Psalms 68:15 - Meaning and Application

After praising God for what he had done for Israel as a whole, David now praises him as Zion’s God in a special way. He says, “Sing praises to the Lord, who lives in Zion,” and for that reason Zion is called God’s hill. Zion was the place where God chose to show his special presence, and that made it more honored than any high place in the land (Psalms 9:11; 132:13, 14). It is far better to be holy to God than to be great in the world.

David compares Zion with Bashan and other tall, fertile hills, and he gives Zion the higher place. Zion was smaller and lower than those hills, and it was not covered with flocks and herds like they were, yet it had the greater honor because God had chosen it. In effect, David says that the proud hills must yield to the hill where God’s royal flag is raised. Zion was especially honored because it pointed forward to the gospel church, which is called Mount Zion (Hebrews 12:22), and the words “The Lord will dwell in it forever” find their fullest meaning there.

David also compares Zion with Mount Sinai, where God gave the law with great power. Zion had the same divine presence, though not in such a terrifying way. Angels are pictured as God’s chariots, his war chariots against enemies, his means of sending help to friends, and his royal entourage that displays his glory and power. They are beyond counting, “twenty thousand, even thousands multiplied,” and there is an endless company of angels in the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 12:22).

David’s enemies had chariots too, but they were nothing beside God’s chariots. While God was on David’s side, David did not need to fear those who trusted in horses and chariots (Psalm 20:7). God came with myriads of angels when he gave the law on Sinai, and he still shows his glory in Zion with a great host of heaven around him. Some understand the last words to mean, “Sinai is in the sanctuary,” meaning that the sanctuary now served Israel as Sinai once had, as the place where God gave his words.

All of this points to the Lord Jesus, who commands these angels. When the firstborn Son came into the world, the angels were told to worship him (Hebrews 1:6). They served him in his earthly ministry, and now angels, rulers, and powers are subject to him (1 Peter 3:22). The New Testament also suggests that angels are present in the gathered worship of Christians (1 Corinthians 11:10; Ephesians 3:10).

The greatest glory of Mount Zion was the King whom God set there, the one who came to the daughter of Zion, Jesus Christ (Psalm 2:6; Matthew 21:5). The psalmist speaks here of Christ’s ascension, and the New Testament applies these words directly to him: “You ascended on high” (Ephesians 4:8; compare Psalms 47:5, 6). This was spoken of as already done because it was certain, and as something glorious because it was so great.

Christ’s ascension includes his whole exalted state, but it especially points to his going up to heaven and sitting at the Father’s right hand. That was as much for our good as for his honor. There he triumphed over the powers of hell, leading captivity captive, like a conquering king displaying his prisoners in triumph (Colossians 2:15). He led captive those who had held us captive, and he broke the power of sin and Satan completely. As he was the death of death, so he was the end of captivity itself (Hosea 13:14).

Christ also opened heaven’s gates for all believers. The psalm says, “You received gifts for men,” and Paul quotes it as, “He gave gifts to men” (Ephesians 4:8). The meaning is that Christ received gifts in order to give them. The Spirit was poured out on him in fullness, so that from him it could flow to others. He received power to give eternal life, and he gives it to all whom the Father has given him (John 17:2).

These gifts were not for angels, fallen or holy, but for people. They were not for Jews only, but for all who will receive them. Paul explains what these gifts include: prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, along with the gift of a gospel ministry and the fitting of men for it (Ephesians 4:11). All of this is to be valued as the fruit of Christ’s ascension.

The phrase “you received gifts in man” points to the human nature Christ took on. He clothed himself with our humanity so that he could be a merciful and faithful high priest in matters before God. In him, as Mediator, the one who stands between God and people, all fullness dwells, so that we may receive from his fullness.

The psalmist also brings out the greatness of Christ’s grace by reminding us what kind of people we were. Christ received these gifts for the rebellious too, for those who had been rebellious. In one way or another, that describes all people in their fallen state. It may especially point to the Gentiles, who were once enemies in their minds because of evil deeds (Colossians 1:21). These gifts are given to them so they may lay down their weapons, have their hostility put to death, and return to loyalty.

This shows the amazing grace of Christ. Through him, rebels are not only pardoned when they submit, but also honored and advanced. They receive commissions under Christ, and some have compared that, in legal terms, to a pardon that cancels a sentence of ruin. Christ came into a rebellious world, not to condemn it, but so that through him it might be saved.

The favor meant in these gifts is this: he received gifts for the rebellious, so that the Lord God might live among them. Christ’s purpose was to set up a church in a rebellious world, where God would dwell by his word and ordinances, as he once did in the sanctuary. He also intended to set up his throne in the hearts of people who had been rebellious. In that way, Christ was raising up God’s tabernacle among people, so that God might live with them and they themselves might become living temples for his praise (Ezekiel 37:27).

The glory of Zion’s King is that he is a Savior and a giver of good things to all who willingly belong to him, but a consuming fire to all who keep rebelling against him (Psalm 68:19-21). Here good and evil, life and death, blessing and curse are placed before us, like the words, “Whoever believes will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16). Those who take God as their God and give themselves to him as his people will be filled with his blessings, and he will be to them a God of salvation.

If we truly say that God is our God and look to him as such, he will keep doing us good and giving us reasons to praise him. After speaking of the gifts Christ received for us (Psalm 68:18), the writer rightly says, “Blessed be the Lord,” because our life and all our comfort come through Christ’s mediation, meaning his work as our go-between with God. We are loaded with God’s gifts, so many and so heavy that they can truly be called a burden of mercy. He keeps pouring out blessings until there is no room left to receive them (Malachi 3:10). His goodness is constant, and he does not grow tired of helping us, but loads us daily with what each day requires.

He will also be the God of our salvation, and in the end the God of everlasting salvation, the salvation God gives to those who live rightly (Psalm 50:23), the salvation of the soul. The one who loads us daily with benefits will not leave us with only present things as our portion. He will be the God of our salvation, and all he gives now is given as part of his great plan to save us. He is our God, so he will be the God of eternal salvation to us, because only that fully matches the great reach of his covenant bond with us.

Can he complete this salvation? Yes, certainly, because the Lord God controls the outcomes of death (Psalm 68:20). The keys of death and hell have been given to the Lord Jesus (Revelation 1:18). Since he rose from death himself, he has both the right and the power to bring his own people out from death’s rule. He changes what death means for them when they die, and he will give them full victory over it when they rise again, for the last enemy to be destroyed is death. For those who will escape death forever, and will not be hurt by the second death, any rescue from bodily death is truly a mercy and comes from God as the God of their salvation (2 Corinthians 1:10).

But those who stay hostile to God will surely be ruined. God will crush the heads of his enemies, whether Satan, the old serpent, whom the first promise said the seed of the woman would crush (Genesis 3:15), or the powers among the nations, whether Jews or Gentiles, that oppose Christ and his kingdom among people (Psalm 110:6). He will also strike all who refuse to let him rule over them, because he counts them as his enemies, and they will be brought out and slain before him (Luke 19:27). He will wound the hairy scalp of anyone who keeps going on in sin.

This picture may allude to Absalom, whose thick hair became the thing that destroyed him. Or it may describe the fiercest and roughest enemies, who let their hair grow to look more fearsome, or the most polished and delicate enemies, who care greatly about their hair. Neither kind can protect themselves from the deadly blows that divine justice will bring on the heads of those who keep living in sin.