Yahweh’s Sovereignty over the Principalities (a closer look at Psalm 29)

This Sunday (May 26, 2024) is Trinity Sunday in the Liturgical Calendar. Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday of the “season” of Ordinary Time, or the “Sundays after Pentecost.” Ordinary Time is not a season of the Church Year like the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Eastertide. Rather, it is a period that is spent counting the weeks until the celebration can begin anew. Our Psalm for Trinity Sunday this year was Psalm 29.

As is the case with all sermon preparation (at least in my experience), a lot of my pre-prepared material ends up on the “cutting room floor.” This is for a few reasons:

1. The material/notes/commentary work prepared did not end up meshing with the content of the text.
2. Time simply would not allow for all the material to be covered.
3. That material isn’t what the Holy Spirit wanted in this sermon.

All three of these seem to be a common thread for me each week as I sit down to prayerfully compile my thoughts and notes as well as any commentary work that I have done throughout the week. Thursdays are the most frustrating days in my sermon preparation as Thursdays are the days that I am typically always looking at a blank word document, watching the cursor blink under the bolded title of whatever week/holiday/celebration of the Christian Year that Sunday so happens to be, and trying to figure out how to begin. And as I do, as Spirit guides and the sermon begins to take shape, it starts to become clear that some things just aren’t going to fit no matter how much I try or how much I like the content.

This week, my problem, primarily, was time. Not that I’m assuming to make a decision for the Holy Spirit on what exactly the church needs to hear, but rather the more I worked, the more I felt led to keep things simple this week, to keep “the main thing the main thing” … that being the celebration of our Triune God. Plus, personally, I’ve begun to feel convicted about spending 45-50 minutes preaching each and every week. Not that it’s not good for the church to hear the word of God extensively and clearly proclaimed and taught, but rather people can only ingest so much information in one sitting, so much new teaching, so much to grab on to. Some weeks it’s better to remain straightforward, simple, and again “keep the main thing the main thing.” Furthermore, time was getting away from me on how to exactly work out this extra material so that it would make sense within the context of the sermon.

And yet, while I felt it necessary to rework the sermon to be less time consuming this week, there was a bit of really interesting material that I still felt compelled to share – hence this post. So, for my beloved church community who have made their way here due to the announcement made this week, thank you for your patience thus far with this long “intro” explanation for the readers who are not regularly in worship with us every week. For those who are not part of our local covenant community, the audio for this week’s sermon can be found on the home page. I would recommend you listen to that as well as last week’s sermon from Pentecost before pressing forward from here, as there are a few contextual points that will be brought out in the following paragraphs that flow from those sermons.

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At this point, allow me to share with you the extra material. But first, the text:

Psalm 29 A Psalm of David

1 Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,
    ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
² Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
    worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.

³ The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
    the God of glory thunders,
    the Lord, over many waters.
⁴ The voice of the Lord is powerful;
    the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

⁵ The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
    the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
⁶ He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf,
    and Sirion like a young wild ox.

⁷ The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.
⁸ The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
    the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

⁹ The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth
    and strips the forests bare,
    and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

¹⁰ The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
    the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.
¹¹ May the Lord give strength to his people!
    May the Lord bless his people with peace!

As you’ll remember from our Trinity Sunday sermon, this Psalm is considered one of the oldest Psalms penned by David. The Psalm itself is a testimony to the glory, power, and majesty of Yahweh, particularly over creation. But, moving beyond the surface level, we can actually notice a lot more going on within the language if we’re willing to pay attention. Notice in v.1 to whom this Psalm is directed. Who is the intended audience? “Ascribe to Yahweh – O Heavenly Beings.” The intended audience is not humanity (at least not directly). Nor is the audience Yahweh himself, at least not in the same way that Psalm 28 is, which begins with “To you, O Yahweh, I cry!”

