The Sound That Circled the Earth

On August 27, 1883, the volcanic island of Krakatoa erupted with what remains the loudest sound in recorded human history. The blast was heard on Rodriguez Island in the Indian Ocean, nearly three thousand miles away — roughly the distance from New York to Dublin. Barometric pressure waves circled the globe multiple times over the following days. Ships forty miles distant reported crewmen's eardrums shattered. Darkness fell at midday across the entire region.

Scientists spent years cataloging the effects. They measured the shockwaves, charted the ash clouds, recorded the tsunamis. Yet their instruments could not fully capture what had happened. The event exceeded every scale humanity had built.

The psalmist would not have been surprised. Psalm 29 describes a voice that thunders over mighty waters, splinters the great cedars of Lebanon, and shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. Seven times the psalm repeats "the voice of the Lord" — as though even the poet had to circle the earth with that phrase to begin capturing its power.

We live in an age that measures everything. But the voice of the Almighty exceeds every instrument, every category, every human scale. And the psalm tells us the proper response is not analysis but awe: "In His temple all cry, 'Glory!'"