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Psalms 68:4

King James Version (KJV)

“In our prayers we talk to God, in our Bible study God talks to us, and we had better let God do most of the talking.”
— D.L. Moody

Scripture focus

Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH, and rejoice before him.

Psalms 68:4 — KJV

Commentary

Commentary on Psalms 68:4

Theological / Devotional

Extol. From the Heb. salal, which has the basic meaning, “to lift up,” “to exalt.”

That rideth upon the heavens. The Heb. rokeb ba‘araboth has presented many difficulties of interpretation. The KJV translation “heavens” for ‘araboth is remarkable inasmuch as in every other instance ‘arabah apparently means “desert.” However, in Ugaritic, where ‘arabah is spelled with a p instead of a b, the word means “clouds.” The Ugaritic vowelless term rkb ‘rpt, “rider of the clouds,” is a frequently occurring epithet of Baal. Thus by their rendering “heavens,” the translators of the KJV came remarkably close to what is now believed to be a true definition of the term.

Jah. Heb. Yah, a short form for Yahweh (see Ex. 6:3; Vol. I, pp. 171–173; see on Ex. 15:2). This is the only occurrence of the English short form “Jah” in the KJV.

By SdaBc