Psalm 105:40

Verse 42 gives the reason behind the whole passage, and behind the whole psalm: “For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant.” The silver and gold, the cloud and the fire, the bread and the water, and at last the land all came from that one cause. Earlier the psalm has told of the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and of his word to give them the land of Canaan (Psalm 105:8–11). Here, at the end of the story, he keeps it.

The verb zâkar means to remember. When Scripture says that God remembers, action follows. God remembered Noah, and the waters of the flood went down (Genesis 8:1). He heard Israel groaning in Egypt and remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus 2:24), and the deliverance began. God knows all things at every moment, so his remembering is his moving to do what he said.

The KJV’s “promise” translates dâbâr, the ordinary Hebrew word for a word or speech, which can also mean a matter or thing. Here it is the word God spoke to Abraham, and a word from God carries the full weight of a promise. It is called holy, qôdesh, a word for holiness or sanctity, because it comes from the holy God and is set apart as his own. That is why it was certain. Isaiah says that the word which goes out of God’s mouth accomplishes what he pleases (Isaiah 55:11). Moses calls him the faithful God who keeps covenant (Deuteronomy 7:9), and Hebrews tells how God swore by himself when he made his promise to Abraham, so that his word and his oath together would give his people strong consolation (Hebrews 6:13–18).

The promise began when God called Abraham (Genesis 12:1–3), and he confirmed and enlarged it in Genesis 15 and Genesis 17. It held four things: the land of Canaan for Abraham’s descendants, a people too many to count, blessing for Abraham and through his line for all the families of the earth, and God’s pledge to be their God.

God calls Abraham “his servant”, ʻebed. On God’s lips that is a title of honour, given to a man he chose and trusted with his purpose. Isaiah 41:8 speaks of Abraham as God’s friend, and James says that Abraham “was called the Friend of God” (James 2:23).

The psalm was likely sung by a generation that had come back from exile in Babylon and was rebuilding its life. To people who had lost so much, it told again how faithfully God had kept his word to their fathers, and it gave them hope that he would keep it still.

The psalm has just told of Moses and Aaron and the signs and plagues they brought on Egypt (Psalm 105:26–36), ending with the death of the firstborn. Verse 37 is the moment Israel leaves. “He brought them forth” uses yâtsâʼ, to go or come out, which in this form means to bring out. God is the one who brings them, and the same verb comes back in verse 43.

They went out carrying silver, keçeph, a word named from the metal’s pale colour that also came to mean money, and gold. Exodus tells how the Israelites asked the Egyptians for jewels of silver and gold and for clothing, and the LORD gave them favour, so that the Egyptians gave them what they asked (Exodus 12:35–36). Centuries before, God had told Abraham that his descendants would be afflicted in a land that was not theirs, and that afterward they would “come out with great substance” (Genesis 15:13–14).

Verse 38 shows how completely the tables had turned. The nation that had held Israel in slavery was glad to see them leave. The verb sâmach means to rejoice or be glad, and Scripture uses it for every kind of gladness, gloating included. Egypt’s gladness here is the relief of a people who want the judgment to end. The Egyptians “were urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste; for they said, We be all dead men” (Exodus 12:33).

The reason follows: “the fear of them fell upon them.” The word for fear, pachad, means dread or terror, the kind of fear that makes the flesh tremble. It “fell”, nâphal, the common verb for falling, which pictures the dread coming down on Egypt from outside. Egypt feared Israel because of the God who fought for them, the LORD who had shown himself through the plagues to be greater than Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt.

The same dread went ahead of Israel to other peoples. Moses sang that fear and dread would fall on the nations along their way (Exodus 15:16), and God promised to put the dread and the fear of Israel on the nations under the whole heaven (Deuteronomy 2:25). In this way God humbles the proud and lifts up the lowly.

Once Israel was out of Egypt, God went with them. “He spread a cloud for a covering” uses pâras, to spread out or stretch out. The cloud, ʻânân, is the pillar of cloud, the visible sign of God’s presence that led them, and the psalm calls it a covering, mâçâk, a screen or canopy. Over a people walking through a hot desert, it gave shade by day.

For the night he gave fire, ʼêsh, “to give light”, where the verb ʼôwr means to be or become light and to make something bright. Night, layil, is the ordinary word, traced by Strong’s to a turning away of the light, and elsewhere it can picture adversity. In the darkness of the desert the fire gave them light to see and to travel by. Exodus records it plainly: “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night” (Exodus 13:21–22).

