Chapter Sixty-Eight

According to the heading, the psalm belongs to David. “On the shoshannims” refers to a musical instrument on which the psalm may be performed. By some, the word shoshannims is translated as “lily,” which denotes a kind of instrument resembling the appearance of this flower. The psalm was written during the persecutions from Saul, as indicated by David’s confession of his complete innocence before God (Ps 68:6), the severity of the persecutions (Ps 68:2-4), and their injustice (Ps 68:5). The psalm presents a general depiction of the severity of persecution and was written in general as a remembrance by David of this difficult time already after it had passed.

Save me, O God, from the calamities that threaten my life (2–3). I am exhausted from waiting for help; the enemies who are persecuting me unjustly have grown stronger (4–5). Help me, O Lord, and thereby encourage all those who seek You (6–7). For Your sake I bear reproach and suffering: my brothers have turned away from me, my enemies hate me for my zeal for Your house, and they mock and jeer at me (8–13). Bring me swift help, and deliver me from the deep waters of calamity. Hear me, for You see my reproach and my suffering: they feed me gall and give me vinegar to drink (14–22). Let my enemies perish from Your wrath for their cruelty toward me. Punish them for all they have done (23–29). Then I will praise You for my salvation and all those who suffer will rejoice. Let the earth, the seas, and all that lives in them praise His name (30–35)!

Psalm 68:2. Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my soul. Psalm 68:3. I am sunk in deep mire, where there is no standing; I have come into the depths of the waters, and the flood overwhelms me. Psalm 68:4. I am weary from crying out; my throat is dry; my eyes fail from waiting for my God. “The waters have come up to my soul.” Waters represent an abundance of calamities; “to my soul” means to his life. David’s calamities are so numerous that they threaten his life. This was indeed the case during the time of Saul, who was very indiscriminate in his means and most inventive in the methods of persecuting David, so the latter could never be at peace or confident even for a single day. “I am sunk in deep mire, where there is no standing” – David is immersed in calamities as in muddy ground, and beneath his feet there is no firm support; throughout the time of persecution from Saul, David had no peace or confidence in his safety. “The depths of the waters, and the flood” – images of the strength of the calamity, capable of destroying the one it overtakes, as a storm at sea swallows its victims without a trace. In the face of such numerous and threatening calamities, David cried out to God without cease for help, so that he grew weary from this prayer, exhausted from watching to see if Divine help was approaching him. The latter expressions point to the high degree of urgency in David’s prayer to God, which was prompted by the danger of his situation.

Psalm 68:5. Those who hate me without cause are more numerous than the hairs of my head; my enemies who unjustly pursue me have grown strong; I am forced to restore what I never took. After the preceding figurative and general description of his situation, David now turns to a more particular depiction. He points to the abundance of his enemies, who are greater in number than the hairs of his head; they hate him, but undeservedly, without cause (“without cause” and “unjustly”); David is forced to answer for what he did not do (“I am forced to restore what I never took”). It is known that Saul imputed to him ambitious schemes, saw in him a dangerous rival seeking the throne, which David was not, for his elevation among the people, and thus his advancement toward the throne, was not the result of his ambitious plots, but the fulfillment in him of Divine predestination. Jesus Christ was subjected to a similar persecution, whom the Pharisees presented to trial before Caiaphas and Pilate as the instigator of the fact that He presumptuously claims for Himself sonship from God and seeks to become king over Judea (Matt 26:63-65), whereas both belonged to Him by His very nature, so that this passage of the psalm has also a typological meaning.

Psalm 68:6. God, You know my foolishness, and my sins are not hidden from You. Psalm 68:7. Let all who hope in You, O Lord, God of hosts, not be ashamed because of me. Let those who seek You, O God of Israel, not be put to shame because of me. Psalm 68:8. For Your sake I bear reproach, and shame covers my face. David justifies the urgency and vigilance of his prayer to God with a fervent confession before Him of his innocence and the severity of his calamities. You know, O Lord, all my conduct and my sins; You know, therefore, how undeservedly I suffer what I endure. Help me, so that my ruin may not trouble those who are close to me and who do not doubt that You can save the righteous. “For Your sake I bear reproach” – David suffers because of the Lord. The Lord anointed him king over the Hebrews. Saul, however, pursued him as a seeker of the throne, so David could and must seek help only from God.

Psalm 68:9. I have become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to the children of my mother. Psalm 68:10. For zeal for Your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who revile You have fallen upon me. “I have become a stranger to my brothers” – even his own family turned away from David. Saul regarded with suspicion all who entered into communication with David and hindered this, to deprive him of any support. Such support could most naturally come to David from his family, which, out of fear of bringing greater calamities on itself and on David, apparently avoided entering into communication with him. Another cause of David’s calamities and persecutions from Saul was the piety of the former and the impiety of the latter. David always enjoyed the favor of the Hebrew priests, as they saw how David was “consumed with zeal for” God’s “house,” saw in him a ardent and sincere piety, the manifestations of which at this time are not mentioned in either this psalm or in the historical books. They probably were expressed in his respect for the priestly class, his love of worship at the tabernacle, and, given his position, his solicitude for the beauty of the latter. Saul and his attendants did not possess this piety. They relied on their power and were supporters of its crude application; they mocked David’s piety, and in mocking it they mocked God. The less faith they had in God, the more intensely they persecuted and hated David. This extraordinary piety of David, his “zeal for God’s house” – the tabernacle – manifested itself with particular power also in his descendant – Christ, who was zealous for the restoration of the holiness of the Jerusalem temple by driving out the merchants (John 2:13-17).

