Psalm 68:20

Psalm 68 is a song of procession and victory. Whenever the ark set out in the wilderness, Moses said, “Rise up, LORD, and let thine enemies be scattered” (Numbers 10:35), and the psalm opens with the same cry: “Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered” (Psalm 68:1–3). It praises God as “a father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows” (Psalm 68:5), and then recalls how he went before his people through the wilderness, sent rain on his inheritance, and made kings of armies flee while the women at home divided the spoil (Psalm 68:7–14).

In these verses the march reaches Zion. The rest of the psalm watches “the goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary” (Psalm 68:24) and looks to the day when kings bring presents to his temple at Jerusalem (Psalm 68:29). The psalm most likely belongs to the day David brought the ark up to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6, 1 Chronicles 15), or to the celebration of a great victory. On either occasion its message in these verses is the same: the God who fought for his people now comes to live with them.

Bashan was the high, fertile country east of the Jordan, known for its rich pastures, its oak forests and its mountains, which reach to the southern slopes of Mount Hermon. Its cattle were famous for their strength, and a psalm of David uses them for violent enemies: “Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round” (Psalm 22:12). The name Bâshân stood for the best that nature could offer, and its mountains are described with the word gabnôn, a hump or peak of hills, which the KJV gives as “high”.

Zion was a modest hill in Jerusalem, far lower than the peaks of Bashan, and the psalm calls it “the hill of God”. The word for hill, har, means a mountain, a hill or hill country, and the verse uses the same word for both, so that the two mountains stand side by side. “The hill of God” joins har to ʼĕlôhîym, the name of God that is plural in form and is read as a plural of majesty, and the phrase marks the hill as his. A similar phrase lies behind the “goodly cedars” of Psalm 80:10, which in Hebrew are cedars “of God”. God made every hill, and this one he took for his own, as he says in another psalm: “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion” (Psalm 2:6). Another psalm tells of the same choice: God “chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved. And he built his sanctuary like high palaces” (Psalm 78:68–69).

The KJV’s “is as” is supplied in English. The Hebrew sets the two hills next to each other without a verb, and that placing can carry a comparison, a question, or a claim that one is greater. The second line, “an high hill as the hill of Bashan”, repeats Bashan’s name so that its grandeur is felt. Zion stands as high as Bashan, and higher, because God has chosen it. Its height is the honour of being the place where he dwells, and so God shows his glory in a lowly place.

“The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels.” The word rekeb means a chariot or chariotry. Chariots were the greatest military power of the day, and kings showed their might by the size of the army that went with them. The psalm gives God a host far beyond any earthly force. “Twenty thousand” renders ribbôw, ten thousand or a myriad, an indefinitely large number, here in a form that means two myriads, and the Hebrew behind “thousands of angels” speaks of thousands upon thousands. The numbers say that the host is past counting. The chariots picture the speed and irresistible force with which God moves, and the angels are the servants ready to do his will.

“The Lord is among them” puts God himself in the midst of the host, leading it in person. Then the psalm adds, “as in Sinai, in the holy place.” Çîynay is the name Sinai, of uncertain derivation. At Sinai God came down on the mountain in fire, smoke and thunder to give his law (Exodus 19), and in his blessing Moses said, “The LORD came from Sinai... and he came with ten thousands of saints” (Deuteronomy 33:2). Sinai was holy because God was there. The psalm says that the same God, with the same host, is among his people now as he was then, so the God of the covenant is unchanged from Sinai to Zion.

Scripture lets us see this host elsewhere. When the Syrian army surrounded Elisha, he told his frightened servant, “they that be with us are more than they that be with them”, and the LORD opened the young man’s eyes to see the mountain “full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha” (2 Kings 6:16–17). The King of glory is “the LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle” (Psalm 24:8–10). John saw angels around the throne numbering “ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands” (Revelation 5:11), and the angels of God are all called to worship the Son (Hebrews 1:6). The Lord who is among his hosts also promised his disciples, “lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20).

Verse 18 speaks to God directly: “Thou hast ascended on high”. The verb ʻâlâh means to go up, ascend, rise up. Having come to his hill with his host, God goes up to the height, as a victorious king goes up to his throne. In those days a conquering king came back to his capital in procession, leading his captives, displaying the spoils, and handing out gifts, and the psalm describes God’s triumph in those terms.

“Thou hast led captivity captive.” Shᵉbîy means the taking captive, captives, or captivity, and here it is the object of the verb “led captive”, which comes from the same root. The doubling makes the defeat complete, because the power that took others captive is now taken itself. Deborah used the same picture in her song: “Arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam” (Judges 5:12).

