Here I Raise Mine Ebenezer

Meditations on Christ in the Psalms 

October 6, 2022

Here I Raise Mine Ebenezer

Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up;

God is our salvation.

Selah

Psalm 68:19 (NRSV)

“Here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by thy help I’m come;” is the opening line of the second stanza of the great hymn, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” I immediately started singing that line as I read Psalm 68. The word Ebenezer means "stone of help" and was the name of a monument raised by the prophet Samuel, saying, "Thus far has the Lord helped us" (1 Sam. 7:12). In Psalm 68, the psalmist is remembering many of Israel’s Ebenezer’s, the many monuments to help her remember the great acts of God on behalf of His people.

The psalm may be one of the oldest record of liturgies used by the Jews in their worship of God. Verse one is recalling the words of Moses, as recorded in Numbers 10:35, “And whenever the Ark set out, Moses would shout, “Arise, O Lord, and let your enemies be scattered! Let them flee before you!” Tradition holds that King David wrote this psalm; however, the reference to the Temple, which was not built until well after David’s death, suggests the psalm was amended in its use over time. The Apostle Paul quotes this psalm in Ephesians 4:8 and points us to the ultimate fulfillment of this psalm in the ascension of Jesus.

How does this psalm help us on our journey seeking the life in Christ as our way of life? I suggest we stand and read the psalm out loud, as if we were reading the psalm in a worship service. Allow yourself to get caught up in the rhythms and prose. I believe you will get a heightened sense of our very dynamic God. The Apostle Paul says that God is at work in our lives (Philippines 2:13). This psalm can help you appreciate that God is at WORK in YOUR life, not in some passive way, but in active, vigorous, energetic, and dynamic ways.

Psalm 68 is also a reminder of the importance for each of us to keep a catalog of our own, personal, Ebenezer’s. After we stand and read Psalm 68 let’s take time to write our own psalm of praise thanking God for all the ways He has shown himself strong in our life.

My Takeaway: We can close our psalm with an outpouring of praise for God’s ultimate work in our life, as suggested by the second stanza of the Ebenezer hymn.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;

hither by thy help I’m come;

and I hope, by thy good pleasure,

safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

wandering from the fold of God;

he, to rescue me from danger,

interposed his precious blood.

“Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”

(Robert Robinson, 1758)

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2022 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.