Introduction
There is no doubt that Psalm 68 presents a stern challenge for the would-be expositor; the exegete A. Clarke[1] was moved to state “I know not how to undertake a comment on this Psalm: it is the most difficult in the whole Psalter”. When we look elsewhere to classical commentaries such as Speakers Commentary, we find an equally unsure view: “Many interpretations of passages in it, as of vv. 14, 15, 30, must be looked upon as scarcely more than conjectures. Throughout it is most obscure; and 13 words in it occur nowhere else”.[2] Even some Christadelphian expositors acknowledge difficulty, “It is not an easy task to analyse the contents of Psalm 68 to determine its structure”. [3]
We will look into this Psalm (in summary) and examine whether it is as impenetrable as commentators suggest, we will also propose a basic theme for this Psalm. We shall also look specifically at verse 18 and comment on the phrase “leading captivity captive” and the corresponding references of Jud 5:12, and Eph 4:18.
The Rich Intertextuality and General Theme of Psalm 68
Within the 35 verses contained in this Psalm there are many interesting intertextual strands – too many for us to consider within this article, so we shall concentrate on some key verses. The main elements of Scripture quoted in Psalm 68 comprise Num 10:35 (Moses begins the journey to Zion with the ark from Sinai), and Judges 5 (Deborah and Barak’s battle with Jabin/Sisera) and Deuteronomy 33. For brevity we shall look at the Numbers and Judges references only. These are set out in the table below for ease of reference.
The Psalm is in 2 parts. Verses 1-19 recount God’s past triumphs, whilst the language of verses 20-35 suggests his greatness and triumphs in the future. Opinions from commentators vary, some suggest this Psalm is Maccabean[4], or it is 16 short liturgical songs[5], or again 30 beginnings of poems[6]. We suggest that if the Psalm is read through a number of times then it becomes apparent that the central theme is theophanic i.e. it is about God and how he has revealed himself to his people Israel. Indeed, the majestic and militaristic language in the first part should not be too overdone within our own consciousness. The scope is much broader than just military prowess and the imagery is robbed of its focal point (the entrance of God into his sanctuary in Zion) if the Psalm is interpreted merely as a hymn of praise concerning a military victory.
From verse 29 we would suggest that David’s words actually envisioned the future Temple to be built by his son Solomon, although it is accepted the Hebrew can mean either Tabernacle or Temple. In any event, we follow the suggestion that this Psalm was written after the events of 2 Samuel 7, when God had confirmed to David that his house (i.e. his lineage) would ever serve before God culminating, of course, in the Kingship of Jesus Christ.
We therefore identify this as a Psalm of David, written after or, more correctly, as a result of the events of 2 Samuel 7, with the subject matter being a majestic hymn of praise to God himself and him alone. The Psalm considers the revelation of God to his people by his mighty acts, as he ascends to his throne in Zion with all the pomp and circumstance that such an occasion would demand. This psalm therefore is a theophany.
Table of Main Textual Sources for Psalm 68
| Numbers 10 | Psalm 68 |
|---|---|
| “And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, Lord and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee” v. 35 | Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: let them also that hate him flee before him” v. 1 |
| Judges 5 | Psalm 68 |
| “The mountains melted from before the Lord” v. 5 | “As smoke is driven away so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God” v. 2 |
| “Lord when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom” v. 4 | “O God when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness” v. 7 |
| ” the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel” v. 4 | “The 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” v. 8 |
| “Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds, to hear the bleatings of the flocks? For the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of hearts v. 16 |
“Will ye lie among the sheepfolds? v. 13 (RV mg.) |
| “Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song: Arise Barak and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam” v. 12 | “Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men, yea for the rebellious also, that the lord God might dwell among them” v. 18 |
The Textual Evidence from Numbers 10:35
The opening verse of the Psalm is clearly a reference from Num 10:35 which in turn comprise events concerning the commencement of Israel’s march from Sinai to the Promised Land with the tribes in processional order gathered around the Ark of the Covenant. However, the ark is not mentioned as such – warning us perhaps that the focus in this Psalm is on God himself rather than the accoutrements of his worship.
In choosing to select the statement of Moses’, “let God arise”, we can deduce that David was almost certainly (i) contemplating God’s ability to deliver from oppression (Israel from Egypt, David from the Philistines etc.); (ii) reminded of the Exodus and conscious of God manifestation and the visible hand of God in his life by the clear use of divine power to assist in his military campaigns;[7] (iii) and lastly, (by implication), believing that God had settled and established him in the land of promise,[8] since he was now King, residing in the capital Jerusalem, at rest from his enemies, with the Ark now recently placed on Mount Zion.
In our view, the opening verse sets the tone for all that is to follow and as we have already stated, it is about God’s visible manifestation to men in power (i.e. Theophany).
