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 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;

continued...

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.

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.

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

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.