One of the most fascinating things about Psalm 68 is the way the Apostle Paul used verse 18 in his letter to the Ephesians. He referred it to Jesus Christ, saying in the well-known fourth chapter of that letter, "But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says: “When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men” (vv. 7, 8).
This fifth stanza is the longest in the psalm, which is a way of showing that these verses are the high point of the composition and the climax of the poem's first half. Several points are particularly worth noting.
The words that begin the third stanza (vv. 7-10), the first of the main body of the psalm, pick up directly from the prologue, for the cry "Arise, O God" was raised when the people finally set out from Sinai on the march to Canaan, which is what these verses describe.
Just as the opening stanzas of this psalm have a long history extending onward to the time of the wars of religion in France and beyond, so also do they have a history moving backward in time. For the opening line at least has its origin in the ancient cry of the setting out of God's people, found in Numbers 10:25.
Each stanza relates something different about God, progressing from God's mighty acts in the past to the present and eventually even to anticipate the future. The psalm's survey of the majestic sweep of God's doings is superb. It is hard to find another psalm to equal it.
