Chapter 29
David.
1st - Give God the glory that is his due.
2nd - The voice of the Lord.
3rd - The voice again
4th - The voice..
5th - The Lord on His throne.
In 29:1 the phrase for heavenly beings is the phrase for sons of God, or could be sons of might. Same phrase where the sons of God looked on human women I think.
2022 - It is an interesting word order. Again, I think Hebrew may be quite difficult to translate into English. I would go further, and say that "ancient" Hebrew is even harder to translate.
It reads "Yehova yahab el ben". Yehova we know. Yahab means give unto. El is an iteration of the noun elim. Elim is almost always translated either God or god. And ben means "sons of". Because the form of ben and the form of elim used are plural, we could say Sons of God, rather than Son of God. But for some reason the translators don't do that here. They decide not to use the phrase "Sons of God", and instead translate it "heavenly beings" in the ESV. This seems much more interpretation than translation. The KJV translates it "Oh ye mighty..". The KJV is not implying that these mighty are in heaven. I don't see how the ESV arrives at the conclusion that David is addressing "heavenly beings", rather than calling on mankind to "Ascribe to the Lord". It has to be based on the use of that word "el", which is a form of "elim" which means "God" or "god". It is translated "God" in 213 of 245 cases in the KJV.
Hmm...here is vs 9b:
9 The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, "Glory!" [Psa 29:9 ESV]. Perhaps "in his temple" is considered a reference to a heavenly temple, and this influences the earlier translation in vs 1. Vs 10 gives credence to this "picture":
10 The LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD sits enthroned as king forever. [Psa 29:10 ESV].
2023 - Went and found that reference in Genesis 6 that talks about the "sons of God" looking upon the daughters of men. In that verse, the Hebrew words translated "sons of God" are "ben Elohim". So really not much wiggle room there for the translators. Here in Psalm 29, the construction is "ben el". NOT the full Elohim, but only el. Is that a contraction that was used in David's time that wasn't around when Moses wrote Genesis, but it means essentially the same thing? If we say it does, then the sons of God in Genesis can only be understood as heavenly, mighty beings come down from where God's throne is located and somehow "causing" human women to give birth to mighty men, these men among men, these stronger faster better than human men. The causing could be genetic manipulation. Genesis 6 does not imply that these mighty ones that resulted were bad or evil at all. If you look at Genesis 6, they took human daughters AS WIVES, and the next verse says God at that time limited human lifespan to 120 years. Why? Well immortal angels somehow having children with mortal women might greatly extend the lifespan of that offspring....making all humanity prefer to be born of a woman and an angel instead of a woman and a man. Angel and woman...spirit and flesh? Hmm. That does not seem correct. Then Genesis 6 talks about Nephilim still being around - without explaining what they are - and we see that it is only then that we are told women give birth to "them". Here is the verse:
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. [Gen 6:4 ESV].
If we look closely at this verse, "and also afterward" is a prepositional phrase giving additional information but not fundamental to the sentence. So we might read it like this:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. .
So now, with that distraction out of the way, we see that "when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, is also a protracted prepositional phrase. Noting this confuses us as to who exactly is fathering the mighty men of old? What if we read it like this:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and they bore children to them.
"Nephilim" is a masculine plural noun. So the Nephilim are possibly the fathers of the mighty men. It is also possible that the "sons of God" are the fathers. But I think we know enough to realize that this is not the case. The only example we have in the Bible of a spirit fathering a child is here:
35 And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy--the Son of God. [Luk 1:35 ESV]. What we know about this is that the Holy Spirit is part of the trinity. This Spirit is God, a manifestation of God. The Nephilim, and as far as that goes the "ben Elohim", are all created beings, and we have no basis for believing that ANY Spirit could "mate" with human women. Maybe the angels just liked their company, and spent time on earth with them, and "took them out of circulation" because no human male could "compete" with an immortal angel for the attention of a woman. This might also explain the 120 year lifespan. Perhaps these sons of God, though they cannot mate with women, can keep them healthy and extend their lifespans for a very long time. Taking these women out of circulation, keeping them from populating the earth, goes against God's order to go forth and multiply also. 120 years is not very long to an angel, and might well have been a disincentive for the angels to enter into relationships with women after that. IF WE READ IT THIS WAY,
then vs 4 is talking about a whole different thing than vss 1-3 were about. I think it was these Nephilim that were mating with women and the result was these mighty men of renown. Here is the definition of Strong's 5303, the word Nephilim: nᵉphîyl, nef-eel'; or נְפִל nᵉphil; from H5307; properly, a feller, i.e. a bully or tyrant:—giant. So given this definition, the Nephilim were not the good guys. They were giants who "threw their weight around". Perhaps someone had begun a human breeding program to produce larger and larger men. Or women AND men, which would keep you from hitting a wall when the babies got too big for any normal sized woman to carry. Perhaps the huge size and corresponding strength of these giants made them arrogant, and made them the "fittest" to borrow an evolutionary description. These giants were taking over the world, doing what they wanted to whomever they wanted, and were so self-centered that they were pushing God all the way out of their consideration...and they were the ones in charge, and difficult or impossible to oppose in a time when hand to hand was the way things were settled. And it was because of THESE that we get the next few verses:
5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. [Gen 6:5-6 ESV]
So that is enough of a complete "goose chase" this morning in '23. I am copying this to Genesis 6 though because I think it has finally made good sense to me.
Perhaps the point of this psalm is the power of God's word. With His word, He rules. There is power of destruction (vss 3, 5, 7, 8) and life (vss 6, 9). Life and death, all in the word. "Thy word is truth". The Bible is the word, the word is a two-edged sword. When God speaks...
2021 - Vs 3 is very interesting in Hebrew. There is much more structure to it. I think English is a difficult language to use for a concise translation of Hebrew. Vs 4 is very succinct in Hebrew.
There is much about the voice of God and about how His power is wielded through His voice. He needs no tools. He just speaks and it happens.
2023 - This Psalm is about the power of God, exercised with his voice. He needs no army, no tool, no helper. He but speaks and it is done. In the ESV, the word voice appears seven times (should we be surprised?). The Psalm says God is to be glorified, because the application of His power requires only that he speak. That's it. His voice carries infinite power.