Chapter 29 of Tehillim - "A psalm of David: Ascribe to Hashem, you sons of the mighty" - is a psalm of power: the voice of Hashem reverberates throughout it again and again, breaking cedars, hewing flames of fire, and shaking the wilderness. Some commentators, foremost among them Rashi and Radak, interpret the entire psalm as referring to the Giving of the Torah, and this approach will be mentioned occasionally throughout the lesson. As is our practice, however, the primary focus of our study will follow the commentary of the Malbim.
The Malbim explains, as is his approach, that many psalms were composed in response to specific events and natural occurrences that transpired in history. Here too, he first outlines the historical situation and then interprets the psalm accordingly. In his words, the psalm "was founded upon a devastation and inundation that occurred at that time in the regions of Syria." In the regions of Syria during that period, there was immense devastation: a tempest and raging storm, torrents and floods of surging waters, as well as fiery flames, terrifying thunder and lightning that uprooted cedars and shattered rocks. All this turmoil and clamor swept in from the wilderness - from the Sahara desert - and from there arrived the winds and floods, encircling all the borders of the Land, from south to north, from the wilderness to the Lebanon. In the Malbim's words: all four primordial elements of the earth's foundations were aroused to engulf and destroy it.
However, the Malbim continues, those mighty elements - called "benei elim" - reached the borders of the Holy Land, and there they bowed their heads. It was as if they halted upon knocking at the doors of Eretz Yisrael. All those forces of nature, the fire and water and floods, those immense powers, arrived here, stopped, and ceased. "There they prostrated themselves and trembled before the King of glory, exalted and lifted up, Who dwells in the sanctuary of holy majesty." Out of awe, out of reverence for the Omnipresent, they reached this land and came to rest. There the fire subsided and the storm turned to a whisper, and Hashem blessed His people with peace: we had peace in the midst of that raging tempest and storm wind that ravaged the lands of Syria.
מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד הָבוּ לַה' בְּנֵי אֵלִים הָבוּ לַה' כָּבוֹד וָעֹז׃ - A psalm of David: Ascribe to Hashem, you sons of the mighty; ascribe to Hashem glory and strength.
The Malbim explains that the expression "havu" (or "havah") is always a call to prepare or invite oneself: prepare yourselves to be the angels and emissaries of the Holy One, blessed be He. "Benei elim" means the possessors of might, for all those forces we are discussing - fire, water, wind, and the like - are like the "children of the Almighty," powers emanating from Him. Therefore: you, the extraordinary forces of nature, prepare yourselves to fulfill the word of Hashem; ready yourselves to be His emissaries.
"Ascribe to Hashem glory and strength" - you represent an expression of glory and strength, for through you the glory of Hashem, His might, and His power are revealed. This is similar to what Chazal teach, that thunder was created to straighten the crookedness of the heart: when thunder strikes, the tremendous boom that rattles the house also shakes the heart. So too here - prepare yourselves to bring Hashem glory and strength, so that people stand in awe of the forces of nature and their colossal power, and through this, the glory of the Creator, blessed be He, is magnified.
הָבוּ לַה' כְּבוֹד שְׁמוֹ הִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לַה' בְּהַדְרַת־קֹדֶשׁ׃ - Ascribe to Hashem the glory of His Name; prostrate yourselves before Hashem in the beauty of holiness.
Prepare yourselves for Hashem to also reveal the glory of His Name: beyond serving as His emissaries to tear down and destroy, give glory to His Name as well. However, something that comes to demolish and lay waste evokes terror rather than reverent honor. When is true honor generated? "Prostrate yourselves before Hashem in the beauty of holiness" - when you approach the beauty of holiness, the Holy Land. There, as noted, they bowed their heads, bent down, and prostrated themselves, as it were, before Hashem, blessed be He, refusing to enter the Holy Land. There you shall prostrate yourselves before Hashem, there you shall fall on your faces, submit and kneel, and there the storm shall turn to silence - and in this, Hashem will be glorified, when you prostrate yourselves before Him in the beauty of holiness.
Chazal say, as cited by Rashi, that "Ascribe to Hashem the glory of His Name" refers to Kedushat Hashem (the sanctification of Hashem's Name). In this psalm, the Divine Name is mentioned eighteen times, and it is on the basis of this psalm that Chazal instituted the Shemoneh Esreh prayer with its eighteen blessings.
