16
Why do you look with envy, O rugged mountains, at Mount Zion, where God has chosen to live, where the LORD himself will live forever?
17
Surrounded by unnumbered thousands of chariots, the Lord came from Mount Sinai into his sanctuary.
18
When you ascended to the heights, you led a crowd of captives. You received gifts from the people, even from those who rebelled against you. Now the LORD God will live among us there.
19
Praise the Lord; praise God our savior! For each day he carries us in his arms. Interlude
20
Our God is a God who saves! The Sovereign LORD rescues us from death.
21
But God will smash the heads of his enemies, crushing the skulls of those who love their guilty ways.
22
The Lord says, “I will bring my enemies down from Bashan; I will bring them up from the depths of the sea.
23
You, my people, will wash your feet in their blood, and even your dogs will get their share!”
24
Your procession has come into view, O God— the procession of my God and King as he goes into the sanctuary.
25
Singers are in front, musicians behind; between them are young women playing tambourines.
26
Praise God, all you people of Israel; praise the LORD, the source of Israel’s life.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm [or] Song of David. The Targum makes the argument of this psalm to be the coming of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and the giving of the law on Mount Sinai; in which it is followed by many of the Jewish interpreters: but Aben Ezra rejects such an interpretation of it, and thinks that David composed it, concerning the war he had with the uncircumcised nations, the Philistines and others, 2 Samuel 8:1, &c. And so the title of the Syriac version begins, "a psalm of David, when the kings prepared themselves to fight against him:" and Kimchi says it was composed on account of Sennacherib's army coming against Jerusalem, in the times of Hezekiah, and so delivered by David, under a spirit of prophecy concerning that affair; though he owns that some of their writers interpret it of the war of Gog and Magog, in the times of the Messiah they yet expect. But they are much nearer the truth, who take it that it was written on occasion of the ark being brought to the city of David; seeing it begins with much the same words that Moses used when the ark set forward in his times, Numbers 10:35; and the bringing of which was attended with great joy and gladness, 2 Samuel 6:14; such as the righteous are called upon to express in this psalm, Psalm 68:3. And this being a type of Christ, and of his ascending the holy hill of God, may be allowed of; for certain it is that this psalm treats of the coming of Christ, and of blessings by him, and of victory over his enemies; and particularly of his ascension to heaven, as most evidently appears from Ephesians 4:8; and from prophecies in it, concerning the calling of the Gentiles. Wherefore the latter part of the Syriac inscription of it is very pertinent; "also a prophecy concerning the dispensation of the Messiah, and concerning the calling of the Gentiles to the faith." Jarchi interprets Psalm 68:31 of the Messiah.