Psalms 68

Psalms 68:1-35

Under the new Head. To the chief musician: a psalm of David, a song. The sixty-eighth psalm is characterized by its eighteenth verse; and this is authoritatively interpreted for us by the apostle (Ephesians 4:8), though there, with specific application to the Church alone. He does not therefore quote the last clause of it, which clearly refers to Israel: “yea, for the rebellious also, that Jah Elohim might dwell among them.” As the eighth and final psalm of this series, therefore, Israel is seen under the new Head of blessing, the ascended Christ, triumphant over all the power of the enemy, and, for this, over the sin which shuts men up in the great adversary’s hand. Under Christ, therefore, Israel fulfills all her by-gone promises of glory; for here is the One to whom all these point. All the wealth of the divine names is poured into the song, for their meaning is now justified and made good. “All that is most glorious in the literature of the earlier period,” says Delitzsch, “is concentrated in it: Moses’ memorable words, Moses’ blessing, the prophesies of Balaam; Deuteronomy, the song of Hannah, re-echo here. But over and above all this, the language is so bold and so peculiarly its own, that we meet with no less than thirteen words that do not occur anywhere else.” These various connections, which seem to have led expositors away in different directions, are intelligible when we recognize their relation to Israel’s inheritance in Christ, to which they all look forward.

1. The psalm begins with Moses’ invocation in the wilderness, when the ark set forward (Numbers 10:35), Elohim (God) being substituted for Jehovah. In fact Israel is beginning again her triumphant progress under her divine Leader of ancient times. We go back of all her history in the land, which has been but failure, to see her now on the path of steady advance, all the causes of error and failure being removed, and a new covenant replacing the old, disastrous one, which in their wilfulness they had chosen. Their enemies are now “the wicked,” the enemies of God. It is the conflict between good and evil that is approaching its crisis. The labor of ages to end it, so long ineffectual, will now be compressed into one sharp, decisive encounter. Like wax before the fire, the foes shall melt away before the presence of God. But the righteous shall be glad and exult, yea, leap for joy. God is now seen as beginning His triumphant march, and as in Jehoshaphat’s successful war, the singers go in the forefront of the host. They are to cast up the way before the advancing King. This, of course, is spiritual preparation, and connected in Isaiah (Isaiah 57:14; Isaiah 62:10) with the removal of stumbling-blocks. The spirit of praise is the spirit of power. The joy of what God is, is holiness itself, the atmosphere of heaven, that which will allow nothing contrary to the character of Him whom it proclaims by His Name Jah, the One who is, -the great Reality, for faith (though not in the pantheistic sense) the One Existence. Ah, if God only were all to us after that manner, as in that scene to which the knowledge of the new man introduces, (as the apostle tells us,) “Christ is all” -how would such joyous faith prepare God’s glorious way! The way of Him “that rideth in the deserts,” says the psalmist; and the number here accentuates this. It is not, however, the common word for the wilderness, but that which is the specific name for the deep groove from the lake of Galilee to the Red Sea, in which the Jordan runs down to the Salt Sea, and in which the Sea itself lies, -the Arabah: here in the plural, which may stand for the different parts of one depression, or for all that is similar to this. The word means a “parched, dry place.” which in its specific application, Jordan, the river of death, and the salt sea, the lake of fire and brimstone, sufficiently characterize. Death is in itself the stamp of man’s condition, his removal from the place which through sin he has forfeited, and thus, if there be no remedy, from the face of God. But it is when he is brought to the realization of this, into the dry, parched place, he finds One that moves there, sovereign over what may seem insurmountable difficulties. It is here the work of Christ manifests itself in all its glorious power; and it is suited therefore to a psalm which brings Israel into blessing under the new Head, Christ, that Jehovah should be revealed as “He who rideth in the Araboth,” -who moves serenely in the plenitude of power among these places where human resources are dried up.

