Psalm 68

Psalms 68:1-3

The Hebrew title, which this page's text does not show, names this A Psalm, a song of David, and the procession that follows, the ark going up while enemies scatter before it, matches the ark's march under David when it was brought up into Jerusalem. Let God arise opens the psalm in the ark's own marching words: when the ark set forward, Moses said, Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered (Num 10:35), the ancient prayer over the ark now given a whole psalm. The enemies are painted in two fading pictures, smoke driven away and wax melting before fire, dissolved rather than defeated in open battle. The righteous stand opposite them in verse 3, glad and rejoicing before God, the same presence that scatters one company gathering the other.

Psalms 68:4-6

Extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name Jah gives the divine name in its short form, the same syllable that stands behind every hallelujah in the Psalter, and several commentators note this as one of the few places the King James spells it out as Jah rather than Lord. Verses 5 and 6 turn from title to character all at once, a father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, God setteth the solitary in families, he bringeth out those which are bound with chains, the rider of the heavens named by what he does for the powerless. The rebellious dwell in a dry land closes the verse as the one exception, the same freedom offered to prisoners withheld from those who refuse it.

Psalms 68:7-10

The recital turns to the wilderness march itself, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness, the same God who scattered enemies in verse 1 now leading Israel from Sinai toward the land where Zion will stand. The earth shook, the heavens also dropped, even Sinai itself was moved names the mountain by its own event, the giving of the law read here as a march rather than a still moment. The plentiful rain of verse 9 turns the theophany toward provision, and thy congregation hath dwelt therein moves the psalm from a single event to a settled possession.

Psalms 68:11-14

The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it pictures a victory announced by a crowd rather than a single herald, a feminine form in the Hebrew verb leading several commentators to read the publishers as the women who sang Israel's victories home, as Miriam did after the sea. Though ye have lien among the pots is read two ways, either Israel's own low state before the victory, camped among the ash heaps and cooking gear, or a mocking picture of what the fleeing kings leave behind; either way the wings of a dove covered with silver that follows reverses it, drab captivity turned to a bird's bright plumage. Kings and their armies scatter and the ground is left white as snow in Salmon, a picture the older writers name without settling whether it means bleached bone, bright armor, or the hill's own snow.

Psalms 68:15-16

The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan sets Zion, a modest rise, beside the real mountains of Bashan east of Jordan, the same Bashan whose king Og the conquest narratives and Psalm 136 both name among Israel's first victories. Why leap ye, ye high hills personifies the taller ranges as jealous of a smaller summit, and the psalm answers its own question, this is the hill which God desireth to dwell in, height counting for nothing beside the choice of the one who lives there. The Lord will dwell in it for ever turns Zion from a place into a promise, permanence given to the hill God picked rather than the hills that could have claimed the honor by size.

Psalms 68:17-18

The march reaches the sanctuary, chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels, the Sinai procession of verse 8 now arrived and stationed as in Sinai, in the holy place, the mountain's presence settled into the temple. Verse 18 is quoted at Ephesians 4:8, thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive, but Paul's quotation reads gave gifts unto men where this psalm reads thou hast received gifts for men, and the difference is stated honestly rather than smoothed over. The Aramaic Targum on this psalm already reads gave rather than received, so Paul's wording has an attested Jewish reading behind it; the bench discusses the two as describing one act from two ends, a king who receives tribute in order to distribute it.

Psalms 68:19-20

Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits turns the psalm from procession to gratitude, the crowded imagery of chariots and captives landing on an ordinary word, daily, benefits given without a triumph required first. He that is our God is the God of salvation stacks two titles onto the same subject before the verse's harder claim, unto God the Lord belong the issues from death, the exits from death named as his to give or withhold. Barnes reads the plural issues as every possible way a person escapes dying, not one deliverance but the whole class of them held in God's hand.

Psalms 68:21-23

The psalm turns abruptly to judgment, God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses, a blow aimed at a man named by his persistence in sin rather than by a nation. I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea promises a rescue from opposite extremes, the eastern heights and the sea's depths both surrendering what they held. Verses 22 and 23 are read among the psalm's hardest lines, and the gracious rule that governs the site's handling of the imprecatory psalms applies here as everywhere else: the words are Scripture, aimed at named enemies of that generation, and are never turned toward any living people.

Psalms 68:24-27

The procession becomes visible, they have seen thy goings, O God, even the goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary, singers and players and timbrel-playing women named in the order of the procession itself. Little Benjamin with their ruler leads the list of tribes, an odd choice for pride of place until the commentators note Benjamin's territory held Jerusalem's northern approach and produced Israel's first king, small in number but placed first as it named. Judah, Zebulun and Naphtali complete the list, tribes from the south and from the far north both represented, the whole land's spread standing together in the temple courts.

Psalms 68:28-31

Thy God hath commanded thy strength turns the psalm into direct address, and strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought for us asks for the completion of a work already begun rather than a new one. Because of thy temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto thee ties the nations' tribute to the temple's existence, the same building that drew the procession of verse 24 now drawing gifts from outside Israel. Princes shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God names two nations at the edges of the world Israel knew, and the older writers read the promise's reach as wider than the two names given.

Psalms 68:32-35

The final call widens past the nations already named to ye kingdoms of the earth without exception, the same summons that opened Psalm 66 to all lands closing this psalm the same way. He doth send out his voice, and that a mighty voice sets God's speech in the same register as the thunder of Sinai in verse 8, the mountain's voice now called simply his voice, unlocalized and universal. The psalm ends where the imagery has been heading throughout, O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places, and the last line, Blessed be God, returns the psalm to the single word it began on, now stated rather than prayed for.