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Commentary on Psalms 68 verses 15–21
David, having given God praise for what he had done for Israel in general, as the God of Israel (Psa 68:8), here comes to give him praise as Zion's God in a special manner; compare Psa 9:11. Sing praises to the Lord who dwelleth in Zion, for which reason Zion is called the hill of God.
I. He compares it with the hill of Bashan and other high and fruitful hills, and prefers it before them, Psa 68:15, Psa 68:16. It is true, Zion was but little and low in comparison with them, and was not covered over with flocks and herds as they were, yet, upon this account, it has the pre-eminence above them all, that it is the hill of God, the hill which he desires to dwell in, and where he chooses to manifest the tokens of his peculiar presence, Psa 132:13, Psa 132:14. Note, It is much more honourable to be holy to God than to be high and great in the world. "Why leap you, you high hills? Why do you insult over poor Zion, and boast of your own height? This is the hill which God has chosen, and therefore though you exceed it in bulk, and be first-rates, yet, because on this the royal flag is hoisted, you must all strike sail to it." Zion was especially honourable because it was a type of the gospel church, which is therefore called Mount Zion (Heb 12:22), and this is intimated here, when he said, The Lord will dwell in it for ever, which must have its accomplishment in the gospel Zion. There is no kingdom in the world comparable to the kingdom of the Redeemer, no city comparable to that which is incorporated by the gospel charter, for there God dwells and will dwell for ever.
II. He compares it with Mount Sinai, of which he had spoken (Psa 68:8), and shows that it has the Shechinah or divine presence in it as really, though not as sensibly, as Sinai itself had, Psa 68:17. Angels are the chariots of God, his chariots of war, which he make use of against his enemies, his chariots of conveyance, which he sends for his friends, as he did for Elijah (and Lazarus is said to be carried by the angels), his chariots of state, in the midst of which he shows his glory and power. They are vastly numerous: Twenty thousands, even thousands multiplied. There is an innumerable company of angels in the heavenly Jerusalem, Heb 12:22. The enemies David fought with had chariots (Sa2 8:4), but what were they, for number or strength, to the chariots of God? While David had these on his side he needed not to fear those that trusted in chariots and horses, Psa 20:7. God appeared on Mount Sinai, attended with myriads of angels, by whose dispensation the law was given, Act 7:53. He comes with ten thousands of saints, Deu 33:2. And still in Zion God manifests his glory, and is really present, with a numerous retinue of his heavenly hosts, signified by the cherubim between which God is said to dwell. So that, as some read the last words of the verse, Sinai is in the sanctuary; that is, the sanctuary was to Israel instead of Mount Sinai, whence they received divine oracles. Our Lord Jesus has these chariots at command. When the first-begotten was brought into the world it was with this charge, Let all the angels of God worship him (Heb 1:6); they attended him upon all occasions, and he is now among them, angels, principalities, and powers, being made subject to him, Pe1 3:22. And it is intimated in the New Testament that the angels are present in the solemn religious assemblies of Christians, Co1 11:10. Let the woman have a veil on her head because of the angels; and see Eph 3:10.
III. The glory of Mount Zion was the King whom God set on that holy hill (Psa 2:6), who came to the daughter of Zion, Mat 21:5. Of his ascension the psalmist here speaks, and to it his language is expressly applied (Eph 4:8): Thou hast ascended on high (Psa 68:18); compare Psa 47:5, Psa 47:6. Christ's ascending on high is here spoken of as a thing past, so sure was it; and spoken of to his honour, so great was it. It may include his whole exalted state, but points especially at his ascension into heaven to the right hand of the Father, which was as much our advantage as his advancement. For, 1. He then triumphed over the gates of hell. He led captivity captive; that is, he led his captives in triumph, as great conquerors used to do, making a show of them openly, Col 2:15. He led those captive who had led us captive, and who, if he had not interposed, would have held us captive for ever. Nay, he led captivity itself captive, having quite broken the power of sin and Satan. As he was the death of death, so he was the captivity of captivity, Hos 13:14. This intimates the complete victory which Jesus Christ obtained over our spiritual enemies; it was such that through him we also are more than conquerors, that is, triumphers, Rom 8:37. 2. He then opened the gates of heaven to all believers: Thou hast received gifts for men. He gave gifts to men, so the apostle reads it, Eph 4:8. For he received that he might give; on his head the anointing of the Spirit was poured, that from him it might descend to the skirts of his garments. And he gave what he had received; having received power to give eternal life, he bestows it upon as many as were given him, Joh 17:2. Thou hast received gifts for men, not for angels; fallen angels were not to be made saints, nor standing angels made gospel ministers, Heb 2:5. Not for Jews only, but for all men; whoever will may reap the benefit of these gifts. The apostle tells us what these gifts were (Eph 4:11), prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors and teachers, the institution of a gospel ministry and the qualification of men for it, both which are to be valued as the gifts of heaven and the fruits of Christ's ascension. Thou hast received gifts in man (so the margin), that is, in the human nature which Christ was pleased to clothe himself with, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God. In him, as Mediator, all fulness dwells, that from his fulness we might receive. To magnify the kindness and love of Christ to us in receiving these gifts for us, the psalmist observes, (1.) The forfeiture we had made of them. He received them for the rebellious also, for those that had been rebellious; so all the children of men had been in their fallen state. Perhaps it is especially meant of the Gentiles, that had been enemies in their minds by wicked works, Col 1:21. For them these gifts are received, to them they are given, that they might lay down their arms, that their enmity might be slain, and that they might return to their allegiance. This magnifies the grace of Christ exceedingly that through him rebels are, upon their submission, not only pardoned, but preferred. They have commissions given them under Christ, which some say, in our law, amounts to the reversing of an attainder. Christ came to a rebellious world, not to condemn it, but that through him it might be saved. (2.) The favour designed us in them: He received gifts for the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell among them, that he might set up a church in a rebellious world, in which he would dwell by his word and ordinances, as of old in the sanctuary, that he might set up his throne, and Christ might dwell in the hearts of particular persons that had been rebellious. The gracious intention of Christ's undertaking was to rear up the tabernacle of God among men, that he might dwell with them and they might themselves be living temples to his praise, Eze 37:27.
