1 Give thanks to Jehovah, call on His name,
Make known among the peoples His deeds.
2 Sing to Him, harp to Him,
Speak musingly of all His wonders.
3 Glory in His holy name,
Glad be the heart of them that seek Jehovah!
4 Inquire after Jehovah and His strength,
Seek His face continually.
5 Remember His wonders which He has done,
His marvels and the judgments of His mouth.
6 O seed of Abraham His servant,
Sons of Jacob, His chosen ones.
7 He, Jehovah, is our God,
In all the earth are His judgments.
8 He remembers His covenant for ever,
The word which He commanded for a thousand generations;
9 Which He made with Abraham,
And His oath to Isaac.
10 And He established it with Jacob for a statute,
To Israel for an everlasting covenant,
11 Saying, "To thee will I give the land of Canaan,
[As] your measured allotment;"
12 Whilst they were easily counted,
Very few, and but sojourners therein;
13 And they went about from nation to nation,
From [one] kingdom to another people.
14 He suffered no man to oppress them,
And reproved kings for their sakes;
15 [Saying], "Touch not Mine anointed ones,
And to My prophets do no harm."
16 And He called for a famine on the land,
Every staff of bread He broke.
17 He sent before them a man,
For a slave was Joseph sold.
18 They afflicted his feet with the fetter,
He was put in irons.
19 Till the time [when] his word came [to pass],
The promise of Jehovah tested him.
20 The king sent and loosed him,
The ruler of peoples, and let him go.
21 He made him lord over his house,
And ruler over all his substance;
22 To bind princes at his pleasure,
And to make his elders wise.
23 So Israel came to Egypt,
And Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.
24 And He made His people fruitful exceedingly,
And made them stronger than their foes.
25 He turned their heart to hate His people,
To deal craftily with His servants.
26 He sent Moses His servant,
[And] Aaron whom He had chosen.
27 They set [forth] among them His signs,
And wonders in the land of Ham.
28 He sent darkness, and made it dark,
And they rebelled not against His words.
29 He turned their waters to blood,
And slew their fish.
30 Their land swarmed [with] frogs,
In the chambers of their kings.
31 He spake and the gad-fly came,
Gnats in all their borders.
32 He gave hail [for] their rains,
Flaming fire in their land.
33 And He smote their vine and their fig-tree,
And broke the trees of their borders.
34 He spoke and the locust came,
And caterpillar-locusts without number,
35 And ate up every herb in their land,
And ate up the fruit of their ground.
36 And He smote every first-born in their land,
The firstlings of all their strength.
37 And He brought them out with silver and gold,
And there was not one among His tribes who stumbled.
38 Glad was Egypt at their departure,
For the fear of them had fallen upon them.
39 He spread a cloud for a covering,
And fire to light the night.
40 They asked and He brought quails,
And [with] bread from heaven He satisfied them.
41 He opened the rock and forth gushed waters,
They flowed through the deserts, a river.
42 For He remembered His holy word,
[And] Abraham His servant;
43 And He brought out His people [with] joy,
With glad cries His chosen [ones];
44 And He gave them the lands of the nations,
And they took possession of the toil of the peoples,
45 To the end that they might observe His statutes,
And keep His laws.
Hallelujah!
It is a reasonable conjecture that the Hallelujah at the end of
Psalm civ., where it is superfluous, properly belongs to this psalm,
which would then be assimilated to Psalm cvi., which is obviously
a companion psalm. Both are retrospective and didactic; but Psalm
cv. deals entirely with God's unfailing faithfulness to Israel,
while Psalm cvi. sets forth the sad contrast presented by Israel's
continual faithlessness to God. Each theme is made more impressive by
being pursued separately, and then set over against the other. The
long series of God's mercies massed together here confronts the dark
uniformity of Israel's unworthy requital of them there. Half of the
sky is pure blue and radiant sunshine; half is piled with unbroken
clouds. Nothing drives home the consciousness of sin so surely
as contemplation of God's loving acts. Probably this psalm, like
others of similar contents, is of late date. The habit of historical
retrospect for religious purposes is likely to belong to times remote
from the events recorded. Vv. 1-15 are found in 1 Chron. xvi. as part
of the hymn at David's setting up of the Ark on Zion. But that hymn
is unmistakably a compilation from extant psalms, and cannot be taken
as deciding the Davidic authorship of the psalm.
