Psalms 68: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm calls on God to rise up and scatter his enemies, then remembers his march through the wilderness from Sinai and his care for the fatherless, widows, prisoners, and the poor. It describes a victory procession of singers, musicians, and tribal leaders going up to the mountain God chose for his dwelling, and it pictures kings bringing gifts to the temple at Jerusalem. It ends by calling all the kingdoms of the earth to sing to the God who gives strength and power to his people.

Claim by Claim

1. 68:1
   • God arises.
   • God's enemies are scattered.
   • Those who hate God flee before him.
   • The verse is voiced as a wish or summons for this to happen.
2. 68:2
   • The wicked are driven away as smoke is driven away.
   • The wicked perish before God as wax melts before fire.
   • This perishing happens at the presence of God.
3. 68:3
   • The righteous are glad.
   • The righteous rejoice before God.
   • The righteous rejoice exceedingly, with gladness.
4. 68:4
   • The hearers are told to sing to God.
   • The hearers are told to sing praises to God's name.
   • The hearers are told to exalt him who rides upon the heavens.
   • The word for what he rides upon can mean either the clouds of heaven or the desert plains.
   • His name is Yah.
   • The hearers are told to rejoice before him.
5. 68:5
   • God is a father of the fatherless.
   • God is a judge and defender of widows.
   • God is in his holy dwelling.
6. 68:6
   • God settles the solitary in a household.
   • God brings out prisoners into prosperity.
   • The rebellious dwell in a parched land.
7. 68:7
   • God went out before his people.
   • God marched through the wilderness.
   • Selah is marked here.
8. 68:8
   • The earth shook.
   • The heavens dropped rain.
   • This happened at the presence of God.
   • Sinai itself was shaken at the presence of God.
   • God is the God of Israel.
9. 68:9
   • God sent an abundant rain.
   • God restored his inheritance when it was weary.
10. 68:10
    • God's congregation dwelt in it.
    • God provided out of his goodness for the poor.
11. 68:11
    • The Lord gave the word.
    • A great company proclaimed it.
    • Those who proclaimed it were women.
12. 68:12
    • Kings of armies flee, they flee.
    • She who stays at home divides the spoil.
13. 68:13
    • The hearers have lain among the sheepfolds.
    • The word for what they lay among is obscure and may mean sheepfolds, campfires, or saddlebags.
    • The wings of a dove are covered with silver.
    • Her pinions are covered with yellow gold.
14. 68:14
    • The Almighty scattered kings in it.
    • It snowed on Zalmon.
15. 68:15
    • Mount Bashan is a mountain of God.
    • The phrase can mean either a mountain of God or a mighty mountain.
    • Mount Bashan is a mountain of many peaks.
16. 68:16
    • The many-peaked mountains are asked why they look on with envy.
    • This is the mountain God desired for his dwelling.
    • The LORD will dwell in it forever.
17. 68:17
    • The chariots of God are twenty thousand.
    • They are thousands upon thousands.
    • The King James calls them thousands of angels.
    • The Lord is among them.
    • He is among them as at Sinai, in the holy place.
18. 68:18
    • You have ascended on high.
    • You have led captivity captive.
    • You have received gifts among men.
    • You have received gifts even from the rebellious.
    • The purpose is that the LORD God may dwell among them.
19. 68:19
    • Blessed be the Lord.
    • He daily bears a load for us.
    • He is the God of our salvation.
    • Selah is marked here.
20. 68:20
    • Our God is a God of salvation.
    • Escapes from death belong to the LORD God.
21. 68:21
    • God will crush the head of his enemies.
    • God will crush the hairy scalp of the one who persists in his guilt.
22. 68:22
    • The Lord said he will bring back from Bashan.
    • The Lord said he will bring back from the depths of the sea.
23. 68:23
    • The purpose is that your foot may be dipped in the blood of your enemies.
    • The verb may mean either to dip or to shatter.
    • The tongue of your dogs will have its portion of the same.
24. 68:24
    • They have seen your processions, O God.
    • These are the processions of my God and my King.
    • The processions are into the sanctuary.
25. 68:25
    • The singers went in front.
    • The players on stringed instruments followed after.
    • Among them were maidens playing timbrels.
26. 68:26
    • The hearers are told to bless God in the congregations.
    • The hearers are told to bless the LORD.
    • Those told to bless are from the fountain of Israel.
27. 68:27
    • Benjamin, the little one, is there ruling them.
    • The princes of Judah are there in their throng.
    • The princes of Zebulun are there.
    • The princes of Naphtali are there.
28. 68:28
    • Your God has commanded your strength.
    • The line can also be read as a summons to God to command his strength.
    • God is asked to show strength in what he has wrought for us.
29. 68:29
    • Because of your temple at Jerusalem, kings will bring gifts to you.
30. 68:30
    • God is asked to rebuke the beast of the reeds.
    • The King James calls it the company of spearmen.
    • God is asked to rebuke the herd of bulls with the calves of the peoples.
    • The rebuke continues until each submits with pieces of silver.
    • God is asked to scatter the peoples who delight in war.
31. 68:31
    • Nobles will come out of Egypt.
    • The word for what comes out of Egypt is obscure.
    • Cush will quickly stretch out her hands to God.
32. 68:32
    • The kingdoms of the earth are told to sing to God.
    • They are told to sing praises to the Lord.
    • Selah is marked here.
33. 68:33
    • He rides upon the heaven of heavens.
    • That heaven is of old.
    • He sends out his voice.
    • His voice is a mighty voice.
34. 68:34
    • The hearers are told to ascribe strength to God.
    • His majesty is over Israel.
    • His strength is in the clouds.
35. 68:35
    • God is awesome out of his holy places.
    • The God of Israel gives strength and power to his people.
    • Blessed be God.

