Psalms 60: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This is a national prayer after a defeat in battle. The people tell God he has rejected them, shaken the land, and made them stagger, and they ask him to turn back and rescue them. God then speaks, claiming Shechem, Succoth, Gilead, Manasseh, Ephraim, Judah, Moab, Edom, and Philistia as his own. The psalm ends by asking who will lead them into Edom, admitting that human help is worthless, and saying that with God they will fight bravely.

Claim by Claim

1. 60:1
   • God has rejected his people.
   • God has broken through his people's defenses.
   • God has been angry.
   • The speaker asks God to restore his people to himself.
2. 60:2
   • God has made the land quake.
   • God has split the land open.
   • The speaker asks God to heal the land's fractures.
   • The land is tottering.
3. 60:3
   • God has made his people see hard things.
   • God has made his people drink wine that makes them reel.
4. 60:4
   • God has given a banner to those who fear him.
   • The banner is given so that it may be raised, but the reason given is ambiguous: either on account of the truth or in the face of the bow.
   • The verse is marked Selah.
5. 60:5
   • The purpose is that God's beloved ones may be rescued.
   • The speaker asks God to save with his right hand.
   • The speaker asks God to answer him.
6. 60:6
   • God has spoken in his holiness.
   • God said he will exult.
   • God said he will divide Shechem.
   • God said he will measure out the Valley of Succoth.
7. 60:7
   • God said Gilead belongs to him.
   • God said Manasseh belongs to him.
   • God said Ephraim is the defense of his head.
   • God said Judah is his ruler's staff.
8. 60:8
   • God said Moab is his washbasin.
   • God said he will throw his sandal over Edom.
   • The line about Philistia is ambiguous: either Philistia is commanded to shout on account of God, or God shouts in triumph over Philistia.
9. 60:9
   • The speaker asks who will bring him into the fortified city.
   • The speaker asks who will lead him into Edom.
10. 60:10
    • The speaker asks whether it is not God who has rejected them.
    • The speaker says God does not go out with their armies.
11. 60:11
    • The speaker asks God for help against the adversary.
    • The deliverance that man gives is worthless.
12. 60:12
    • With God they will act valiantly.
    • God is the one who will trample their enemies.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

60:1

The verbs are military. "Broken" is the word used for breaking through a wall or a line of defense, and "scattered" is what happens to an army once that line gives way. The psalm speaks throughout in the voice of a whole nation just after a defeat in battle.

60:2

The picture shifts to an earthquake. The "cracks" are the same kind of gap as the breach in verse 1, so the land itself is described as a wall that has been broken open.

60:3

The Hebrew phrase is "wine of reeling." A cup that leaves the drinker staggering was a standard image for a people left dazed and helpless after a disaster, unable to stand up straight.

60:4

A banner here is a military standard: a pole or ensign raised on high ground so that scattered troops could see where to gather. The last phrase is genuinely uncertain, the same Hebrew consonants can mean "because of the truth," as the King James takes it, or "before the bow," that is, a place to flee from enemy archers. "Selah" is a term found mainly in the Psalms, marking some kind of break, probably a musical pause or interlude; its exact sense was already lost in ancient times.

60:5

The right hand is the sword hand. Throughout the Hebrew Bible "right hand" stands for strength and effective power.

60:6

"From his holy place" can mean from his sanctuary, or "by his holiness," that is, swearing an oath on himself. Shechem is a town in the hill country west of the Jordan; the valley of Succoth lies east of the river. Naming one on each side is a way of saying the whole land. Dividing land and measuring it out with a line is what a victorious king does when he parcels out conquered territory among his own people.

60:7

Gilead and Manasseh are territories east of the Jordan; Ephraim and Judah are the two dominant tribes west of it. Calling Ephraim the helmet makes that tribe the speaker's armor, the tribe that took the blows. The word behind "lawgiver" and "the staff that rules" is the commander's staff or scepter, the mark of the one who issues orders.

60:8

Moab, Edom and Philistia were neighboring peoples and long-standing enemies of Israel: Moab and Edom east and south-east of the Dead Sea, Philistia on the coastal plain to the west. A washbasin is the bowl a servant carries in for washing dirty feet, the most menial vessel in a household. Throwing a sandal down on a piece of ground was a recognized legal gesture of claiming it as your property. The last line is ambiguous in Hebrew: it can be read as a taunt ordering Philistia to cheer, or, as the parallel in Psalm 108 has it, as "over Philistia I shout in triumph."

60:9

The walled city is a fortress in Edom, probably Bozrah or the rock stronghold of Sela, cities set high among cliffs and famously hard to capture.

60:10

"Marching out with the armies" is the ordinary Hebrew idiom for God going to war alongside Israel's troops. The complaint is that he has stopped doing it.

60:11

"Vain" here carries its older sense of empty or useless. It has nothing to do with the modern sense of vain meaning conceited.

60:12

Treading down is a literal battlefield image. A victor would put his foot on the neck or body of a defeated enemy as a public sign that the fight was over and who had won.