now sent is a foretaste of his future blessings and abundant mercies.

In the note on Psalm 29:10; I have referred to the following description taken from Virgil. Did he borrow some of the chief ideas in it from the 29th Psalm? The reader will observe several coincidences.

Interea magno misceri murmure pontum,

Emissamque hyemem sensit Neptunus, et imis

Stagna refusa vadis: graviter commotus, et alto

Prospiciens, summa placidum caput extulit unda.

Disjectam Aeneae toto videt aequore classem,

Fluctibus oppressos Troas, coelique ruina.

Eurum ad se zephyrumque vocat: dehinc talia fatur

Sic ait: et dicto citius tumida aequora placat,

Collectasque fugat nubes, solemque reducit.

Cymothoe simul, et Triton adnixus acuto

Detrudunt naves scopulo; levat ipse tridenti;

Et vastas aperit syrtes, et temperat aequor,

Atque rotis summas levibus perlabitur undas.

Sic cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor, aequora postquam

Prospiciens genitor, caeloque invectus aperto,

Flectit equos, curruque volans dat lora secundo.

Aen. lib. i., ver. 124.

"Mean time, imperial Neptune heard the sound

Of raging billows breaking on the ground.

Displeased, and fearing for his watery reign,

He rears his awful head above the main,

Serene in majesty; then rolled his eyes

Around the space of earth, of seas, and skies.

He saw the Trojan fleet dispersed, distressed,

By stormy winds and wintry heaven oppressed.

He summoned Eurus and the Western Blast,

And first an angry glance on both he cast;

Then thus rebuked.

He spoke; and while he spoke, he soothed the sea,

Dispelled the darkness, and restored the day.

Cymothoe, Triton, and the sea-green train

Of beauteous nymphs, and daughters of the main,

Clear from the rocks the vessels with their hands;

The god himself with ready trident stands,

And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands;

Then heaves them off the shoals: where'er he guides

His finny coursers, and in triumph rides,

The waves unruffle, and the sea subsides.

So when the father of the flood appears,

And o'er the seas his sovereign trident rears,

Their fury fails: he skims the liquid plains

High on his chariot; and with loosened reins,

Majestic moves along, and awful peace maintains.

Dryden.

Our God, Jehovah, sitteth upon the flood: yea, Jehovah sitteth King for ever.

The heathen god is drawn by his sea-horse, and assisted in his work by subaltern deities: Jehovah sits on the flood an everlasting Governor, ruling all things by his will, maintaining order, and dispensing strength and peace to his people. The description of the Roman poet is fine; that of the Hebrew poet, majestic and sublime.

The Lord will give strength unto his people - This is a practical application of the sentiments of the psalm, or a conclusion which is fairly to be derived from the main thought in the psalm. The idea is, that the God who presides over the tempest and the storm, the God who has such power, and can produce such effects, is abundantly able to uphold His people, and to defend them. In other words, the application of such amazing power will be to protect His people, and to save them from danger. When we look on the rolling clouds in the tempest, when we hear the roaring of the thunder, and see the flashing of the lightning, when we hear the oak crash on the hills, and see the waves piled mountains high, if we feel that God presides over all, and that He controls all this with infinite ease, assuredly we have no occasion to doubt that He can protect us; no reason to fear that His strength cannot support us.

The Lord will bless his people with peace - They have nothing to fear in the tempest and storm; nothing to fear from anything. He will bless them with peace in the tempest; He will bless them with peace through that power by which He controls the tempest. Let them, therefore, not fear in the storm, however fiercely it may rage; let them not be afraid in any of the troubles and trials of life. in the storm, and in those troubles and trials, he can make the mind calm; beyond those storms and those troubles he can give them eternal peace in a world where no “angry tempest blows.”

The Lord sitteth King for ever. The Lord will give strength unto his people. Psalm 29:10, 11. AG 95.1

Exercise that faith which works by love and sanctifies the soul. Let none now make the Lord ashamed of them because of their unbelief. Sloth and despondency accomplish nothing. Entanglements in secular business are sometimes permitted by God in order to stir the sluggish faculties to more earnest action that He may honor faith by the bestowal of rich blessings. This is a means of advancing His work. Looking unto Jesus, not only as our example, but as the author and finisher of our faith, let us go forward, having confidence that He will supply strength for every duty.—The Review and Herald, May 6, 1902. PM 302.3