For us in the Protestant tradition, particularly within the last couple of hundred years, this takes us into uncomfortable territory. We’ve been taught that Scripture is “God’s love letter to mankind” and therefore every jot and tittle was written about and to us. How high and mighty we think of ourselves! Scripture is about Christ, has always meant to be about Christ, and was always meant to display Christ (see Luke 24). Scripture’s purpose is for us to “believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing [we] may have life in his name” John 20:31. Meaning that, while we can most assuredly learn something from this Psalm, apply this Psalm, and love and sing and pray this Psalm, the intended audience is “heavenly beings” … not mankind. And the language of the Psalm bears this out. Allow me to explain.

In Hebrew, the words translated in the ESV as “heavenly beings” (or “mighty ones” in other translations) are the words: בְּנֵ֣י אֵלִ֑ים or “bene-elim.” Literally, these words mean “sons of God” or “sons of El.” This is a phrase that occurs all throughout the Old Testament used to describe angels, the heavenly court, and a single angel – probably the “Angel of the Lord” which usually refers to a pre-incarnate Christ, (see Gen. 6:1-2, Job 1:6 & 2:1, and Dan. 3:25 respectively). In other words, this is a term that is used to describe the principalities in the heavenly places (see Ephesians 6:12)

But it’s the Job 1 & 2 context that I’d like to focus on for a moment. In Job 1:6 & 2:1 we read that the sons of God present themselves before Yahweh, and Satan also came among them. This is interesting, but it’s also something that we typically do not like to consider. Because what this suggests is that Satan, at least for the present, is allowed into the presence of God, particularly in order to accuse God’s people. Zechariah 3:1 bears this out as does Revelation 12:10. The Apostle Paul attests to something similar in Ephesians 6:12 when he writes: “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers (principalities), against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” 

Now, why does this matter here in Psalm 29? It matters … because of how the Psalm flows. So, for a moment, let’s put a pin in the rulers/principalities in order to consider the flow of this psalm, particularly vv.3-8. Scroll back up and read vv.3-8 again and take note of how the thunderstorm moves. For context, remember, this Psalm is commanding the “heavenly beings/sons of El” to worship Yahweh because of his glory and his strength, and it does so by using the imagery of a thunderstorm to focus attention upon Yahweh’s power.

As we see … the thunderstorm blows in from the Mediterranean Sea to the west (vv.3-4), crosses into Lebanon and Syria in the north (vv.5-6), and then makes its way into the wilderness of Kadesh (vv.7-8). A quick side note for clarification: there are two ancient locations for Kadesh. There is Kadesh Barnea in the southern area of ancient Israel, and there was also an area called “Kadesh by the river Orontes” which is located in northeast Lebanon. Many commentators like to split hairs with this, but I see no reason to make such a strong distinction. Rather, I agree with Tremper Longman who notes in his Expositor’s Bible Commentary that, “Kadesh is used as a general term for the wilderness, the wild lands, the lands outside of where God’s people dwell, but where God’s power is clear nonetheless” (pg. 295). My point being – the thunderstorm blows in from the west, then heads north, east, and south of the land of Israel. I don’t think, shall we say “unusual” movement of a thunderstorm, this is incidental. I think it’s very intentional. And I think its point is to display for the “sons of El” the majesty, glory, power, and sovereignty of Yahweh.  

Now, let’s take that pin out of the principalities and combine “heavenly beings/sons of God” with the flow of this Psalm.

