Thunder

Thunder in Scripture is the sound of God’s presence, and it is rarely gentle. At Sinai there were “thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount,” and everyone in the camp trembled. A psalmist recalls that the voice of God’s thunder was in the heaven and the earth shook. Job, stepping back, admits that we hear only a little of God’s ways: “the thunder of his power who can understand?” Jesus also gave James and John a nickname, Boanerges, “The sons of thunder.” Exodus 19 gives the scene at its most vivid.

4 verses

Exodus

Exodus 19:16

And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.

Job

Job 26:14

Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?

Psalms

Psalms 77:18

The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.

Mark

Mark 3:17

And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder:

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

Often referred to in Scripture (Job 40:9; Ps. 77:18; 104:7). James and John were called by our Lord “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). In Job 39:19, instead of “thunder,” as in the Authorized Version, the Revised Version translates (ra’amah) by “quivering main” (marg., “shaking”). Thunder accompanied the giving of the law at Sinai (Ex. 19:16). It was regarded as the voice of God (Job 37:2; Ps. 18:13; 81:7; comp. John 12:29). In answer to Samuel’s prayer (1 Sam. 12:17, 18), God sent thunder, and “all the people greatly feared,” for at such a season (the wheat-harvest) thunder and rain were almost unknown in Palestine.

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From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

is hardly ever heard in Palestine form the middle of April to the middle of September; hence it was selected by Samuel as a striking expression of the divine displeasure toward the Israelites. (1 Samuel 12:17) Rain in harvest was deemed as extraordinary as snow in summer, (Proverbs 26:1) and Jerome states that he had never witnessed it in the latter part of June or in July. Comm. on (Amos 4:7) In the imaginative philosophy of the Hebrews, thunder was regarded as the voice of Jehovah, (Job 37:2,4,5; 40:9; Psalms 18:13; 29:3-9; Isaiah 30:30,31) who dwelt behind the thunder-cloud. (Psalms 81:7) Thunder was, to the mind of the Jew, the symbol of divine power (Psalms 29:3) etc., and vengeance. (1 Samuel 2:10; 2 Samuel 22:14)