Psalm 77:11

By verse 9 Asaph’s questions have reached their lowest point. Verse 10 is the turn, and it begins with a confession: “And I said, This is my infirmity.” Asaph looks at his own questions and traces them to their source, which is his own frailty. God’s mercy and his promises have stayed as they always were. The word for infirmity comes from the verb châlâh, which means to be or become weak or sick, whether from sickness, injury or other circumstances. Asaph’s sickness here is of the soul. Long grief and unanswered prayer have worn him down, and in that weakness he has doubted God.

This honest confession is the first step out. Asaph was a Levite, one of David’s chief musicians, set over Israel’s worship (1 Chronicles 16:4–5), and he was counted a seer as well. Even a man like him came to nights when God felt far away and his prayers brought him no comfort. God has kept his words in Scripture so that his people in the same place know they are in good company, and know the way Asaph took. Our weakness in such seasons is real, and God meets it there. Paul writes that “the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities” (Romans 8:26), and that “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).

“I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.” Verse 11 says twice over what verse 10 began, and the repetition shows how firmly Asaph has made up his mind. The verb is zâkar, the ordinary word for remembering, which in one of its forms means to mention something or bring it to remembrance. Here Asaph remembers by choice. He decides where his mind will go, and he sends it to what God has done. The first “I will remember” is ‘ezkor in Hebrew, and “surely” translates ki, a small word that strengthens the second line.

Within the verse Asaph begins to speak to God himself. The first line speaks of “the works of the LORD”, and the second says “thy wonders”. Remembering has already brought him back into God’s presence.

The two nouns fit together. Works, maʻălâl, means a deed or practice, an act that can be good or bad, and here it covers the deeds of the LORD in general. Wonders, peleʼ, means something extraordinary, a marvel beyond anything people can do, and it is often used of the signs God did at the exodus. “Wonders of old” (peleʼ miqqedem) points to the ancient acts by which God first made Israel his people and showed them who he is.

The rest of the psalm names those acts: the going out from Egypt (Exodus 12) and the crossing of the sea (Exodus 14). Israel also remembered the giving of the law at Sinai (Exodus 19) and God’s provision for them in the wilderness. All of this happened long before Asaph, and it was still the ground he stood on. Paul says the same of the exodus for us: “all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition” (1 Corinthians 10:11). The God of those wonders is unchanged. “For I am the LORD, I change not” (Malachi 3:6), and “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). Another psalmist answers his own cast-down soul the same way: “hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him” (Psalm 42:5).

“I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.” To meditate, hâgâh, is to muse or mutter, and so to ponder something, often half aloud, turning it over until it has settled in. Asaph means to dwell on what God has done long enough for it to reshape how he sees his trouble.

He will meditate on “all thy work”. The word pôʻal means a deed, work or product, and “all” takes in the whole of God’s work, from creation to his acts for Israel. “Doings”, ʻălîylâh, means an exploit or performance, and it is often used of God’s mighty acts. Between them the two lines cover everything God has done.

Then Asaph will talk. What he ponders inwardly he will say aloud, and saying it strengthens his own faith and carries the truth to others. Israel was commanded to keep God’s words in their hearts and to “talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way” (Deuteronomy 6:6–7), and a psalm says, “One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts” (Psalm 145:4). Paul gives believers the same habit of mind when he lists what is true, honest, just, pure and lovely and says, “think on these things” (Philippians 4:8).

Since Asaph led Israel’s worship, a psalm born of one man’s anguish could be sung by the whole people in their own times of distress. Among the deeds they would talk of is the day at the sea, when Moses told a frightened people, “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD,” and “The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace” (Exodus 14:13–14).

“Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God?” Here Asaph’s memory turns into praise.

The word for way, derek, means a road, path or journey, and from there a manner of life or a course of action. God’s way is how he deals with his people and carries out his purpose. The word for sanctuary, qôdesh, means holiness or sacredness, or a holy place or thing. For Israel the sanctuary was the tabernacle in the wilderness and later the temple in Jerusalem, where God made his presence known, where his law was revealed and where atonement for sin was made. Because the same word means holiness, the line says two things at once. God’s way is made known where he dwells, and his way is itself holy. All his dealings are right and pure, including the ones that troubled Asaph in the night.

Then comes the question, “who is so great a God as our God?” The word for great, gâdôwl, means great in size, age, status or intensity. The question has one answer, and Israel had sung it at the sea: “Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11). That song joins holiness and wonders just as verses 13 and 14 do. God asks the same question through Isaiah, “To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One” (Isaiah 40:25), and a psalm answers it: “Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto thy works” (Psalm 86:8). In a world full of gods Israel confessed that the LORD alone is God, and Asaph says “our God” as one who belongs to him.

“Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people.” The word for God here is ʼêl, which means God, and Strong’s and BDB also give it the sense of strength or might, which suits a verse about God’s strength.

“Wonders” is peleʼ, the same word as in verse 11. The wonders Asaph resolved to remember he now confesses to God’s face. Doing wonders belongs to who God is. The plagues on Egypt (Exodus 7), the parted sea, water from the rock and bread in the wilderness all came from him, and he asks, “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27).

“Declared” translates yâdaʻ, to know, here in its causative form, to make known. God caused his strength to be known. That strength, ʻôz, is his might, and the same word is used for a stronghold. He did his wonders in the open where people could see them. “Among the people” takes in Israel, who saw these things happen, and the nations around, who heard of them. Moses asked whether God had ever gone to take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation “by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes” (Deuteronomy 4:34). Egypt felt the weight of those wonders in the plagues and on the night of the Passover, and fear fell on the peoples round about when they heard.

“Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph.” The arm, zᵉrôwaʻ, is a picture of God’s strength reaching out to act. Scripture speaks of him in human terms so that we can grasp his power, and this picture comes straight from the exodus. Before it began God told Moses, “I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments” (Exodus 6:6), and another psalm says, “Thou hast a mighty arm: strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand” (Psalm 89:13). The right hand of verse 10 and the arm of verse 15 belong to the same God at the same work. Israel was set free by God’s power alone.

Redeemed, gâʼal, is a family word. The go’el was the near kinsman who bought back what a relative had lost, freed him from bondage, reclaimed what rightly belonged to the family, or avenged a wrong done to him. When God redeems Israel he acts as their kinsman and claims them as his own, “thy people”. Israel sang it at the sea: “Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed” (Exodus 15:13). In doing it God kept faith with the promises he made to Abraham (Genesis 12:1–3) and renewed to Isaac and Jacob. He also told Israel to hand the story down. When a son asked what God’s laws meant, his father was to answer, “We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand” (Deuteronomy 6:20–25).

Asaph looked back to the exodus. We look back to it too, and then to the greater redemption God has worked in Jesus. Our worst infirmity is sin, which is beyond our power to overcome, and God answered it by “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans 8:3). “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), and Jesus came as “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), in whom “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7).

God’s wonders appear again in him. His birth was a wonder, as the angel told Joseph (Matthew 1:20–23). In his ministry “the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up” (Matthew 11:4–5). He rebuked the winds and the sea (Matthew 8:26–27) and called Lazarus out of the grave (John 11:43–44). The greatest wonder is his death and resurrection, that “Christ died for our sins” and “rose again the third day” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). He “was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25), and by the resurrection he was “declared to be the Son of God with power” (Romans 1:4), a verse that shares its English word “declared” with verse 14. He was then “by the right hand of God exalted” (Acts 2:33). Christ is “the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24), and on the cross he spoiled principalities and powers and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15).

The arm of the LORD is revealed in him. Isaiah asks, “to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?” (Isaiah 53:1), and he calls on that arm to awake as in the days when it dried the sea and made its depths a way for the ransomed to pass over (Isaiah 51:9–11). Before Jesus was born, Zacharias blessed God, “for he hath visited and redeemed his people” (Luke 1:68). The people he redeems now come from every nation. The song in heaven says, “thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Revelation 5:9), Peter calls them a chosen generation and God’s own people (1 Peter 2:9), and the gospel has been “made known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:26).

“Who is so great a God as our God?” is answered in Christ as well. He “is the image of the invisible God”, and in him all fulness dwells (Colossians 1:15–19). Being in the form of God he humbled himself to the cross, and God has highly exalted him (Philippians 2:6–11). So meditating on God’s work now means looking “unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), and talking of his doings means telling how “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Paul’s words for it are “we preach Christ crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23).

These verses give God’s people words for a hard night. Asaph shows that a believer can bring his doubt honestly before God and call it what it is, a weakness in himself. He also shows where to look next. His feelings had told him that God had forgotten to be gracious, and the record of God’s works told him the truth.

What God did then he has done again in Christ, and for the whole world. The right hand that was glorious in power at the sea has raised Jesus and exalted him, and the arm that redeemed the sons of Jacob and Joseph has redeemed people out of every kindred and nation. When you call to mind the cross and the empty tomb, you are remembering “the years of the right hand of the most High” just as Asaph did. The God behind them is holy in all his ways, and there is none so great as he.

Asaph’s remembering also moved from his heart to his mouth. He pondered God’s work and then talked of it, and his words became a song for the whole people. In this psalm God has given his church a way to carry grief to him and to come out the other side praising him.