The Textual Evidence from Judges 5
Following on from verse 1, it might be expected that David would have cited examples of God exercising his divine power in support of his own military conquests; but David chooses not to do this. Rather than speaking of his own struggles with the Philistines etc., David chooses to focus on the struggle between Deborah and Barak with Jabin and Sisera—an occurrence which took place some 200 years previously. This is an interesting development and prompts us to ask the question: Why did David choose to write about Deborah and Barak rather than offer some experience of his own?
We suggest that the events of Judges 4 & 5, (from which David utilises 4 quotations) were events of a particular and significant magnitude on a national scale, the size and nature of which were considered by David to be matters of greater import than any of the redemptive military miracles which God performed later in his own rise to power. This is because in the days of Barak, Israel was in an abject state, without a glimmer of hope that it could ever save itself, i.e. there was no humanly possible way for deliverance or redemption to be realised other than by a very visible and extraordinary act of God.[9] Therefore, under the Jabin oppression, the deliverance wrought by God through Deborah and Barak, and particularly Barak in Jud 5:12 (as a basis for Ps 68:18 and Eph 4:8), would in itself form a Biblical type of the future redemptive and atoning work of Jesus Christ for humanity as a whole.
Leading Captivity Captive
In some respects, the key to understanding Psalm 68 is contained in verse 18, and the fact that Paul quotes it in Eph 4:8 would seem to confirm that this verse is significant.
We set out below the quotations from Jud 5:12, Ps 68:18 and Eph 4:8 to show how the original words in Judges are incrementally added to by the successive ‘interpretations’ of David and Paul which successively add and incorporate spiritual dimensions to the original text in Jud 5:12.
Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song: arise Barak and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam. Jud 5:12 (KJV)
Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the lord God might dwell among them. Ps 68:18 (KJV)
Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he lead captivity captive, and gave gifts onto men. Eph 4:8 (KJV)
If we commence our review with the Judges’ passage, the meaning is very clear. Barak is being exhorted to take captive, i.e. take power over (gain military supremacy over), that which currently held him captive, i.e. the oppressive government of Jabin with Sisera’s 900 hundred chariots of iron. With the deployment of the miraculous power of God he did just that.
We can now note that in Ps 68:18 David adds to the basic premise of Jud 5:12 three additional features,
- Ascending on high,
- The receipt of gifts for men including rebellious men, and
- That God will dwell among men.
Whilst the words of Jud 5:12 clearly were addressed to Barak, the context and language which David uses makes it clear that in Ps 68:18 the words are being addressed directly to God.
God is spoken of by David as ascending on high, which has a number of levels of potential meaning. It could for instance mean that having concluded his work of salvation with Israel he returns to the heavens, or it could mean in the context of David’s reign that the “Shekinah” glory had now ascended to the heights of Mount Zion in the form of the reconstituted tabernacle under David.
Moving on from this last point, the reference by David to the “receipt of gifts for men, even rebellious men” at first seems quite a difficult expression to understand. In what way would God receive gifts of men? The clue to the correct exposition of verse 18 (and incidentally to Eph 4:8) is in the closing words of verse 18, “that Yah Elohim might dwell among them”, since this is a quote from Num 35:34. This directs our attention to the Numbers record, and this helps us to condition and contextualise the enigmatic phrase, “Thou hast received gifts for men” in Ps 68:18, for earlier in Num 18:6 we find that God speaks of receiving a gift and giving a gift—the gift was the tribe of Levi, whom God takes as his firstborn from the people of Israel, since he hallowed the firstborn of Israel to himself on the night in which the destroying 10th plague killed the firstborn of Egypt.
Numbers 8:6, 14 confirms that the Levites were taken from among the sons of Israel (‘Take the Levites from among the children of Israel’; ‘The Levites shall be mine’). We would suggest that the purpose for which the Levites were ‘captured’ was ‘that they might be able to perform the service of the Lord’ (Num 8:19) and ‘to make atonement on behalf of the sons of Israel’ (Num 8:19); all of this because, as far as the Lord was concerned, the imperative was: “Defile not the therefore the land which ye shall inhabit wherein I dwell: for I the Lord dwell among the children of Israel” (Num 35:34).
So, in Ps 68:18, with the gift of the Levites to God and from him to Aaron, God having ascended on high, effectively dwelt among his people through his Levitical gift to Aaron. The corollary of this is that when Israel rebelled against the Lord (the rebellious) and the people and the priest no longer attended to the provisions of the sanctuary for forgiveness, then God without his ‘Levitical’ presence could no longer ‘dwell’ in the land—so he departed from his dwelling place (2 Chron 7:19-20), the ‘Shekinah’ glory eventually departing with him (Ezek 10:18).
