Verse-by-Verse Bible CommentaryPsalms 77:17
The clouds poured out water; The skies gave forth a sound; Your arrows flashed here and there. Jump to: Clarke Commentary • Barne's Notes • Gill's Exposition • Geneva Study Bible • Wesley's Notes • Calvin's Commentary • Trapp's Commentary • Poole's Annotations • Whedon's Commentary • Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes • Commentary Critical and Explanatory - Unabridged • Treasury of Knowledge Other Authors
Adam Clarke CommentaryThe clouds poured out water - It appears from this that there was a violent tempest at the time of the passage of the Red Sea. There was a violent storm of thunder, lightning, and rain. These three things are distinctly marked here.
Copyright Statement Bibliography Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole BibleThe clouds poured out water - Margin, “The clouds were poured forth with water.” The translation in the text is the more correct. This is a description of a storm; but to what particular storm in history does not appear. It was evidently some exhibition of the divine greatness and power in delivering the children of Israel, and may have referred to the extraordinary manifestation of God at Mount Sinai, amidst lightnings, and thunders, and tempests. Exodus 19:16. For a general description of a storm, as illustrating this passage, see Job 36:26-33, notes; Job 37:1-5, notes; and Psalm 29:1-11. The skies sent out a sound - The voice of thunder, which seems to come from the sky. Thine arrows also - The lightnings - compared with burning or ignited arrows. Such arrows were anciently used in war. They were bound round with rags, and dipped in some combustible substance - as turpentine - and shot into houses, grain-fields, haystacks, or towns, for the purpose of setting them on fire. It was not unnatural to compare the rapid lightnings with such blazing arrows. Went abroad - They moved rapidly in all directions. Copyright Statement Bibliography John Gill's Exposition of the Whole BibleThe clouds poured out water,.... This, with some other circumstances which follow, are not related by Moses in the history of this affair; but as they are here recorded by an inspired penman, there is no doubt to be made of the truth of them; besides Josephus the skies sent out a sound; or the airy clouds, the lighter ones, and which were higher in the heavens, as the others before mentioned were thick clouds, full of water, and hung lower; these were thunderclouds, and thunder is the sound which they sent forth, as in the following verse: thine arrows also went abroad: that is, lightnings, as in Psalm 18:14, so Aben Ezra; but Kimchi interprets them of hailstones. Copyright Statement Bibliography Geneva Study BibleThe clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a l sound: thine arrows also went abroad.(l) That is, thundered and lightninged. Copyright Statement Bibliography Wesley's Explanatory NotesThe clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad. Poured — When the Israelites passed over the sea. Arrows — Hail-stones or lightnings. Copyright Statement Bibliography Calvin's Commentary on the Bible17.The clouds poured out waters. As the noun מים, mayim, cannot be taken in the construct state, the verb, I have no doubt, is put transitively; but it makes little difference as to the sense, whether we take this view, or read as if מים, mayim, were in the construct state and the verb passive; that is, whether we read, The clouds poured out waters, or, The waters of the clouds were poured out. The meaning obviously is, that not only the sea and the river Jordan, but also the waters which were suspended in the clouds, yielded to God the honor to which he is entitled, the air, by the concussion of the thunder, having poured forth copious showers. The object is to show, that, to whatever quarter men turn their eyes, the glory of God is illustriously manifested, that it is so in every part of creation, above and beneath, from the height of heaven to the depths of the sea. What history is here referred to is involved in some degree of uncertainty. (304) Perhaps it is that which is recorded in Exodus 9:23; where we are informed, that hail mingled with thunder and lightning was one of the dreadful plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians. The arrows which went abroad are, no doubt, to be taken metaphorically for lightnings. With this verse we are to connect the following, in which it is said, that the voice of the thunder was heard in the air, and that the lightnings illumined the world, so that the earth trembled The amount is, that at the departure of the people from Egypt, ample testimony was borne to the power of God, both to the eyes and the ears of men; peals of thunder having been heard in every quarter of the heavens, and the whole sky having shone with flashes of lightning, while at the same time the earth was made to tremble. Copyright Statement Bibliography John Trapp Complete CommentaryPsalms 77:17 The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad. Ver. 17. The clouds poured out water, the skies, &c.] Calvin taketh this to be a description of that hideous tempest, Exodus 9:18-26, the seventh plague of Egypt. But others with more probability hold, that the prophet here hath respect to that very time mentioned in the former verse, when the Lord looked upon the host of the Egyptians out of the fiery and cloudy pillar, and so troubled and turmoiled them with stormy tempests, that their chariot wheels fell off, and themselves sank as lead in the mighty waters, Exodus 14:24-25; Exodus 15:10. Of these terrible tempests mention is made also by Justin. Copyright Statement Bibliography Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy BibleThe clouds poured out water, when the Israelites passed over the sea; in respect whereof the Israelites are said to have been baptized in the cloud (i.e. sprinkled with water poured forth from the clouds) and in the sea, 1 Corinthians 10:2. Thine arrows; either hail-stones, or rather lightnings or thunder-bolts, which are called Gods arrows, Psalms 18:14 144:6. Copyright Statement Bibliography Whedon's Commentary on the Bible17. The clouds poured out water—The rain refers to the desert life of the people, not to the passage of the Red Sea, which was not in a thunderstorm. Psalms 68:7-9, where see note. A sound—Thunder. Arrows—Lightnings. A beautiful poetic conception. Psalms 77:18; Habakkuk 3:11; Psalms 18:14 Copyright Statement Bibliography E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notesclouds = the thick or dark clouds. arrows. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Adjunct), App-6, for lightnings, mentioned below. Copyright Statement Bibliography Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - UnabridgedThe clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad. The clouds poured out water. So the English version rightly; not as margin, passively. The skies sent out a sound - namely, thunder. Thine arrows also went abroad - God's arrow-like lightnings (Psalms 77:18; Habakkuk 3:11; Psalms 18:14). The thunderstorm here described, though it did not accompany the passage of Israel through the Red Sea, yet is implied in the account (Exodus 14:24) of the destruction of their Egyptian enemies immediately after. So it forms part of the couragement under the present trial. Copyright Statement Bibliography Treasury of Scripture KnowledgeThe clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad.
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