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Catholic Commentary
Universal Doxology: All the Earth Sings to the God of Israel
32Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth!33to him who rides on the heaven of heavens, which are of old;34Ascribe strength to God!35You are awesome, God, in your sanctuaries.
Psalms 68:32–35 summons all earthly kingdoms to recognize and praise God's cosmic sovereignty, depicting Him as the ancient ruler who rides across the heavens. The passage concludes by emphasizing God's awesome holiness in His sanctuaries and His role in strengthening His people Israel.
The God who rides the ancient heavens demands that all earthly kingdoms bow before his throne — and the Church's mission is to make that demand real.
Verse 35 — "You are awesome, God, in your sanctuaries" The final verse moves from command to direct address — from third person ("Ascribe strength to God") to second person ("You are awesome, O God"). This is the movement of prayer itself: from speaking about God to speaking to God. "Awesome" (nora) means awe-inspiring, fear-inducing in the best sense — the tremendum of the holy. "In your sanctuaries" (mimikdashekha) — possibly "from your sanctuary" or "in your holy places," referring both to the Temple in Jerusalem and to the heavenly sanctuary of which it is the image. The verse concludes with a sweeping statement: "The God of Israel gives strength and power to his people. Praise be to God!" — a doxological coda that ties the cosmic and the particular together. The God who rides the ancient heavens is the same God who strengthens his people Israel. Universality and particularity are held in perfect tension.
Typological and Spiritual Senses In the typological reading of the Fathers, this summons to the "kingdoms of the earth" prefigures the Gentile mission of the Church. What the psalmist commands as a future hope, the Great Commission (Mt 28:19) fulfills as a present mandate. The "heaven of heavens" on which God rides finds its New Testament resonance in the Ascension of Christ (Acts 1:9–11; Heb 4:14), who ascends above all heavens and from whom strength flows down to his Body, the Church. The "sanctuaries" of verse 35, plural in the Hebrew, are typologically fulfilled in the Church's many altars spread across every nation — the universal liturgy that these very verses anticipate.
Catholic tradition reads Psalm 68 as one of the great messianic-ecclesial psalms. St. Augustine, in his Enarrationes in Psalmos, comments on the universal summons of these closing verses as the prophetic voice of the Church herself speaking across time: "This is what the Church does — she calls the kingdoms, not to herself, but through herself to God." Augustine sees the "heaven of heavens" as pointing to the transcendence of the Word who, though incarnate, never ceased to dwell in the bosom of the Father (cf. Jn 1:18).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§2639) identifies blessing and adoration as the fundamental movements of liturgical prayer, noting that "adoration is the first attitude of man acknowledging that he is a creature before his Creator." Psalm 68:34's "Ascribe strength to God!" is a paradigmatic expression of this adoration — the creature's acknowledgment that all power originates in, belongs to, and is ordered toward God.
The ecclesiological dimension of these verses was taken up by the Second Vatican Council in Lumen Gentium (§13), which speaks of the Church as gathering all peoples and tongues into one people of God — precisely the vision of "kingdoms of the earth" singing to the one God. Ad Gentes (§7) similarly roots the missionary mandate in the eschatological gathering of all nations in praise of God, which Psalm 68 prophetically images.
St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Commentary on the Psalms, notes that the final verse binds together the transcendence of God ("awesome in your sanctuaries") with his condescension to his people ("gives strength to his people") — which Aquinas identifies as the twofold mystery of divine majesty and divine mercy, perfectly united in the Incarnation. The God who rides the ancient heavens is the same God who gives his strength — ultimately himself — to his people in the Eucharist.
For the contemporary Catholic, these verses offer a powerful corrective to the tendency to treat faith as a purely private affair. The psalmist calls not individuals but kingdoms to sing — organized, public, political realities are summoned before God. This challenges the Catholic in public life to understand that their faith is not a personal preference to be bracketed when they enter civic space, but a participation in the universal Lordship that these verses proclaim.
In practical terms: when a Catholic participates in Sunday Mass, they are doing exactly what verse 32 commands — joining the one liturgy in which every tongue and nation is summoned before the God who rides the ancient heavens. The Mass is not a local event; it is the one sacrifice made present across every altar on earth, the fulfillment of the "universal doxology" this psalm anticipates.
For those who struggle with feelings of smallness or powerlessness, verse 34 is a profound consolation: the same God who is ascribed all strength is the one who, in verse 35, gives "strength and power to his people." To worship God in his omnipotence is not to be diminished — it is to receive a share in what you proclaim.
Commentary
Verse 32 — "Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth!" The imperative is breathtaking in its scope. The entire psalm has moved from the memory of the Exodus (v. 7–8), through the conquest of Canaan (v. 14–18), to the processions of worship in Zion (v. 24–27), and now explodes past the boundaries of Israel entirely. "Kingdoms" (Hebrew: mamlakhot) is a deliberately political word — not merely nations as ethnic groups, but organized powers, rulers, sovereign states. The psalmist is demanding that earthly sovereignty bow before divine sovereignty. This is not a polite invitation; it is a royal decree issued in the imperative mood. The verb shiru (sing!) is the same verb used in the great hymns of Israel (cf. Ex 15:1; Ps 96:1), now transferred to the Gentiles, who are called into the very liturgical act that was the hallmark of the covenant people. The universalism here is not a later addition but the telos toward which the whole psalm has been driving.
Verse 33 — "to him who rides on the heaven of heavens, which are of old" This verse gives the reason and the object of the commanded praise. The image of God "riding" on the heavens (rokev bishmei shamayim) echoes Deuteronomy 33:26 ("There is none like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to your help"). The "heaven of heavens" (shmei hashamayim) is a Hebrew superlative — the highest conceivable altitude of existence, the outermost vault of the cosmos as the ancient imagination understood it. "Which are of old" (mikedem) — literally, "from ancient times" or "from the east/before" — roots this rider not in a mythological moment but in primordial, pre-historical time. God's dominion is not recent or provisional; it predates every human kingdom. The psalmist is invoking creation itself as the theater of God's kingship, distinguishing Israel's God from the local or tribal deities of the surrounding nations. He does not merely dwell in Zion; he straddles the cosmos.
Verse 34 — "Ascribe strength to God!" The Hebrew tenu oz l'Elohim — "Give (or ascribe) strength to God" — is a liturgical formula also found in Psalm 29:1 and 96:7–8. The word oz (strength, might, power) is a key term in this psalm; it appears in verse 28 ("God has commanded your strength") and verse 35 ("He gives strength and power to his people"). The paradox is deliberate: God, who already possesses all power, is asked to be acknowledged in that power. The "giving" is not ontological but doxological — it is the act of recognition, proclamation, and attribution. The Gentile kingdoms are not adding to God's power; they are finally confessing what has always been true. This is the heart of liturgical praise: not informing God of something, but aligning the human will with divine reality.