I’d like to make a few comments about the setting of Psalm 68. They largely fall within the “lenses” I have talked about elsewhere so I will use that motif. I searched through commentaries, online resources, Bible dictionaries and the back of my sock drawer for information on this psalm and some of the best stuff I found was in my humble NIV Study Bible.

Wide-angle lens: Psalm 68 in its literary context

In a note on Psalm 65, the NIV Study Bible says, “This hymn begins a series of four that are linked by many common themes.” Some of those themes include: Zion, the Exodus and wilderness wanderings and the harvest. I’d like to look more at the connections between these four psalms and also see if they are tied to other psalms in the Psalter. Psalm 65 is my favorite “harvest” psalm. The incredible phrase “your chariot tracks drip with fat” in 65:11 is one of the most evocative in the Bible.

Telescope: Bringing the culture of Psalm 68 closer

John Hobbins has already talked a lot about the appropriation of Ancient Near Eastern motifs in Psalm 68 and I don’t have anything to add to his excellent essays (1 and 2). But I would like to talk about this psalm as it relates to the Hebrew calendar. There is good reason to suspect that Psalms 65-68 were used in conjunction with the celebration of the Festival of Tabernacles. This festival was celebrated in the Jewish month of Tishri corresponding to October 15-21. There are two crucial aspects of this festival: First, it was a harvest festival marked by feasting and celebration. Second, it commemorated the wilderness wanderings by people living in “booths” or “tabernacles.”

The two themes of harvest and wilderness wandering come out again and again in these psalms:

“When you went out before your people, O God,
when you marched through the wasteland, Selah
the earth shook,
the heavens poured down rain,
before God, the One of Sinai,
before God, the God of Israel.”
(Psalm 68:7-8, NIV)

God is here depicted as leading his people from Sinai to the promised land. And what’s interesting is how rain is incorporated into the story even though it is absent in the Exodus account. The psalm continues depicting the chosen people settling in a fertile land marked by abundant rain and bounty:

“You gave abundant showers, O God;
you refreshed your weary inheritance.
Your people settled in it,
and from your bounty, O God, you provided for the poor.”
(Psalm 68:9-10, NIV)

So this psalm commemorates an epochal moment in the history of Israel and reinterprets their contemporary situation in that context. I won’t even try to set a date on this psalm but I would imagine its post-David, even post-Solomon at a time when the little nation of Israel was feeling particularly vulnerable to their larger neighbor Egypt, the beast among the reeds of verse 30.

I’ll stop here since I have a lot of other things I should be doing right now. I look forward to Suzanne’s next installment on her series. I also look forward to applying the work done by Bob in charting this text to discovering the structure of this enigmatic poem. I’d also like to see how the structure of the psalm points to a liturgical procession. Again the NIV Study Bible has a good proposal on that. But now I have to go!