That pillar appears at the very start of the journey, told in Exodus 13, and it stayed with them. When the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered it, and Israel set out or stayed in camp as the cloud lifted or rested (Numbers 9:15–23). Long afterward the Levites still praised God in prayer for leading their fathers by a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire in the night (Nehemiah 9:12).

“The people asked”, and the verb shâʼal means to ask, inquire, request or require. The accounts in the Law show what the asking sounded like. In Exodus 16:2–3 the whole congregation murmured and wished they had died in Egypt beside the flesh pots, and in Numbers 11:4–6 the people wept for meat and grew tired of the manna. The psalm passes over the complaint and dwells on God’s answer, because Psalm 105 is a song of his faithfulness. The psalm that follows it, Psalm 106, tells the story of Israel’s rebellion.

He brought quails, sᵉlâv, the birds he sent to the camp in great numbers. The first time, quails came to the camp soon after Israel left Egypt (Exodus 16:13). The second time, a wind from the LORD brought them from the sea (Numbers 11:31–32). Both stories are told in full in Exodus 16 and Numbers 11.

And he “satisfied them with the bread of heaven.” This is the manna, which God promised when he said, “I will rain bread from heaven for you” (Exodus 16:4), and which fed Israel day by day through the wilderness years. The verb sâbaʻ means to be filled or satisfied, to have enough. The name “bread of heaven” tells where it came from. Nehemiah’s prayer remembers it alongside the water from the rock (Nehemiah 9:15), and Jesus spoke of the manna when he taught about himself as the bread of life in John 6.

“He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out.” The verb pâthach means to open, and the rock, tsûwr, is a rock or cliff, a word Scripture also uses as a title for God as the Rock of his people. Out of solid stone God brought water. The waters “gushed out”, vayyâzuvu, from zûwb, to flow freely, and “they ran in the dry places like a river.” The dry places, tsîyâh, are parched desert ground, and the river, nâhâr, is a stream or river. In a land where even a small stream is rare, God gave water enough to run like a river through the desert.

Scripture records two times when God gave water from a rock. The first was at Rephidim, early in the journey, when God told Moses to strike the rock with his rod (Exodus 17:1–7). The second was at Kadesh, near the end of the wilderness years, when God told Moses to speak to the rock. Moses struck it twice, the water came, and Moses bore heavy consequences for his disobedience (Numbers 20:1–13). Both times the people were desperately thirsty and had complained against Moses and against God, and both times God gave them water. The psalm gathers that faithfulness into one line. It is one of the wonders the psalm told Israel to keep in mind at its start: “Remember his marvellous works that he hath done” (Psalm 105:5).

Verse 43 returns to the exodus and tells how it felt. “And he brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness.” The verb is yâtsâʼ again, as in verse 37, and once more God is the one who brings them out. The joy, sâsôwn, is gladness and rejoicing. The gladness, rinnâh, is a raised voice, a shout or ringing cry of joy, so the second half of the line lets us hear the people as they went. Israel had been crushed with hard labour in Egypt (Exodus 1:8–14), and after the crossing of the sea Moses and Miriam led the people in song to the LORD (Exodus 15:1–21).

The two halves of the verse say the same thing in two ways, as Hebrew poetry often does. “His people” are also “his chosen”. Moses told Israel that God chose them because he loved them and would keep the oath he swore to their fathers (Deuteronomy 7:6–8), which is the very promise verse 42 has just named.

Verses 38 and 43 share the English word glad, with different Hebrew words behind them. Egypt was glad out of dread, and Israel went out with shouts of joy.

Joy at God’s saving work runs on through Scripture. Israel’s feasts were times of rejoicing before the LORD (Deuteronomy 16:15). Isaiah sees the ransomed of the LORD returning to Zion with songs and everlasting joy (Isaiah 35:10). Zacharias blessed God for visiting and redeeming his people (Luke 1:68–75), and in Revelation a great multitude cries “Alleluia” and rejoices at the marriage of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6–7).

“And gave them the lands of the heathen.” The word gôwy means a nation, and here it is the peoples who lived in Canaan before Israel, nations outside God’s covenant such as the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites and Perizzites. God gave their land as he had promised Abraham: “Unto thy seed have I given this land” (Genesis 15:18). The land was God’s to give, and Israel received it as his gift. The driving out of those nations was also God’s judgment on their wickedness and idolatry.

“And they inherited the labour of the people.” The verb yârash means to take possession, often by driving out those who held a place before and settling in their stead, and so to inherit. The word for labour, ʻâmâl, means toil or wearing effort, and so also worry. Here it stands for what that toil had produced. Moses had told Israel this would happen. God would give them “great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, and houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not” (Deuteronomy 6:10–11). Israel walked into a land already built and planted, and the whole inheritance was grace.

Joshua records that it all came true. The LORD gave Israel the land he had sworn to their fathers, and “there failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass” (Joshua 21:43–45).

The passage, and the psalm, end with God’s purpose. He did all this “that they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws.” God redeemed his people first and gave them his laws with the land, so Israel’s obedience was their answer to a salvation already given. At Sinai God called the people he had brought out of Egypt to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6), and the covenant set out the blessings of faithfulness and the curses of turning away (Deuteronomy 28).

Two different verbs carry the obedience. “Observe” is shâmar, which at its root pictures a hedge of thorns around something, and so means to guard, watch over and keep. “Keep” is nâtsar, to guard, protect or keep. “Statutes” are chôq, something prescribed, such as a decree, a law or a set limit. “Laws” are tôwrâh, teaching and instruction as well as law, the whole of what God made known to Israel. God gave his commands for his people’s good (Deuteronomy 6:24), and Samuel told Saul that “to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22).

The last words, “Praise ye the LORD”, are in Hebrew Hallelu Yah, from hâlal, to praise, and Yâhh, a short form of the LORD’s name used in poetry. The psalm began with the call, “O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people” (Psalm 105:1). Having told those deeds, it ends in praise. Obedience and praise stand together in this verse as the answer God’s people give to all he has done.

The exodus is the great Old Testament picture of God saving his people, and the New Testament shows its fulfilment in Christ. God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13). At the cross Christ spoiled principalities and powers and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15), and through death he destroyed him that had the power of death and delivered those who through fear of death were held in bondage (Hebrews 2:14–15). Before the cross Jesus said that the prince of this world would be cast out (John 12:31).

Each gift in this passage finds its answer in him. Israel went out with silver and gold, and in Christ we have redemption through his blood according to the riches of his grace (Ephesians 1:7), for he became poor so that we through his poverty might be rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). Israel went out with every tribe strong, and Christ heals body and soul. He healed all that were sick (Matthew 8:16–17), by his stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5), his strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9–10), and Paul could do all things through Christ who strengthened him (Philippians 4:13).

The cloud covered Israel, and God covers his people under his wings (Psalm 91:4), as Jesus longed to gather the children of Jerusalem as a hen gathers her chickens (Matthew 23:37). The fire lit their nights, and Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12). He is made unto us wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:30), we are justified by his blood and saved from wrath through him (Romans 5:8–9), and the Spirit he sends guides us into all truth (John 16:13). The bread of heaven points to him, for he said, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

The promise God remembered in verse 42 reaches its goal in Christ. The promises were made to Abraham and to his seed, “which is Christ” (Galatians 3:16), and through him a great multitude of all nations stands before the throne (Revelation 7:9). All the promises of God in him are yea and Amen (2 Corinthians 1:20). God chose us in him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). He gives the joy of his salvation (Psalm 51:12) and fulness of joy in his presence (Psalm 16:11), until the day he sends his angels to gather his elect (Matthew 24:31).

The land, too, points ahead to our inheritance: every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1:3), “a kingdom which cannot be moved” (Hebrews 12:28), a place among the heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:29), and a share in the inheritance of the saints in light (Colossians 1:12). Israel inherited the labour of others, and we inherit what Christ’s finished work has won.

Psalm 105 closes its long story on a God who keeps his word. He remembered a promise made to Abraham centuries before and kept every part of it, through slavery, plagues, desert and conquest. He cared for his people’s purses and their feet, their days and their nights, their hunger and their thirst. He went before them, gave them a land they had not built, and gave them his laws for their good. The same faithful God has given his promises to us in Christ, and the psalm’s last words are the answer that fits all of it: “Praise ye the LORD.”