IV. The glory of Zion's King is that he is a Saviour and benefactor to all his willing people and a consuming fire to all those that persist in rebellion against him, Psa 68:19-21. We have here good and evil, life and death, the blessing and the curse, set before us, like that (Mar 16:16), He that believes shall be saved; he that believes not shall be damned.
1.Those that take God for their God, and so give up themselves to him to be his people, shall be loaded with his benefits, and to them he will be a God of salvation. If in sincerity we avouch God to be our God, and seek to him as such, (1.) He will continually do us good and furnish us with occasion for praise. Having mentioned the gifts Christ received for us (Psa 68:18), fitly does he subjoin, in the next words, Blessed be the Lord; for it is owing to the mediation of Christ that we live, and live comfortably, and are daily loaded with benefits. So many, so weighty, are the gifts of God's bounty to us that he may be truly said to load us with them; he pours out blessings till there is no room to receive them, Mal 3:10. So constant are they, and so unwearied is he in doing us good, that he daily loads us with them, according as the necessity of every day requires. (2.) He will at length be unto us the God of salvation, of everlasting salvation, the salvation of God, which he will show to those that order their conversation aright (Psa 50:23), the salvation of the soul. He that daily loads us with benefits will not put us off with present things for a portion, but will be the God of our salvation; and what he gives us now he gives as the God of salvation, pursuant to the great design of our salvation. He is our God, and therefore he will be the God of eternal salvation to us; for that only will answer the vast extent of his covenant-relation to us as our God. But has he power to complete this salvation? Yes, certainly; for unto God the Lord belong the issues from death. The keys of hell and death are put into the hand of the Lord Jesus, Rev 1:18. He, having made an escape from death himself in his resurrection, has both authority and power to rescue those that are his from the dominion of death, by altering the property of it to them when they die and giving them a complete victory over it when they shall rise again; for the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. And to those that shall thus for ever escape death, and shall find such an outlet from it as not to be hurt of the second death, to them surely deliverances from temporal death are mercies indeed and come from God as the God of their salvation. Co2 1:10.
2.Those that persist in their enmity to him will certainly be ruined (Psa 68:21): God shall wound the head of his enemies, - of Satan the old serpent (of whom it was by the first promise foretold that the seed of the woman should break his head, Gen 3:15), - of all the powers of the nations, whether Jews or Gentiles, that oppose him and his kingdom among men (Psa 110:6, He shall wound the heads over many countries), - of all those, whoever they are, that will not have him to reign over them, for those he accounts his enemies, and they shall be brought forth and slain before him, Luk 19:27. He will wound the hairy scalp of such a one as goeth on still in his trespasses. Note, Those who go on still in their trespasses, and hate to be reformed, God looks upon as his enemies and will treat them accordingly. In calling the head the hairy scalp perhaps there is an allusion to Absalom, whose bushy hair was his halter. Or it denotes either the most fierce and barbarous of his enemies, who let their hair grow, to make themselves look the more frightful, or the most fine and delicate of his enemies, who are nice about their hair: neither the one nor the other can secure themselves from the fatal wounds which divine justice will give to the heads of those that go on in their sins.
