PSALM 68 - Merciful and Mighty

We read in the Book of Numbers that whenever it was time for the camp to move on from one wilderness location to another, Moses would cry out before the Ark of the Covenant,

Numbers 10:35 (ESV)

35 ... “Arise, O Lord, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before you.”

Psalm 68 starts off on a note of the power and unstoppable authority of God based on that verse:

Psalm 68:1–2 (ESV)

1 God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered; and those who hate him shall flee before him! 2 As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away; as wax melts before fire, so the wicked shall perish before God!

With an opening verse like that, you’d expect this psalm to be a warrior-psalm; a hymn to the power and might of God as He vanquishes His enemies and conquers all His opposition. And as you read down through, there are certainly a lot of verses that follow that same theme:

Psalm 68:21 (ESV)

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

Psalm 68:30 (ESV)

30 Rebuke the beasts that dwell among the reeds, the herd of bulls with the calves of the peoples. Trample underfoot those who lust after tribute; scatter the peoples who delight in war.

But at the same time, there is another theme running through this song—almost a complete opposite sentiment:

Psalm 68:5 (ESV)

5 Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.

Psalm 68:10 (ESV)

10 your flock found a dwelling in it; in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.

Psalm 68:20 (ESV)

20 Our God is a God of salvation, and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.

These two themes—God’s power and victory, and God’s gentleness and kindness—are woven together throughout this psalm. Psalm 68 has a reputation of being a difficult psalm to “pin down”; partly because of the shifts in tone, and partly because there are some verses that are difficult to translate satisfactorily in English. (Charles Spurgeon said in his commentary that when it came to Psalm 68,

The Psalm is at once surpassingly excellent and difficult.... Our slender scholarship has utterly failed us, and we have had to follow a surer Guide. We trust our thoughts may not however prove unprofitable (Spurgeon, C. H. (n.d.). The treasury of David: Psalms 56-87 (Vol. 3, p. 136). Marshall Brothers.)

Many scholars suggest that this psalm was the song that David sang as he brought the Ark of the Covenant up from its resting place at Kiriath-jearim to Jerusalem (the passage that we read earlier). Even in that story, we see the people rejoicing in God’s goodness (as they celebrated before the LORD) and at the same time the severity of God’s holiness (striking down Uzzah for touching the Ark).

This is a reminder to us—reflected here in this psalm—that we must never think simplistically of God. Uzzah and his family members that put the Ark in the oxcart to be transported believed that God was more merciful than holy—that He would “understand” that Uzzah was breaking His command in touching the Ark because he didn’t want it to fall on the dirt of the threshing floor. (But, as R.C. Sproul memorably pointed out, Uzzah’s sinful disregard of God’s holiness made his hands more unclean than the dirt the Ark was in danger of touching!) And so then the ditch on the other side of the road is believing that God is more powerful and mighty than merciful—that He is the God of the lightning that strikes you down and the storm that overwhelms you for your imperfect obedience.

I believe that one of the characteristics of our fallen hearts is that we are always in danger of over-balancing in one or the other of these directions. At times you lean so far into considering the grace and mercy of God that you trifle with your sin, believing that “God understands; it’s not that big a deal to Him”. Your Christian life is one of shrugging off your battles with sin and disobedience, figuring that God’s grace will sort it all out one way or another.

Or perhaps for you, seeing the reality of God’s holiness and might and power becomes so oppressive to you that you can never be free of that weight. You are always, in the back of your mind, trying to parse every action and every deed, afraid that you aren’t being “good enough” to be called a Christian.

Psalm 68, for all of its interpretive challenges and complex internal structure, can help us meditate on these two “diverse excellencies” of God this morning. This psalm, by weaving together verses about God’s power and conquest of His enemies along with verses of his tender and gentle care for His people, helps us see that these two attributes are perfectly balanced in Him. If we were to put the message of Psalm 68 in one sentence, I think that it would be that it calls us to

MAGNIFY the MAJESTY of God in the perfect union of His MIGHT and His MERCY

This is a psalm, if you will, about God’s merciful might. Both of these attributes—merciful and mighty, as we sang earlier in worship—are perfectly brought together in this song of praise that David sings as he brings the Ark into Jerusalem.