Fitting too is it that just in this connection the reminder of death should be found accompanied by the assurance of His tenderness and resources for those who suffer from this:" a Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows, is God in His holy habitation." And similar things are those that follow also: “He setteth the solitary in families,” -removing the curse of barrenness and the sorrow of isolation. Again, “He bringeth out the prisoners,” not into liberty merely, but “into prosperity”: while “the rebellious” only, but they assuredly, “dwell in a dry land” still. Thus His character both in grace and in righteousness is declared. 2. In the last word we have reached the only cause of the failure of Israel’s bud of promise so long ago; and this recalls the psalmist to their history already referred to. There was then on God’s part assuredly no lack of power; nor of testimony to it was there any lack: “O God, when Thou wentest forth before Thy people, -when thou movedst through the waste,” -not Arabah now, but jeshimon, “desolation, waste,” -“the earth quaked, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God; yon Sinai at the presence of God, the God of Israel.” They had had the fullest assurance of Who was with them. It was God, and their own God, to whom nature had done homage. Sinai had witnessed the wonderful covenant established between God and His creatures. In the fulfillment of it He had carried them into the land, and showered His gifts upon them in what was His inheritance, but in which He settled them.

There they dwelt as His community,* Himself to be their life-bond, and preparing thus in His bounty for a people dependent, in their poverty, upon Him. This characterized His dealings with them ever, while they remained indeed His community and only kept the place of dependence. Were there enemies to be encountered, His word was the effectual routing of the enemy: there were needed, then, only women to spread the glad tidings of the victory. Kings with their hosts were at once in flight; and women -the quiet stayers at home -were sufficient to take the spoil. Such was Israel when with God; and such had been the goodness of God to Israel.
3. The words change now into a direct address to the people. But the passage is so difficult, largely from its elliptical character, and it is yet so important to be clear about it, that I shall examine it at more than usual length. It is a good example of the difficulties which sometimes beset both the interpreter and the translator, as well as of the only way in which they can be satisfactorily settled, that is, by Scripture itself; one part being explained by another, as a divine and necessarily self-consistent whole. The rapidity of transition is very characteristic of the Psalms, and indeed of the prophets generally. From the third person in the preceding verses, we come here to a direct address in the plural, which is exchanged for the third person singular in the following one, and this once more in the second verse after it, for a direct appeal again, but in an entirely different quarter. The elliptical construction is, however, the great difficulty, as already said. “Though ye lie between the hurdles . . . wings of a dove, covered with silver,” etc. There is no verb to the latter part, and no “as,” as in the common version. Whatever is put in, as something must be, partakes necessarily of the nature of interpretation. Then one of the words is doubtful, shephattaim; which only occurs again exactly in this form in Ezekiel 40:43, where the common version suggests variously “hooks, end-irons, hearth-stones.” and the margin of the Revised has “ledges.” But that passage is more difficult than the one before us. In the present one there has also been suggested “hearth-stones,” in the common version “pots,” by others “borders,” but by most now, with the Revised, “sheep-folds,” or better “hurdles,” pens or stalls for cattle. The word is from a verb, “to place,” and as a dual form has as its primary idea two things placed over against one another (Wilson). The reference seems to be to Genesis 49:14 and Judges 5:16, where a word only slightly different in form is used (mishpethaim), and which is generally agreed to mean “hurdles” or “sheep-folds;” and we shall presently find this confirmed by comparison of the passages. But what must we supply in the gap which follows this? In the common version the “as” is as hypothetical as is the “yet shall ye be”; and one naturally asks, why should Israel be compared to the “wings” of a dove? what special force has “wings” there? It is said, for their special beauty; and Cheyne quotes Miss Whately’s description: “Seen in the bright glow of the sun’s slanting-rays, the outspread wings of a dove might fitly be described as ‘yellow gold’; then, when the bird has wheeled round, and is seen against the light, they might as fitly be called ‘molten silver.’” But though this is satisfactory enough, yet there seems more needed for any proper explanation. The wing implies, one would say, action in some way, and the color of the wing can hardly be the whole matter. The gap is best supplied also in its simplest form, though we can hardly read as simply as Moll, “The wings of a dove are covered,” which (besides joining together a plural and a singular in a questionable manner) disconnects this too much from what precedes it, even though that be put in the form of a question: “would you lie between hurdles?” itself unsatisfactory when we consider, as we must now do, the significance of the passage as a whole. Looking on but a verse or two, we see that we are coming to the thought of the sanctuary which God has chosen for Himself in Zion, and then to see Israel (in the characteristic verse of the psalm) under the new Head, Christ, ascended, on high. Looking back, we have seen them under the covenant at Sinai, a covenant which had so conspicuously failed in securing blessing for them. How, then, shall they now be blessed? The answer to this is evident: it can only be by the work of Christ, by redemption and the work of the Spirit in them. We must look therefore for some reference to this at the point at which we have now arrived. The connection of the opening words with similar expressions in Genesis and Judges has been already referred to. In the latter case Deborah describes the listless indifference of Reuben to the common welfare, when Zebulon and Naphtali were periling their lives in the field against Jabin, king of Canaan. “Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds, to hear the bleatings of the flocks?” she asks. It might be more literally rendered, “Why sattest thou between the hurdles?” It is the expression of indolent self-seeking which kept them amid the abundant pasturage of their grassy plains. In Genesis, it is Issachar that is spoken of, and the words come still nearer to what is in the psalm before us: “Issachar is a bony ass, lying down between two hurdles: and he saw that rest was good, and that the land was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant for tribute.” Here indolent self-seeking is complete, even though it may miss its end, as so often it does. And in Jacob’s prophecy (as we have seen when examining it) the separate tribes represent conditions of the nation, whose remarkable history is pictured in it from the beginning, through the present time, and on into the future to which our psalm also carries us. The nation is before us in both cases, and in the same condition.

