Psalms 29:7

Psa 29:7 The voice of the LORD divideth the flames of fire.

Ver. 7. The voice of the Lord divideth (Heb. cutteth out) the flames of fire] i.e. The lightniugs, which the thunder is said to strike, or cut out, because it causeth them to shoot and glide; it immediately followeth one flash, and goeth before another; dispersing and darting them hither and thither.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 29:7-8. Divideth the flames of fire — That is, casteth out many flashes of lightning. The Hebrew, חצב, chatzeb, signifies hews, or cuts up, divides, or distributes. “So the thunder, or voice of the Lord, is said to send forth the lightning; which is, indeed, the precursor of the thunder; the cause, and not the effect of it. The thunder, however, or voice of the Lord, is here, with great beauty and propriety, considered as that which commands and distributes the lightning.” Shaketh the wilderness — That is, either the trees, or rather, the beasts of the wilderness, by a metonymy, as before. Compare this with the next verse; the wilderness of Kadesh — Which he mentions as an eminent wilderness, vast and terrible, and well known to the Israelites, Num 20:1; Num 20:16, wherein, possibly, they had seen some such effects of thunder as are here mentioned.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7. (Psa 29:7) The voice of Jehovah (is) hewing flames (or with flames) of fire. The reference to lightning in this verse is universally admitted, some even seeing an allusion to the brief and sudden flash in the single clause of which the sentence is composed. Interpreters are not agreed, however, with respect to the specific image here presented. Some understand the act described to be that of cleaving or dividing, in allusion to the forked appearance of a flash of lightning; others that of hewing out, extracting flames; and others that of hewing with them, i.e. using them as weapons of warfare or instruments of vengeance. This last construction is a common one in Hebrew, and is favoured here by the analogy of Isa 51:9, Hos 6:5, where the same verb is applied to God's penal judgments.—The voice of God must here mean his authority or order, as it could not be said without absurdity, that the thunder either hews the lightning, or hews with it.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

It causeth the lightnings to shoot and glide.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

divideth--literally, "hews off." The lightning, like flakes and splinters hewed from stone or wood, flies through the air.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 7. Divideth the flames of fire.] The forked zigzag lightning is the cause of thunder; and in a thunder-storm these lightnings are variously dispersed, smiting houses, towers, trees, men, and cattle, in different places.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(7) The voice . . .—Literally, the voice of Jehovah cleaving flames of fire. The word is used of hewingstone and wood (Isa_10:15). The reference to lightning in this verse is universally admitted, some even seeing an allusion to the brief and sudden flash in the single clause of which the sentence is composed. But the most various explanations are given of the image employed. One of these—that of beating out as from an anvil—may be set aside as clumsy and unworthy of the poet. But the comparison with Isa_51:9, and Hos_6:5, where the same verb is used of God’s “judgments,” makes it possible that the lightnings here are regarded as “thought-executing fires,” and if language would allow, we might translate “hewing with flames of fire,” and illustrate by

“And ever and anon some bright white shaft

Burnt through the pine-tree roof, here burnt and there,

As if God’s messenger through the close wood screen

Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture,

Feeling for guilty thee and me.”

BROWNING: Pippa Passes.

But this, though the usual ancient translation, is now generally rejected in favour of the allusion to “forked lightning,” as we call it, the ignes trisulci of Ovid, a natural metaphor by which to try to represent the “nimble stroke of quick cross-lightnings.” For the apparent physical mistake in making thunder the agent in producing the lightning, see Note on Psa_29:5.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7. divideth the flames of fire] Better, as in R.V., cleaveth the flames of fire; or, as in R.V. marg., heweth out flames of fire; a poetical description of the forked lightnings darting from the cloud.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. Or "cutteth with flames of fire" (e); that is, the thunder breaks through the clouds with flames of fire, or lightning, as that is sometimes called, Psa 105:32; and with which it cleaves asunder trees and masts of ships, cuts and hews them down, and divides them into a thousand shivers. Some refer this, in the figurative and mystical sense, to the giving of the law on Mount Sinai (f), on which the Lord descended in fire, and from his right hand went a fiery law; but rather this may be applied to the cloven or divided tongues of fire which sat upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost, as an emblem of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit bestowed on them; though it seems best of all, as before, to understand this of the voice of Christ in the Gospel, which cuts and hews down all the goodliness of men, and lays them to the ground, Hos 6:5; and is of a dividing nature, and lays open all the secrets of the heart, Heb 4:12; and, through the corruption or human nature, is the occasion of dividing one friend from another, Luk 12:51; and like flames of fire it has both light and heat in it; it is the means of enlightening men's eyes to see their sad estate, and their need of Christ, and salvation by him; and of warming their souls with its refreshing truths and promises, and of inflaming their love to God and Christ, and of setting their affections on things above, and of causing their hearts to burn within them.