“Thou hast received gifts for men.” Mattânâh is a gift or present, and elsewhere it can mean an offering. The victor receives gifts, the tribute of his triumph, and the Hebrew can be read as gifts “for” men or “among” men. Either way the gifts serve people, and the next words say who is included: “yea, for the rebellious also”. God’s generosity reaches those who had resisted him, in a world where a king’s favour usually went to the loyal. This is the grace of the gospel: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

The verse ends with the purpose of it all: “that the LORD God might dwell among them.” The words “among them” are supplied by the KJV, and they give the sense. God wins his victory so that he can live with the people he has won, the same desire as in verse 16.

After the scene of triumph comes a blessing: “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.” The verb bârak means to kneel, and by implication to bless. When we bless God, we declare him worthy of praise and the source of every blessing. The verb ʻâmaç means to load or to lay a burden on, and here the load is all good. “With benefits” is supplied in English to make clear what the load is. God heaps good things on his people day after day, far past what they merely need.

The God of the chariots and the victory is the same God who sees to his people’s daily needs. He fed Israel with manna (Exodus 16) and gave them water from the rock (Exodus 17). Jesus teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11), and tells us that the Father who feeds the birds and clothes the lilies knows what we need (Matthew 6:25–34). “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23). “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17), and “my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

“Even the God of our salvation” names the giver. Yᵉshûwʻâh is deliverance, help, victory and welfare. Scripture uses it of rescue God brings through people as well, as when Israel said that Jonathan “hath wrought this great salvation in Israel”, and it traces every rescue back to the LORD, who says, “I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour” (Isaiah 43:11). So the daily gifts come from the God who saves, as part of his saving care. In Christ the bread itself is given, for Jesus said, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), and God “hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3).

“He that is our God is the God of salvation”. The word for salvation here is môwshâʻâh, deliverance, from the root meaning to save. Saving is who our God is, and Israel had known it since the sea. After God parted the waters (Exodus 14), Moses sang, “The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation” (Exodus 15:2).

“And unto GOD the Lord belong the issues from death.” “GOD the Lord” joins two names of God, the covenant name that the KJV prints in capitals and Adonai, Lord, and together they speak of his full authority. The word for issues, tôwtsâʼâh, means outgoings or exits. Mâveth is death, natural or violent, and also the dead and their place. The issues from death are therefore the ways out of death, and every one of them belongs to God. Escape from mortal danger, recovery from sickness, and at last the raising of the dead all come from him, and death keeps the bounds he sets. God says, “I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal” (Deuteronomy 32:39), and Hannah sang, “The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up” (1 Samuel 2:6). Job held to the same hope: “For I know that my redeemer liveth... yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25–27).

Christ is this salvation in person. His name, Jesus, means “the LORD saves”, “for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21), and he is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). “The Son quickeneth whom he will” (John 5:21). He rose, and “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him” (Romans 6:9–10). Now he says, “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Revelation 1:18). He is the way out of death for all who believe: “I am the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25–26). He “hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).

“But God shall wound the head of his enemies”. The God who saves in verse 20 is the one who judges here. The verb mâchats means to dash in pieces, crush, smash or pierce through, and in battle it is the blow that finishes an enemy. Rôʼsh is the head, and it also stands for leadership and power, so a blow to the head strikes at the enemy’s strength and life together. In those days striking the head was the sign of complete defeat and humiliation. The second line narrows the aim to “the hairy scalp”, qodqôd in Hebrew, the crown of the head, the very top and most exposed part.

The verse also says whom this judgment falls on: “such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses.” The verb hâlak means to walk or to go, and “goeth on still” pictures a settled course, a man who keeps walking the same road. ʼÂshâm is guilt, fault or offence. So the man in view is the one who goes on in his guilt and refuses to turn. The prophets give the same warning: “the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed” (Isaiah 1:28), and “your sins have withholden good things from you” (Jeremiah 5:25). Paul speaks of the “hardness and impenitent heart” that “treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds” (Romans 2:5–6).

This blow to the head recalls the first promise, that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15). Christ dealt that blow by his death and resurrection, bearing on the cross God’s judgment against sin for those who would otherwise face it, and he will come again as the rider called “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:11–16). Death itself is “swallowed up in victory”, and “thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54–57). God “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13), and at the last every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10–11).

These seven verses show us who God is on the hill he has chosen. He passes over the proud peaks and sets his love on a lower hill because he desires it, and he promises to stay there for ever. He comes with the hosts of heaven, as at Sinai, goes up in triumph, and turns the spoils of his victory into gifts for people who had rebelled against him, all so that he might live among them. That promise has come to us in Christ, who ascended on high and gave his Spirit, so that God now dwells in his church and in each believer.

The same God loads his people with good things every day, and he holds the ways out of death in his own hand. The Selah in the middle of these verses gives time to take that in: the Lord of the chariots is also the giver of our daily bread and the one who raises the dead. His enemies who go on in their guilt will meet his justice, and those he has forgiven can say with the psalmist, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation.”