Vv. 1-6 are a ringing summons to extol and contemplate God's
great deeds for Israel. They are full of exultation, and, in their
reiterated short clauses, are like the joyful cries of a herald
bringing good tidings to Zion. There is a beautiful progress of
thought in these verses. They begin with the call to thank and
praise Jehovah and to proclaim His doings among the people. That
recognition of Israel's office as the world's evangelist does not
require the supposition that the nation was dispersed in captivity,
but simply shows that the singer understood the reason for the long
series of mercies heaped on it. It is significant that God's "deeds"
are Israel's message to the world. By such deeds His "name" is
spoken. What God has done is the best revelation of what God is. His
messengers are not to speak their own thoughts about Him, but to tell
the story of His acts and let these speak for Him. Revelation is not
a set of propositions, but a history of Divine facts. The foundation
of audible praise and proclamation is contemplation. Therefore the
exhortation in ver. 2_b_ follows, which means not merely "speak," but
may be translated, as in margin of the Revised Version, "meditate,"
and is probably best rendered so as to combine both ideas, "musingly
speak." Let not the words be mere words, but feel the great deeds
which you proclaim. In like manner, ver. 3 calls upon the heralds to
"glory" for themselves in the name of Jehovah, and to make efforts
to possess Him more fully and to rejoice in finding Him. Aspiration
after clearer and closer knowledge and experience of God should ever
underlie glad pealing forth of His name. If it does not, eloquent
tongues will fall silent, and Israel's proclamation will be cold and
powerless. To seek Jehovah is to find His strength investing our
feebleness. To turn our faces towards His in devout desire is to
have our faces made bright by reflected light. And one chief way of
seeking Jehovah is the remembrance of His merciful wonders of old,
"He hath made His wonderful works to be remembered" (Psalm cxi. 4),
and His design in them is that men should have solid basis for their
hopes, and be thereby encouraged to seek Him, as well as be taught
what He is. Thus the psalmist reaches his main theme, which is to
build a memorial of these deeds for an everlasting possession. The
"wonders" referred to in ver. 5 are chiefly those wrought in Egypt,
as the subsequent verses show.
Ver. 6 contains, in the names given to Israel, the reason for their
obeying the preceding summonses. Their hereditary relation to God
gives them the material, and imposes on them the obligation and the
honour, of being "secretaries of God's praise." In ver. 6_a_ "His
servant" may be intended to designate the nation, as it often does in
Isa. xl.-lxvi. "His chosen ones" in ver. 6_b_ would then be an exact
parallel; but the recurrence of the expression in ver. 42, with the
individual reference, makes that reference more probable here.
The fundamental fact underlying all Israel's experience of God's
care is His own loving will, which, self-moved, entered into
covenant obligations, so that thereafter His mercies are ensured by
His veracity, no less than by His kindness. Hence the psalm begins
its proper theme by hymning the faithfulness of God to His oath,
and painting the insignificance of the beginnings of the nation,
as showing that the ground of God's covenant relation was laid in
Himself, not in them. Israel's consciousness of holding a special
relation to God never obscured, in the minds of psalmists and
prophets, the twin truth that all the earth waited on Him, and was
the theatre of His manifestations. Baser souls might hug themselves
on their prerogative. The nobler spirits ever confessed that it
laid on them duties to the world, and that God had not left Himself
without witness in any land. These two truths have often been rent
asunder, both in Israel and in Christendom, but each needs the other
for its full comprehension. "Jehovah is our God" may become the
war-cry of bitter hostility to them that are without, or of contempt,
which is quite as irreligious. "In all the earth are His judgments"
may lead to a vague theism, incredulous of special revelation. He who
is most truly penetrated with the first will be most joyfully ready
to proclaim the second of these sister-thoughts, and will neither
shut up all God's mercies within the circle of revelation, nor lose
sight of His clearest utterances while looking on His more diffused
and less perfect ones.
The obligations under which God has come to Israel are represented
as a covenant, a word and an oath. In all the general idea of
explicit declaration of Divine purpose, which henceforth becomes
binding on God by reason of His faithfulness, is contained; but the
conception of a _covenant_ implies mutual obligations, failure to
discharge which on one side relieves the other contracting party
from his promise, while that of a _word_ simply includes the notion
of articulate utterance, and that of an _oath_ adds the thought of
a solemn sanction and a pledge given. God swears by Himself--that
is, His own character is the guarantee of His promise. These various
designations are thus heaped together, in order to heighten the
thought of the firmness of His promise. It stands "for ever," "to a
thousand generations"; it is an "everlasting covenant." The psalmist
triumphs, as it were, in the manifold repetition of it. Each of the
fathers of the nation had it confirmed to himself,--Abraham; Isaac
when, ready to flee from the land in famine, he had renewed to
him (Gen. xxvi. 3) the oath which he had first heard as he stood,
trembling but unharmed, by the rude altar where the ram lay in his
stead (Gen. xxii. 16); Jacob as he lay beneath the stars at Bethel.
With Jacob (Israel) the singer passes from the individuals to the
nation, as is shown by the alternation of "thee" and "you" in ver. 11.
