Psalm 29:11

The LORD will give strength unto his people; the LORD will bless his people with peace.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) The Lord will give.—This verse appears to have been a liturgic addition, to give the poem a religious tone. (See Introduction.)

Benson Commentary

Psalm 29:11. The Lord will give strength unto his people — To support and preserve them in the most dreadful storms and commotions, whether of the earth or its inhabitants; and, consequently, in all other dangers, and against all their enemies. He will strengthen and fortify them against every evil work, and furnish them for every good work: out of weakness they shall be made strong; nay, he will perfect strength in their weakness. He will bless his people with peace — Though now he sees fit to exercise them with some troubles. He will encourage them in his service, and give them to find by experience that the work of righteousness is peace, and that great peace have they that love his law, and walk according to it.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

29:1-11 Exhortation to give glory to God. - The mighty and honourable of the earth are especially bound to honour and worship him; but, alas, few attempt to worship him in the beauty of holiness. When we come before him as the Redeemer of sinners, in repentance faith, and love, he will accept our defective services, pardon the sin that cleaves to them, and approve of that measure of holiness which the Holy Spirit enables us to exercise. We have here the nature of religious worship; it is giving to the Lord the glory due to his name. We must be holy in all our religious services, devoted to God, and to his will and glory. There is a beauty in holiness, and that puts beauty upon all acts of worship. The psalmist here sets forth God's dominion in the kingdom of nature. In the thunder, and lightning, and storm, we may see and hear his glory. Let our hearts be thereby filled with great, and high, and honourable thoughts of God, in the holy adoring of whom, the power of godliness so much consists. O Lord our God, thou art very great! The power of the lightning equals the terror of the thunder. The fear caused by these effects of the Divine power, should remind us of the mighty power of God, of man's weakness, and of the defenceless and desperate condition of the wicked in the day of judgment. But the effects of the Divine word upon the souls of men, under the power of the Holy Spirit, are far greater than those of thunder storms in the nature world. Thereby the stoutest are made to tremble, the proudest are cast down, the secrets of the heart are brought to light, sinners are converted, the savage, sensual, and unclean, become harmless, gentle, and pure. If we have heard God's voice, and have fled for refuge to the hope set before us, let us remember that children need not fear their Father's voice, when he speaks in anger to his enemies. While those tremble who are without shelter, let those who abide in his appointed refuge bless him for their security, looking forward to the day of judgment without dismay, safe as Noah in the ark.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10, 11. Over this terrible raging of the elements God is enthroned, directing and restraining by sovereign power; and hence the comfort of His people. "This awful God is ours, our Father and our Love."

The Treasury of David

11 The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.

Power was displayed in the hurricane whose course this Psalm so grandly pictures; and now, in the cool calm after the storm, that power is promised to be the strength of the chosen. He who wings the unerring bolt, will give to his redeemed the wings of eagles; he who shakes the earth with his voice, will terrify the enemies of his saints, and give his children peace. Why are we weak when we have divine strength to flee to? Why are we troubled when the Lord's own peace is ours? Jesus the mighty God is our peace - what a blessing is this today! What a blessing it will be to us in that day of the Lord which will be in darkness and not light to the ungodly!

Dear reader, is not this a noble Psalm to be sung in stormy weather? Can you sing amid the thunder? Will you be able to sing when the last thunders are let loose, and Jesus judges quick and dead? If you are a believer, the last verse is your heritage, and surely that will set you singing.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The Lord will give strength, to support and preserve them in the most dreadful tempests, and consequently in all other dangers, and against all their enemies.