I think that here none but the apostles can be meant by the rulers of Naphtali. For thence our Lord and Savior called them according to the quotation from Matthew. The Scripture is prophesying the coming of the Word of God to human beings and his incarnate sojourn here, when it says, “Your goings [solemn processions], O God, have been seen,” and that which follows. And the prophets of old were like heralds of his epiphany and arrived before him with proclamation and chant, with music of psaltery and choir and all kinds of spiritual instruments, in the midst of maidens playing on timbrels. For the inspired prophets going in every way into the midst of the Jewish synagogues heralded the coming of the Christ, and by the Holy Spirit they addressed the apostles of our Savior, saying, “Praise the Lord God in the congregations from the fountains of Israel.” And the “fountains of Israel” must be the words delivered to Israel. “For they [the inspired prophets] first trusted the oracles of God,” whence it will be necessary for us to draw and water the churches of Christ. By “maidens playing on timbrels” he suggested the souls that lived in the past by the more external law of Moses, calling them “maidens” because of their youth and imperfectly developed minds and “timbrel players” because of their devotion to external worship.
You ask what is meant by these words in Psalm 67 [LXX]: "But God shall break the heads of his enemies: the hairy crown of them that walk on in their sins." It seems to me it means simply that God will break the heads of his enemies who are too overwhelming, who rise too high in their sins. By a certain hyperbole he describes pride as rising so high and rushing along with such eagerness that it is like striding and running over the hair of the head.
Then the people of Israel came to the twelve springs after Marah. We read in the prophet, “Bless the Lord from the springs of Israel.” It is the Christ, who is blessed in no other way than the mouths of the apostles and the teaching of the disciples. The apostles ought to be called “springs,” since they abound in the grace of preaching like purest springs and sprinkle the sweet cup of the sacrament from the abundant wisdom of their veins after the bitterness of the law. Nor is it astonishing if the drink of the springs is sweet, in whose midst the food of the palms is also sweeter. But as for the seventy palm trees planted next to the apostolic springs, I would say that they are those seventy disciples who for the sake of mankind’s salvation are directed by the Lord in a degree second only to the apostles. The evangelist Luke in his description of them asserts that they were appointed two by two. Like palm trees, they returned with exultation after healing people and boasted before the Lord that even the demons were subjected to them. Therefore, they are rightly compared to palms since they emerge as victors over the devil, adorned with the prize of the palms.
“Nonetheless, God shattered the heads of his enemies and of those who walk in their sins through a head of hair.” Lest the evils of the obstinate be thought to be unpunished, he says, “Nonetheless God shattered the heads of his enemies,” so that you would recognizes that punishment also comes upon the treacherous and obstinate. The “heads of the enemies” are indeed the authors of the Jewish rebellion, but also without doubt the teachers of the heretics. For the former persecuted Christ in the flesh, but the latter rage furiously against the very deity (if one can even mention such a blasphemous thing!). Next follows the phrase “of those who walk through a head of hair,” that is, who seek such minutia of pretenses so that they seem to be able to walk through the very heads of hair and scrutinize them thoroughly. This refers to the cunning of empty questions, which abandon matters that would be useful and seek after unnecessary matters in their abominable arguing. And in order to attest to their studies as idle, he adds “in their sins,” because their thinking was foolish, which led them to their faults. Examples are the Manicheans, the Priscilians, the Donatists, the Montanists and others who mix themselves with the stenches of their filthy teaching.
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SUMMARY
Psalms 68:21 powerfully declares God's absolute sovereignty and His decisive judgment against all who oppose Him and persist in unrepentant rebellion. It vividly portrays divine retribution as a crushing, incapacitating blow to the power and defiance of His adversaries, assuring believers of God's ultimate triumph over evil and His unwavering commitment to justice for those who stubbornly walk in their trespasses.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
The verse employs several powerful Literary Devices to convey its message of divine judgment. Metonymy is prominently evident in "the head" and "the hairy scalp," where a part of the body stands for the whole person or, more broadly, for their power, authority, and very existence. Striking the head symbolizes the complete destruction of the enemy's capacity to act or resist. The imagery itself is a form of Vivid Imagery or Figurative Language, painting a stark and memorable picture of God's decisive and overwhelming power. The act of "wounding" (machats) is a strong Verb, conveying violent, destructive force and the finality of the blow. The contrast implied between God's mighty action and the stubborn persistence of the wicked creates a subtle Juxtaposition, highlighting the inevitable clash between divine justice and human rebellion. Furthermore, the phrase "goeth on still in his trespasses" uses Periphrasis to describe a lifestyle of unrepentant sin, emphasizing the continuous nature of the defiance through a descriptive phrase rather than a single word. This combination of devices makes the declaration of judgment both forceful and profoundly memorable.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
