[PSALM CV.]
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. 2b 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.