(e) "caedit cum flammis ignis", Cocceius, Gejerus. (f) Jarchi in loc.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Divideth the flames of fire - Margin, “cutteth out.” The Hebrew word - חצב châtsab - means properly “to cut, to hew, to hew out;” as, for example, stones. The allusion here is undoubtedly to lightning; and the image is either that it seems to be cut out, or cut into tongues and streaks - or, more probably, that the “clouds” seem to be cut or hewed so as to make openings or paths for the lightning. The eye is evidently fixed on the clouds, and on the sudden flash of lightning, as if the clouds had been “cleaved” or “opened” for the passage of it. The idea of the psalmist is that the “voice of the Lord,” or the thunder, seems to cleave or open the clouds for the flames of fire to play amidst the tempest. Of course this language, as well as that which has been already noticed Psa 29:5, must be taken as denoting what “appears” to the eye, and not as a scientific statement of the reality in the case. The rolling thunder not only shakes the cedars, and makes the lofty trees on Lebanon and Sirion skip like a calf or a young unicorn, but it rends asunder or cleaves the clouds, and cuts out paths for the flames of fire.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Divideth, Heb. heweth out, i.e. it breaketh out of the clouds, and thereby makes way for the lightnings, which are suddenly dispersed over the face of the earth.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 7. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. As when sparks fly from the anvil by blows of a ponderous hammer, so the lightning attends the thundering strokes of Jehovah.

"At first heard solemn over the verge of heaven,

The tempest growls; but as it nearer comes,

And rolls its awful burden on the wind,

The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more

The noise astounds: till overhead a sheet

Of livid flame discloses wide; then shuts

And opens wider; shuts and opens still

Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze."

The thunder seems to divide one flash from another, interposing its deepening roar between the flash which precedes it and the next. That the flashes are truly flames of fire is witnessed by their frequently falling upon houses, churches, etc., and wrapping them in a blaze. How easily could the Lord destroy his rebellious creatures with his hot thunderbolts! how gracious is the hand which spares such great offenders, when to crush them would be so easy!

Flames of fire attend the voice of God in the gospel, illuminating and melting the hearts of men: by those he consumes our lusts and kindles in us a holy flame of ever aspiring love and holiness. Pentecost is a suggestive commentary upon this verse.

Ver. 7. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. By the power of God, the "flames of fire" are "divided" and sent abroad from the clouds upon the earth, in the terrible form of lightning, that sharp and glittering sword of the Almighty, which no substance can withstand. The same power of God goeth forth by his word, "quick and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword." penetrating, melting, enlightening, and inflaming the hearts of men, Ac 2:3 Heb 4:12. George Horne.

Ver. 7. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord is here said to divide the flames; literally, to hew out flames, (latomein flav). The Septuagint has (diakoptei floga puroz). In the words of Gensenius, "The voice of Jehovah cutteth out flames of fire, "i.e., "sendeth out divided flames of fire." This is (as Theodoret has observed) very descriptive of the divine action at Pentecost, sending forth divided flames, like "tela trisulca, "in the tongues of fire which were divided off from one heavenly source or fountain of flame, and sat upon the heads of the apostles, and which filled them with the fire of holy zeal and love. Christopher Wordsworth.

Ver. 7. Divideth the flames of fire. Margin, cutteth out. The Hebrew word (bux) khatzab means properly to cut, to hew, to hew out; as for example, stones. The allusion here is undoubtedly to lightning; and the image is either that it seems to be cut out, or cut into tongues and streaksor, more probably, that the clouds seem to be cut or hewed, so as to make openings or paths for the lightning. The eye is evidently fixed on the clouds, and on the sudden flash of lightning, as if the clouds has been cleaved or opened for the passage of it. The idea of the psalmist is, that the "voice of the Lord, "or the thunder, seems to cleave or open the clouds for the flames of fire to play amidst the tempest. Albert Barnes.

Ver. 7. The fire which goes with the word. This is a wide subject.

Psalms 29:8*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

7. Divideth the flames of fire—A poetical description of forked lightning, as if it were cleaved or split. The word frequently means hewing and splitting, as Isa_10:15. The grammatical construction would make “the voice of the Lord” (thunder) the cause of cleaving or cutting out, the lightning; but the poet speaks phenomenally, as it appears. Elsewhere the thunder is put for the effect of lightning. Job_37:3-4. “With every thunder peal comes the terrible forked lightning, so striking in tropical and eastern lands. Its vivid, zig-zag, serpent-like flash, is given in a few words.”—Perowne.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire; rather, the voice of the Lord heweth out flames of fire. The poet describes the appearances of things, not the actual reality. To him it seems as if the thunder, rolling along the sky, hewed out a chasm in the clouds, from which the forked lightning issued.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The flames - The lightnings.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

cleaves with flames of fire taylont in Old French, to cut. Our Sages (Mechilta ibid.) explained that the utterance of the Decalogue emanated from His mouth with a flame of fire and was engraved on the tablets according to their form.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.