We can see both of these themes woven together in Psalm 68—the first is His might, that

I. He is the God who DECIMATES every ENEMY that OPPOSES Him

Psalm 68:1–2 (ESV)

There are at least three types of enemies that God scatters in this psalm. If you look down starting at verse 11, you see that God is mighty to scatter

Every USURPING enemy (vv. 11-14)

Psalm 68:11–14 (ESV)

11 The Lord gives the word; the women who announce the news are a great host: 12 “The kings of the armies—they flee, they flee!” The women at home divide the spoil— 13 though you men lie among the sheepfolds— the wings of a dove covered with silver, its pinions with shimmering gold. 14 When the Almighty scatters kings there, let snow fall on Zalmon.

This is one of the sections that has its difficulties in translating (the silver-winged doves with gold pinions, for instance…) But what we can see clearly here is that God is scattering “the kings of the armies” that oppose Him—the women of Israel announce that the enemy kings who are seeking to rule over Israel have been routed and are running for their lives.

I take this to be a verse about usurping kings—rulers who help themselves to a rulership that they were not given—because of verse 14:

Psalm 68:14 (ESV)

14 When the Almighty scatters kings there, let snow fall on Zalmon.

There is one other place in the Old Testament where Mount Zalmon is mentioned—Judges 9. It tells the story of Abimelech (the son of Gideon, the judge who defeated the Midianites with only 300 men). Abimelech wrongly crowned himself king over Israel, and then when his little kingdom fell apart, he went to Mount Zalmon to gather brushwood in order to set fire to his former allies’ stronghold. It seems as though David refers to this story as a way of saying that there are no rivals to God’s Kingship! Every usurping enemy will be destroyed—when the Almighty scatters those usurping kings, he says, their bleached bones will cover Mount Zalmon like white snow!

Psalm 68 says that God is the God who decimates every enemy that opposes Him—every usurping enemy, and

Every SUPERNATURAL enemy (vv. 15-16)

Look at verses 15-16:

Psalm 68:15–16 (ESV)

15 O mountain of God, mountain of Bashan; O many-peaked mountain, mountain of Bashan! 16 Why do you look with hatred, O many-peaked mountain, at the mount that God desired for his abode, yes, where the Lord will dwell forever?

As David leads the Ark into Jerusalem, he looks north to the mountains of Bashan (today called the Golan Heights) and mocks them for their jealousy over Mount Zion (where the Ark was headed). Ancient Canaanite legends all claim that the mountains of Bashan (and Mount Hermon, in particular) were the place where the sons of God first came down to earth, and that the caves at the base of Mount Hermon were literally the gates to Sheol, the underworld. (You can even trace this further, with Bashan being the realm of Og, King of Bashan in Deuteronomy 3. He is said to be one of the last remnants of the Rephaim, who were themselves associated with the Nephilim, the half-human half-demonic gigantic offspring of the sons of God and daughters of men in Genesis 6). Mount Hermon was also said to be the dwelling place of Baal, the storm god, and was also associated with Molech, the god who demanded child sacrifice.

And David, at the head of the procession bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, looks to Mount Hermon and says “You have nothing that can oppose YHWH! He will dwell forever with His people, and you cannot oppose Him!” There is no rival supernatural kingdom that can oppose God; He decimates every enemy that opposes Him!

And in verses 21-23, David goes on to say that God will scatter

Every GUILTY enemy (vv. 21-23)

as well:

Psalm 68:21–23 (ESV)

21 But God will strike 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 strike your feet in their blood, that the tongues of your dogs may have their portion from the foe.”

Those enemies who walk in their guilty ways, those enemies who ally with the kingdom of evil in Bashan, those enemies who continue in their hatred and rebellion against God and His decrees will be brought to His justice! The gruesome imagery of these verses are meant to be distressing to us—God striking their hairy heads, and then His people striking their feet in the blood of His enemies, with even their dogs participating in the downfall of their wickedness.

Make no mistake—this is the God that you are singing about in this psalm! He is the God who will leave drifts of His enemies’ bones on the mountain, the God Who is utterly unaffected by the supernatural powers of evil and satanic influence, the God who will call His people someday to dance in the blood of His enemies—He is the God of power and might, and He will not be mocked.

God is the God who decimates every enemy that opposes Him—but His might is not the only attribute in view here in Psalm 68. This psalm is written so that we would magnify the majesty of God in the perfect union of His might and His mercy. The Scriptures are plain that He is the God who decimates every enemy, but it is just as clear here in our text that

II. He is the God who DELIGHTS in RESCUING His PEOPLE

Psalm 68:3–6 (ESV)

3 But the righteous shall be glad; they shall exult before God; they shall be jubilant with joy! 4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts; his name is the Lord; exult before him! 5 Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. 6 God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.