As already stated, this exposition is based on the fact that the Levites are spoken of as gifts. “And behold, I have taken your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel: to you they are given as a gift for the Lord, to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation” (Num 18:6). We suggest the captives are then are the Levites who are taken and then given back to the people of Israel by God. The Levites in effect rule with God as King from his throne and are an extension of the presence of God (or should have been) dwelling among his people.
If this exposition is correct, it means that David (under inspiration) has radically transformed the meaning of the phrase “thou hast lead captivity captive”. Whilst Barak was clearly a one-time captive of Sisera and Jabin (and his own human nature), God of course is never a captive in any dimension or dynamic—so the meaning of leading his captivity captive has to be interpreted from God’s position as supreme being with the captives of men as we have explained earlier, i.e. the Levites—the gift to him which he in turn gifted to Aaron.
We can now consider Eph 4:8, and looking at the context in Eph 4:1 we note straightaway that Paul refers to himself as “the prisoner of the Lord,” so there is no doubt that Paul is cognisant of the meaning in Ps 68:18, and is now counting himself as one of the “captives” to a new order of Holy servants being lead captive by the resurrected Lord Jesus, and imbued with the Holy Spirit. Clearly this new order would be replacing the old Levitical order which had shown itself to be worthless and counterfeit. The salt had “lost its savour” so to speak, and would soon “be trodden underfoot of men” in the conflagration of 70 CE.
The context of Paul’s words in Eph 4:8 confirm beyond a doubt that he who was leading “captivity captive” was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Judges and Psalm 68 contexts now come together in a wonderful harmony. Like Barak, Jesus was a captive to sin although unlike Barak, Jesus never succumbed to his human nature in that he was sinless. As the record in Habakkuk 2 states, “the just shall live in his faith”, and Jesus rested on this great divine principle of justification following a lifetime of selfless service and dedication to God. In this sense, Jesus led that which held him captive (his own sinful nature) and destroyed it by his obedience and faith in completing the great atoning work for the sin of Adam. But Jesus can also call upon the divine aspects of the Psalm 68 context. Since Jesus, like God before him, ascended on high, this time to the sanctuary in the heavens, like God also he dwelt among his people in the 1st century CE by the work of his ‘captives’ who were his apostolic ambassadors, confirmed as such by the giving of the Holy Spirit gifts.
Conclusion
We set ourselves some objectives at the outset of these remarks. We have derived a basic theme which is theophanic, with God ascending to his sanctuary with all appropriate splendour. We have discovered that although Psalm 68 is not easy, its language is majestic and the concepts conveyed are elevating to the consciousness. The second part of the Psalm is almost certainly eschatological.
In our review of the phrase “leading captivity captive”, we have seen that it commenced in the one ‘human’ dimension with Barak, but then was re-interpreted in Ps 68:18 on a multi-dimensional ‘divine’ basis by David concerning God himself and his ‘his dwelling with man’ through the vicarious arrangement with the tribe of Levi. And lastly, and perhaps most fittingly in Eph 4:8 the ‘human’ and ‘divine’ come together in the life and achievements of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[1] A. Clarke, Bible Commentary & Critical Notes (8 volumes; London: 1826) Vol. 4, Section Notes on Psalm 68, para. 2.
[2] F. C. Cook, Holy Bible With Commentary (Speakers Commentary; 11 vols; London: John Murray, 1892), 4:319, para. 2.
[3] D. Fifield, The Praises of Israel (3 vols; Birmingham: CMPA, 2008), 1:482 – 508. ([Ed AP]: Psalm 68 was the subject of a doctoral thesis by Bro. M. Vincent (Durham University, 2000)).
[4] P. Von Haupt, “Der Achtundsechzigste Psalm” AJSL 23 (1906-7): 220-40; B. Duhm, Die Psalmen (Tubingen 1922), 174; W. R. Taylor, The Book of Psalms, (Interpreters Bible; Abingdon, 1955), 354.
[5] H. Schmidt, Die Psalmen (Handb. Z. A. T.; Tubingen: 1934), 125-31.
[6] W. F. Albright, “A Catalogue of Early Hebrew Lyric Poems (Ps LXVIII)” HUCA XXIII (1950-51): 1-39 (7-8).
[7] See further 2 Sam 5:17-25 and Psalm 18.
[8] We would suggest that being settled and established in the land was the ultimate contemplation of Moses in Num 10:35.
[9] There are clear echoes between the Deborah and Barak events and Abrahams fight with the northern confederacy of Tidal king of nations in Genesis 14. However, perhaps the most relevant ‘echo’ is with the prophetic events of Ezekiel 38 and 39, which details another northern invasion and another divine intervention.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One