More Storm

Storm
    Storms provide many and varied biblical images, some times even contradictory ones. The storm is a danger and a necessity. It gives life through its water but death through its violence. As an uncontrollable force of nature, it is both a tool of judgment in the hand of God and an evil threat to God's people, an agent of chaos against God's ordered world.
    Storm as Wind. The wind as an unseen force, but with plainly evident power and effects, serves as the ideal metaphor for God as powerful yet unseen actor (Jn 3:8; 4:24). In fact, neither Hebrew ru®ahΩ nor Greek pneuma, both words having the meanings "wind," "spirit" and "breath," required that the speaker or hearer make a distinction among those ideas. For biblical protagonists the wind often served as evidence of the presence of God. Adam and Eve heard the "sound of the LORD God walking … in the cool [i.e., breeze; Heb ru®ahΩ] of the day" (Gen 3:8 NIV). God's aid and presence in battle are assured by the sound of his army in the treetops (2 Sam 5:24). The presence of God's Spirit is proven by the sound of a "mighty rushing wind" (Acts 2:2). A [818] good wind/spirit is God's blessing (Ps 143:10).
    Breath too was a sign of the activity of God. The proof that idols are false gods is that, unlike God, they have no breath (ru®ahΩ) in them (Jer 10:14) nor do they instill their spirit in humanity as the breath of life (Gen 2:7). When the breath returns to a person, so does the soul (1 Kings 17:17, 22).
    Storm as Deity. The biblical writers were well aware that their neighbors worshiped storm gods. The Hittites had Teshub, the Akkadians and Aramaeans had Hadad. At Ugarit, Hadad was the principal deity under the generic term Baal. The obvious link between the fecundity of the earth and the coming of the rains gave rise to the worship of a storm god who every year died and was brought back from the underworld, coinciding with the blossoming of the crops (see RESURRECTION). The fear of rainless storms (Prov 25:13), drought, crop failure, flood and so on ensured a thriving cult around the god who strides the sea, rides the clouds and brings the rains. In contrast, the OT ultimately sees God's power, but not God himself, in the forces of nature (1 Kings 19:11–12).
    Storm as God's Attendant. Scripture stops short of claiming that God is a storm but repeatedly asserts that the storm warns of God's approach (Is 29:6). He is surrounded by tempest (Ps 50:3). A tempest marks the presence of God (Heb 12:18). His way is in whirlwind and storm (Nahum 1:3; Zech 9:14). The storm is not the Lord; rather the storm attends the Lord, just as he is accompanied by servants/angels named lightning, flame, famine, pestilence and the like (Hab 3:5). Even so, to the poet thunder is God's voice (Job 40:10), and he speaks from the whirlwind (Job 40:6).
    Storm as God's Agent of Judgment. The storm accompanies God as his agent and means of punishment, a palpable expression of his anger. "Look, the storm of the LORD! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest" (Jer 23:19 NRSV). A great wind kills Job's children (Job 1:19). The storm epitomizes fears, both real and imagined (Job 27:20–23). "My brethren are treacherous as a torrent-bed" (Job 6:15 RSV). In the primitive cosmology of the Hebrews, the Lord stores up the winds in chambers or storehouses at the corners of the world, releasing them to do his bidding (Job 37:9; Jer 10:13; cf. Rev 17:1). The spottiness of rain offered mute testimony to a divine plan (Amos 4:7).
    The caprice and unpredictability of storms made their violence seem like personal animosity. The Israelites and their neighbors alike feared the sea. Jonah knows God's wrath lies behind the raging sea (Jon 1:9–12). The inhabitants of Malta thought a viper (see SERPENT) had been sent against Paul because he had escaped the judgment of the storm (Acts 28:4). Paul's confidence in God freed him from the fear possessing those around him (Acts 27:20–25).
    As a symbol of judgment, the storm also makes a fitting metaphor for impending battle. The prophets repeatedly resort to storm imagery. Both war and storms serve God's ends (Is 28:2). Both gather ominously before they break (Jer 25:32). Both swiftly sweep away and overpower the individual (Prov 1:27; Is 5:28; Hab 3:14). Both rage until they spend themselves and disappear (Ps 57:1). Both leave carnage and destruction in their wake (Prov 10:25; 28:3). Like war and the peace that follows it, a storm stands in stark contrast to the clear skies and calm that follow (Job 37:21). As battle is likened to harvest, so too the storm winnows the wicked (Wis 5:23) and drives them away like chaff (Job 21:18; Ps 1:4; 83:13: Is 17:13; 40:24).
    Storm as God's Enemy. To be precise, it is the mythological Sea (the Deep, the Abyss) and its ally, the Sea Monster (the Dragon, Leviathan; see MYTHICAL ANIMALS), that are God's enemies. The storm that comes from the sea is the product of their rebellious thrashing and raging against God and his order (Job 41:31). The water that lashes the land is an invasion from the stormy sea. It floods the land and threatens all that breathe. The flood story serves as a reminder that God alone keeps the Sea from reclaiming the dry land.