Words Worth Explaining

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

68:1

The opening line repeats, almost word for word, the cry Moses was said to call out whenever the ark set out ahead of Israel on the march (Numbers 10:35). The psalm begins by quoting that old battle shout.

68:4

"JAH" is a shortened form of the Hebrew personal name of God, YHWH, the same name printed elsewhere in the King James as LORD in small capitals. "Him that rideth upon the heavens" renders a title also given to the storm god Baal in older Canaanite poetry, "rider on the clouds"; the Hebrew can alternatively be read "rides through the deserts."

68:5

Fatherless children and widows had no male relative to press their claims in court, and the two together are the standard biblical shorthand for people with no legal protection. "A judge of the widows" means one who takes up their case for them, not one who puts them on trial.

68:6

The contrast is between a settled household with food and water and a scorched, salted wasteland where nothing grows and nobody can live. It is the difference between belonging somewhere and being driven out to survive on nothing.

68:7

Selah appears mostly in the Psalms and is left untranslated because nobody knows what it means. It is generally taken as a musical or performance direction, a pause, a change of instruments, a swell in volume. Its sense was already lost by the time the psalms were translated into Greek, more than two centuries before Christ.

68:8

Sinai is the desert mountain where, in Israel's national story, God appeared in storm, smoke and fire and gave the law to Moses after the escape from Egypt. "The heavens also dropped" means the clouds dropped rain.

68:9

"Thine inheritance" is the land of Canaan, spoken of throughout the Old Testament as the property God allotted to himself and settled his people in.

68:10

The Hebrew word behind "thy congregation" normally means living creatures or an animal flock; the picture is of God's people as a herd he pastures and feeds.

68:11

The Hebrew word for those who "published" the news is feminine plural: a crowd of women. Women customarily met a returning army with songs announcing the victory, as Miriam and the women do in Exodus 15, and as the women singing about Saul and David do in 1 Samuel 18. "Publish" in 1611 English simply meant to announce in public; it had nothing to do with books.

68:12

"Apace" means quickly. To divide the spoil is to share out the goods stripped from a defeated army, livestock, metal, cloth, captives. The point of the line is that there was so much of it that even the women who never left home took a portion.

68:13

"Lien" is the old past participle of "lie." The phrase the King James renders "among the pots" is one of the most obscure in the Hebrew Bible; the same two words have been read as sheepfolds, saddlebags, ash heaps beside campfires, and the forked stones of a hearth. Whatever the object, the contrast is between lying down somewhere dirty and lowly and the silver-and-gold shine of the dove. Whether the dove is a piece of plunder, a figure for the people, or a battle standard is disputed.

