The Psalm They Never Told Me About in Sunday School

Last night there were severe storm warnings for the Moose Jaw region. Walking my dog, I could see menacing clouds piling up in heavy heaps in all directions. I kept humming that line from the old hymn-- "dark is his path on the wings of the storm"-- and watching the horizon-- and thinking about Psalm 29.

Psalm 29 doesn't get as much airtime as the more intimate ones like #23 or #42. This is too bad, maybe, because there's something really subversive going on here that's worth mulling over. On the surface it's this straight forward, albeit glorious hymn celebrating the Voice of the Lord with vivid "severe-storm-warning" imagery. Yahweh presides over the divine counsel (v.1 literally, "the sons of god"), and his mighty Voice rumbles out exactly seven times: it thunders over the waters; it is powerful; it is majestic; it breaks the mighty cedars; it flashes with lightning; it shakes the desert; it strips the forests bare. All creation convulses as Yahweh is enthroned as King forever, reigning supreme over the chaotic waters (v. 10 the "flood").

And in his temple, all cry "Glory!"

But here's the subversive thing: a divine warrior subduing the chaotic waters, sitting enthroned amid a counsel of divine beings, thundering his sevenfold voice from his divine palace-- these are all images straight out of the ancient Baal myths. In fact, in a text that Ugaritic scholars call KTU² 1.101.3b-4 (Ugariticia,V, 3.3b-4), we find a description of Baal sitting enthroned over the flood water, and then a vivid reference to his "seven lightnings," his "eight storehouses of thunder," his "shaft of lightning."

Remember Baal? The enemy of Yahweh? The false god whose cult Elijah worked so zealously to purge from Israel? Well it looks like psalmist here has lifted the precise attributes of the mythic Baal, and then ascribed their glory directly to Yahweh.

In a way that makes playing rock music in church look pretty tame, Psalm 29 uses the specific language of an idolatrous culture to make a bold case for the One True God. Because to claim that Yahweh's voice thunders over the waters is to claim implicitly and subversively that Baal's does not. Ugaritic scholar Peter Craigie says it like this: "Language normally employed to worship Baal for the awesome might of the thunderstorm did not rightfully belong to him who was not true god. Such language belonged to the God of Israel alone."

Now, I think it would be easy to make too much out of the Baal-myth imagery in Psalm 29 (and I've read a few scholars who've done just that). At the same time, however, it would be easier to make too little out of it-- to ignore altogether the startling fact that this psalm makes Baalistic imagery bear witness to Yahweh.

I've posted a bit on culture and Faith lately (like here , here, or here ). And as I wonder out loud about the Christian's prophetic role in a non-Christian culture, I wonder if we shouldn't meditate a bit on Psalm 29. Because here God confounds the claims of an idolatrous impostor by revealing himself specifically and scandalously in the impostor's own terms. It's almost as if you can hear God say to all those ancient Baalists: "You had the right notion of divine glory-- you just ascribed it to the wrong god. There is a voice that subdues chaos and gives life-- only it's mine, and most assuredly not Baal's."

And I wonder what it would look like if Christians were as daring in their apologetic strategy as this Psalmist. What if we looked for broken witnesses to the One True God buried in the language and imagery of the culture around us? What if-- like Psalmist #29-- we pointed these out, saying to our neighbours: "You had the right notion of divine glory-- or divine love-- or divine Spirit-- you just ascribed it to the wrong god."

If we could, we just might hear the same voice of the Lord that the Psalmist heard, rumbling like looming thunder on the distant horizon of his culture.