The battle in Judges 4 and 5, explains the psalmist, is a prototype of the great battle at Calvary!
Reading Psalm 68, you can’t help but hear the hoofbeats of Heaven galloping across history. Stanza 1 (vv 1-6) shows God leaving His throne room and riding “on the clouds” (v 4) to rescue His fallen creation. Stanza 2 (vv 7-10) reveals His plan to select Abraham and his descendants, the nation of Israel. With them He “marched through the wilderness” (v 7), and “Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God” (v 8). Stanza 3 (vv 11-14) presents the conquest of Canaan. God gives them “the word” (v 11), and “the Almighty scattered kings” (v 14) in taking it. Now we come to the Messianic Stanza 4 (vv 15-18). In discussing the story from which this illustration is taken in Judges 4–5, we wrote: “Mount Tabor is a sugarloaf shape; even today tour buses can’t get up its steep slopes. So obviously Barak and his troops were safe at the summit as long as they stayed there. But they could only lead captive those who held Israel captive if they were willing to trust God, come down in weakness, and see the salvation of the Lord.” Ephesians 4:9-10 explains: “Now this, ‘He ascended’—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.” I believe “the lower parts of the earth” refers to the humbling of His birth (see Ps 139:15), not some visit to hell imagined by commentators. In Judges, a few farm boys with pitchforks were no match for Sisera’s chariots. But what they didn’t see was God’s invisible army. “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of thousands” (Ps 68:17), just as Jesus reminded Peter when they seemed vastly outnumbered (Mt 26:53). Let’s remember that, too (Heb 1:14)!