68:14

Salmon (Zalmon) is a hill, probably the dark wooded one near Shechem. The comparison is disputed: snow falling and covering the ground, or snow melting away, or, on another reading, the scattered white of bones and discarded armor left across the battlefield.

68:15

Bashan is the high fertile country east of the Sea of Galilee, famous for its cattle and its oaks; its range, running up to Mount Hermon, dwarfs anything near Jerusalem. "The hill of God" here is a Hebrew way of saying an enormous mountain, using "of God" the way English uses "mighty."

68:16

The verb behind "leap ye" is rare and its sense uncertain; it is usually taken as watching with envy or hostility. The hill God is said to choose is Zion in Jerusalem, a modest ridge set beside the towering peaks just described.

68:17

The numbers are an idiom for an uncountable host rather than a count. The word "angels" is not in the Hebrew, which reads something like "thousands upon thousands" or "thousands of repetition"; this is one of the most damaged lines in the psalm, and the rest of the verse has to be reconstructed.

68:18

"Led captivity captive" is a Hebrew idiom meaning took a whole column of prisoners, the standard image of a victorious king parading his captives home. "Received gifts for men" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning "took gifts among (or from) mankind," that is, tribute collected from the conquered; some ancient versions instead read "gave gifts to mankind."

68:19

The Hebrew here can be read two ways, since the same verb covers both: God daily loads us up with good things (the King James reading), or God daily carries our load for us.

68:20

"The issues from death" means the ways out of death, the escapes from it.

68:21

Long uncut hair marked a fighting man under a vow (Samson is the best-known example), so "the hairy scalp" pictures an enemy warrior in his full strength and pride.

68:22

Bashan stands for the far heights, the sea for the far depths; naming both ends is a Hebrew way of saying "from anywhere at all." Who is being brought back is disputed: enemies hauled out of hiding for judgment, or scattered Israelites brought home.

68:23

Dogs in ancient Israel were half-wild scavengers, not pets. Dogs licking blood on a battlefield is an image of total defeat and disgrace, used elsewhere of the deaths of Ahab and Jezebel.

68:24

"Goings" means a procession, a formal march. Verses 24 to 27 describe what looks like a real ceremony: singers, musicians and drummers moving through the city and into the temple, with the tribes represented behind them.

68:25

"Damsels" is 1611 English for young unmarried women. Timbrels are small hand-held frame drums; in the Bible they are played almost always by women, leading victory songs and festival dances.

68:26

"From the fountain of Israel" is an idiom for descent: you who spring from the ancestor Israel, that is, Jacob. The image is of a whole people flowing from one spring.

68:27

Benjamin was the smallest tribe, and Jacob's youngest son, yet is placed at the head of the procession. Judah lay beside Benjamin in the south, Zebulun and Naphtali in the far north; naming both ends of the country is a way of saying the whole nation was there.

68:29

Kings bringing presents to another king's sanctuary is the formal language of tribute, the recognized way a lesser ruler acknowledged a greater one.

68:30

"The company of spearmen" is the King James translators' guess. The Hebrew reads "the beast of the reeds," usually understood as the hippopotamus or crocodile of the Nile marshes, and so as a figure for Egypt. Bulls with calves stands for rulers together with their peoples. "Pieces of silver" are bars or ingots of silver paid as tribute; the clause is uncertain and has also been read as trampling those pieces of silver underfoot.

68:31

"Ethiopia" here translates Cush, the kingdom south of Egypt along the upper Nile, in what is now mainly Sudan. It is not the modern country called Ethiopia.

68:33

"Heavens of heavens" is a Hebrew superlative meaning the highest heaven of all. God's "voice" in a passage of storm imagery like this one is thunder.

68:34

"Excellency" in 1611 English meant loftiness or majesty, height above everything else, not excellence in the modern sense of high quality. To "ascribe" strength is to declare publicly that the strength belongs to him.

68:35

"Terrible" in 1611 English meant awe-inspiring, causing fear because too great to face. It did not mean bad or of poor quality, which is what the word means now.