The same God who scatters His enemies when He arises is the God who rescues His people

When they are HELPLESS (vv. 3-6)

For the children who are left without a father, the children whose father is not their protector, but the one they need protection from—God is their refuge, and the refuge of the widow and the woman who has been “widowed” by the wickedness of a husband who has destroyed his covenant with her—God is her refuge!

God is the refuge of those who are helpless in their solitude (v. 6)—to the soul helpless in loneliness, God is the One Who can take that lonely, solitary heart and give it a home—through a spouse, family and children, through warm and redemptive relationships with the people of God gathered in worship and fellowship, through the particular intimacy of His own dear presence that never fails—God delights in rescuing His people out of their helplessly lonely lives!

God is the refuge for those whose lives have been wrecked by sin (whether theirs or others’), who have lost years or decades of their lives as prisoners (in jails of the state or the prison of their own making by their sin)—He not only leads them out of that prison of their helplessness, but brings their lives into fulness and contentment in Him.

God delights in rescuing His helpless people, and God delights in rescuing His people

When they are NEEDY (vv. 7-10)

Psalm 68:7–10 (ESV)

7 O God, when you went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, Selah 8 the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain, before God, the One of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel. 9 Rain in abundance, O God, you shed abroad; you restored your inheritance as it languished; 10 your flock found a dwelling in it; in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.

This is one of those passages where David is directly attacking one of the chief gods of the Canaanites, Baal. Baal was the “storm god”, the one who brought the rains in the harvest, the one who rode the clouds as a chariot and made the earth quake with lightning and thunder.

David says here that it is not Baal who brings the rain—it is the God of Sinai! YHWH is the One who brings the rain, He is the one who restores His people—His inheritance—when they languish in the parched desert. “In your goodness, O God, you provide for the needy!” God delights in rescuing His people when they are needy, and He is the God who delights to rescue His people

When they are SINFUL (vv. 17-20)

Psalm 68:17–20 (ESV)

17 The chariots of God are twice ten thousand, thousands upon thousands; the Lord is among them; Sinai is now in the sanctuary. 18 You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your 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, belong deliverances from death.

Look again at the phrase at the end of verse 17: David sings that the Lord is among His chariots, thousands upon thousands, and then says “Sinai is now in the sanctuary!” Keep in mind that David is most likely singing this song as he brings the Ark of the Covenant into the sanctuary of the Tabernacle on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. If that’s the case, then what a striking image he constructs here—that the smoke and fire and judgment and fear of Mount Sinai in the wilderness is now being brought into the sanctuary of the Holy of Holies, where God sits upon the mercy seat!

The judgment of the Law is brought before the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies! David could do no better than to sing “Sinai is brought into the sanctuary” because he could never have foreseen the glory of that truth in all of its detail—that the day would come when the bloody, stringent demands of the Law of Moses would be satisfied forever by the blood of Jesus Christ! God Himself, the One Who rode in the midst of His chariots, Who scattered His enemies when He arose, who dusted the peak of Mount Zalmon with the bones of usurping kings, the God who brought rain in the desert for His parched and weary people, the God whose mighty right arm was stretched out to defend the widow and orphan—He is the God who took on human flesh to make Himself the sacrifice that would satisfy the demands of the Law forever, and offer the mercy of His salvation to whoever will call on His Name!

David sang this psalm of God’s might and mercy as he led his people bringing the Ark to the top of Mount Zion in Jerusalem. And for you and I, beloved, here is the utter pinnacle of worship that Psalm 68 leads us to—magnify the majesty of God in the perfect union of His might and His mercy in His Son--

III. Jesus Christ DELIVERS you by His MIGHTY MERCY (Psalm 68:28-35)

There is nowhere else where you can find a more perfect union of the diverse excellencies of God than in the face of Jesus Christ. In Revelation 5, we see Him revealed this way:

Revelation 5:5–6 (ESV)

5 And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” 6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

The conquering might of the Lion of Judah perfectly merged with the mercy of the sacrificial Lamb of God—meekness and majesty, merciful and mighty, Jesus Christ is the perfect Savior—

Psalm 68:28–31 (ESV)

28 Summon your power, O God, the power, O God, by which you have worked for us. 29 Because of your temple at Jerusalem kings shall bear gifts to you. 30 Rebuke the beasts that dwell among the reeds, the herd of bulls with the calves of the peoples. Trample underfoot those who lust after tribute; scatter the peoples who delight in war. 31 Nobles shall come from Egypt; Cush shall hasten to stretch out her hands to God.

