Maketh the hinds to calve. — Literally, maketh the hinds writhe (with pain). (See margin. Comp. Job 39:1, where the hind’s habit of hiding its young for safety is alluded to, a habit which the violence of the storm makes it forget.) Both Plutarch and Pliny notice the custom of shepherds to collect their flocks during a thunderstorm, for such as are left alone and are separated, are apt, through terror, to cast their young.
Discovereth the forests. — The word “discovereth” comes from the LXX. and Vulgate. Literally, peels or strips — the effects both of wind and lightning. Passing over the sands of the Arabah, the storm has reached the “acacias and palms and vegetation which clothe the rocks of granite and porphyry in the neighbourhood of Petra.” Forests may seem rather a large word for such vegetation, but Stanley remarks of the Arabah that “the shrubs at times give it almost the appearance of a jungle.” Similar effects of a storm upon a forest are described by Tennyson in Vivien:
“Scarce had she ceased when out of heaven a bolt
(For now the storm was close above them) struck,
Furrowing a giant oak, and javelining
With darted spikes and splinters of the wood
The dark earth round. He raised his eyes and saw
The tree that shone white-listed thro’ the gloom.”
In his temple. — Better, in his palace — i.e., the heavenly palace, as in Psalms 11:4; Psalms 18:6. (See Psalms 29:1.) The angelic spectators of the magnificent drama enacted below them cry (not merely speak of, as Authorised Version, but utter the word) each one, “Glory,” obeying the poet’s invocation in the prelude.
Notice that the effect of the storm on men is supposed to be all summed up in the poet’s own attitude of listening awe. There is no actual mention of this part of creation; but one feels from the poem that while inanimate nature trembles and suffers, and the godlike intelligences of heaven are engaged in praise, man listens and is mute.