Psalm 68

Celebrate YHWH's victory!

Introduction

Overview

What do we mean by this?

The purpose was the psalmist's probable intent or reason for writing this psalm. The Content is a concise summary of the whole psalm's content. The Message is the main idea the psalmist probably wanted the audience to remember upon or after hearing the psalm.

Purpose: To celebrate God's victories over his enemies and protection of his people

Content: "Ascribe strength to God!" He scatters his enemies and they submit to him. He delivers his people and provides for them.

Message: The God of Israel is to be feared for his great power, and to be celebrated for his loyalty to his people.

Background Ideas

What do we mean by this?

Cultural, historical, and contextual information that is important to know to understand this psalm

Background Situation

What do we mean by this?

A brief explanation of the "story behind" the psalm--what was going on in the psalmist's life, and/or Israel's history, that prompted the psalmist to pen this psalm? The colors in the boxes correspond to the participants in the psalm (see Participant Analysis).

Sections

What do we mean by this?

These sections divide the content of the psalm into digestible pieces , and are determined based on information from many of our layers, including Semantics, Poetics, and Discourse. The columns, left to right, contain: the verse numbers; the main title of the section; a brief summary of the content of that section (quote marks indicate the text is taken directly from the English text of the psalm (as per our Close-but-Clear translation)); and an icon to visually represent and remember the content.

Videos

Overview Video

The Overview video is a brief, concise explanation of the psalm, pulling all the most important information specific to this psalm from each of our analytical layers. The video begins with a high-level, birds-eye view of the content of the psalm, then explores and explains the psalm verse by verse. Relevant contextual information is also included. No Hebrew knowledge required--this video serves as an entry point for all users to all our other information about the psalm.

Translation Aids

Recommended steps for translating the psalms

To translate poetry accurately and beautifully, a knowledge of both the source language's poetry and the target language's poetry is needed. So, here are the steps we recommend to follow when setting out to translate the psalms:

1. GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE TARGET LANGUAGE'S POETRY/ARTS. Research and analyze many examples from numerous genres of poetry, storytelling, and music in the target language and culture, and document findings. See our for help.
2. GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SOURCE LANGUAGE'S (HEBREW) MEANING AND POETRY. The aim of all our materials is to provide exactly this for the translator, poet/musician/artist, and consultant: an understanding of what the psalm means, as well as its poetics.
3. TRANSLATE THE PSALM IN THE APPROPRIATE LOCAL ART/POETRY GENRE.

Translation and Performance Notes

TPNs are an at-a-glance reference for anyone involved with translating or checking a translation of the psalm. Specific words, phrases, and images that could be difficult to understand or to translate are highlighted, and then briefly discussed. Each note is intended to help the reader understand the meaning of the Hebrew word or phrase in its context, as well as provide a few translation options or suggestions, often pulling from existing translations. Where pertinent, our preferred translation option is given. NOTE: These notes are intended to supplement a robust internalization of the psalm, not replace it. Translation Challenges for Psalm 68 not available yet.

Close-but-Clear Translation

What do we mean by this?

The Close-but-clear translation (CBC) exists to provide a window into the Hebrew text according to how we understand its syntax and word-to-phrase-level semantics. It is not intended to be used as a stand-alone translation or base text, but as a supplement to Layer-by-Layer materials to help users make full use of these resources.

1. For the director

By David

A Psalm

A Song

2. God arises, his enemies scatter;

and those who hate him flee from his presence.

3. As smoke is driven away, so you drive [them] away.

As wax melts before a fire,

so the wicked perish before God.

4. But the righteous exult joyfully before God;

and they shout with a joyful sound.

5. Sing to God! Sing praise to his name!

Bank up [a way] for the one who rides through the desert—his name is Yah—

and celebrate before him—

6. father of orphans, and judge of widows!

God is in his holy dwelling place.

7. God is the one who settles the desolate in a home,

who skilfully releases prisoners.

Rebels, however, dwell in a parched land.

8. God, when you went out before your people,

when you marched through the wilderness, selah,

9. The earth quaked

and the heavens also poured

before God, the one of Sinai—

before God, the God of Israel.

10. You would shower abundant rain, God.

[Behold!] your inheritance, wearied! You established it.

11. Your living creatures dwelt in it.

You would prepare [it] for the afflicted with your goodness, God.

12. The Lord gives a word.

The messengers are a large army.

13. Kings of armies—[these] will flee [and then those] will flee.

And the beautiful one of the house will divide the spoil.

14. If you lie down between the borders,

the dove’s wings are covered with silver,

and its pinions with the yellow of gold.

15. When Shaddai scatters kings on it—

it will snow on Zalmon.

16. Mount Bashan is the mountain of “God”;

Mount Bashan is a many-peaked mountain.

17. Why—mountains, many-peaked ones—, do you intently watch

the mountain where God desired to dwell?

Indeed, YHWH will dwell [there] forever.

18. God’s chariotry is countless—thousands upon thousands.

The Lord is among them—[the One] of Sinai is [among them] in his holiness.

19. You went up on high, you took captives captive—

you received gifts among mankind—

and (you also took captive) rebels, that they may dwell with Yah God.

20. May the Lord be blessed!

Daily he bears [our burden] for us—

God our salvation, selah.

21. God is a God of deliverance for us.

And the ways of escape from death belong to YHWH the Lord.

