CHAPTER 68

A PSALM OF DAVID: A SONG OF TRIUMPH

¹Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered: let them also who hate Him flee before Him. (This statement, originated by the Holy Spirit through Moses [Num. 10:35], was used by David as he composed the entirety of this Psalm, which was more than likely sung as the Ark was being brought into Jerusalem. The Ark of the Covenant represented the Presence of God, which was reached only through the Cross, represented by the Brazen Altar. All enemies flee before the shed Blood of Christ [Eph. 2:1318].)

²As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the Presence of God. (The Presence of God, here represented by the Ark, is the key to all things. This can be had only as the Believer places his Faith and trust exclusively in Christ and what Christ did at the Cross, which then gives the Holy Spirit latitude to work. The Holy Spirit will respond to nothing else, only the Cross [Rom. 8:12, 11].)

³But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God: yes, let them exceedingly rejoice. (The righteous need have no fear of Satan providing the Presence of God is present. Let us state it again:

We must ever realize that Christ is always the Source, while the Cross is always the Means.)

⁴Sing unto God, sing praises to His Name: extol Him Who rides upon the heavens by His Name JAH, and rejoice before Him. (According to the Psalms, Spirit-anointed music is the highest form of praise there is.

JAH is an abbreviation of Jehovah, the Self-Existent One He Who is, and was, and is to come. This is the only place in the Bible that this name is used in this fashion.)

⁵A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows, is God in His Holy Habitation. (This tells us that this Almighty God, in His distant Habitation, and in the sinless essence of His Being, is a Father of the fatherless and a Guardian of the widow. As well, He restores and enriches rebellious sinners, if they will only yield to Him.)

⁶God sets the solitary in families: He brings out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. (The word solitary means singular, or one. In the Hebrew, the word is yachid, which means that the one will unite.

God oftentimes has one person in a family who is serving Him; consequently, the Salvation of the entirety of the family is dependent upon that one person.

If the light is given by the solitary one, and it is rebuked, the Lord says, The rebellious shall dwell in a dry land.)

⁷O God, when You went forth before Your People, when You did march through the wilderness; Selah (David recalls the wilderness experience):

⁸The Earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the Presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the Presence of God, the God of Israel (this Passage is a clear reference to the time when Israel received the Law at Sinai [Ex. 19:1625]).

⁹You, O God, did send a plentiful rain, whereby You did confirm Your inheritance, when it was weary (this refers to the Manna and the quails raining upon Israel from Heaven, and the water which flowed for them from the Smitten Rock).

¹⁰Your congregation has dwelt therein: You, O God, have prepared of Your goodness for the poor (without God, Israel, while in the wilderness, was poor indeed; but God had prepared for them).

¹¹The Lord gave the Word: great was the company of those who published it (the Word that is spoken of here concerns the Law given on Mount Sinai; it has been published ever since).

¹²Kings of armies did flee apace: and she who tarried at home divided the spoil. (This speaks of the conquest of the Promised Land by Joshua. More so, even as the previous Verses, it speaks of the Coming of the Lord at the Battle of Armageddon. The Antichrist will attempt to flee. Israel will then divide the spoil. The Prophet Zechariah said: The wealth of all the heathen round about shall be gathered together [Zech. 14:14].)

¹³Though you have lien among the pots, yet shall you be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold. (The idea here is that Israel, who had been living in slavery in Egypt, would come forth as a beautiful dove covered with silver and with feathers tipped in gold.

The greater fulfillment will be in the Millennial Reign in her future restoration as the head of all nations on Earth. This thrown-away pot will come to Jesus and be saved, and will finally realize her place and position, but only in Christ.)

¹⁴When the Almighty scattered kings in it, it was white as snow in Salmon (the sense of this terminology, even as it speaks of Israels victories under Joshua, even more so pertains to the Lord dispersing the armies of Israels enemies during the Battle of Armageddon; the scattering of these armies will be like snowflakes driven by a storm against the dark wooded slopes of Mount Salmon near Shechem).

¹⁵The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan; an high hill as the hill of Bashan. (In this Passage, God is laying claim to Israel as His Land. He calls it the Hill of God. Because of this statement, the battle has raged from the time that God gave this land to Abraham. It rages even today. The Antichrist will attempt to take this hill. He will fail!)

¹⁶Why leap you, you high hills? this is the hill which God desires to dwell in; yes, the LORD will dwell in it forever. (This Land of Israel, referred to as the Hill, is where God desires to dwell, and will do so forever. The Muslim world, and all of the world for that matter, should understand that. It belongs to Israel, not the Arabs.)

¹⁷The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of Angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the Holy Place. (This speaks of the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ [Rev., Chpt. 19]. If we are to take this Passage literally, it means that there will be over 20 million chariots of God occupied by Angels involved in the Second Coming. It further says, The Lord will be among them.)