קוֹל ה' עַל־הַמָּיִם אֵל־הַכָּבוֹד הִרְעִים ה' עַל־מַיִם רַבִּים׃ - The voice of Hashem is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, Hashem over mighty waters.
Here David describes the processions of those mighty forces, the elemental powers of nature: there is a torrent of water washing across the land, and the awesome sound heard over the waters - that mighty roar - is the voice of Hashem. The voice of the Creator, blessed be He, is heard here; it comes from His power, it is not merely the sound of water. Hashem makes the echo of His voice resonate, and great claps of thunder burst forth, bringing down torrential rains. The Psalmist adds: "the God of glory thunders" - do not imagine this happens on its own; it stems from the power of the God of glory. He is the One Who brought forth this ever-increasing torrent, He is the One Who thunders, commanding the mighty waters to flood the land. His hand is evident over the mighty waters.
קוֹל־ה' בַּכֹּחַ קוֹל ה' בֶּהָדָר׃ - The voice of Hashem is in power; the voice of Hashem is in majesty.
When there is a barrage and downpour of hailstones, tremendous forces are unleashed, creating scenes both magnificent and terrifying. The Malbim explains: in every single display of power and in every single manifestation of majesty that is seen, the voice of Hashem is visible, the word of Hashem is heard within it. One can, as it were, see Who stands behind it all.
As we mentioned, some commentators interpret this psalm as referring to Matan Torah, the Giving of the Torah, which is the approach taken by Rashi and the Radak. Rashi explains that "the voice of Hashem is in power" refers to the time of the Giving of the Torah, when Hashem tempered and measured His voice according to the capacity of Israel - He imparted it only to the extent that the Jewish people could absorb it. As it says, "and God answered him with a voice," upon which Chazal comment: with the voice of Moshe. That was a voice we were capable of receiving, for we could never have endured the voice of Hashem Himself; we would have perished.
The Radak offers a magnificent explanation: "The voice of Hashem is in power" - the voice first came through the power of the waters, as we saw: "The voice of Hashem is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, Hashem over mighty waters." Only afterward does it say, "the voice of Hashem is in majesty" - referring to Israel. In order that the Jewish people would not be harmed by Hashem's tremendous voice - for as we will see further on, when Hashem thunders with His raw voice, it brings death and utter destruction - Hashem first directed the voice through water to soften and diminish its intensity. Once the sound was muffled and weakened, it could be received without causing harm. Therefore, it is first "the voice of Hashem over the waters" - Hashem thundered His voice saying "Anochi" and "Lo yihyeh lecha" over the mighty waters, softening the voice, and then "the voice of Hashem is in majesty" - now to the Jewish people the voice arrived in majesty, in a dignified, fitting manner, rather than in a destructive, shattering force of fury that wreaks havoc. And see: despite all this softening and dampening, the Jewish people still cried out, "let not God speak with us, lest we die" - terrified by the immense sound, so that He had to speak to them solely through Moshe.
קוֹל ה' שֹׁבֵר אֲרָזִים וַיְשַׁבֵּר ה' אֶת־אַרְזֵי הַלְּבָנוֹן׃ - The voice of Hashem breaks cedars; Hashem shatters the cedars of Lebanon.
וַיַּרְקִידֵם כְּמוֹ־עֵגֶל לְבָנוֹן וְשִׂרְיֹן כְּמוֹ בֶן־רְאֵמִים׃ - He makes them skip like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox.
The Malbim explains: The storm and torrential downpour we described reaches all the way to the forest of Lebanon and to Sirion - and Sirion is Mount Hermon, as it is written, "The Tzidonians call Hermon Sirion." "The voice of Hashem breaks cedars" - by the force of sound alone, cedars are shattered. We know that sound has the power to shatter objects: some people have vocal power strong enough to shatter a vessel just by singing next to it. Chazal already discussed this principle regarding a rooster that thrust its head into a glass vessel, let out a loud crow, and shattered it. Even in our own times, examples are hardly necessary: in the past, when trouble stirred in Lebanon, jets were sent to break the sound barrier with sonic booms, and the next day everyone had to replace their windowpanes - a single sonic boom shatters all the glass. If so, the voice of Hashem is so powerful that it shatters cedars.
