The voice of the LORD [is] upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the LORD [is] upon many waters.
Ver. 3. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters] Thunder is here called, and fitly, the voice of the Lord (being brought, as one instance of those many other glorious works of his in nature), because it comes from him alone. Natural causes there are assigned of it; but we must not stick in them, as Epicurus and his hogs would have us. (The ancient Romans said Deus tonat, Deus fulgurat, for which now tonat, fulgurat.) The best philosophy in this behalf is to hear God Almighty by his thunder speaking unto us from heaven, as if he were present; and to see him in his lightnings, as if he cast his eyes upon us, to behold what we had been doing. This voice of the Lord is fitly instanced as an evidence of the Divine power and majesty; because it is so dreadful, even to the greatest atheists; as it was to Caius Caligula, that potent emperor, ready to run into a mouse hole in a time of thunder (Sueton.).
The God of glory thundereth] And men quake before him; as worms at such a time wriggle into the corners of the earth. And yet your dive clappers duck net at this rattle in the air, though they do at a far smaller matter. So, many tremble not at God's terrible threats, that yet are afraid of a penal statute.
The Lord is upon many waters] viz. When he thundereth. De aquis pendulis loquitur, saith Vatablus; He speaketh of the waters in the clouds, which are many, and of great force, as appeared in the general deluge; and doth still appear by that infinite inundation of rain that followeth upon the thunder claps. Some render it, The Lord, or, The voice of the Lord, is above many waters, i.e. above the loud roaring of many waters, which is even drowned by the thunder.