Psalms 68:17 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The chariots of God are twenty thousand Nor let the heathen boast of their hosts or armies, or of the multitude of their chariots, wherein chiefly their strength consists; for in Zion there are ten thousand times more, even innumerable hosts of angels, who attend upon God, to do his pleasure, and to fight for him and for his people. Twenty thousand here stands for an innumerable company, a certain number being put for an uncertain. The Lord is among them And here is not only the presence of the angels, but of the great and blessed God himself; in Sinai as in the holy place God is no less gloriously, though less terribly, present here than he was in Sinai, when, attended with thousands of his angels, he solemnly appeared there to deliver the law. Hebrew, סיני בקדשׁ, sinai bakodesh, literally, Sinai is in the sanctuary, or holy place, which is a poetical, and a very emphatical expression, and very pertinent to this place. For, having advanced Zion above all other hills, he now equals it to that venerable hill of Sinai, which the divine majesty honoured with his glorious presence. Here, says he, you have, in some sort, mount Sinai itself, namely, all the glories and privileges of it, the presence of Jehovah, attended with his angels, and the same law and covenant, yea, and a greater privilege than Sinai had, to wit, the Lord descending from heaven into a human body, as appears by his ascending thither again, which the next verse describes. For here the psalmist seems evidently to be transported by the prophetic spirit, from the narration of those external successes and victories, of which he had been speaking in the former part of the Psalm, unto the prediction of higher and more glorious things, even of the coming of the Messiah, and of the happy and transcendent privileges and blessings accruing to mankind thereby. And the connection of this new matter with the former is sufficiently apparent. For the preference of Zion to other places having been stated, Psalms 68:15-16, he now proves its excellence by an invincible argument; it was the place to which the Lord of hosts himself, the Messiah, God manifest in the flesh, was to come; and, when he came, was to be attended by a multitude of angels, celebrating his birth, ministering to him in his temptation, attesting his resurrection, and accompanying him in his ascension.