Hence the application here must be what it is there, or would naturally be so. Issachar shows us the process by which the people of Jehovah became the poor drudge of the Gentiles; and here they are beheld in the same spiritual condition, listless, subject, degraded; in the opposite state to that of blessing, and to that which their own prophecies assure us shall be. But this is just where grace finds every one of us, -where they too will be found; and therefore we need not wonder at the sudden change which is now indicated as taking place. And here the dove becomes a very striking figure. The dove is a common figure in the Song of songs, and there doubtless represents Israel. We shall not forget this, while yet we remember that its first and fundamental significance carries us away from this, although there is an easy connection between the different applications. It is plainly in the New Testament the symbol of the Spirit of God: “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove,” says the Baptist, “and it abode upon Him.” This necessarily, therefore, is an application which every one accepts; but even in this place it suggests another: the dove, the bird of heaven, the bird which is at once realized as the bird of love and as the bird of sorrow, and which Scripture speaks of in this double character, is so manifestly the representative of Christ Himself, the Man of sorrows, (sorrows that flowed from love, and into which love brought Him down,) that this application is no less evident than the other. Necessarily the symbol is thus a double one: for the dove could only come and abide on Him because here was a congenial home; and conversely, the Spirit of Christ must characterize Christ. But Scripture confirms this further and without possibility of doubt, in that the dove is (in its two varieties of dove and pigeon) the only specified sacrificial bird. In this way it could, of course, apply, not even to the Spirit of God, but only to the Lord. How at once, then, there gleams upon us the glory of its matchless “wings”! Here the application to Israel even in the psalm before us seems at once excluded. What would be the force of any such to them? But if to Christ, then they may well be emphasized, -“wings” that brought a Saviour down! And all is plain: the wings covered with silver, reminding us of the redemption-money; and that presented first; then, as the light strikes differently, the glory of the green-tinted gold," -divine glory, with the hue of reviving nature in it, as in the “rainbow like an emerald, round about the throne” (Revelation 4:3). Thus Israel is most unlike these wings of a dove, while they speak of Christ with the clearest evidence. But how then do they come in here? The answer is surely not far to seek. “In the shadow of Thy wings I will take refuge;” “I will trust in the covert of Thy wings;” “in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice:” are expressions which we have had in the Psalms elsewhere: what difficulty, then, in seeing Israel here under such covert? And from the New Testament comes one sweet, pathetic word which clasps this from the other side: “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a lien gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” They are rejecting no longer now, and the wings of redeeming love are over them. The effect is seen in the following verse, though difficulties are still found in the language. Most translators have: “when the Almighty scattered kings in it” -meaning the land; but that is surely too far off the reference. “On her account” is abrupt, if referring to the people; but in any case there is a change to the third person. Why not, however, a reference to the dove just mentioned? which would account, moreover, for the impersonal form of the next line: “Thou makest as it were snow in Zalmon,” or else, perhaps, “there was as it were.” The language, if not the mere history some would make it, must be quite boldly figurative. If it be prophecy of a distant future, then we need not wonder if it be enigmatic. But there is, as we are reading it, consistent meaning, and one worthy of a divine oracle. If it be, on the other hand, merely the defeat long ago of no one knows who, at a place disputed about, then it is hardly worth while to concern ourselves about it. The truth is, no doubt, that here we have Israel’s twofold salvation: from the nations which will be gathered against her when deliverance comes; and this as a sign of a more perfect deliverance which will make her shine out of the darkness which has fallen upon her as snow upon the sides of a “shadowed” mountain.* If this scattering of kings be taken as on her (Israel’s) account, there is a very suitable sense in this; if it be on account of the “dove” under whose wings Israel has found refuge, then the sense is one more manifestly evangelic and beautiful. The most commonplace meaning is not, let us be assured, when Scripture is concerned, the best or truest: it is far otherwise; for “the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:10.)