He is the One who rebukes His beastly enemies of usurping and demonic opposition, and rival kings will trip over themselves to offer Him their obedience.

Jesus Christ is the God who tramples His enemies—the Scriptures say that

He makes His ENEMIES His FOOTSTOOL (Heb. 1:13)

Hebrews 1:13 (ESV)

13 And to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?

The day will come when every enemy will be put under His feet, but even in the Gospels we see Jesus making every demonic power and rival god His footstool. In Matthew 17, when Jesus took Peter James and John “up to a high mountain” and was revealed in His glory to them, He was standing on Mount Hermon! The many-peaked mountains of Bashan, that had looked with hatred and envy on God’s reign from Mount Zion, the mountain where Baal and Molech were said to dwell, the ancient mountain territory of Og King of Bashan, the remnant of the Nephilim, was put under the feet of the glorified Son of God! His face shone with a fraction of His glory, His Father declared His deity, and the demonic forces of the world were put on notice that their time was over!

And ever since, He has been putting His enemies under His feet! He is Christ the Victor, He is the Conquering King, He is the One who lives and reigns eternally, and He will reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet! (1 Corinthians 15:25) There are no enemies in heaven or on earth or under the earth that can oppose His might in the slightest!

Magnify the majesty of Jesus Christ for His might—and magnify Him for the way He perfectly merges might and mercy—the conquering King makes His enemies His footstool, and

He gives the GIFT of His GRACE for SALVATION (Ephesians 4:7-10)

You may have recognized some of the lyrics of King David’s song earlier, because the Apostle Paul quotes them as he is calling the church in Ephesus to love one another on the basis of what God has done for them in Jesus Christ:

Ephesians 4:7–10 (ESV)

7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” 9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)

Behold the merciful might of God revealed in Jesus Christ! The God who arises and scatters His enemies, rose from His throne not to scatter enemies, but to lay down His life for them!

Colossians 1:21–22 (ESV)

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,

Instead of the penalty for your guilty ways poured out on your hairy crown, all of God’s wrath poured out instead on Jesus’ innocent head, crowned with the thorns of Adam’s curse. You were a helpless prisoner under that curse, but your mighty, conquering Savior was defeated for you under that curse. And three days later He burst the bonds of Death itself, rising out of that grave, leading with Him all of His people, delivering them from their prison of sin and delivering them into the abundance of holiness and righteousness that He gave them as a gift of His mercy!

Christian, do you feel helpless this morning in your abandonment or loneliness or poverty? See here the treasure that you have in your Savior—He delights to rescue you out of your solitude by giving you a family, giving you a church family, giving you Himself! He delights to water your dryness, refresh you when you languish, comfort you with His joy even in the barrenness of the wilderness you wander in. Blessed be the Lord who daily bears you up; He is your salvation, and to Him alone belongs your deliverance from death in Jesus Christ Who conquered death for you!

Are you here this morning chained to the guilt of your sin, realizing this morning that the might of the Risen and Conquering King, Jesus Christ could be poured out on your hairy head in punishment for your sin and corruption, and that He would be perfectly justified in doing so? Then let the Word of God magnify the majesty of Jesus Christ to you this morning as you see in Him the perfect union of His might and His mercy—He is able to rescue you… And He WANTS TO! Come to the foot of His Cross and lay all of it down—all your guilt, that shame that crushes you, the twistedness and perversions and the brokenness of your life—He will delight to deliver you from all of it! So come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Jude 24–25 (ESV)

24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

If you were to ask your non-Christian friends, “What is God like?”, how would they describe Him? What about your Christian friends?

Why is it so important that we understand both the mighty power of God and His merciful love? What happens to our relationship with God when we allow one or the other of those attributes to overshadow the other?

How does this psalm warn people in leadership who act as though there is no authority above theirs? How does this psalm inform the way you pray for our government?

How does “the admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Christ Jesus” give you comfort as you battle sin in your life? As you face difficulties and poverty? As you bear up under attacks from those who hate His rule? Spend some time this week praising God for His mighty mercy (and His merciful might!) revealed in Jesus Christ!

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