Psalms 68:14-26

14 When the Almighty scattered kings there, snow fell on Zalmon.

15 O mighty mountain, mountain of Bashan; O many-peaked mountain, mountain of Bashan!

16 Why look you with envy, O many-peaked mountain, at the mount which God desired for his abode, yea, where the LORD will dwell for ever?

17 With mighty chariotry, twice ten thousand, thousands upon thousands, the Lord came from Sinai into the holy place.

18 Thou didst ascend the high mount, leading captives in thy train, and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the LORD God may dwell there.

19 Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation. [Selah]

20 Our God is a God of salvation; and to GOD, the Lord, belongs escape from death.

21 But God will shatter the heads of his enemies, the hairy crown of him who walks in his guilty ways.

22 The Lord said, "I will bring them back from Bashan, I will bring them back from the depths of the sea,

23 that you may bathe your feet in blood, that the tongues of your dogs may have their portion from the foe."

24 Thy solemn processions are seen, O God, the processions of my God, my King, into the sanctuary--

25 the singers in front, the minstrels last, between them maidens playing timbrels:

26 "Bless God in the great congregation, the LORD, O you who are of Israel's fountain!"

Psalms 68:14-26 Meaning and Commentary

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.