22. Indeed, God will crush the heads of his enemies—

the hairy crown of the one who walks about in his guilt.

23. The Lord said, ‘I will bring [you] back from Bashan.

I will bring [you] back from the depths of the sea

24. so that your foot may wade in blood.

As for the tongues of your dogs, their portion will be from enemies.

25. Your processions are seen, God—

the processions of my God, my king, into the sanctuary.

26. The singers went in front, the musicians behind,

among all the young women playing drums.

27. Bless God in the assembly!

[Bless] YHWH, you who are from the source of Israel!

28. There is Benjamin, the young one, their ruler.

[There are] the princes of Judah with their throng.

[There are] the princes of Zebulun, [there are] the princes of Naphtali.

29. Your God has commanded your strength.

Show your strength, God,You who have acted for us!

30. Because of your temple [which is] above Jerusalem,

kings will bring gifts to you.

31. Rebuke the beast of the reed, the herd of bulls among the calves—the people—

those who trample down others by crushing them for silver!

He has scattered people that delight in battles.

32. Nobles will come from Egypt.

Cush will hasten his hands towards God.

33. Sing to God, kingdoms of the earth!

Sing praises to the Lord—selah—

34. to him who rides on the highest heavens of old!

Look! He raises his voice—a mighty voice.

35. Ascribe strength to God!

His greatness is over Israel,

and his strength is in the skies.

36. You, God, are awesome from your sanctuary.

The God of Israel—

he gives strength and might to the people.

Blessed be God!

Explore the Layers

Exegetical Issues

What do we mean by this?

The Hebrew of the psalms can be difficult to understand at times. In this section, you can explore (in either video or text format) what we've deemed to be the three most important difficulties in the Hebrew, and follow our reasoning as we do a deep dive in scholarly work and explain our conclusions.

The meaning of ערבות in Psalm 68:5 (Draft)

The Grammar and Meaning of Psalm 68:19c (Draft)

The Text, Grammar and Meaning of מִתְרַפֵּ֥ס בְּרַצֵּי־כָ֑סֶף (Psa. 68:31) (Draft)

Grammar

What do we mean by this?

A full, detailed diagram showing the grammatical function of each word/morpheme in the Hebrew text, along with accompanying notes.

• Explore the Grammar layer

Semantics

Lexical and Phrase-level Semantics

What do we mean by this?

Lexical semantics is the study of word meanings. It examines semantic range (=possible meanings of a word), the relationship between words (e.g. synonymy, hyponymy), as well as the relationship between words and larger concepts (conceptual domains). One component of our approach involves not only the study of the Hebrew word meaning, but also of our own assumptions about word meaning in modern languages. Because the researcher necessarily starts with their own cultural assumptions (in our case, those of Western-trained scholars), this part of the analysis should ideally be done afresh for every culture. Phrase-level semantics analyses the meaning of syntactic units which are larger than the level of the word and smaller than the level of the clause. Specifically, this layer analyses the meaning of prepositional phrases , construct phrases (a special type of construction in Hebrew), phrases formed by a coordinating waw conjunction, and noun phrases which consist of a noun plus a determiner (such as "the") or a quantifier (such as "all").

• Explore Lexical and Phrasal Semantics

Verbal Semantics

What do we mean by this?

Verbal Semantics focuses on the relationship between verbs, time and modality, and gives details about each verb in the psalm. This is important for interpretation and translation, and how one analyses a verb can have a significant effect on how it is rendered.

• Explore Verbal Semantics

Story Behind the Psalm (Unit-level Semantics)

What do we mean by this?

The Story Behind triangle tells the "story" (reading from left to right, beginning at the bottom left corner) of what might have prompted the psalmist to write this psalm. The events and ideas on the triangle are taken from the Propositions and Assumptions table below. Propositional content is the part of the meaning of a clause or sentence that is constant, despite changes in such things as voice, illocutionary force, tense/aspect/mode, person/gender/number, etc. It refers to “the kind of situation or event described by the underlying proposition.” Once we have identified the propositional content, we ask, “what would the world have to be like for this [proposition] to be true?” That is, what does this proposition presuppose about the world? What does it entail? What might be implied? In what kind of situation does this make sense? In other words, what assumptions are bound up with this proposition? We distinguish three kinds of assumptions:

• Common-ground assumptions
• Local-ground assumptions
• Playground assumptions

See the Legend accompanying the chart for more details on the types of assumptions.

Understanding the assumptions involved will help translators understand the implicit information present in the text, so that they can decide which of these to make explicit in the translation or biblical helps for their audience to understand the text's larger meaning.

• Explore the Story Behind the Psalm

Discourse

Participant Analysis

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What do we mean by this?

This layer examines each participant in the psalm, whether they have speaking roles in the psalm, or are just referenced in the poem. Often, the relationships and interactions among participants sheds much light on the understanding and translation of a psalm. The summary visuals give a view of the participants in the psalm as a whole, while the tables list the participant information for each clause.

• Explore Participant Analysis

Macrosyntax

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• Explore Macrosyntax

Speech Act Analysis

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• Explore Speech Act Analysis

Emotional Analysis

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• Explore Emotional Analysis

Repeated Roots

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Poetics

Poetic Structure & Features

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• Explore further Poetic Analysis

Verse-by-Verse Notes

View all of Psalm 68 Verse-by-Verse Notes, or click on an individual verse below.

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