"And Hashem shatters the cedars of Lebanon" - Hashem is the One Who shatters the cedars of Lebanon, to the point that these very cedars dance before Him like a calf. This is the meaning of "He makes them skip like a calf": they dance before Him, which means they shudder - skipping and leaping are expressions of trembling. Afterwards, the verse speaks not of the cedars but of the mountains themselves: "Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox [re'em]" - Lebanon and Sirion themselves dance before Hashem, may He be blessed. The re'em is a colossal creature; King David once climbed onto one, mistaking it for a mountain, and set coals upon it. Suddenly the re'em felt a tickle on its back and stood up. King David was terrified and prayed to Hashem - "Answer me from the horns of the wild oxen," finding himself suspended between heaven and earth. The re'em is vastly larger than a calf, and therefore the mountains skip "like a young wild ox" - even a young re'em is already immeasurably larger than a calf.
Rashi explains that "the voice of Hashem shatters cedars" refers to the nations of the world, as it is written, "Hashem thundered with a great voice against the Pelishtim" - Hashem brought thunders and the Pelishtim fled. Hashem utters His voice, a voice of strength, and through this the nations are terrified: "For at the voice of Hashem shall Ashur be crushed" - Ashur broke merely from hearing the voice of Hashem. And at the Giving of the Torah: "For who is there of all flesh that heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we did, and lived?" You heard and lived, whereas the nations of the world hear and perish. The Holy One, blessed be He, directs His powerful voice against the nations and they die, but upon the people of Israel and they live. That very voice of Matan Torah shattered the cedars, but for you, "the voice of Hashem is in majesty" - you were able to hear that same voice unharmed, for Hashem tempered His voice according to the capacity of Israel.
קוֹל־ה' חֹצֵב לַהֲבוֹת אֵשׁ׃ - The voice of Hashem hews out flames of fire.
At a certain stage, the Malbim explains, flames of fire emerged from the depths of the earth - similar to what we know of volcanoes, where the mountain spews lava from within the earth - and all this swept into the wilderness, which caught fire through a raging tempest that carried and scattered the flames. And the voice of Hashem is what hews out these flames of fire. Just as we explained regarding "the voice of Hashem is upon the waters," that He brings the waters: these forces of nature do not act on their own, but rather the forces of nature have a Master, and the voice of Hashem is evident within them.
Rashi, following his consistent approach, interprets this in the context of the Giving of the Torah: our Sages expounded that the utterance of the Ten Commandments issued forth in flames of fire from His mouth, blessed be He, and was engraved upon the Tablets. "The voice of Hashem hews" - it would hew and engrave the inscription into the Tablets, through flames of fire that chiseled into the stone. This was so with the first Tablets, for the carving of the second Tablets was done by Moshe Rabbeinu.
קוֹל ה' יָחִיל מִדְבָּר יָחִיל ה' מִדְבַּר קָדֵשׁ׃ - The voice of Hashem causes the wilderness to shake; Hashem causes the wilderness of Kadesh to shake.
The Malbim explains that yachil ("causes to shake" or "writhe") is like "the earth saw and trembled [vatachel]," where the intent is to describe an earthquake like the birth pangs [chil] of a woman giving birth, as in the phrase, "I will gasp like a woman in labor." In other words, when an earthquake occurs followed by volcanic eruptions, the earth performs the act of a woman in labor: when a woman gives birth, she brings forth the entity that was inside her body, and likewise, when the earth "gives birth," it expels the substances within its core - boiling lava and fire burst outward, which is the earth's giving birth. "The voice of Hashem causes the wilderness to convulse": Hashem brings the wilderness to a state where it writhes, gives birth, and expels the elements buried within the womb of the earth - the fire, sulfur, and flames.
And what is the "wilderness of Kadesh"? Rashi states that this is the Sinai Wilderness, as our Sages say in Tractate Shabbat that it was called by five names: the Wilderness of Sinai, the Wilderness of Tzin, the Wilderness of Kadesh, the Wilderness of Kedemot, and the Wilderness of Paran. And why was it called the Wilderness of Kadesh? The Sages explain: because the Jewish people were sanctified [nitkadshu] upon it.
קוֹל ה' יְחוֹלֵל אַיָּלוֹת וַיֶּחֱשֹׂף יְעָרוֹת וּבְהֵיכָלוֹ כֻּלּוֹ אֹמֵר כָּבוֹד׃ - The voice of Hashem causes the hinds to calve and strips the forests bare, and in His Temple all proclaim: "Glory!"
