John Calvin Commentary Psalms 68:7

"O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, When thou didst march through the wilderness; Selah" — Psalms 68:7 (ASV)

O God! when you went forth before your people, etc. The Psalmist now proceeds to show that divine goodness is principally displayed in the Church, which God has selected as the great theater where his fatherly care may be manifested. What follows is evidently added in order to lead the descendants of Abraham, as the Lord’s chosen people, to apply the observations that had just been made to themselves.

The deliverance from Egypt having been the chief and lasting pledge of divine favor, which practically ratified their adoption under the patriarch, he briefly refers to that event. He implies that in that remarkable exodus, proof had been given to all succeeding ages of the love which God had for his Church.

Why were so many miracles performed? Why were heaven and earth put into commotion? Why were the mountains made to tremble—if not so that all might recognize the power of God as allied with the deliverance of his people? He represents God as having been their leader in leading them out.

And this was not merely in reference to their passage of the Red Sea, but also to their journeys while they wandered in the wilderness. When he speaks of the earth being moved, he does not seem to allude entirely to what occurred at the giving of the law, but to the fact that, throughout their entire journey, the course of nature was repeatedly altered, as if the very elements had trembled at the presence of the Lord.

It was upon Mount Sinai, however, that God displayed the chief manifestations of his awe-inspiring power; it was there that thunders were heard in heaven, and the air was filled with lightning. Accordingly, it is mentioned here by name as having presented the most glorious spectacle of divine majesty that was ever witnessed.

Some read, This Sinai, etc., connecting the pronoun זה, zeh, with the mountain named here. However, it is much more emphatic to join it with the preceding clause and to read, the heavens dropped at the presence of This God; David’s meaning is to commend the excellence of the God of Israel.

The expression is one frequently used by the prophets to denote that the God worshipped by the descendants of Abraham was the true God, and the religion delivered in his law no delusion, as in Isaiah 25:9, “This, this is our God, and he will save us.” To establish the Lord’s people in their faith, David leads them, as it were, into the very presence of God. He indicates that they were not left to such vague uncertainties as the pagans were, and indirectly censures the folly of the world in forsaking the knowledge of the true God and fashioning its own imaginary deities of wood and stone, of gold and silver.