(2)
Scripture Reading: Psa. 68:18-35
Psalm 68 has two main sections. Verses 1 through 18 are the first section, and verses 19 through 35 are the second section. As we will see, each section has a center. Before we explain what is the center of the first section, let us consider once again the matter of God's move on the earth.
In the entire universe, God has only one move. The Old Testament time was actually not a time for God to move on the earth but rather a time of preparation for His move. God's activities from Genesis to Malachi were all a part of this preparation. As an illustration, we may consider the preparation that is necessary for opening a store. The store may be built and furnished and yet not be open for business. All the preparations have been made, but the owner of the store has not yet started his business. In a similar way, the Old Testament time was a time of God's preparation for opening the "business" of the divine economy.
God's economy is mainly to work Himself into His chosen and redeemed people in order to make Himself one with them and to make them one with Him. In His economy God even mingles Himself with His people to be one entity with them. Concerning this, the Bible says that we who are joined to the Lord are one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). He is the Spirit; He has made a spirit within us; and now the divine Spirit and the regenerated human spirit have been mingled together to be one spirit. How marvelous! Such a mingling did not take place in the Old Testament, for the Old Testament time was the time of God's preparation. He prepared the heavens for the earth, the earth for man, and man with a spirit for God (Zech. 12:1). In this way, man was prepared by God for the carrying out of the business of God's economy.
God took about two thousand years — the period of time from Abraham to the coming of Christ — to prepare the people of Israel. Consider all the work God did with Israel throughout the Old Testament. Beginning with Abraham in Genesis and continuing to the end of Malachi, God engaged in many activities to make everything ready for Him to carry out His economy.
The carrying out of God's economy actually began with the incarnation of Christ. John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. This indicates that the incarnation brought in the real and living tabernacle, which was Christ Himself as the embodiment of the Triune God. The physical tabernacle erected by Moses was a type, a shadow; it was not the real tabernacle. Both the tabernacle and the ark were types of Christ. However, without that type, God could not have had, with the children of Israel, a type of His move on the earth in Christ. God's move in the tabernacle with the ark from Mount Sinai to Mount Zion was a type of His move in Christ from the incarnation to the ascension.
At Sinai God prepared the children of Israel for His move in the tabernacle with the ark. God had sent Moses to Egypt to bring them out of Egypt to Sinai, and there at Sinai God gave them a training which lasted quite a long time. First, God decreed the law in order to test them, expose them, convince them, convict them, and subdue them. Eventually, after they were subdued, they were trained to be a holy people, a people sanctified to God so that He could dwell among them and move with them.
By the time the tabernacle was set up, the people had been trained and prepared, even as an army, for God's move. Thus Moses, the representative of Israel, prayed, saying, "Let God arise; let His enemies be scattered;/And let those who hate Him flee before Him" (Psa. 68:1; Num. 10:35). Immediately, God began to move with His people through the wilderness. Eventually, the ark ascended Mount Zion and was placed in the temple, which had been built to replace the tabernacle. This was God's move in the Old Testament, a type indicating that one day God would move on the earth in Christ as the real tabernacle.
After being on earth for thirty-three and a half years, Christ was crucified, was resurrected, and ascended to the heavens. As the ascended One, Christ is still working on us, the people of God, to make us a new creation, that is, to work the new creation out of the old creation. This is not a simple matter, and it cannot be done in a short time. Many of us can testify that, even though we have been in the Lord for many years, we are not that spiritual and are still being renewed, sanctified, and transformed. We still need Christ to work on us by His heavenly ministry. Even Paul had to wait until the end of his life before he could say, "I have fought the good fight; I have finished the course; I have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4:7). I hope that one day we all will be able to say this. At present, the Lord is still moving on in the heavens to make us the new creation in full and to bring us from the earth to the heavens.
Let us now endeavor to explain what is the center of the first section of Psalm 68. The center of this section is the dove wings gilded with silver and the dove pinions gilded with greenish yellow gold (v. 13). The dove wings signify the moving power of the Spirit; the silver signifies Christ in His redemption for our justification; and the greenish yellow gold signifies God in His nature glittering in His life and glory. Here we have the Triune God with all His accomplishments for our enjoyment.
The dove wings gilded with silver and the pinions gilded with greenish yellow gold are the spoil mentioned in verse 12. Some may wonder how the Triune God could be such spoil. To understand this we need to realize that by spoil we mean something gained, or reaped, as the result of fighting and winning a battle. Christ fought the battle in His death, resurrection, and ascension, and surely He has gained some spoil as a result. What has He reaped through His victory? He has reaped the riches of the Triune God for us. At the very time we confessed our sins and believed in Christ, we received the Spirit with God, Christ, and the divine life — the riches, the spoil, gained by Christ through His victory.
