The voice of God is over the waters, the Lord, over vast waters.

That phrase, in a nutshell, is probably why Psalm 29 was chosen as the responsorial psalm for Sunday’s feast of the Baptism of the Lord. The idea of God’s powerful voice over the waters connects rather neatly with the Gospel image of God’s voice speaking from heaven after Jesus’ baptism in the waters of the Jordan.

In the opinion of Mitchell Dahood, SJ, in this psalm “the sons of God are invited to acclaim the sovereignty of Yahweh, who manifests his power in a storm.” The psalm itself is an adaptation of an older Canaanite hymn to Baal, the storm god, the god of thunder. The waters referred to are probably those of the Mediterranean, since the poem describes a storm moving in from the west.

The psalm’s verses about God’s power and might—manifested in the earth and in the heavens, too—seem to contradict its antiphon: “The Lord will bless his people with peace.” The verses’ description of majestic power could definitely be diluted by a pleasant refrain in triple rhythm. But after a great storm comes a sense of relief, of quiet, of peace. Here’s a possibility: why not use the antiphon only at the beginning and the end of the psalm, letting the verses speak of God’s power and glory but ending quietly with the promise of peace?

It’s easy to just do the psalm of the day without really exploring its background, poetry and meaning. But the psalm comes from scripture in exactly the same way that the readings do, and we need to proclaim it in ways that make possible the assembly’s entering deeply into the text.