Psalms 105

Preliminary: Points of Reminder and of Connection with Previous History, and of Suggestion and Explanation Touching the History Covered by this Volume.

The Books Included in this Volume: Collectively; Joshua; Judges; First and Second Samuel; Kings; Chronicles. The Chronology.

bread, and the heavens in shedding their sweet influences on your path. For you the morning will dawn and the evening descend. For you “the winds will blow, earth rest, heavens move, and fountains flow.” You will be able to claim a peculiar property in the works of your Father’s hand and the bounties of your Father’s providence. You will have served yourself heir to Him who is the Universal Proprietor, and become “heir of God, and joint heir with Christ.” And so “the world” and the fulness thereof will become “yours,” because “ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” Caird.

We see everywhere emblems of Him. Every day we walk amid the “outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace,” and in that meaning of the word sacrament, the true and Christian view of this wonderful world is that it is all one great sacrament. All the elements stand as types of spiritual things. The sunshine is to speak to us of the “light of the world,” the life of men. The wind blows, an emblem of that Spirit which, though He comes low and soft as befits a “Comforter,” can rise and wax into a tempest against all “the lofty and lifted up.” The water speaks of the stream of life and the drink for thirsty souls; and the fire of His purity and of His wrath. All objects are consecrated to Him. The trees of the field, in a thousand places, speak of the “root of David,” and the vine of which we are all branches. The everlasting mountains are His “righteousness,” the mighty deep His “judgments.” All the processes of nature have been laid hold of by Him. The gentle dew falls a promise, and the lashing rain forebodes another storm, when many a sand-built house shall be swept away. Every spring is a prophecy of the resurrection of the dead, every harvest a promise of the coming of His kingdom and the blessed issues of all service for Him. All living things, in like manner, testify of Him. In that sense, as in others, He is Lord over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over the beasts of the field. All relations between men testify of Him. Father and mother, brother and friend, husband, parent and children, they are all consecrated for this purpose. In a word, every act of our life sets forth some aspect of our Lord and of our relation to Him, from the moment when we open our eyes in the morning, all through the busy day, when our work may speak to us of Him that worketh continually, and our rest may prophesy to us of the “rest that remaineth for the people of God;” and our journeyings may tell of the journey of the soul to God, and our home may testify of the home which is above the skies—up to the hour when night falls, and sleep, the image of death, speaks to us of the last solemn moment, when we shall close the eyes of our body on earth, to open those of our soul on the realities of eternity; when we shall no more “see through a glass darkly, but face to face.” All things, and all acts, and this whole wonderful universe, proclaim to us the Lord our Father, Christ our love, Christ our hope, our portion, and our joy! A. M.

1. O GIVE thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name; Make known his doings among the peoples. 2 Sing unto him, sing praises unto him; Talk [or, meditate] ye of all his marvellous works. 3 Glory ye in his holy name: Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the LORD. 4 Seek ye the LORD and his strength; Seek his face evermore. 5 Remember his marvellous works that he hath done;

His wonders, and the judgments of his mouth; 6 O ye seed of Abraham his servant, Ye children of Jacob, his chosen ones. 7 He is the LORD our God: His judgments are in all the earth. 8 He hath remembered his covenant for ever, The word which he commanded to a thousand generations; 9 The covenant which he made with Abraham, And his oath unto Isaac

10. And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a statute, To Israel for an everlasting covenant :11 Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, The lot of your inheritance :12 When they were but a few men in number ; Yea, very few, and sojourners in it ;13 And they went about from nation to nation, From one kingdom to another people.14 He suffered no man to do them wrong ; Yea, he reproved kings for their sakes ;15 Saying, Touch not mine anointed ones, And do my prophets no harm.16 And he called for a famine upon the land ; He brake the whole staff of bread.17 He sent a man before them ; Joseph was sold for a servant.18 His feet they hurt with fetters ; He was laid in chains of iron :19 Until the time that his word came to pass ; The word of the LORD tried him.20 The king sent and loosed him ; Even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free.21 He made him lord of his house, And ruler of all his substance :22 To bind his princes at his pleasure, And teach his senators wisdom.23 Israel also came into Egypt ; And Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.24 And he increased his people greatly, And made them stronger than their adversaries.25 He turned their heart to hate his people, To deal subtilly with his servants.26 He sent Moses his servant, *And Aaron whom he had chosen.*27 They set 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 into blood, And slew their fish.30 Their land swarmed with frogs, In the chambers of their kings.31 He spake, and there came swarms of flies, And lice in all their borders.32 He gave them hail for rain, *And flaming fire in their land.*33 He smote their vines also and their fig trees ; And brake the trees of their borders.34 He spake, and the locust came, And the cankerworm, and that without number,35 And did eat up every herb in their land, And did eat up the fruit of their ground.36 He smote also all the firstborn in their land, The chief of all their strength.37 And he brought them forth with silver and gold : And there was not one feeble person among his tribes.38 Egypt was glad when they departed ; For the fear of them had fallen upon them.39 He spread a cloud for a covering ; And fire to give light in the night.40 They asked, and he brought quails, And satisfied them with the bread of heaven.41 He opened the rock, and waters gushed out ; They ran in the dry places like a river.42 For he remembered his holy word, *And Abraham his servant.*43 And he brought forth his people with joy, *And his chosen with singing.*44 And he gave them the lands of the nations ; And they took the labour of the peoples in possession :45 That they might keep his statutes, And observe his laws. PRAISE YE THE LORD !