¹⁸You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive: You have received gifts for men; yes, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them. (Paul quoted this Scripture in Ephesians 4:810. It refers to Christ just before His Resurrection going down into Paradise and liberating all the Old Testament Saints, who, in fact, had been held captive by Satan, hence the term have led captivity captive, and taking all of them with Him to Glory. Now, when a Believer dies, instead of being taken to the heart of the Earth, which was the destination before the Cross, he is now instantly taken to Heaven, and all because of the Cross [Ps. 16:10; Mat. 12:40; Heb. 2:1415; Lk. 16:1931; II Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:2124; Rev. 6:911].)

¹⁹Blessed be the LORD, who daily loads us with benefits, even the God of our Salvation. Selah. (Every single benefit comes to us by the means of the Cross, with Christ as the Source.)

²⁰He Who is our God is the God of Salvation; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death. (Two things are here said: (1) Only the Lord can save. (2) Only the Lord can redeem man from spiritual death.)

²¹But God shall wound the head of His enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goes on still in his trespasses. (This was done at the Cross of Calvary [Col. 2:1415].)

²²The LORD said, I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring My People again from the depths of the sea (this speaks of the regathering of Israel at the beginning of the Kingdom Age):

²³That your foot may be dipped in the blood of Your enemies, and the tongue of Your dogs in the same (this speaks of the Battle of Armageddon, when the great Gentile armies will be defeated, along with the Antichrist, referred to as dogs).

²⁴They have seen Your goings, O God; even the goings of my God, my King, in the Sanctuary (when the world government under Christ is set up in Jerusalem at the beginning of the Kingdom Age, the entire world will know and see).

²⁵The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after; among them were the damsels playing with timbrels. (When David wrote this Psalm, and when it was sung as the Ark was being brought into Jerusalem, he was referring to the worship of the singers and the musicians.

In its greater fulfillment, it refers to the Lord Jesus Christ going into Jerusalem, possibly even through the Eastern Gate. This will be at the beginning of the Millennial Reign. It will be a time of such rejoicing as the world has never seen before.)

²⁶Bless you God in the congregations, even the Lord, from the fountain of Israel. (This simply has reference to Israels praising God as a nation. They will then finally accept Jesus Christ as Messiah. Then the fountain of Israel will bubble forth with praises of the Lord.)

²⁷There is little Benjamin with their ruler, the princes of Judah and their council, the princes of Zebulun, and the princes of Naphtali. (As David sings this song while watching the Ark of God being carried on the shoulders of the Priests into Jerusalem, his eyes scan the representatives of the various Tribes.

The greater fulfillment will be when Jesus Christ, the Greater Son of David, comes into Jerusalem to begin the one-thousand-year Millennial Reign. All the Tribes, in fact, will be there.

Incidentally, Benjamin was the least of the Tribes and the last on the jasper stone of Aarons Breastplate; however, jasper is the first stone in the foundations of the Holy City [Rev. 21:19].)

²⁸Your God has commanded Your strength: strengthen, O God, that which You have wrought for us. (When David wrote these words, Israel, as commanded by God, was well on its way to becoming the premier nation on the face of the Earth. However, the prophetical meaning of this Passage is the greater blessing of Israel in the Millennial Reign.)

²⁹Because of Your Temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto You. (When David wrote these words, the Temple had not yet been built. When it would be built by Solomon, Davids son, kings from all over the world would bring presents to Solomon.

The greater fulfillment will be when representatives from all nations in the world come to Jerusalem to bring presents to the Lord Jesus Christ. Solomon was a Type of the Greater than Solomon.)

³⁰Rebuke the company of spearmen, the multitude of the bulls, with the calves of the people, till every one submit himself with pieces of silver: scatter You the people who delight in war. (The future supremacy of Israel over all Earthly monarchs is compared here, as in Daniel, to wild beasts, and predicted in the last stirring stanza of this song [Vss. 2835]. Then, because of the Almighty Power of Jesus Christ, the nations of the world will be rebuked.)

³¹Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. (All of this happened in a measure during the reign of Solomon. It will happen on a worldwide basis when the Greater than Solomon reigns in Jerusalem.)

³²Sing unto God, you kingdoms of the Earth; O sing praises unto the Lord; Selah (in view of the great happenings which will take place all over the world in the Millennial Reign, all the kingdoms of the Earth will sing unto God, and rightly so!):

³³To Him Who rides upon the heavens of heavens, which were of old; lo, He does send out His Voice, and that a mighty Voice (the meaning of the Verse is that, as God has reigned supreme within the heavens, He will then reign supreme upon the Earth; His mighty Voice will be heard in every nation of the world).

³⁴Ascribe you strength unto God: His excellency is over Israel, and His strength is in the clouds (the idea is, God has the strength to do what He has promised, and that He will do).

³⁵O God, You are terrible out of Your Holy Places: the God of Israel is He Who gives strength and Power unto His People. Blessed be God. (Not only is God great in His Holy Places, but, as well, He will show the world that He is great in every facet of life and living, irrespective as to what it might be.)