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PSALM 68
THE ARGUMENT
The occasion of this Psalm seems to have been David’s translation of the ark to Zion, which was managed with great solemnity and devotion, and celebrated with some Psalms, and this among the rest. For the first words are the very same which Moses appointed for such occasions, Num_10:35, and the following verses pursue the same matter with the first. Thence he falls into a description of some of the excellent properties and glorious works of the God to whom this ark belonged. But because David very well knew that both himself and the ark were types of Christ, and that the church and people of Israel were a type of the catholic church, consisting of Jews and Gentiles, and that the legal administrations and actions were types of those of the gospel, he therefore, by the Spirit of prophecy, looked through and beyond the present actions and types, unto the great mysteries of Christ’s resurrection and ascension into heaven, and of the special privileges of the Christian church, and of the conversion of the Gentiles unto God, and therefore intermixeth some passages which directly and immediately belong to these things, although the words be so ordered that they carry a manifest allusion to the present actions, and may in some sort be applied to them, though in a more obscure and improper and secondary sense. Nor is it at all strange that in the same Psalm there is such a mixture of things, whereof some belong only to the actions or events of that time, and some only to Christ and the gospel times, if it be considered that the psalmist in himself doth frequently express divers, and those contrary, passions and dispositions, as hope and fear, &c., in the same Psalm, and sometimes in the same verse, and especially that the sacred penmen in the composition of these writings were men wholly inspired, and governed, and moved by the Holy Ghost, 2Pe_1:21, by whom they were variously transported, as he saw fit, and sometimes carried away to speak of the highest mysteries of the gospel, even such things as they themselves did not fully understand, as appears from 1Pe_1:10,11.
At the removing of the ark, David exhorteth to praise the Lord, Psa_68:1-5, for his wonderful power and love in delivering his people out of Egypt, Psa_68:6; leading them through the wilderness, Psa_68:7-11; subduing their enemies, Psa_68:12; and choosing Zion for his habitation, Psa_68:13-18. He blesseth God for his judgments on the church’s enemies, Psa_68:19-21; for his promises to his people, Psa_68:22-29; and for his threats to the cruel, Psa_68:30. The kingdoms of the earth are called to sing to the Lord, whose power and majesty is heard in the heavens, and whose strength and excellency is over Israel, Psa_68:31-35.
Let God arise; oh that God would arise from his seat, and bestir himself and go forth to fight with his enemies! who, if he do so, will easily and suddenly be scattered. Or, God will arise. And so the other verbs following may be rendered, as being of the future tense, shall be scattered, shall flee, &c. Although the futures are frequently render. ed imperatively; and so they are truly rendered Num_10:35, whence this verse is taken. Hate him. All God’s enemies are here said to hate God, not directly and formally, for there are few such persons, but because they hate his laws and government, and his people and image, and because they fight against him and his, which is justly taken for an evidence of hatred.