In the Hebrew imagination, the waters were chaos, the uncontrollable and uncontrolled, the home of Leviathan, anticreation. But when the voice of the Lord thunders over the waters, chaos becomes subject to creation: life, an allusion to Genesis 1, our first glimpse of the beauty of holiness. Storms are splendid, beautiful, awesome. God is on display performing the beauty of holiness, and we have a ringside seat. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox. (verses 5–6, ESV)