From this tremendous roar, the hinds writhed and the forests were stripped bare. "Writhed" (*yecholel*) refers to giving birth, just as we explained *yachil* in the sense of a woman in labor: from the sheer intensity of the noise, the hinds miscarried. The voice of Hashem also strips forests bare: from the roaring and shaking, the forests were stripped and laid bare, and the trees collapsed. Through all of this, the voice of the Blessed Creator resonated with full might - but all of this occurred only in Syria. In contrast, "and in His Temple" - that is, in the Land of Israel, where that raging storm and tempest arrived, knocked at the gates of Eretz Yisrael, and halted - there, "all say, 'Glory!'" Why? Because, as we saw at the outset, those mighty beings, those powerful natural forces, arrived here, bowed their heads, and prostrated before Him. Thus, in His Sanctuary, in Eretz Yisrael, all say "Glory", the storm turns to silence, and "they shall neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain."
ה' לַמַּבּוּל יָשָׁב וַיֵּשֶׁב ה' מֶלֶךְ לְעוֹלָם׃ - Hashem sat enthroned at the Flood; Hashem sits as King forever.
ה' עֹז לְעַמּוֹ יִתֵּן ה' יְבָרֵךְ אֶת־עַמּוֹ בַשָּׁלוֹם׃ - Hashem will give strength to His people; Hashem will bless His people with peace.
King David concludes by saying: Even if "Hashem sat enthroned at the Flood" - meaning, even if the torrential waters multiply so vastly that they become a deluge - nevertheless, "Hashem sits as King forever." Hashem sits, as it were, amidst that flood to judge the earth, for Hashem reigns forever and ever. And although nations perish from His land and we witness here the tremendous power of nature's forces, know that "Hashem will give strength to His people." It will not reach the Jewish people; they will not be harmed. As we said, "and in His Temple all say, 'Glory!'" - the destruction caused no harm here in the Holy Land; on the contrary, through this they will attain strength and might, and "Hashem will bless His people with peace."
Why is this? Because in all those places dwelt the wicked who waged war against the people of Israel, and against them the Holy One, blessed be He, brought all those forces of nature. Consequently, once those wicked people and nations were subdued by the power of nature's forces, Hashem thereby blesses His people with peace - Israel experienced peace from their adversaries. The enemies surrounding them could no longer harm them; Hashem brought those troubles upon them, leaving them preoccupied with themselves and picking up the pieces, without the time or ability to harass and afflict Israel.
The Radak explains that this is a statement uttered by the ministering angels. The ministering angels say, "Hashem sat enthroned at the Flood" - Hashem sat after the Flood and swore that He would never destroy the world again. Therefore, when the nations heard the great roar and wondered, "What is this? Is He bringing another flood upon the world?" they were told: No, after the Flood Hashem sat and swore that it is over. "Sitting" (*yeshivah*) denotes cessation - there will never be another flood. If so, what is that tremendous sound? It is Hashem giving the Torah to His people Israel.
As a result of this, hatred descended upon the nations of the world. For what did the nations say? "Is that all? 'Hashem will give strength to His people; Hashem will bless His people with peace' - let them have it, good for them! We thought something apocalyptic was happening, some cosmic destruction, some catastrophe - and He merely gave a Torah? Good for them. It does not interest us; we have no need for it. Thank you very much, we manage fine on our own." That is to say, Hashem gives the Torah and it makes no difference to us; Hashem issues His word and teaches the earth, and the gentile is simply indifferent. Yet the Torah was inscribed in seventy languages upon the stones when Israel entered the Land, and Chazal say that destruction was decreed upon the nations because they ought to have come, scraped off the plaster, and read what was written. The Written Torah was offered to all nations; the Oral Torah is exclusively between us and Hashem, but regarding the Written Torah, the Holy One, blessed be He, did not forbid disseminating it among the nations - on the contrary, it was written so that all nations might learn from it. Yet here the nations display total indifference and apathy - "Hashem will bless His people with peace" - and from this, hatred descended upon the nations of the world.
The Metzudat David explains: "Hashem sat enthroned at the Flood" - at the time of the Flood, Hashem sat, as it were, alone, and His sovereignty was revealed as a solitary reign, for all else had been washed away, making it known that Hashem rules over all. From this he deduces: "Hashem sits as King forever" - so too will it be in the Messianic era, when Hashem alone will reign as King forever and all will recognize the sovereignty of the Blessed Creator.