PSALM 104 expatiates upon the works of God in the material world, its creation and its agencies ; this Psalm gives a corresponding view of God’s hand in history, His ways with His covenant people from the promise of Canaan to Abraham and the patriarchs to its fulfilment under Joshua in locating the tribes safely in that land of promise. C.

This Psalm, like the seventy-eighth and the one hundred and sixth, has for its theme the early history of Israel, and God’s wonders wrought on behalf of the nation ; but it differs from both those Psalms in the intention with which it pursues this theme. The seventy-eighth Psalm is didactic ; its object is to teach a lesson ; it recalls the past, as conveying instruction and warning for the present. The one hundred and sixth Psalm is a Psalm of penitential confession. The history of the past appears in it only as a history of Israel’s sin. In this Psalm, on the other hand, the mighty acts of Jehovah for His people from the first dawn of their national existence are recounted as a fitting subject for thankfulness, and as a ground for future obedience. Those interpositions of God are especially dwelt upon which have a reference to the fulfilment of His promise, which exhibit most clearly His faithfulness to His covenant. Hence the series begins with the covenant made with Abraham, tracing all the steps in its fulfilment to the occupation of the Promised Land. This is commenced, as the theme of the Psalm, in vs. 8-11.

The first fifteen verses are found in 1 Chr. 16:8-22 (with some slight variations), as the first portion of the festal song which, on the day when the ark of God was brought to its resting-place on Zion, was delivered by David into the hands of Asaph and his brethren, “to give thanks unto Jehovah.” P.—The first fifteen verses tell that it is sovereign grace that ruleth over all—it is a sovereign God. Out of a fallen world He takes whom He pleases—individuals, families, nations. He chose Israel long ago, that they might be the objects of grace, and their land the theatre of its display. A. Bonar.

1-6. The greatness of God’s love, as manifested to His people in their history, calls for the fullest acknowledgment. The Psalmist would have Israel sound forth His praises among all nations. They are not to sit down in idle satisfaction with their own privileges. His “doings” (v. 1), His “wondrous works” (vs. 3, 5), His “tokens,” “the judgments of His mouth” (v. 5), “His holy name” (v. 3), as the revelation of His character and attributes—all these are to form the subject of loud thanksgiving—all these are to become, through Israel, the heritage of the world. P.

1. Call upon His name. The original meaning of the phrase is, call (Him) by His name, i.e., give Him the descriptive title most expressive of His Divine perfections; or more specifically, call Him by His name Jehovah, i.e., ascribe to Him the attributes which it denotes—to wit, eternity and self-existence, together with that covenant relation to His people which, though not denoted by the name, was constantly associated with it, and therefore necessarily suggested by it. A.

4. Seek His face evermore. Seek to have His favor to eternity, and therefore continue seeking it to the end of the time of your probation. Seek it while you live in this world and you shall have it while you live in the other world, and even there shall be forever seeking it in an infinite progression, and yet be forever satisfied in it. H.—Such is our dependence upon God, that we are obliged not only to do everything for His sake, but also to seek from Him the very power so to do. And this happy necessity of having recourse to Him in all our wants, instead of being grievous to us should be our greatest consolation. What a happiness it is, that we are allowed to speak to Him with confidence; to open our hearts and hold familiar conversation with Him by prayer! Fénelon.

The God whom men need and can know and love, the God who is a Spirit, comes near to us in descriptions cast in the mould of humanity, and loses none of His purely spiritual essence, nor any of His infinitude, because we have learned to speak of the eye, and arm, and the hand, and the heart, and the face of the Lord. The eye of the Lord is His all-seeing knowledge; the arm and the hand of the Lord are substantially the same, though with certain shades of difference in the ideas which they suggest, and may be said to express the active energy of the Divine nature. The face of the Lord, we may say, is that aspect or side of the Divine nature which is turned to man, and is perceptible by him. There is no limit to our consciousness of God’s loving presence and help, except that drawn by ourselves. He fills the vessels we bring, be they large or small. And there is no possibility of any longing after Him remaining unsatisfied. No hunger of heart, no aching emptiness, no eyes failing with looking for the visitor who never comes, no pining away in sick disappointment, have any place in the relation of the soul to God. So sufficient is He, so near, so infinitely desirous to impart Himself, that He needs but the narrowest opening to pour His fulness into the heart. To seek is to find, to wish for God is to have God. “Seek His face evermore,” and your life will be bright because you will walk in the light of His countenance always. That face will brighten the darkness of death, and “make a sunshine in that shady place.” A. M.

