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68. Psalm 68

¹ May God arise, may his enemies be scattered;
   may his foes flee before him.
² May you blow them away like smoke—
   as wax melts before the fire,
   may the wicked perish before God.
³ But may the righteous be glad
   and rejoice before God;
   may they be happy and joyful.

    ⁴ Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
   extol him who rides on the clouds Or name, / prepare the way for him who rides through the deserts;
   rejoice before him—his name is the LORD.
⁵ A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
   is God in his holy dwelling.
⁶ God sets the lonely in families, Or the desolate in a homeland
   he leads out the prisoners with singing;
   but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

    ⁷ When you, God, went out before your people,
   when you marched through the wilderness, The Hebrew has Selah (a word of uncertain meaning) here and at the end of verses 19 and 32.
⁸ the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain,
   before God, the One of Sinai,
   before God, the God of Israel.
⁹ You gave abundant showers, O God;
   you refreshed your weary inheritance.
¹⁰ Your people settled in it,
   and from your bounty, God, you provided for the poor.

    ¹¹ The Lord announces the word,
   and the women who proclaim it are a mighty throng:
¹² “Kings and armies flee in haste;
   the women at home divide the plunder.
¹³ Even while you sleep among the sheep pens, Or the campfires; or the saddlebags
   the wings of my dove are sheathed with silver,
   its feathers with shining gold.”
¹⁴ When the Almighty Hebrew Shaddai scattered the kings in the land,
   it was like snow fallen on Mount Zalmon.

    ¹⁵ Mount Bashan, majestic mountain,
   Mount Bashan, rugged mountain,
¹⁶ why gaze in envy, you rugged mountain,
   at the mountain where God chooses to reign,
   where the LORD himself will dwell forever?
¹⁷ The chariots of God are tens of thousands
   and thousands of thousands;
   the Lord has come from Sinai into his sanctuary. Probable reading of the original Hebrew text; Masoretic Text Lord is among them at Sinai in holiness
¹⁸ When you ascended on high,
   you took many captives;
   you received gifts from people,
even from Or gifts for people, / even the rebellious—
   that you, Or they LORD God, might dwell there.

    ¹⁹ Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
   who daily bears our burdens.
²⁰ Our God is a God who saves;
   from the Sovereign LORD comes escape from death.
²¹ Surely God will crush the heads of his enemies,
   the hairy crowns of those who go on in their sins.
²² The Lord says, “I will bring them from Bashan;
   I will bring them from the depths of the sea,
²³ that your feet may wade in the blood of your foes,
   while the tongues of your dogs have their share.”

    ²⁴ Your procession, God, has come into view,
   the procession of my God and King into the sanctuary.
²⁵ In front are the singers, after them the musicians;
   with them are the young women playing the timbrels.
²⁶ Praise God in the great congregation;
   praise the LORD in the assembly of Israel.
²⁷ There is the little tribe of Benjamin, leading them,
   there the great throng of Judah’s princes,
   and there the princes of Zebulun and of Naphtali.

    ²⁸ Summon your power, God Many Hebrew manuscripts, Septuagint and Syriac; most Hebrew manuscripts Your God has summoned power for you;
   show us your strength, our God, as you have done before.
²⁹ Because of your temple at Jerusalem
   kings will bring you gifts.
³⁰ Rebuke the beast among the reeds,
   the herd of bulls among the calves of the nations.
Humbled, may the beast bring bars of silver.
   Scatter the nations who delight in war.
³¹ Envoys will come from Egypt;
   Cush That is, the upper Nile region will submit herself to God.

    ³² Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth,
   sing praise to the Lord,
³³ to him who rides across the highest heavens, the ancient heavens,
   who thunders with mighty voice.
³⁴ Proclaim the power of God,
   whose majesty is over Israel,
   whose power is in the heavens.
³⁵ You, God, are awesome in your sanctuary;
   the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people.

Praise be to God!

34. Give strength unto God over Israel The expression is in allusion to the sentence which went before, and in which God was said to send forth a strong or mighty voice. Not that, properly speaking, we can give anything to Him, but, disposed as we are to withhold that honor which is his due, David subjoins to what he had said of his thundering with a mighty voice, an injunction that we should, on our part, be ready to sound forth his praises. To guard the Gentile nations against those false ideas upon religion in which they were accustomed to indulge, he brings them back to the doctrine of the Law, in which God had specially revealed himself, and intimates that, if they would not lose themselves in error, they must advance by necessary steps from the creation and government of the world, to that doctrine in which God had condescended to make a familiar revelation of himself to men. So much is included when God is spoken of here as the God of Israel But he does not satisfy himself with enjoining them to celebrate the power of God with praises of the voice. He exhorts them to the exercise of faith, for in reality we cannot better ascribe strength unto God, than by reposing in his protection as all-sufficient. Thus, after having said that his strength is in the clouds; ⁶²⁶² “This refers to the phenomena of thunder and lightning; for all nations have observed that the electric fluid is an irresistible agent — destroying life, tearing towers and castles to pieces, rending the strongest oaks, and cleaving the most solid rocks; and the most enlightened nations have justly considered it as an especial manifestation of the power and Sovereignty of God.” — Greenfield. he adds, that he is terrible out of his holy places, by which is meant, that he exerts a power in his temple which is sufficient to confound his enemies. Some understand heaven and earth to be the holy places intended, but this does not agree with the context, for it is immediately added, that the God of Israel would give strength unto his people. It is evident, therefore, that the Psalmist speaks of God’s protection of his Church. The plural number is used in speaking of the sanctuary, here as in other places, because the tabernacle was divided into three parts. He points, in short, to the ark of the covenant, as that which the believing people of God should recognize as a symbol of confidence, remembering the promise, “I will dwell in the midst of you,” and thus resting with security under the wings of the Divine protection, and confidently calling upon his name. Any right which Israel might have in distinction from others to trust in the guardianship of God, rested entirely upon that covenant of free grace by which they had been chosen to be God’s peculiar heritage. Let it be remembered, however, that God continues to exert in behalf of his Church still these terrible displays of his power of which the Psalmist speaks.