Psalms 68:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Sing unto God, &c.— Sing unto God; celebrate his name in songs: prepare the way for Him who rideth through the deserts; his name is JAH, and exult ye before him. Chandler. See Isaiah 40:2. The Psalmist here alludes to the passage of the Israelites through the desart, in their way to the Promised Land; and describes it in many of its principal circumstances in the following verses. God is said to ride, or be carried through the desarts, as the ark of his presence was carried through them, and accompanied the Israelites in all their various stages, during their continuance and pilgrimage in them. As to the derivation and proper sense of this name of God, Jah, learned interpreters differ greatly. Some derive it from היה haiah, he was, he existed, abbreviated from the future יהיה ieheieh: others take it to be a contraction from יהוה iehovah, Jehovah: But Dr. Chandler thinks with Schultens, that it comes from a word used in the Arabic dialect to denote a religious fear and reverence; according to which, Jah will denote the awful Deity, worthy of all reverence and fear. I cannot, however, help thinking myself, that it signifies more properly, He that is, simply and absolutely. See John 8:58 and Parkhurst on the word.