32 Ye kingdoms of the earth, sing to God; Harp [unto] the Lord; Selah. 33 To Him who rides on the heavens of heavens, [which are] of old; Lo, He utters His voice, a voice of strength. 34 Ascribe to God strength, Whose majesty is over Israel, and His strength in the clouds. 35 Dread [art Thou], O God, from Thy sanctuaries, The God of Israel, He gives strength and fulness of might to His people. Blessed be God! This superb hymn is unsurpassed, if not unequalled, in grandeur, lyric fire, and sustained rush of triumphant praise. It celebrates a victory; but it is the victory of the God who enters as a conqueror into His sanctuary. To that entrance (vv. 15-18) all the preceding part of the psalm leads up; and from it all the subsequent part flows down. The Exodus is recalled as the progress of a king at the head of his hosts, and old pæans re-echo. That dwelling of God in the sanctuary is "for ever." Therefore in the second part of the psalm (vv. 19-35) its consequences for the psalmist's generation and for the future are developed--Israel's deliverance, the conquest of the nations, and finally the universal recognition of God's sovereignty and ringing songs sent up to Him. The Davidic authorship is set aside as impossible by most recent commentators, and there is much in the psalm which goes against it; but, on the other hand, the Syro-Ammonite war (2 Sam. xi.), in which the ark was taken into the field, is not unnaturally supposed by Delitzsch and others to explain the special reference to the entrance of God into the sanctuary. The numerous quotations and allusions are urged as evidence of late date, especially the undeniable resemblance with Isaiah II. But the difficulty of settling which of two similar passages is original and which copy is great; and if by one critical canon such allusions are marks of lateness, by another, rugged obscurities, such as those with which this psalm bristles, are evidences of an early date. The mention of only four tribes in ver. 27 is claimed as showing that the psalm was written when Judæa and Galilee were the only orthodox districts, and central Palestine was in the hands of the Samaritans. But could there be any talk of "princes of Zebulun and Naphtali" then? The exultant tone of the psalm makes its ascription to such a date as the age of the Ptolemies unlikely, when "Israel is too feeble, too depressed, to dream of self-defence; and, if God does not soon interpose, will be torn to pieces" (Cheyne, "Aids to the Devout Study," etc., 335).