He maketh them also to skip like a calf - That is, the cedars of Lebanon. Compare Psalm 114:4, "The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs." Psalm 68:16, "why leap ye, ye high hills?" The meaning is plain. The lightning tore off the large branches, and uprooted the loftiest trees, so that they seemed to play and dance like calves in their gambols. Nothing could be more strikingly descriptive of "power."

Lebanon and Sirion - Sirion was the name by which Mount Hermon was known among the Sidonians: Deuteronomy 3:9, "Which Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion." It is a part of the great range of Anti-libanus.

Like a young unicorn - On the meaning of the word used here, see the notes at Psalm 22:21. The illustration would be the same if any young wild animal were referred to.

He maketh them also to skip like a calf,.... That is, the cedars, the branches being broken off, or they torn up by the roots, and tossed about by the wind; which motion is compared to that of a calf that leaps and skips about;

Lebanon and Sirion, like a young unicorn; that is, these mountains move and skip about through the force of thunder, and the violence of an earthquake attending it; so historians report that mountains have moved from place to place, and they have met and dashed against one another (d). Sirion was a mountain in Judea near to Lebanon, and is the same with Hermon; which was called by the Sidonians Sirion, and by the Amorites Shenir, Deuteronomy 3:9. This may regard the inward motions of the mind, produced by the Gospel of Christ under a divine influence; see Isaiah 35:6.

(d) Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 2. c. 83. Joseph. Antiqu. l. 9. c. 11.

He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and {d} Sirion like a young unicorn.

(d) Called also Hermon.

29:6 Them - The cedars; which being broken by the thunder, the parts of them are suddenly and violently hurled hither and thither. Sirion - An high mountain beyond Jordan joining to Lebanon. Lebanon and Sirion are said to skip or leap, both here, and Psal 114:4, by a poetical hyperbole.

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.