Psalms 29 - Introduction

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 29

A Psalm of David. In the Vulgate Latin version is added, "at the finishing of the tabernacle"; suggesting that this psalm was composed at that time, and on that occasion; not at the finishing of the tabernacle by Moses, but at the finishing of the tent or tabernacle which David made for the ark in Zion, 2 Samuel 6:17. The title in the Arabic version is,

"a prophecy concerning the incarnation, ark, and tabernacle.''

In the Septuagint version, from whence the Vulgate seems to have taken the clause, it is, at the "exodion", "exit", or "going out of the tabernacle"; that is, of the feast of tabernacles; and which was the eighth day of the feast, and was called עצרת, which word the Septuagint renders εξοδιον, the word here used, Leviticus 23:36; though it was on the first of the common days of this feast that this psalm was sung, as Maimonides w says. Some think it was composed when the psalmist was in a thunder storm, or had lately been in one, which he in a very beautiful manner describes. Kimchi thinks it refers to the times of the Messiah; and it may indeed be very well interpreted of the Gospel, and is very suitable to Gospel times.

w Hilchot Tamidin, c. 10. s. 11.