When now the hindrances have been removed, God is free to give full expression to His love; and, as of old He dwelt among the people brought out of Egypt, now that redemption has done its full and final work, immediately we hear of His sanctuary. But where is it to be? Not in the mountain-range of Bashan, with its imposing and basaltic peaks, or in any similar heights. The mountains of Bashan, towering up from its level plains, might well suit and symbolize power as it is held by the great ones of earth who lord it over their fellows; but not such is Zion, a mount indeed, but most accessible, raising up men, His worshipers, to the level of His own desires, where condescending grace could meet them. There His desire has brought Him; and there He will abide. There, too, the chariots of God are round about Him; the living forces which from the centre of His glorious presence go forth to all the earth. Angelic power thus manifested itself at Sinai, though there, necessarily, in a hidden sanctuary, where earthquake and fire shut Him in. Zion is the opposite of this, with all its glory but no fringe of fire. And Sinai was but temporary, for a purpose; Zion is His eternal rest. But we penetrate closer, and into the presence of this glorious King. He has descended: blessed be His Name, He has descended; that is evident; but “He who hath [now again] descended is the Same also that ascended up.” The voice of praise breaks out, but which is but the confession of what He has accomplished: “Thou hast ascended on high; Thou hast led captivity captive; Thou hast received gifts on account of man: yea, even for the rebellious, that Jah Elohim might dwell among them.” Here then the glory of Christ is fully displayed. He it is who having first come down into the lower parts of the earth, ascended up, far above all heavens, that He might fill all things." Here is the tender sympathy of One who has been in every possible human position, and even under the weight of sin itself, that He might be near us, with us. The frowning sublimity of Bashan or Sinai would not indeed suit such an One, but only the “mount Zion which He loved.” Victor in the necessary conflict between good and evil, He has led captivity captive -put an end, that is, to the tyranny of Satan, and released those under his power. But it is not enough for Him to set free: He must enrich these, but now the poor slaves of Satan. He has “received gifts on account of man:” which the apostle carries on to its result, “gave gifts unto men.” He applies it to the Church; the psalmist goes on to speak of Israel: “yea, for the rebellious also, that Jah Elohim might dwell among them.” This part ends here with an ascription of praise: “Blessed be the Lord who daily loadeth us with benefits: the Mighty One, our salvation.” 4. There are now to the end of the psalm four brief sections of four verses each. The present one shows us now the prostration of the world, out of which God delivers his people. Israel’s Mighty One has been shown Mighty for salvation; and as to death itself, the issues from it are His. Destruction must be the portion of His enemies, who persistently, spite of His warnings and His mercy, pursue their evil way. The Lord has said He would bring again His people from Bashan, which has just been used as a figure of the world yea, if it were from the abysses of the sea: and that to see the utter prostration of their foes, left as carcases upon the battle-field. 5. We go on to a very different scene. Israel is now with God, at the end of all her sorrows, in a union never to be broken; and as the ark of old was ushered into its sanctuary-rest amid rejoicing of the people, so now is the divine King Himself welcomed with the heartfelt praises of the delivered nation. The psalmist paints it as an actual scene before his eyes: “They have seen Thy goings, O God,” -a plural, which takes in the movement of the whole joyous crowd, and so Delitzsch renders it “procession,” -“the goings of my mighty One, my King, into* the sanctuary.” This is the very point of what is here, that God is taking His place in the old (and yet how much more than the old!) relationship to His people; and this God is He who is also Man, the glorious King, long since come in humiliation, only to be rejected.
