[or, shall hasten to stretch out] her hands unto God. 32. Sing unto
COMMENTARY ON PSALMS - VOLUME 2 no doubt his intention to influence the minds of the people of God to the contrary dispositions of clemency and mercy, as being that frame of spirit in the exercise of which they might expect to receive the Divine assistance. The more violently their enemies raged, and the more lawless their attempts might prove, they had only the more reason to expect the interposition of God, who humbles the proud and the mighty ones of this world. Such being the character of God, let us learn from this prayer of David to resort to him with confidence when the objects at any time of unmerited persecution, and to believe that he is able to deliver us at once from all our enemies.
Psalm 68:31-35
31. Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out [or, shall hasten to stretch out] her hands unto God. 32. Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth: sing praises to the Lord. Selah. 33. To him that rideth upon the heaven of heavens, which were of old, [literally the heavens of ancientness;] lo! he shall send forth in his voice a mighty voice. 34. Give strength unto God over Israel; his excellency and his strength are in the clouds. 35. O God! thou art terrible out of thy holy places: the God of Israel himself shall give strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God!
31. Princes shall come out of Egypt. He resumes the strain of thanksgiving, and confirms what he had previously asserted, that kings would come and pay tribute unto God. The examples which he brings forward are those and he supposes that the poet alludes to the floors in the palaces of the Oriental kings, which were paved with silver. Dr Jubb renders the phrase, "who excite themselves with fragments of silver;" and considers the allusion to be to the dancing of the Egyptians before their idol-calves, with the tinkling instruments called Sistra. That they were accustomed to dance before these idols is evident from Exodus 32:6, where we are taught that the people of Israel, in imitation of the Egyptian idolatry, rose up to shout and dance before the golden calf; for such is the meaning of the words, "they rose up to play," as appears from verses 17, 18, and 19. And that they used the sistrum in religious feasts, Herodotus informs us in the second book of his History. The words, pieces of silver, according to Jubb, signify the little loose pieces of metal with which the sistrum was hung round, which produced the jingling noise when the instrument was played upon. This description fits the Egyptians; and that it really belongs to them may be inferred, with some degree of probability, from the following verse, where it is said, "Princes shall come out of Egypt," as if the subjugation of this nation, imprecated in the preceding verse, were here supposed complete. Tucker has here a very good remark. "David," says he, "invokes the Messiah to bring down the power of Egypt; but in his abhorrence of their idolatry, deigns not to designate them except in the most contemptuous terms. He says not, Rebuke the assembly of those who worship bulls and calves, and dance round altars to the sound of instruments of silver, but he classes the people on a par with the idols which they worshipped, — 'the assembly of bulls and calves, who dance to bits (or pieces) of silver.'"
"The sistrum was of an oval figure, or a dilated semicircle, in the shape of a shoulderbelt, with brass wires across, which played in holes wherein they were stopped by their flat heads. The performer played on it by shaking the sistrum in cadence, and thereby the brass wires made a shrill and loud noise." — Mant.