Psalm 68
Let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God: yea, let them exceedingly rejoice.
Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH, and rejoice before him.
A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.
God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.
O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness. . . .
The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary.
Thy congregation hath dwelt therein: thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor.
The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it. . . .
The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.
Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.
Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. . . .
He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death. . . .
Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth; O sing praises unto the Lord; . . .
To him that rideth upon the heavens of heavens, which were of old; lo, he doth send out his voice, and that a mighty voice.
Ascribe ye strength unto God: his excellency is over Israel, and his strength is in the clouds.
O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places: the God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God.
This is a particularly specific Messianic psalm in that verse 4 refers to “JAH,” a variation of the more frequently rendered “yhwh” in Jewish literature. These are two of several abbreviated spellings of the name of God—traditionally “Jehovah” or the more literal transliteration “Yahweh”—the full spelling or enunciation of which was forbidden to the children of Israel. (The shorthand rule was to simply drop the vowels and leave enough identifying consonants for the reader to identify the figure being spoken of.) This is, of course, the premortal Jesus Christ, the God who delivers ancient Israel out of bondage in Egypt, and the “Lord” to which many of the Psalmist’s prayers for personal or political deliverance are directed. In this regard, however, it is important to note that the Psalmist frequently appeals to Elohim. The word used for “God” in Genesis 1:1—“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” is a plural noun referring to “Gods” and is the traditional Latter-day Saint term for God the Father. Thus the singularly unified relationship of the Father and the Son is evident in the psalms and elsewhere in the Old Testament.224
In this psalm, “JAH” is the “father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows,” a God who “hast prepared of [His] goodness for the poor.” Such phrases, of course, highlight elements that would become conspicuous in the teachings of Jesus when He came to minister in mortality. In reading such a passage, it is almost impossible not to think immediately of James’s succinct definition of Christ’s message: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”225
Of course, even as “Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel” (Jehovah), so will death and hell be “moved” by the presence and power of this same God, He who has and will “[lead] captivity captive.” Paul would note this passage in his letter to the Ephesians, reassuring those readers there (exactly as the Prophet Joseph Smith did from Liberty Jail) that Christ would ascend up “far above all heavens” because He had paid the price to “[descend] first into the lower parts of the earth.”226 Truly “He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death. . . . The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God.”
Notes
^224. For a useful discussion of the names for “God” in the psalms specifically and the Old Testament generally, see Richard P. Belcher, Jr., The Messiah and Psalms (2006), especially pages 8,
159.