John Calvin Commentary Psalms 68:22

"The Lord said, I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring [them] again from the depths of the sea;" — Psalms 68:22 (ASV)

The Lord said, I will bring back from Bashan. So that the Israelites might not be led to take an irreligious and self-glorious view of their victories, so that they might look to God as the author of them, and rest assured of His protection in the future, David directs them back to the earliest periods of their history and reminds them how their fathers had been originally brought by the victorious hand of God out of the lowest depths of trouble.

He wanted them to reason that if God rescued His people at first from giants and from the depths of the Red Sea, they should not imagine He would desert them in similar dangers, but instead be certain that He would defend them in every emergency that might occur.

The prophets, as is well known, are in the constant habit of illustrating the mercy of God by reference to the history of Israel’s redemption, so that the Lord’s people, by looking back to their great original deliverance, might find a reason for expecting future interventions. To make a deeper impression, God is introduced speaking Himself.

In what He says, God may be considered as asserting His Divine prerogative of raising the dead to life again, for His people’s passage through the Red Sea and their victory over warlike giants was a type of resurrection.

Some read, I will cause the enemy to fly from Bashan; but this reading cannot be accepted, as it does not agree with the context, particularly since it is followed by, I will bring back from the depths of the sea.

In representing God as bedewed or stained with blood, David does not ascribe to Him anything like cruelty, but intends to show the Lord’s people how dear and precious they are in His sight, considering the zeal He manifests in their defense.

We know that David himself was far from being a man of cruel disposition and that he rejoiced in the destruction of the wicked from the purest and most upright motives, as it provided a display of Divine judgments. What is here ascribed to God may also be asserted equally of His Church or people, for the vengeance with which the wicked are punished is inflicted by their hands.

Some interpret the end of the verse as: the tongue of thy dogs in thine enemies, even in him, i.e., the king and chief of them all. This is not the Psalmist’s meaning, which is simply that the tongues of the dogs would be red from licking blood, so great would be the number of dead bodies scattered around.