This verse powerfully articulates the biblical doctrine of divine retribution, affirming God's unwavering commitment to justice and holiness. It underscores that while God is merciful and patient, His patience has limits, and persistent, unrepentant sin inevitably incurs His righteous judgment. This is not a capricious act but a necessary consequence for those who stubbornly oppose His holy character and sovereign will. The imagery of crushing the head resonates deeply with the protoevangelium, the first promise of victory over evil, suggesting a cosmic struggle where God ultimately triumphs over all forces of darkness and rebellion. It assures believers that God is actively engaged in upholding righteousness and will ultimately bring all wickedness to account, providing comfort and confidence in His ultimate victory and the establishment of His perfect kingdom.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Psalm 68:21 serves as a profound reminder of God's absolute sovereignty and His unyielding commitment to justice. For those who are caught in a cycle of sin, it is a sobering warning: God does not indefinitely tolerate rebellion. His judgment is certain for those who stubbornly refuse to repent and turn from their wicked ways. This should prompt a deep self-examination and a sincere desire to align our lives with His righteous standards, seeking His mercy and forgiveness rather than hardening our hearts. It calls us to consider the seriousness of our own trespasses and to actively pursue reconciliation with God. Conversely, for the believer, this verse offers immense comfort and assurance. In a world often seemingly dominated by injustice, oppression, and evil, it reaffirms that God is ultimately in control. He will decisively deal with all forms of wickedness and defiance, ensuring that His perfect justice prevails. This understanding should strengthen our faith, encourage perseverance in the face of adversity, and inspire us to live righteously, knowing that our God is a God of justice who will ultimately make all things right. It calls us to trust in His perfect timing and His just decrees, even when we do not immediately see His hand at work, and to find peace in His ultimate triumph.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Does this verse imply God is cruel or arbitrary in His judgment?
Answer: No, this verse does not imply God is cruel or arbitrary. Instead, it underscores His perfect justice and holiness. The judgment described is specifically directed at "his enemies" and those who "goeth on still in his trespasses," indicating a deliberate and persistent rebellion against God. God's judgment is a righteous response to unrepentant sin and defiance, not an act of caprice. Throughout Scripture, God is portrayed as patient and merciful, desiring all to come to repentance (e.g., 2 Peter 3:9). However, His justice also demands that sin be dealt with. This verse highlights the inevitable consequences of rejecting His grace and stubbornly persisting in wickedness, affirming His moral order in the universe.
How does this verse relate to the concept of God's love?
Answer: While this verse emphasizes God's judgment, it paradoxically upholds His love. God's love is not merely sentimental; it is a holy love that cannot tolerate evil. His judgment on sin is an expression of His commitment to righteousness and His desire to protect His creation from the destructive power of wickedness. By decisively dealing with "his enemies" and those in "trespasses," God is ultimately clearing the way for His kingdom of peace and justice. His love for His people and for righteousness necessitates the removal of that which opposes Him. This is akin to a loving parent who disciplines a child for their good, or a just ruler who removes threats to the well-being of their kingdom. Ultimately, God's judgment serves to establish a world where His love can fully flourish, free from the corruption of sin (e.g., Revelation 21:3-4).
Is "hairy scalp" a literal description, and what is its significance?
Answer: "Hairy scalp" (Hebrew: qodqôd seʻâr) is a vivid, literal description for the crown of the head, but its significance is deeply symbolic. It emphasizes the totality and specificity of the judgment. While "head" (rôʼsh) is a general term for leadership or power, qodqôd specifically refers to the very top or crown, often associated with dignity or the most vulnerable, exposed part. The addition of "hairy" might emphasize the full person, or perhaps even a sense of wildness, untamed nature, or even a sign of mourning or humiliation in ancient contexts. In ancient cultures, striking the head was the ultimate act of defeat and humiliation, signifying complete subjugation. Thus, the phrase underscores the completeness and decisiveness of God's judgment against those who stubbornly persist in their rebellion, leaving no part of their power or defiance untouched. It's a graphic image meant to convey the absolute nature of God's triumph over His adversaries.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Psalm 68:21 finds its ultimate and most profound fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The imagery of God "wounding the head of his enemies" powerfully foreshadows Christ's decisive victory over sin, death, and the devil. Just as the protoevangelium in Genesis 3:15 prophesied the bruising of the serpent's head, so too did Jesus, through His sacrificial death and glorious resurrection, deliver the fatal blow to the power of Satan and all spiritual adversaries. The "hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses" points to the unrepentant nature of humanity's rebellion, which Christ came to conquer. On the cross, Jesus bore the full weight of God's righteous judgment against sin, offering a path to reconciliation for those who would otherwise face divine wrath for their persistent trespasses. His resurrection is the ultimate demonstration of God's power to overcome all enemies, including death itself, as celebrated in 1 Corinthians 15:54-57. Through Christ, believers are delivered from the dominion of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of His beloved Son (Colossians 1:13), and they are promised a share in His ultimate triumph over all remaining opposition, when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). Thus, this psalm's declaration of divine judgment is transformed into a message of hope and salvation, secured by the victorious Lamb of God.