As those who have believed in the Lord Jesus, we gain what He has gained. We gain God; we gain the Spirit; we gain the divine life; and we gain the all-inclusive Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God. This means that in Christ we gain the processed and consummated Triune God as the spoil for our enjoyment. Now day by day we are enjoying the dove, the silver, and the gold. This is the center of the first section of Psalm 68.
Let us now go on to consider the second section of this psalm.
In the first section five matters are covered: God's move on the earth, God's victory in Christ, Christ's ascension, Christ's receiving the gifts, and Christ's building up the house of God. This brings us to the first item in the second section — the enjoyment of God in His house (vv. 19-23).
The enjoyment of God in His house comes after the building up of His dwelling place, the church (v. 18b).
Verse 19a says, "Blessed be the Lord, who day by day loads us with good." What is this "good" with which God is loading us every day? This good, as the "good" mentioned in Romans 8:28, does not refer to material things such as a nice home or a new car; rather, it refers to the Triune God — to the dove wings gilded with silver and the pinions gilded with gold. This means that daily God is loading us with Himself.
"God is our salvation./God is to us/A God of deliverance, /And to Jehovah the Lord/Belongs escape even from death" (vv. 19b-20). This reveals that in God's house we enjoy God as our salvation and deliverance; with Him are the goings forth, the way to escape, even from death. Only God can give us a way to flee death and to escape it because only God is life. When we enjoy Him as our life, we escape death. Actually, the way to go forth from death is God Himself.
Verses 21 through 23 reveal that in God's house we also enjoy His victory over the enemies. For example, verse 21 says, "Indeed God will smash/The head of His enemies,/The hairy crown/Of him who goes about in his guiltiness."
In verses 24 through 28 we have the matter of praising God.
"They have seen Your goings, O God,/The goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary" (v. 24). Here "they" refers to the enemies, to the unbelievers; "goings" refers to God's activities; and the "sanctuary" signifies the church.
In order to appreciate this part of Psalm 68, we need to be familiar with the background. At Mount Sinai God decreed the law and charged Moses to build the tabernacle with the ark and all the various furnishings. The erecting of the tabernacle was a kind of ceremony. All the children of Israel were assembled and, after everything had been arranged, the ark was brought in. I believe that, as verse 25 indicates, while the ark was being carried into the tabernacle, there was a procession of virgins and singers who went before the ark. At the rear there might have been another group composed not of virgins but of males from the tribes of Benjamin, Judah, Zebulun, and Naphtali (v. 27). This move of the ark was an activity of God, for God was with the ark. Hence, the ark's activity was God's activity. Furthermore, since Israel had been at Sinai for a long time, the peoples in the surrounding regions must have heard that something important was taking place and might have come to see what was happening. Therefore, this ceremony might have been observed not only by the children of Israel but also by a number of Gentiles who had come to witness the ceremony.
"Singers go before; players after;/In the midst of virgins sounding the tambourines" (v. 25). Here the praise is by the females, by the virgins as singers going before and players after. In this verse "virgins" signifies the believers.
"Bless God in the congregations,/Even Jehovah, O you who are of the fountain of Israel./There are little Benjamin, who rules them,/And the princes of Judah in their company, /The princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali./Your God has commanded your strength;/Strengthen, O God, that which You have done for us" (vv. 26-28). Here we have the blessing of God by the men, signifying the strong ones.
In the praise rendered to God by His elect, there is portrayed a scenery in typology concerning God's New Testament economy in the accomplishment of God's redemption for His salvation by Christ and in the spreading of the glad tidings of Christ's accomplishment with the goodly words of the gospel.
Verse 27a speaks of "little Benjamin."
Benjamin had two names, the first of which was Benoni. This name, given to him by his mother Rachel as she was dying in childbirth, means "son of my sorrow" (Gen. 35:18a). As the son of sorrows, Benoni, Benjamin typifies Christ who, as the Man of sorrows in His incarnation and human life on earth, accomplished God's eternal redemption for His full salvation.
Whereas Rachel named her son Benoni, Jacob immediately changed the child's name to Benjamin, which means "son of the right hand" (v. 18b). To be at the right hand is to be in a position of glory and honor. As the son of the right hand, Benjamin typifies Christ who, as the Son of the right hand of God in His resurrection, victory, and ascension, ministers in the heavens to carry out the application of God's redemption for His salvation. Christ was incarnated to be Benoni, the Man of sorrows, but in resurrection He became Benjamin, the Son of the right hand of God in glory and honor.