    The ancient Semitic myth of a god battling the Sea was familiar to the people of the eastern Mediterranean. The Bible repeatedly alludes to that theme but consistently places the Lord in the victorious role. "The LORD sits enthroned over the flood" (Ps 29:10 NRSV). "Thou didst trample the sea with thy horses" (Hab 3:15 RSV). The Lord is "mightier than the thunders of many waters … than the waves of the sea" (Ps 93:3 RSV; 107:29). The violence of the sea is reinterpreted so that the sea will "roar" and "the floods clap their hands" in praise of the Lord (Ps 98:7–8 RSV). A mundane account of the Lord's provision for crossing the Red Sea in Exodus 14 appears poetically reworked as a battle between the Lord and the surging Sea in Exodus 15 (cf. Ps 114:3, 5; Is 51:9–10). The stilling of the storm by the Lord's rebuke (Ps 18:15–16; 104:6–7; 106:9) has literary links to this ancient imagery (Mt 8:26; Mk 4:39; Lk 8:24).
    Storm as Evil Spirit. If a storm could be termed an evil wind, it could also be an evil spirit. Akkadian writings explain seasonal storms as demons or winds stirred up by the wings of demons, providing an etiology for why they occur at the same time as seasonal fevers and plagues (also believed to be the work of demons). The Jewish understanding held that pagan gods were actually demons that had tricked Gentiles into worshiping them. Thus the force behind the storm was evil and was attempting to rage out of control and destroy God's order. This amalgam of pagan storm god and demonic tempest was kept under control by the "rebuke" of the Lord.
    Storm as Flood. Storm is symbolically the Sea out of its borders. The great flood represents the ultimate storm. Not only did God allow the Deep to escape its bounds, to which he had subjected it at creation when he imposed order (kosmos) on the surface of the deep (t§ho®m, Gen 1:2, 6), but he [819] also let water flood in from above the firmament. "All the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of heaven were opened" (Gen 7:11 RSV). The two sources of water resulted in a cataclysm.
    Smaller floods also occurred. Water could appear in dry channels without hint of rain. "You shall not see wind or rain, but that stream-bed shall be filled with water" (2 Kings 3:17 RSV). The wise man who builds on the rock does so to be safe from seasonal flash floods. "The flood," "the torrent," "the raging waters" are real dangers (Ps 124:4–5 RSV). It would be easier to build on the flat alluvial sand at the bottom of a valley, but the sudden torrential streams after a rain would shift the sands and undermine the house's foundations, a foolish risk (Mt 7:24–27). Such floods, damaging while they lasted, quickly disappeared; thus "the wealth of the unjust will dry up like a torrent" (Sirach 40:13).
    As dangerous as such floods could be, they were also necessary for life. Such water from nowhere exemplified divine blessing, prompting the prayer "Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb" (Ps 126:4 RSV).
    The Psalm of the Thunderstorm. Psalm 29 combines so many of these storm motifs that it deserves special mention. This parody of Canaanite poetry based on the Baal myth describes a storm rising in the Mediterranean Sea and then moving eastward onto the coastal region, and thence to the mountains and on to the wilderness. The sequence of the psalm captures the aesthetics of a storm as nature lovers often describe it, from anticipation through awe to subdued calm. The psalm's threefold ascription of praise to the God of the storm is followed by a sevenfold narrative account of what "the voice of the LORD" does.
    At a literal level the poem does an admirable job of re-creating the events of a moving thunderstorm. But the poem is also polemical, in effect stating that Yahweh is actually the One who does what the pagans ascribe to Baal. The terminology and vocabulary of the psalm place it farther north than the nation of Israel, confirming that the poem is a parody of existing Canaanite poetry. Actions that the pagans ascribe to Baal and that the psalmist ascribes to God include God's conquest of the sea and his moving to land, where he is enthroned. Instead of being a God of the storm, though, God sits enthroned over the flood, and not simply after an annual conquest of the sea but for ever (Ps 29:10).
    Storm as Suffering. One's problems can be depicted as wind or the storm personified as enemy and agent of destruction (Job 30:22). The unjust anger of the wicked is likened to a flash flood (Ps 124:3–5). One in need of comfort or haven is "storm-tossed" (Is 54:11). One beset by doubts is like a boat bobbing on the deep, driven aimlessly by the wind (Jas 1:6).
    See also COSMOLOGY; CLOUD; DIVINE WARRIOR; FLOOD; HAIL; LIGHTNING; RAIN; SEA; THUNDER; WEATHER; WIND.

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Regards,
Ryan Chia

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Mission exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.

From John Piper, Let The Nations Be Glad