Psalms 105

Psalms 105:1-45

The story of His ways as with His people. The last two psalms of the book show us God’s ways with His people, and (in confession on their part) their ways with Him, which had necessitated the discipline of His hand. But this has done its work, and they are thus ready for the final blessing, the principles and character of which we find fully in the fifth book. These two psalms are naturally therefore of very simple character, a review of Israel’s history as already known to us in the books of Moses, with a mere glance at the after events when in the land. In fact the story of the wilderness is typical of all the rest; just as Israel as a nation is but a sample of man generally, -the “heart of man” anywhere being but the full, fair reflection of “man” at large. The hundred and fifth psalm is not the story of God’s governmental ways with Israel as a whole, but simply of that which has to do with His action on their behalf, mainly in the deliverance in Egypt, and ending with their possession of the land. One verse alone declares this last.

1. The first section; in seven verses, calls for the celebration of Jehovah their God, as known in His glorious deeds. His Name is holy. His power is needed by human frailty. The “judgments of His mouth” interpret His acts, and make them illustration of His perfect ways. To this glorious God His people stand in relation as the “seed of Abraham His servant” the one marked by his history for his obedience as such.

They are “the children” too, “of Jacob His chosen”: whose history is of another character, and shows the struggle of a soul in the hand of God, whom it knows, but too little knows. And this necessitates those dealings of God with it, by which at last an Israel emerges out of a Jacob. These struggles and this divine discipline are, as easily seen, the type of the nation’s history afterward. They are but a too faithful reproduction of their father; while the victorious grace of God will not cease toward them, until in them also He has produced an Israel indeed. And this is “Jehovah our God,” whose “judgments,” essentially of the same character, “are in all the earth.” 2. The psalmist goes on to speak of the covenant-relation in which He stands to them. It is an abiding one: He is ever mindful of it; He has commanded it to a thousand generations -a round number, as it would seem, for as many as may be (comp. Deuteronomy 7:9). Made with Abraham; and with an oath to Isaac, He confirmed it to Jacob for a decree unalterable, and to Israel as an everlasting covenant. Here the double name, and used evidently with regard to the people as well as to the father of their twelve tribes, has (as always) its significance.