Psalm 68:27 speaks also of the princes of Judah. Judah is the lion with the power and the scepter, and he is the peace (Shiloh) to God's people (Rev. 5:5a; Gen. 49:8-10).
Whereas Benjamin typifies Christ mainly in His humanity, Judah typifies Christ mainly in His divinity. In His divinity, Christ is not a Man of sorrows but a lion with power and authority (signified by the scepter). In particular, Judah typifies Christ as the victory for God's people and the peace to God's people. In the application of redemption, Christ is our peace.
Judah, as the kingly tribe, was accompanied always by Benjamin, as a warrior tribe (Gen. 49:27), for God's kingdom on the earth. In typology Judah and Benjamin, who were joined geographically, form a group concerning the accomplishment and application of Christ's redemption for God's salvation. With Benjamin the emphasis is on the accomplishment of redemption; with Judah the emphasis is on the application (in Christ's ascension) of redemption.
Psalm 68:27 goes on to mention the princes of Zebulun. Dwelling at the haven of the sea (Galilee) for a haven of ships (Gen. 49:13), Zebulun typifies Christ as the "haven" of the evangelists for the transportation and spreading in the preaching of God's gospel. The gospel has been accomplished, but there is the need of the spreading of the gospel by means of "ships." On the day of Pentecost, at least one hundred and twenty gospel "ships," all of whom were Galileans, set out to spread the gospel.
Finally, Psalm 68:27 speaks of the princes of Naphtali. Genesis 49:21 tells us that Naphtali is a hind let loose and that he gives goodly words.
Naphtali typifies Christ as the One who is released from death in resurrection, signified by the "hind let loose" (Psa. 22, title; S.S. 2:8-9), and gives goodly words for the preaching of His gospel (Matt. 28:18-20). In resurrection Christ came to His disciples and charged them to disciple the nations.
People of both Zebulun and Naphtali were men of Galilee (Matt. 4:12-17; Acts 1:11), from whom the gospel of Christ has been spread, preached, and propagated.
In typology Zebulun and Naphtali form a group for the spreading and the propagating of the glad tidings of Christ's redemption for God's salvation.
Perhaps you are wondering why only four of the twelve tribes of Israel are mentioned in Psalm 68:27. The reason is that in the typology here only four are required, and these four are the most suitable.
Just as the center of the first section of this psalm is the Triune God typified by the dove, the silver, and the gold, so the center of the second section is the four tribes of Benjamin, Judah, Zebulun, and Naphtali. The first two — Benjamin and Judah — are a group concerning the accomplishment and application of redemption; the other two — Zebulun and Naphtali — are a group concerning the preaching, spreading, and propagation of the gospel. As we consider the centers of the two sections of Psalm 68, we can see that the Triune God as Christ's spoil has become our enjoyment, and we can see also that Christ's redemption has been accomplished for God's salvation, that this accomplished redemption has been applied to us, and that the word concerning God's salvation is now spreading everywhere.
The next matter in Psalm 68 is the spreading from the temple into the city of God.
"Strengthen, O God, that which You have done for us. / Because of Your temple at Jerusalem" (vv. 28b-29a). This word indicates that following God's strengthening of what He has done for His elect, the influence of the enjoyment of God in His house would spread to the entire city of Jerusalem because of the house of God, which was at Jerusalem.
The house of God signifies the local church, and the city of Jerusalem signifies the kingdom, the strengthening and the safeguard of the church.
Psalm 68 concludes with a word about the gaining of the earth for God (vv. 29b-35).
The influence of the enjoyment of God will gain the whole earth for God.
According to verse 29b, kings of the nations will bring a gift to God.
God will deal with the Egyptians, who are likened to animals in the reeds by the Nile (v. 30a).
God will also deal with the nations, who are likened to herds of the bulls among the calves and who lust for silver and delight in war (v. 30b).
Verse 31 indicates that nobles will come out of Egypt to visit Jerusalem, the city of God, and that Cush (today's Ethiopia) will quickly stretch out its hand to God.
The scenery portrayed above will consummate in the coming age of restoration (Matt. 19:28), in which all the earth will come to Jerusalem to worship God and to receive instruction and enlightenment (Isa. 2:2-3; Zech. 14:16-17).
In verses 32 through 34 the kingdoms of the earth are charged to sings psalms in the restoration to God, who rides upon the heavens, the ancient heavens, and utters His voice, a mighty voice (thunder). They are charged also to ascribe strength to God, whose excellence (glory) is over Israel and whose strength is in the skies.
"You are awesome, O God, from Your sanctuaries./The God of Israel, He gives strength and power to the people./Blessed be God!" (v. 35). In this concluding verse the psalmist praises God and blesses Him.