The Lord will bless his people with peace, though now he sees fit to exercise them with some troubles.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Lord will give strength unto his people,.... His special people, his covenant people, whom he has chosen for himself; these are encompassed with infirmities, and are weak in themselves; but there is strength for them in Christ: the Lord promises it unto them, and bestows it on them, and which is a pure gift of his grace unto them; this may more especially regard that strength, power, and dominion, which will be given to the people of the most High in the latter day; since it follows, upon the account of the everlasting kingdom of Christ;

the Lord will bless his people with peace: with internal peace, which is peculiar to them, and to which wicked men are strangers; and which arises from a comfortable apprehension of justification by the righteousness of Christ, of pardon by his blood, and atonement by his sacrifice; and is enjoyed in a way of believing; and with external peace in the latter day, when there shall be no more war with them, nor persecution of them; but there shall be abundance of peace, and that without end; and at last with eternal peace, which is the end of the perfect and upright man; and the whole is a great blessing.

Geneva Study Bible

The LORD will give strength unto his people; the LORD will bless his people with peace.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. Comp. Psalm 28:8-9; Psalm 46:1-3; and the blessing in Numbers 6.

24–26. For His own people He is not the God of terror; for them all ends in peace. “This closing word with peace is like a rainbow arch over the Psalm. The beginning of the Psalm shews us heaven open, and the throne of God in the midst of the angelic songs of praise; while its close shews us His victorious people upon earth, blessed with peace in the midst of the terrible utterance of His wrath. Gloria in excelsis is the beginning, and pax in terris the end.” Delitzsch.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - The Lord will give strength unto his people. The Lord, who shows his strength in the thunderstorm, will be able, and assuredly will be willing, to "give strength to his people" - to impart to them some of that power and might which he so abundantly possesses. Then they, partaking in his strength, need not fear the attacks of any adversaries. Struggle and contention will, by his good providence, be one day brought to an end; and ultimately the Lord will bless his people with peace - will give them the "rest which remaineth to the people of God" (Hebrews 3:9), the perfect peace which "passeth all understanding" (Philippians 4:7).



Psalm 29:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Luther renders it: "The Lord sitteth to prepare a Flood," thus putting meaning into the unintelligible rendering of the Vulgate and lxx; and in fact a meaning that accords with the language - for ישׁב ל is most certainly intended to be understood after the analogy of ישׁב למשׁפט, Psalm 122:5, cf. Psalm 9:8 - just as much as with the context; for the poet has not thus far expressly referred to the torrents of rain, in which the storm empties itself. Engelhardt also (Lutherische Zeitschrift, 1861, 216f.), Kurtz (Bibel und Astronomie, S. 568, Aufl. 4), Riehm (Liter. - Blatt of the Allgem. Kirchen-Zeit., 1864, S. 110), and others understand by מבול the quasi-flood of the torrent of rain accompanying the lightning and thunder. But the word is not למבול, but למּבול, and המּבּוּל (Syr. momûl) occurs exclusively in Genesis 6-11 as the name of the great Flood. Every tempest, however, calls to mind this judgment and its merciful issue, for it comes before us in sacred history as the first appearance of rain with lightning and thunder, and of the bow in the clouds speaking its message of peace (Genesis, S. 276). The retrospective reference to this event is also still further confirmed by the aorist ויּשׁב which follows the perfect ישׁב (Hofmann, Schriftbeweis i. 208). Jahve - says the poet - sat (upon His throne) at the Flood (to execute it), and sits (enthroned) in consequence thereof, or since that time, as this present revelation of Him in the tempest shows, as King for ever, inasmuch as He rules down here upon earth from His throne in the heavens (Psalm 115:16) in wrath and in mercy, judging and dispensing blessing. Here upon earth He has a people, whom from above He endows with a share of His own might and blesses with peace, while the tempests of His wrath burst over their foes. How expressive is בּשּׁלום as the closing word of this particular Psalm! It spans the Psalm like a rain-bow. The opening of the Psalm shows us the heavens opened and the throne of God in the midst of the angelic songs of praise, and the close of the Psalm shows us, on earth, His people victorious and blessed with peace (בּ as in Genesis 24:1

(Note: The Holy One, blessed be He-says the Mishna, Uksin iii. 12, with reference to this passage in the Psalms-has not found any other vessel (כלי) to hold the blessing specially allotted to Israel but peace.))

in the midst of Jahve's voice of anger, which shakes all things. Gloria in excelsis is its beginning, and pax in terris its conclusion.