The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s upcoming book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 32, 52.
Psalm 19: The Greatest Psalm in the Psalter
Psalm 19, which C. S. Lewis considered “to be the greatest poem in the Psalter,” is a colorfully painted, three-paneled work of art that bids us meditate on how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit create (vv. 1–6), give us the saving Word (vv. 7–10), and work in our lives (vv. 11–14). [1]
In the first panel, God uses the grandeur of creation to preach an eloquent but mute sermon on his divine glory. “Day to day pours forth speech…there is no speech” (vv. 2–3). The Hebrew verb for “pours forth” is naba, to “gush forth.”
Twenty-four-seven, the heavens and earth gush silently about God. “His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20). While this is wonderful, we need more. Creation preaches a stirring homily, but it cannot tell us exactly who God is and what he thinks of us.
So the Lord, in the second panel, unmutes the message by giving us his Word: the Torah, testimony, precepts, and so forth. If creation silently preaches that God is glorious, then his Word loudly proclaims that he is gracious. He vivifies our souls and grants us wisdom. Earthly riches pale in comparison with the gold of his Scriptures. Culinary sweets taste sour compared to his honeycombed Word on our tongues. The sun was likened to a bridegroom in the first panel, but in this second one, we are led to the Scriptures, where we meet Jesus the Bridegroom, the Sun of righteousness, with healing in his wings (cf. Mal. 4:2).
Closing off the poem in the third panel, we confess our unworthiness, plead for a blameless life under his grace, and ask that the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to the Lord, who is our rock and our redeemer. The request of these final verses is a prayer that our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, is always ready and willing to answer.
Psalm 29:3–11: The Voice of the Lord
The next time a storm rolls through, rather than opening the weather app, open Psalm 29. Read its eleven verses aloud. When you hear the phrase, “the voice of the Lord,” say it in Hebrew, kol Yahweh. As you do, hear thunder, for in Hebrew, thunder is often depicted as the boom of God’s voice. Seven perfect times that thunderous voice resounds through the psalm. The poet depicts a
storm. It’s barreling winds snap cedars of Lebanon like twigs (29:5). The divine voice “flashes forth flames of fire” and “shakes the wilderness of Kadesh” (29:8).It strips forests bare and even frightens a mother deer into labor (29:9). God’s thundering voice evokes worship, above and below. Above, heavenly beings “ascribe to the Lord glory and strength” (29:1). Below, all in the Lord’s temple unite in a single cry, “Glory!” (29:9).
Yahweh, who sat enthroned over the flood, afterward graced the world with the rainbow. Never again would the King of the world destroy it with a flood. At the end of Psalm 29, arching like a rainbow, is the word “peace”: “May the Lord bless his people with peace!” (29:11). The Lord of the storm cannot be domesticated, un-divinized into a pet deity in an idolatrous zoo. He is the Lord of the storm who speaks in thunder of his might and majesty. But he is also the Lord of peace who sends rainbows as his token of shalom. He sent his Son as the guarantee of grace—that Son to whom God once spoke in a thunder-like voice saying, “I have glorified [my name], and I will glorify it again” (John 12:28).
That thunderous voice of the Father announced that he would glorify his Son, his name, in the glory of the cross. There the heart of God was on cruciform display. On that day, the kol Yahweh, the voice of the Lord Jesus, spoke words that stormed the gates of hell, broke the cedars of Hades, and forever blessed his people with peace: “It is finished” (John 19:30).
Untamed Prayers is currently available for preorder and releases September 30, 2025
