Big Idea: The story of God’s redeeming grace gives us the sense of being present on the journey.

Understanding the Text

There is no virtue in trying to make a difficult psalm sound easy. It is widely agreed that Psalm 68 is textually and theologically one of the most difficult psalms in the Psalter. Yet most scholars agree that there is a story line that stretches through the psalm, a condensed history of Israel—or we should probably say, of Yahweh’s presence with Israel—from Egypt to Zion. The action on the stage is a divine drama, with only shadow figures of biblical persons playing their minor roles in the drama of victory, while Yahweh is the attested star of the drama.

The psalm does not fit any of the genre classifications that we use. Some have called it a song of victory, and …