Psalm 68:11. I weep, fasting my soul, and this they count as a reproach against me. Psalm 68:12. I made sackcloth my garment, and I became a byword to them. Psalm 68:13. Those who sit at the gate gossip about me, and I am the song of those who drink wine. The strength and abundance of the calamities suffered by David did not meet with natural, even purely natural compassion and active manifestation of sympathy among the people, but rather provoked mockery of him. When he laid upon himself a special fast or clothed himself in sackcloth, the customary signs among the Hebrews of expressing the sorrows they experienced, David was mocked. He was jeered at by the noble, the judges (“those who sit at the gate”) and the idle (“those who drink wine”). Hostile attitudes toward David spread widely. All the subsequent content of the psalm (14–35 verses) represents David’s prayer for his salvation.

Psalm 68:14. But as for me, my prayer is to You, O Lord; at an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of Your mercy hear me in the truth of Your salvation. “In the truth of Your salvation” – true salvation, that is, not only ease my present situation, but give me lasting, true, and unshakeable salvation from external enemies.

Psalm 68:16. Do not let the flood sweep over me, do not let the deep swallow me up, and do not let the pit close its mouth over me. “Do not let the pit close its mouth over me,” do not let me perish in the depths of the waters of calamity, do not allow the surface of the water to become level over me. An object thrown into the water disturbs it, creating a whirlpool. As the object sinks deeper and air is displaced from this whirlpool, the latter narrows and finally the water surface returns to its former level state (“closes its mouth”). The meaning is: do not allow me to perish without a trace and without escape.

Psalm 68:18. Do not hide Your face from Your servant, for I am in distress; hear me quickly. David calls himself a “servant,” either in the sense that he is young, inexperienced, and in need of support, or in the sense that he is God’s servant, devoted only to Him, and therefore expecting protection only from Him, as his master.

Psalm 68:19. Draw near to my soul and redeem it; save me because of my enemies. “Save me because of my enemies” – do not let my enemies triumph over me, for such triumph would contribute to the growth in them of even greater unbelief toward You, affirming in their minds the idea of Your powerlessness to protect Your worshippers.

Psalm 68:21. Reproach has broken my heart, and I am in despair; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. Psalm 68:22. They gave me gall for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. “Reproach has broken my heart” – I am surrounded by enemies on all sides and I, finding no sympathy anywhere, could expect only mockery (reproach) and suffering, from which I lost courage. The attitude of David’s enemies toward him is full of malevolence. As one worn down by persecution, he needs sympathy, encouragement, and active help, but instead he is given, in his thirst, “vinegar,” and in his hunger – “gall.” Gall is a plant of bitter taste, resembling wormwood; vinegar is a stupefying beverage, sour and vinegary in taste, possessing the property of dulling consciousness for a time: David is given what weakens his strength and makes him even more helpless. This image for characterizing the attitude of David’s enemies toward him found its complete, actual fulfillment in the person of Christ, when on the cross both gall and vinegar were offered to Him (Matt 27:34).

Psalm 68:23. Let their table before them become a snare, and their feasting a trap. Psalm 68:24. Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and make their loins shake continually. “Let their table before them become a snare.” By their table one can understand all external prosperity and wealth of David’s enemies. Let their happiness turn into misery, that is, punish them by taking away external blessings; since they see value in life in these external blessings and do not scruple about the means of acquiring them, let this be requited to them, and let their prosperity bring upon them punishment. “Their eyes be darkened,” “make their loins shake” – deprive them of a joyful, happy appearance and bend their backs under the weight of calamities.

Psalm 68:26. Let their dwelling place be desolate, and let no one dwell in their tents. “Let their dwelling place be desolate” – deprive them of external wealth; “let no one dwell in their tents” – deprive them also of children.

Psalm 68:27. For they persecute those whom You have struck down, and they add to the pain of those whom You have wounded. All this is because they further increase the heavy situation that God sent upon David, as if thereby correcting God in His treatment of David and as if condemning Him for His partiality toward His chosen one.

Psalm 68:28. Add guilt to their guilt, and let them have no share in Your vindication. To add “guilt to guilt” is to impose upon them punishment corresponding to the full sum of their sins. “Let them have no share in Your vindication” – may they not receive justification from You. David’s prayer for such punishment of his enemies is a prayer to God for justice, for retribution to enemies in accordance with their deeds.

Psalm 68:32. And this will be more pleasing to the Lord than a bull, than a calf having horns and hooves. The punishment and destruction of the enemies and the salvation of David fill the latter with a grateful feeling, which he will express in composing songs. Such a kind of praising God, full of sincere reverence, will be more pleasing to Him than the external sacrifice of a bull being burned with horns and hooves.

Psalm 68:33. The afflicted will see it and be glad. And your hearts will live, you who seek God. Psalm 68:34. For the Lord hears the needy, and does not despise His own who are captive. Psalm 68:35. Let the heavens and the earth praise Him, the seas and all that moves in them. Verses 33–35 are written by David, and therefore the entire psalm, after the persecutions had ended, because here the writer invites the whole world to praise God for His mercy toward the righteous, shown by granting them help and saving them from calamities.

Psalm 68:36. For God will save Zion and build the cities of Judah, and they will dwell there and possess it. Psalm 68:37. The offspring of His servants will inherit it, and those who love His name will dwell in it. Verses 36–37, depicting Zion and the cities of Judah as destroyed, with the Hebrews dwelling outside of Palestine, which did not occur in the time of David, were apparently added to the psalm during the exile, when the Hebrews prayed to God using the words of this psalm. According to verses 5, 10, and 22, the psalm is called messianic-typological.