The lowly condition of the recipients of the promise not only exalts
the love which chose them, but the power which preserved them and
fulfilled it. And if, as may be the case, the psalm is exilic or
post-exilic, its picture of ancient days is like a mirror, reflecting
present depression and bidding the downcast be of good cheer. He who
made a strong nation out of that little horde of wanderers must have
been moved by His own heart, not by anything in them; and what He
did long ago He can do to-day. God's past is the prophecy of God's
future. Literally rendered, ver. 12_a_ runs "Whilst they were men of
number," _i.e._, easily numbered (Gen. xxxiv. 30, where Jacob uses
the same phrase). "Very few" in _b_ is literally "like a little,"
and may either apply to number or to worth. It is used in the latter
sense, in reference to "the heart of the wicked," in Prov. x. 20, and
may have the same meaning here. That little band of wanderers, who
went about as sojourners among the kinglets of Canaan and Philistia,
with occasional visits to Egypt, seemed very vulnerable; but God
was, as He had promised to the first of them at a moment of extreme
peril, their "shield," and in their lives there were instances of
strange protection afforded them, which curbed kings, as in the case
of Abram in Egypt (Gen. xii.) and Gerar (Gen. xx.), and of Isaac in
the latter place (Gen. xxvi.). The patriarchs were not, technically
speaking, "anointed," but they had that of which anointing was but
a symbol. They were Divinely set apart and endowed for their tasks,
and, as consecrated to God's service, their persons were inviolable.
In a very profound sense all God's servants are thus anointed, and
are "immortal till their work is done." "Prophets" in the narrower
sense of the word the patriarchs were not, but Abraham is called
so by God in one of the places already referred to (Gen. xx. 7).
Prior to prophetic utterance is prophetic inspiration; and these
men received Divine communications, and were, in a special degree,
possessed of the counsels of Heaven. The designation is equivalent
to Abraham's name of the "friend of God." Thus both titles, which
guaranteed a charmed, invulnerable life to their bearers, go deep
into the permanent privileges of God-trusting souls. All such "have
an anointing from the Holy One," and receive whispers from His lips.
They are all under the ægis of His protection, and for their sakes
kings of many a dynasty and age have been rebuked.
In vv. 16-22 the history of Joseph is poetically and summarily
treated, as a link in the chain of providences which brought about
the fulfilment of the Covenant. Possibly the singer is thinking about
a captive Israel in the present, while speaking about a captive
Joseph in the past. In God's dealings humiliation and affliction are
often, he thinks, the precursors of glory and triumph. Calamities
prepare the way for prosperity. So it was in that old time; and so
it is still. In this _résumé_ of the history of Joseph, the points
signalised are God's direct agency in the whole--the errand on which
Joseph was sent ("before them") as a forerunner to "prepare a place
for them," the severity of his sufferings, the trial of his faith by
the contrast which his condition presented to what God had promised,
and his final exaltation. The description of Joseph's imprisonment
adds some dark touches to the account in Genesis, whether these are
due to poetic idealising or to tradition. In ver. 18_b_ some would
translate "Iron came over his soul." So Delitzsch, following the
Vulgate ("Ferrum pertransiit animam ejus"), and the picturesque
Prayer-Book Version, "The iron entered into his soul." But the
original is against this, as the word for _iron_ is masculine and the
verb is feminine, agreeing with the feminine noun _soul_. The clause
is simply a parallel to the preceding. "His soul" is best taken as
a mere periphrasis for _he_, though it may be used emphatically to
suggest that "his soul entered, whole and entire, in its resolve to
obey God, into the cruel torture" (Kay). The meaning is conveyed by
the free rendering above.
Ver. 19 is also ambiguous, from the uncertainty as to whose word is
intended in _a_. It may be either God's or Joseph's. The latter is
the more probable, as there appears to be an intentional contrast
between "His word" in _a_, and "the promise of Jehovah" in _b_. If this
explanation is adopted, a choice is still possible between Joseph's
interpretation of his fellow-prisoners' dreams, the fulfilment of
which led to his liberation, and his earlier word recounting his own
dreams, which led to his being sold by his brethren. In any case, the
thought of the verse is a great and ever true one, that God's promise,
while it remains unfulfilled, and seems contradicted by present facts,
serves as a test of the genuineness and firmness of a man's reliance
on Him and it. That promise is by the psalmist almost personified, as
putting Joseph to the test. Such testing is the deepest meaning of all
afflictions. Fire will burn off a thin plating of silver from a copper
coin and reveal the base metal beneath, but it will only brighten into
a glow the one which is all silver.