To Jacob, with all the frailty and sinfulness that the word implies, it takes nevertheless the form of a decree, the fixed expression of His absolute will; with Israel, in whom as such His transforming power is realized, it is an everlasting covenant. He works thus in perfect sovereignty, and according to the holiness of His own nature. According to this covenant the land is secured to them; and was so when they were in it as sojourners only, a few people and in men’s account of no consideration. 3. The next section; briefly but effectively, shows how in their after-history Jehovah was a sanctuary to them: according, indeed, to the care He had shown for Abraham, when Abraham himself also had been sadly untrue to the promise which had been given him; in yielding up the designated mother of the seed to be, into the hands of the Philistine king (Genesis 20:1-18), and here He owns His “prophet” in the one who had so failed. This was but a sample of how He had come in for the nation in whom He had set the mouth-pieces of His revelation to man. And here is the declaration of those larger purposes of His which connect themselves with this people, set apart not for their own blessing merely, as not at all on account of righteousness in them, but in grace towards all the sons of men. 4. The fourth section naturally speaks of trial; but while the famine which came upon the land in Jacob’s time is the occasion of it, the psalmist goes on to show how God had provided for it by one sent before them into Egypt to be His servant in the service of man: one himself fully tried, and made to realize what in a world like this such service means; tried too by that word of Jehovah which in him as the Spirit of prophecy had announced His exaltation; and which at last came to pass. In Joseph we have, as every one knows, the type of the Lord Jesus, in whom God has provided indeed for blessing, both to Israel and the earth, and deliverance out of the great trial that is coming for both. The divine issue came at last for him: loosed from his chains, he is made the lord of Egypt, with fullness of power based upon fullness of wisdom. Such an One, but far transcending Joseph, shall the world find at last. 5. But Israel’s coming into Egypt was only their introduction into manifold experiences, in which they found exercise indeed, but God manifesting Himself with them in that which fell upon the mightiest power of that day, -signs which Israel themselves could ever look back to with thanksgiving and for the renewal of confidence, and which are to be repeated in their deliverance in the last days (Micah 7:15, and comp. Revelation 16:1-21), and are the necessary humiliation of all the pride of the world and its idols before God, when the day of the Lord succeeds man’s day. (a) Two verses show the occasion of these trials. First, “Israel came into Egypt”: the people of God, graced by the purpose of God, were in the land of “double straitness,” the place of the conflict between the desert and the river, -of life struggling with death; alas, the land of Ham; the “sun-darkened,” a darkness upon which the light shone and it comprehended it not. The people of God are in a world opposed to God; hence necessarily in opposition to them as that; but then this people of God are themselves looked at from another side, -“Jacob”: and Jacob, though but a sojourner in the land of Ham, is in danger from more than opposition. He needs all the exercise through which he is made to pass. They increase greatly, through the favor of God, and become stronger than their enemies, as Pharaoh’s own words declare (Exodus 1:9). And here is the way, doubtless, in which we are to interpret the verse following: “He turned their heart to hate His people.” It needs no more than that the favor of God should be thus manifested, to set the tide of opposition in full force. (b) The opposition and God’s intervention for them are next spoken of. Moses is sent, and Aaron; and signs and wonders show unmistakably the broad seal of their commission. (c) The order in which the miracles are given is different from the historical one. For this, of course, there must be a reason. It would seem that we have a classification of them in two divisions: first, the signs proper, those whose force lay for the most part in their testimony to the conscience; the second consists rather of those that really prostrated the land -miracles of destruction that made Egypt desolate. Among the signs proper, the darkness is put at the head, the light of heaven withdrawn: one of those things which would appeal most strongly to the conscience of man as supernatural; and which to the Egyptians, who made the night especially a sign of the prevalence of evil, and for whom the sun was the great deity, would be a cause of the greatest consternation. In fact, they moved not from their seats during the three days it lasted: a thing to which the psalmist refers here when he says, “they rebelled not against His word.” To refer this (with most interpreters) to the Israelite leaders, in contrast with their conduct at the waters of Meribah, seems quite opposed to the connection. Nor can it refer to the final submission of the Egyptians; here they were appalled into perfect stillness -no doubt, only for the time: but it made their after-attitude all the more solemn. Next we have, what was really the first miracle of judgment, the waters turned to blood, the means of refreshment becoming death, and then that of the frogs swarming out of the river-bed, and into the chambers of the king, as to which I can add nothing to the notes on the book of Exodus. The lice follow, in the historical order; but with these are put the “swarms” or “mixture” (probably, of flies), which may there go with the lice (see the “notes” Exodus 8:16-19) in stamping man with the brand of vanity. (d) The moral or spiritual lessons are indeed thus far upon the surface, and well-fitted to bring the conscience into the presence of God. Those that follow compel man to feel, whether he has conscience or not. Hail and lightning together break up the fruit-trees in the land, while the locusts strip it of every green leaf to be found. Its desolation is complete, although not yet is their rebellious pride humbled; and it requires one last decisive blow to bring submission. 6. The rest of the psalm details the victory of God; the incidents of the wilderness and the putting them in possession of the land itself being associated with the deliverance from Egypt naturally, as completing what began there. The story speaks for itself, and needs no comment. The death of the first-born; their own departure from the land in prosperous strength, the fear in the hearts of their enemies; His presence with them, sheltering and guiding; the satisfaction of their hunger, refreshment brought for them out of the flinty rock: this sums up the deliverance accomplished, in which the word of promise is fulfilled and Abraham is remembered. They are brought into the land, to possess labors not their own; and this is to be the practical effect of all upon them; “that they might observe His statutes, and keep His laws.”