The Lord gave the word: great was the company of the preachers. (Psalm 68:11)

The New Revised Standard Version offers: The Lord gave the command; great was the company of women who bore the tidings.

The King James Version, completed in 1611, reads: The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it.

The 1917 Jewish Publication Society translation is "The Lord giveth the word; the women that proclaim the tidings are a great host."

The New American Standard is very close to the JPS translation, but adds "good" tidings.

I expect Jennens was adapting the King James version. Preachers is easer to score than "the company of those that published it."

Jennens may not have considered the original Hebrew. I wonder what he and Handel might have done with a great host of women proclaiming good tidings.

You can listen to - the rather obscure - chorus of The Lord Gave the Word performed by the Academy of St. Martin's in the Fields