There is a ring of triumph in the singer's voice as he tells of the
honour and power heaped on the captive, and of how the king of many
nations "sent," as the mightier King in heaven had done (vv. 20 and
17), and not only liberated but exalted him, giving him, whose soul
had been bound in fetters, power to "bind princes according to his
soul," and to instruct and command the elders of Egypt.
Vv. 23-27 carry on the story to the next step in the evolution of
God's purposes. The long years of the sojourn in Egypt are summarily
dealt with, as they are in the narrative in Genesis and Exodus, and the
salient points of its close alone are touched--the numerical growth of
the people, the consequent hostility of the Egyptians, and the mission
of Moses and Aaron. The direct ascription to God of all the incidents
mentioned is to be noted. The psalmist sees only one hand moving, and
has no hesitation in tracing to God the turning of the Egyptians'
hearts to hatred. Many commentators, both old and new, try to weaken
the expression, by the explanation that the hatred was "indirectly
the work of God, inasmuch as He lent increasing might to the people"
(Delitzsch). But the psalmist means much more than this, just as Exodus
does in attributing the hardening of Pharaoh's heart to God.
Ver. 27, according to the existing text, breaks the series of verses
beginning with a singular verb of which God is the subject, which
stretch with only one other interruption from ver. 24 to ver. 37. It
seems most probable, therefore, that the LXX. is right in reading
_He_ instead of _They_. The change is but the omission of one
letter, and the error supposed is a frequent one. The word literally
means _set_ or _planted_, and _did_ is an explanation rather than a
rendering. The whole expression is remarkable. Literally, we should
translate "He" (or "They") "set among them words" (or "matters")
"of His signs"; but this would be unintelligible, and we must have
recourse to reproduction of the meaning rather than of the words.
If "words of His signs" is not merely pleonastic, it may be rendered,
as by Kay, "His long record of signs," or as by Cheyne, "His varied
signs." But it is better to take the expression as suggesting that
the _miracles_ were indeed _words_, as being declarations of God's
will and commands to let His people go. The phrase in ver. 5, "the
judgments of His mouth," would then be roughly parallel. God's deeds
are words. His signs have tongues. "He speaks and it is done"; but
also, "He does and it is spoken." The expression, however, may be
like Psalm lxv. 4, where the same form of phrase is applied to sins,
and where it seems to mean "deeds of iniquity." It would then mean
here "His works which were signs."
The following enumeration of the "signs" does not follow the order
in Exodus, but begins with the ninth plague, perhaps because of its
severity, and then in the main adheres to the original sequence,
though it inverts the order of the third and forth plagues (flies and
gnats or mosquitoes, not "lice") and omits the fifth and sixth. The
reason for this divergence is far from clear, but it may be noted
that the first two in the psalmist's order attack the elements; the
next three (frogs, flies, gnats) have to do with animal life; and the
next two (hail and locusts), which embrace both these categories, are
considered chiefly as affecting vegetable products. The emphasis is
laid in all on God's direct act. _He_ sends darkness, _He_ turns the
waters into blood, and so on. The only other point needing notice
in these verses is the statement in ver. 28_b_. "They rebelled not
against His word," which obviously is true only in reference to Moses
and Aaron, who shrank not from their perilous embassage.
The tenth plague is briefly told, for the psalm is hurrying on to
the triumphant climax of the Exodus, when, enriched with silver and
gold, the tribes went forth, strong for their desert march, and Egypt
rejoiced to see the last of them, "for they said, We be all dead men"
(Exod. xii. 33). There may be a veiled hope in this exultant picture
of the Exodus, that present oppression will end in like manner. The
wilderness sojourn is so treated in ver. 39 _sqq._ as to bring into
sight only the leading instances, sung in many psalms, of God's
protection, without one disturbing reference to the sins and failures
which darkened the forty years. These are spread out at length, without
flattery or minimising, in the next psalm; but here the theme is
God's wonders. Therefore, the pillar of cloud which guided, covered,
and illumined the camp, the miracles which provided food and water,
are touched on in vv. 39-41, and then the psalmist gathers up the
lessons which he would teach in three great thoughts. The reason for
God's merciful dealings with His people is His remembrance of His
covenant, and of His servant Abraham, whose faith made a claim on God,
for the fulfilment which would vindicate it. That covenant has been
amply fulfilled, for Israel came forth with ringing songs, and took
possession of lands which they had not tilled, and houses which they
had not built. The purpose of covenant and fulfilment is that the
nation, thus admitted into special relations with God, should by His
mercies be drawn to keep His commandments, and in obedience find rest
and closer fellowship with its God. The psalmist had learned that God
gives before He demands or commands, and that "Love," springing from
grateful reception of His benefits, "is the fulfilling of the Law." He
anticipates the full Christian exhortation, "I beseech you, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice."