Back to Psalm 29

Overview

There are five participants/characters in Psalm 29:

David
YHWH
Divine beings (בְּנֵי אֵלִים)
The natural world
- Water
- Cedars
- Mountains (Lebanon and Sirion)
- Flames of fire
- Desert of Kadesh
- Deer
- Forests
YHWH's people

Participant Relations

The relationships among the participants may be abstracted and summarised as follows:

David summons the divine beings to ascribe strength to YHWH, who and gives strength to his people and wields authority over the most powerful forces of nature.

Participants in the Psalm

The phrase קול יהוה occurs 7 times, and only within vv. 3-9
The name YHWH occurs 18 times
The name YHWH occurs 4 times before vv. 3-9 (as predicative participant) and 4 times after vv. 3-9 (as subject)
Verse 6 is the only verse without YHWH's name; it is also the middle verse of the psalm
Before verse 6, the name YHWH occurs 10 times, twice in every verse (vv. 1-5); after v. 6, the name YHWH occurs 8 times
The 3ms suffix in v. 9c. Grammatically, there is not an antecedent.^[1] But semantically, since it follows the phrase "in his temple," it probably refers to "each of the beings there" [i.e. in his temple].^[2] These will refer to God's people on earth (cf. v. 11) or to divine beings in heaven (vv. 1-2) depending on whether the earthly or heavenly temple is in view. Since the psalm is addressed to divine beings, and since these have already been summoned in vv. 1-2 to worship YHWH [in his heavenly temple], the heavenly temple is more likely in view. Therefore, the participant here is probably the divine assembly. Cf. Targum: "in his sanctuary on high all his attendants."^[3]

Participant Analysis Diagram

Legend

For Visual, click "Expand" to the right

Diagram

The following image is the grammatical diagram overlaid with information regarding the participants, or characters, of the psalm. It makes explicit who is doing what to whom. For Visual, click "Expand" to the right

Chart