For the music director; by David, a psalm, a song.
68:1 God springs into action! 2
His enemies scatter;
his adversaries 3 run from him. 4
68:2 As smoke is driven away by the wind, so you drive them away. 5
As wax melts before fire,
so the wicked are destroyed before God.
68:3 But the godly 6 are happy;
they rejoice before God
and are overcome with joy. 7
68:4 Sing to God! Sing praises to his name!
Exalt the one who rides on the clouds! 8
For the Lord is his name! 9
Rejoice before him!
1 sn Psalm 68. The psalmist depicts God as a mighty warrior and celebrates the fact that God exerts his power on behalf of his people.
2 tn Or “rises up.” The verb form is an imperfect, not a jussive. The psalmist is describing God’s appearance in battle in a dramatic fashion.
3 tn Heb “those who hate him.”
4 sn The wording of v. 1 echoes the prayer in Num 10:35: “Spring into action,
5 tn Heb “as smoke is scattered, you scatter [them].”
6 tn By placing the subject first the psalmist highlights the contrast between God’s ecstatic people and his defeated enemies (vv. 1-2).
7 tn Heb “and they are happy with joy” (cf. NEB). Some translate the prefixed verbal forms of v. 3 as jussives, “Let the godly be happy, let them rejoice before God, and let them be happy with joy!” (Cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV; note the call to praise in v. 4.)
8 tn Traditionally the Hebrew term עֲרָבוֹת (’aravot) is taken as “steppe-lands” (often rendered “deserts”), but here the form is probably a homonym meaning “clouds.” Verse 33, which depicts God as the one who “rides on the sky” strongly favors this (see as well Deut 33:26), as does the reference in v. 9 to God as the source of rain. The term עֲרָבָה (’aravah, “cloud”) is cognate with Akkadian urpatu/erpetu and with Ugaritic ’rpt. The phrase rkb ’rpt (“one who rides on the clouds”) appears in Ugaritic mythological texts as an epithet of the storm god Baal. The nonphonemic interchange of the bilabial consonants b and p is attested elsewhere in roots common to Hebrew and Ugaritic, though the phenomenon is relatively rare.
9 tc Heb “in the