5,6. Because they are Abraham’s seed, because they are God’s chosen, because they are Jacob’s children, heritors of the covenant and the promises, they are bound beyond all others to “remember” what God has done for them. On the other hand, God, who made the covenant with their fathers, “remembers” it (v. 8), “for His part will surely keep and perform” it.

7. The Psalmist begins himself that praise of God to which he has exhorted his people. And first he extols “the covenant,” “the word” (or promise), the “oath” by which God had bound Himself to the patriarchs, and which He “remembered,” i.e., fulfilled when He brought them into the land of Canaan. Our God, by covenant, but also Judge and Ruler of all nations. P.

8. He hath remembered His covenant forever.** Here is the basis of all His dealings with His people; He had entered into covenant with them in their father Abraham, and to this covenant He remained faithful. The exhortation to remember (in v. 5) receives great force from the fact that God has remembered. To us it should be matter for deepest joy that never in any instance has the Lord been unmindful of His covenant engagements, nor will He be so world without end. S.

15. Mine anointed.** Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had no external anointing. They were, however, called “anointed,” because they were separated by God from the multitude of wicked men, and endowed with the Spirit and His gifts, of which the oil was an emblem, Mollerus.—Prophets. The prophet is the forth-speaker; the term laying stress on the utterance, and not upon the vision. The Hebrew word comes from a root which means to bubble up and overflow as from a full fountain. But the fulness of the true prophets of Jehovah was of the Divine Spirit within them. “The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” The first application of the word is to Abraham (Gen. 20 : 7); although, long before Abraham, “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied” (Jude 14). D. Fraser.

16. From this point, as far as v. 38, the history of the nation in Egypt is followed, with a recognition of the Divine hand fashioning it at every step, and at every step accomplishing the fulfilment of the promise.

16-22. First, the preliminary steps in the history of Joseph. The famine in Canaan was no chance occurrence; God called for it. Joseph’s position in Egypt was no accident; God had sent him thither; so he himself traces the hand of God. P.

16. And He called (for) a famine on the land; every staff of bread He brake. The Psalmist passes from the Patriarchal to the Egyptian period of the history, by stating the occasion of Israel’s migration into Egypt. The meaning of the first clause seems to be, that He summoned famine, as His instrument or servant, to come down upon the land, as sent from above—that is to say, from Himself. The meaning of the last clause is, that the people were deprived of every customary means and source of subsistence. The figure of a staff or stay is a Mosaic one. It is near akin to the description of food as staying or sustaining the heart.

19. Until the time that his word came (to pass), the saying of Jehovah tried him. The last verb properly denotes the assaying of metals, but is figuratively applied to moral trial and purgation. The most probable meaning is, that during the two years which intervened between Joseph’s explanation of the prisoners’ dreams and the favorable issue to which it ultimately led, his faith in the Divine promise, both to himself and to his people, was severely but favorably tried. A.—The story of Joseph is to all men forever the best proof of the working of the hand of Providence. As through the life of Joseph, so through our life, there are threads which connect the different scenes and bind together the destinies of the different actors. This history and the inspired commentary on it in Psalm 105 teach us the wonderful continuity of God’s plan and the oneness of the thread that binds together the histories of Israel and of Egypt. C. H. Butcher.

24. What follows to v. 38 is a résumé of the history as given in the first twelve chapters of Exodus, and especially of the plagues. The fifth and sixth plagues, however, are omitted altogether, and the plague of darkness is placed first; in other respects the order of Exodus is observed. P.

34. Without number.** A swarm [of locusts], which was observed in India in 1825, occupied a space of forty English square miles, contained at least forty millions of locusts in one line, and cast a long shadow on the earth. And Major Moore thus describes an immense army of these animals which ravaged the Mahratta country: “The column they composed extended five hundred miles; and so compact was it when on the wing, that, like an eclipse, it completely hid the sun, so that no shadow was cast by any object.” Brown, in his travels in Africa, states that an area of nearly two thousand square miles was literally covered by them; and Kirby and Spence mention that a column of them was so immense that they took four hours to fly over the spot where the observer stood. Kalisch.

