THUNDER, Heb. קﯴל, H7754, cognate to Akkad. qulu, Ugaritic ql, “voice,” “sound,” used more than any other Heb. term for thunder (Exod 9:23, et al.). This term is almost always used with some other manifestation of storm, e.g. lightning (Job 28:26), hail (Exod 9:23), and rain (1 Sam 12:17). In the Exodus narrative of the giving of the law on Sinai it is very clear that the thunder is one demonstration of the divine power. Nowhere, however, is there any connection as was alleged in the 19th cent. between the tetragrammaton, Y H W H (Jehovah) and the concept of thunder. The thunder is never God; it is only a phenomenon controlled by God (1 Sam 12:18). A slightly less frequent term is Heb. רַ֫עַם, H8308, which in one main usage means “to thunder.” According to folk etymologies the term is onomatopoeic. It often occurs in poetic phrases, usually in the “B” or second position (Job 26:14). Another term, Heb. רֶ֫שֶׁפ֒, H8404, occurs in a number of passages (seven in the OT) but it is rendered “thunder” by KJV only in Psalm 78:48, RSV, “thunderbolts.” In the text, however, there is some evidence for a variant. The parallel poetic lines read: “He gave over their herds to pestilence, and their flocks to the plague.”

The term tr. “pestilence” is Heb. דֶּ֫בֶר֒, H1822, the same term that is used for the fifth plague q.v. (Exod 9:1-4. The “B” opposite the second line rendered “plague” is Heb. רֶ֫שֶׁפ֒, H8404, which is cognate to Ugaritic ršp, Canaanite, ršp, prob. read rašap, on the basis of a divine name and the personal name Abi-Rasap found in the Mari letters. This word meaning “pestilence,” “plague,” was used as the name of a pagan plague-demon throughout Western Asia among the various Semites.

In the NT, the common Gr. term, βροντή, G1103, is used throughout exclusively. Like the thunder of the OT, that of the NT is often representative of some divine activity (e.g., John 12:29). The largest number of references by far are in Revelation: 4:5; 6:1; 8:5; 10:3, 4; 11:19; 14:2; 16:18; 19:6. These are in all cases allusions to the scene at Sinai at the giving of the law. In Mark 3:17, the only other occurrence of the term in the NT, it is used to describe the two disciples, James the son of Zebedee and his brother John, the “Boanerges” or “sons of thunder” traditionally understood in the sense, “hot tempered.”