He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.

And shall reduce them to pieces, as a calf of Libanus, and as the beloved son of unicorns.

And he maketh them to skip like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a young buffalo.

And He causeth them to skip as a calf, Lebanon and Sirion as a son of Reems,

He makes them go jumping about like a young ox; Lebanon and Sirion like a young mountain ox.

He maketh them also to skip like a calf - That is, the cedars of Lebanon. Compare Psalm 114:4, "The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs." Psalm 68:16, "why leap ye, ye high hills?" The meaning is plain. The lightning tore off the large branches, and uprooted the loftiest trees, so that they seemed to play and dance like calves in their gambols. Nothing could be more strikingly descriptive of "power."
Lebanon and Sirion - Sirion was the name by which Mount Hermon was known among the Sidonians: Deuteronomy 3:9, "Which Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion." It is a part of the great range of Anti-libanus.
Like a young unicorn - On the meaning of the word used here, see the notes at Psalm 22:21. The illustration would be the same if any young wild animal were referred to.

He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and (d) Sirion like a young unicorn.
(d) Called also Hermon.

He maketh them also to skip like a calf,.... That is, the cedars, the branches being broken off, or they torn up by the roots, and tossed about by the wind; which motion is compared to that of a calf that leaps and skips about;
Lebanon and Sirion, like a young unicorn; that is, these mountains move and skip about through the force of thunder, and the violence of an earthquake attending it; so historians report that mountains have moved from place to place, and they have met and dashed against one another (d). Sirion was a mountain in Judea near to Lebanon, and is the same with Hermon; which was called by the Sidonians Sirion, and by the Amorites Shenir, Deuteronomy 3:9. This may regard the inward motions of the mind, produced by the Gospel of Christ under a divine influence; see Isaiah 35:6.
(d) Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 2. c. 83. Joseph. Antiqu. l. 9. c. 11.

Them - The cedars; which being broken by the thunder, the parts of them are suddenly and violently hurled hither and thither. Sirion - An high mountain beyond Jordan joining to Lebanon. Lebanon and Sirion are said to skip or leap, both here, and Psalm 114:4, by a poetical hyperbole.