37. It was of the Lord’s justice that these bondmen were not allowed to go forth empty-handed. He directed them to borrow (the Hebrew is simply ask) of the Egyptians. The last plague made them willing to lend or give. It was but moderate wages for their lifelong services (Ex. 11 : 2 ; 12 : 35, 36). “Not one halting, tottering one in their tribes”—unable to march. C.

38. Glad was Egypt at their going forth, for their fear had fallen upon them. This panic terror, which followed the last plague and facilitated the escape of Israel, accounts for the readiness with which the Egyptians gave whatever was demanded, and completely vindicates the children of Israel from the charge of borrowing what they never meant to pay. The terms used in the history denote the acts of asking and giving, not those of borrowing and lending. A.

39-41. Three of the principal miracles in the wilderness, which sum up the period between the departure from Egypt and the entrance into the promised land. P.

42. Because He remembered His holy word with Abraham His servant This brings us back to the statement in vs. 8, 9, in proof of which this long array of facts has been presented. Nothing of all this would have taken place if God had been forgetful of His covenant. This covenant is here meant by His holy word, which is therefore followed by the preposition with, as in Ex. 9 : 24, where the covenant is expressly mentioned. A.

44,45. He put them in possession of Canaan, not that they might live in plenty and honor and might make a figure among the nations, but that they might observe His statutes and keep His laws; that, being formed into a people, they might be under God’s immediate government, and revealed religion might be the basis of their national constitution; that, having a good land given them, they might out of the profits of it bring sacrifices to God’s altar; and that, God having thus done them good, they might the more cheerfully receive His law, concluding that also designed for their good, and might be sensible of their obligations in gratitude to live in obedience to Him. We are therefore made, maintained, and redeemed, that we may live in obedience to the will of God; and the hallelujah with which the Psalm concludes may be taken both as a thankful acknowledgment of God’s favors, and as a cheerful concurrence with this great intention of them. H.—The chosen nation was to be the conservator of truth, the exemplar of morality, the pattern of devotion; everything was so ordered as to place them in advantageous circumstances for fulfilling this trust. Theirs was a high calling and a glorious election. It involved great responsibilities, but it was in itself a distinguished blessing, and one for which the nation was bound to give thanks. Most justly then did the music close with the jubilant but solemn shout of hallelujah—“Praise ye the Lord!” S.

The condition of the Israelites in the wilderness ness and in Canaan alike represent our present state as Christians. Our Christian life is a state of faith and trial; it is also a state of enjoyment. It has the richness of the promised land; it has the marvellousness of the desert. It is a “good land, a land of brooks,” etc. And it is still a land which to the natural man seems a wilderness, a “great and terrible wilderness,” etc.; where faith is still necessary, and where “man doth not live by bread only, but by every word out of the mouth of the Lord.” Newman.

The journey of the people through the wilderness represented our pilgrimage through this world; and the land of Canaan was a shadow of the heavenly rest. The present life is a way; it is not the end of our being, it is not our rest, it is not our abode; but the place of our pilgrimage, a passage to eternity. There is much intricacy in the Christian’s pilgrimage. There were no paths in the wilderness; the Israelites could not have explored their way but by the direction of the pillar of fire and of the cloud, so the Christian knows not how to explore his path. There are doctrinal difficulties by which we are perplexed, and errors to which we are continually exposed, and which we know not how to escape but by attention to “the light that shineth in a dark place.” There are voices that are heard in the wilderness, crying, “Lo here,” and “Lo there;” but we must not go after them; we must “search the Scriptures,” and ask the guidance of the Spirit, or we shall never have the comfort that arises from right views of truth, nor hear the “voice behind us saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.” The way lies through a hostile country, and is therefore discouraging. We pass through an enemy’s land. The Israelites were obliged to unite the courage of the military with the assiduity of the pilgrim’s life; they had to fight as well as travel. And so must we; on our pilgrimage we must gird on “the whole armor of God, taking the sword of the Spirit, and the shield of faith;” we must conquer as well as advance; we must fight our way or die. The false steps that are taken in the pilgrimage, and the consequent displeasure of God are discouraging; there are so many errors and iniquities for which the Lord chastens His people, though He pardons sin as to its eternal consequences. But with all its discouragements the way of the believer is “a right way.” Infinite Wisdom has ordained it, and if you reach the end, you will be well repaid for all your toil and will admire the whole of the pilgrimage; no sorrow will appear to have been too heavy; no path too gloomy. There was

no bitter ingredient in your cup that could have been spared; no affliction but what operated to promote the “far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” You

will look back and acknowledge that Infinite Wisdom directed the darkest path, and caused it to terminate in joy and glory unutterable. R. Hall.