Psalm 68:4

Verse 4. Rideth. Said, perhaps, with allusion to the cherubim on which Jehovah was borne ( Psalms 18:10 ), God himself being the Leader and Captain of his people, riding as it were at their head as an earthly captain might lead his army, riding on a war horse. J. J. Stewart Perowne.

Verse 4. Upon the heavens. The ancient versions in general render the word twkr[k super occasus, or occasum. The desert or solitude is the proper and general meaning of it, and there is no authority to render it by the heavens, but that of the Rabbins, which, indeed, is little or none; and of the Chaldee paraphrase which gives it twbr[k hyrqy hysrwk super thronam gloriae ejus in nono caelo who sits upon the throne of his glory in the ninth heaven. The psalmist here alludes, as I apprehend, to the passage of the Israelites through the deserts in their way to the promised land, and describes it in many of the principal circumstances of it in the following verses; and God is said to ride, or be carried through the deserts, as the ark of his presence was carried through them, and accompanied the Israelites in all their various stages during their continuance and pilgrimage in them. Samuel Chandler.

Verse 4. God always goes at the head of his people through the deserts of suffering and need; in the deserts of trouble they find in him a true leader. E. W. Hengstenberg.

Verse 4. His name JAH. JAH, as the concentration of Jehovah, is the more emphatic term (Stier). It occurs for the first time in Exodus 15:2 . Frederic Fysh, in "A Lyrical Literary Version of the Psalms," 1850.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 4.