Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Exodus 15:20 And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with danc…
Psalms 40:3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.
Psalms 68:25 The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after; among them were the damsels playing with timbrels.
Exodus 17:9-16 And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of…
Exodus 14:15 And the LORD said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward:
Judges 4:6-5:31 And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh-naphtali, and said unto him, Hath not the LORD God of Israel commanded, sayin…
Revelation 19:13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 68:7-14
The psalmist here, having occasion to give God thanks for the great things he had done for him and his people of late, takes occasion thence to praise him for what he had done for their fathers in the days of old. Fresh mercies should put us in mind of former mercies and revive our grateful sense of them. Let it never be forgotten,
I. That God himself was the guide of Israel through the wilderness; when he had brought them out of their chains he did not leave them in the dry land, but he himself went before them in a march through the wilderness, Psa 68:7. It was not a journey, but a march, for they went as soldiers, as an army with banners. The Egyptians promised themselves that the wildern…
gave the word--that is, of triumph.
company--or, choir of females, celebrating victory (Exo 15:20).
John Gill on Psalms 68:11
The Lord gave the word,.... The word of the Gospel to his apostles. He committed the word of reconciliation to them; he intrusted them with it, as a sacred depositum; he gave gifts unto them, qualifying them for the ministration of it; he gave them a commission to preach it; and he gave them a door of utterance to speak it as it should be, and an opportunity to publish it. The Targum wrongly interprets it of the word of the law;
great was the company of those that published it; there were in our Lord's time twelve apostles and seventy disciples, who were sent out to preach the Gospel; and many more in the times of the apostles, and since. The word for "company" signifies an "army" (x): Chri…
Psalm 68:11-14
11. The [21] Lord shall give the word to the women who announce the great army. [22] 12. Kings of armies shall flee -- shall flee; and she that tarries at home shall divide the spoil. 13. Though you should lie among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and which behind is of the paleness of gold. [23] 14. When the Almighty scattered kings in it, thou shalt make it white [24] in Salmon.
11. The Lord shall give the word, etc. David now adverts to the victories by which God had signally displayed his power in behalf of his people. He had himself been the instrument of restoring peace to the country, by putting down its foes, and he had extended…
The Church Fathers
The Lord will give the word to those who preach the gospel with great power. In the Hebrew it has "the women who preach the gospel"; that is, to those women who were made evangelists to the apostles, where he says "Go, tell my brothers," and the rest. Or else it signifies the souls which have believed in Christ. But according to the Seventy translators he speaks to the apostles, because the Lord gave them the power to preach the gospel.
For the word of God declares that the preaching (although in itself true and most worthy of belief) is not sufficient to reach the human heart, unless a certain power be imparted to the speaker from God, and a grace appear upon his words; and it is only by the divine agency that this takes place in those who speak effectually. The prophet says in the Psalms 67, that "the Lord will give a word with great power to them who preach." If, then, it should be granted with respect to certain points, that the same doctrines are found among the Greeks as in our own Scriptures, yet they do not possess the same power of attracting and disposing the souls of men to follow them. And therefore the disciples of Jesus, men ignorant so far as regards Grecian philosophy, yet traversed many countries of the world, impressing, agreeably to the desire of the Logos, each one of their hearers according to his deserts, so that they received a moral amelioration in proportion to the inclination of their will to accept of that which is good.
And the holy Scriptures bear witness to the Gospel announcements made by the Apostles and to that made by our Saviour. David says of the Apostles, perhaps also of the evangelists: "The Lord shall give the word to those that preach with great power; the King of the powers of the beloved;" teaching at the same time that it is not skilfully composed discourse, nor the mode of delivery, nor well practised eloquence that produces conviction, but the communication of divine power. Hence also Paul says: "I will know not the word that is puffed up, but the power; for the kingdom of God is not in word but in power." And in another passage: "And my word and my preaching were not persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power." To this power Simon and Cleophas bear witness when they say: "Was not our heart burning within us by the way, as he opened to us the Scriptures?" And the Apostles, since the quantity of the power is great which God supplies to the speakers, had great power, according to the word of David: "The Lord will give the word to the preachers with great power."
The futures that now follow are no longer to be understood as referring to previous history; they no longer alternate with preterites. Moreover the transition to the language of address in Psa 68:14 shows that the poet here looks forth from his present time and circumstances into the future; and the introduction of the divine name אדני, after Elohim has been used eleven times, is an indication of a new commencement. The prosperous condition in which God places His church by giving it the hostile powers of the world as a spoil is depicted. The noun אמר, never occurring in the genitival relationship, and never with a suffix, because the specific character of the form would be thereby obliterat…
a great army (or a host of women) brings: The Hebrew suggests women singers caroling the good news of victory (see 68:25; Exod 15:20).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 68:11
The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it.
In the next verse we do not sing of marching, but of battle and victory. The Lord gave the word. The enemy was near, and the silver trumpet from the tabernacle door was God's mouth to warn the camp: then was there hurrying to and fro, and a general telling of the news; great was the company of those that published it. The women ran from tent to tent and roused their lords to battle. Ready as they always were to chant the victory, they were equally swift to publish the fact that the battle note had been sounded. The ten thousand maids of Israel, like good handmaids of the Lord, aroused the sleepers, called in the wande…