The singers come at the head of the procession. The human voice leads all instruments. This, though but what we recognize as natural, and may overlook because we are so familiar with it, contains a precious and yet solemn truth, that man’s heart must be turned Godward before nature will give her true responsive praise; and then, too, his hand must be upon the instrument, as we have often seen. Here, too, we find the maidens with their passionate emotion, soul going with spirit in the glorious outburst of harmonious rapture. Well may the virgins celebrate the Virgin’s Son! They incite each other to praise, now! How often have they incited one another to sin and to rebellion! But henceforth in Israel human association will be found and prized at its true value. They shall have no need to say to one another, “Know the Lord”; for all shall know Him; from the least unto the greatest. There shall be no “counsel of the ungodly” by which to “walk,” no “way of sinners” in which to “stand” all this will be entirely passed away. But praise will awaken praise, which will pour out from “the fountain” (the overflowing heart) “of Israel.” The enumeration of tribes that follows has peculiar difficulties. “Little Benjamin, their ruler,”* seems unsuited every way. A reference to Saul is most improbable; and the word implies at least a strict, if not a severe rule. In that future day to which the psalm refers, Benjamin will certainly not be the ruling tribe. I must agree with Moll, therefore, in translating their conqueror," literally, “their treader down,” but this as meaning Israel’s warrior-tribe. Benjamin was certainly and typically this, as Jacob’s prophecy from the first declared him. “Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf,” says the dying patriarch; and this character was strikingly shown when they braved, though nearly to their own destruction, the united strength of Israel.
The typical meaning cleaves to this, as we trace it on from Genesis to Joshua. In the story of Joseph, who is Christ separated from His brethren and rising to power among the Gentiles, Benjamin represents Messiah in that form in which He abides among them -in which they recognize Him; “son of the right hand,” not suffering, but reigning. This power he has not openly taken yet. But when the true Joseph reveals Himself to His brethren, Benjamin shall be united to Him -He shall take power after this manner upon the earth. “Little Benjamin” -made little of by the Gentiles, and by the Jews unknown in His true greatness, -shall become the conqueror of the nations, and may well therefore for his typical significance come foremost here. Yet is he, as such, only in the train of that greater glory which waits to be revealed to them, to which their eyes are now so absolutely closed. What an awakening will be theirs! And these thoughts may well underlie the mention, first of all, of “little Benjamin.” But now the princes of Judah have their place. Again a most difficult word is connected with them; a word found only here. But we need not go through the various conjectures as to it, as the most suitable meaning has also the best support.* Judah has, through all her history, and even spite of scattering over the earth, been always more or less a “close-compacted band.” Nor shall aught dissolve the tie that binds them to one another. That tie also has always been what their name indicates -their worship; and when this was the true worship, it was the bond that united them into a nation and a kingdom. At the time to which the psalm looks forward, its power will be seen more gloriously than ever; nor will it relax again.
Next come the “princes of Zebulon,” “dwellers in relationship,” the thought again clearly answering to the condition upon which Israel are entering now. And lastly, the princes of Naphtali," the wrestlers," who have learned with Jacob, their father, the strength that is made perfect in weakness. They are really, as coming in the fourth place here, the “weak wrestlers.” The lesson is surely not hard to be deduced. How perfect is the inspiration breathing through all this! Every word is in place every line tells in this vivid picture: “which things also we speak,” says the apostle, “not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” 6. We have seen in the fourth section the prostration of the enemy’s power; we have now the conquest of the earth, its being brought as a whole into subjection to God. Israel has come into a place of power as the seat of divine rule over the earth; and the psalmist seeks confirmation of that which has been wrought for them. God is in His holy temple at Jerusalem, and the kings of the earth bring of course their tribute there. But there are still adversaries who have not submitted. “The beast of the reeds,” whether crocodile or hippopotamus, is naturally Egypt; the assembly of bulls is a general figure for defiant strength. The calves are the people following these leaders.

But there is no help where the creature strives against the power of God; and all in turn submit themselves. War is at an end with this submission, and the reign of peace ensues. Egypt sends its dignitaries; Cush (or Ethiopia) thrusts out the hands imploringly to God. Altogether it is a different picture from that which men have drawn of the peaceful triumphs of the gospel; but such is the resistance of man’s heart to God that (to use the figure of a well-known writer) Mansoul must in any case be taken by siege. Good it is when in any way its pride is humbled, and it is made to sue for peace to Him who is of infinite mercy. “When Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world shall learn righteousness.” 7. The psalm ends with an exhortation to all the kingdoms of the earth to praise Him. As at the beginning He was seen riding upon the Araboth, the places of man’s need and extremity, so now He is seen riding upon the heavens of heavens, high over all created things. Through all He sends out His voice of power, making Himself known in word and deed as Lord of all. All power belongs to Him whose majesty is seen over Israel, and His power in the lightest tracings of the ever changing clouds. The last verse is the response from all the earth. The Mighty One of Israel is owned as terrible -the object of reverential fear -out of His (heavenly and earthly) sanctuaries, giving power and might unto His people.