In our Pentecost sermon we noted that places and locations are important in Scripture. The locations used here are not incidental. Each and every place this storm touches, is a place that, in David’s time, engaged in the worship of Ba’al and the other Canaanite deities, (the same ones that the people of Israel themselves would eventually engage in worship that would lead to their Babylonian Exile). Like many ancient pantheons, the Canaanites had a myriad of gods and goddesses, but two are intentionally alluded to here in the language of Psalm 29: the storm god and the sea god. The storm/fertility god of the Canaanites was Ba’al whereas Yam was the sea/water god. According to the Canaanites, the sea (i.e. “many waters” v.3) was the battleground between Yam and Ba’al. Also like many ancient religions, in the Canaanite religion, the mountains were the “home of the gods” (similar to Mount Olympus in Greek mythology). So, when David writes “the God of glory thunders” the name he uses for God is “El.” El is not a Hebrew term only. The Canaanites also used this name to refer to their supreme god, who was named (you guessed it) “El.” Similar to how Paul draws upon the “unknown god” in Athens (see Acts 17), David’s word choice here is an intentional play on words as he uses the name “El” to stress that Yahweh (Elohim/Eloim), El of Glory, is superior over both Yam and Ba’al. It is Yahweh, El of Glory, who causes the storm with his voice. Therefore Yahweh, El of Glory is the supreme God over ALL gods, over chaos, and over the chaotic waters of creation.

Therefore, I suggest that, the reason why the intended audience of this Psalm is the “principalities” is that it intentionally draws not only mankind’s attention to the supremacy of Yahweh … but it also draws the principalities attention to the supremacy of Yahweh over them. And this is displayed, very clearly, by something as simple as the movement of a thunderstorm. David uses this language to command Israel’s pagan neighbors and the gods of their pantheon to give praise to Yahweh, El of Glory: “Ascribe to Yahweh EVEN you principalities … ascribe to him glory, strength, glory due to his name, and WORSHIP him in the splendor of holiness.” This is also attested to by the language used in Ps 97:7 – Worship him all you gods (elohim in Hebrew)! Furthermore, when Paul writes in Philippians 2 that “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father,” this means quite literally that every knee and every tongue, including not only humanity, but every principality, every demon, every spirit, every god. Psalm 29 proclaims to us that, over these principalities, over these lesser gods … stands Yahweh, the supreme, sovereign, enthroned “El of Glory.”  

Do you see now why I chose to cut this from the sermon this week? As fun, interesting, and good as this information is, Trinity Sunday should be about celebrating the Trinity and the worship of our Triune God. I didn’t want to get bogged down in the weeds of pagan deities on Trinity Sunday like hobbits in the Midgewater Marshes.

So, when David writes these verses, he stresses that it is not the voice of Ba’al or the power of Yam that causes the storm to blow in from the Mediterranean Sea, split the cedars of Lebanon, burn and shake the wilderness with fire and earthquakes, or even causes the deer to go into labor … but the voice and the power of Yahweh. Yahweh shows these principalities how insignificant they are and displays His sovereignty over them by showing them who has true and supreme authority over the elements of creation that were supposedly under their control.

For application purposes and how it relates to us in our lived experiences in Christ, vv.10-11 are quite helpful. I elaborated on this some in the Trinity Sunday sermon. But we clearly can see, from the information given above, that it is a boon to our hearts and souls that “Yahweh sits enthroned over the flood” and “enthroned as king forever.” Yahweh enthroned over the principalities, rendering their influence and power moot, gives us strength to overcome their influence. And it also give us “shalom” … it gives us, the peace of Christ, which surpasses all understanding.

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Obviously this could be more thought out and worked out, but this was mostly what I had down (though I’ve re-worked it for reading and not speaking). I think this context adds quite a bit of depth to this Psalm (and I imagine many other Psalms as well). Our context, historical period, culture, etc. matters, and that includes the context, historical period, culture, etc. of the biblical text as well. These things help to serve us as we study Scripture beyond the “surface level” in order to grasp the full story, patterns, and plans that God has laid out in his creation.

But as you can tell, some things just simply do not always need to end up in a sermon. Sometimes they need to be worked through and condensed or blogged. While I think this material could make an interesting sermon or bible study, there are many reasons why it did not “make the cut” this week. At any rate, I hope you have found benefit in this part of my study. I hope it drives you to look into this more. If you find anything, let me know. Until next time.

Peace of Christ,

Nick