26:8 He locks the waters in his clouds,
and the clouds do not burst with the weight of them.
36:29 Who can understand the spreading of the clouds,
the thunderings of his pavilion? 1
104:2 He covers himself with light as if it were a garment.
He stretches out the skies like a tent curtain,
104:3 and lays the beams of the upper rooms of his palace on the rain clouds. 2
He makes the clouds his chariot,
and travels along on the wings of the wind. 3
40:22 He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; 4
its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. 5
He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, 6
and spreads it out 7 like a pitched tent. 8
10:13 When his voice thunders, 9 the heavenly ocean roars.
He makes the clouds rise from the far-off horizons. 10
He makes the lightning flash out in the midst of the rain.
He unleashes the wind from the places where he stores it. 11
1 tn Heb “his booth.”
2 tn Heb “one who lays the beams on water [in] his upper rooms.” The “water” mentioned here corresponds to the “waters above” mentioned in Gen 1:7. For a discussion of the picture envisioned by the psalmist, see L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World, 44-45.
3 sn Verse 3 may depict the Lord riding a cherub, which is in turn propelled by the wind current. Another option is that the wind is personified as a cherub. See Ps 18:10 and the discussion of ancient Near Eastern parallels to the imagery in M. Weinfeld, “‘Rider of the Clouds’ and ‘Gatherer of the Clouds’,” JANESCU 5 (1973): 422-24.
4 tn Heb “the circle of the earth” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
5 tn The words “before him” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
6 tn The otherwise unattested noun דֹּק (doq), translated here “thin curtain,” is apparently derived from the verbal root דקק (“crush”) from which is derived the adjective דַּק (daq, “thin”; see HALOT 229 s.v. דקק). The nuance “curtain” is implied from the parallelism (see “tent” in the next line).
7 tn The meaning of the otherwise unattested verb מָתַח (matakh, “spread out”) is determined from the parallelism (note the corresponding verb “stretch out” in the previous line) and supported by later Hebrew and Aramaic cognates. See HALOT 654 s.v. *מתה.
8 tn Heb “like a tent [in which] to live”; NAB, NASB “like a tent to dwell (live NIV, NRSV) in.”
9 tn Heb “At the voice of his giving.” The idiom “to give the voice” is often used for thunder (cf. BDB 679 s.v. נָתַן Qal.1.x).
10 tn Heb “from the ends of the earth.”
11 tn Heb “he brings out the winds from his storehouses.”