Psalm 105

How God freed Israel from Egypt

Brag about God

1Thank the LORD and tell others about him.
Tell people what he has done.
2Sing him some songs.
Sing good things about him.
Sing about wonderful things he has done.
3Brag him up for being who he is.[1]
Let everyone who looks for him find joy.
4Chase the LORD. Latch onto his strength.
Don’t ever lose sight of him.
5Think back on the miracles he did.
Think about those marvels,
And the judgments[2] God made.
6You’re from the family of God’s man, Abraham.
You are children of Jacob, his handpicked people.

God’s contract with Abraham

7The LORD is our God.
His word is the law
Everywhere in the world.
8He’ll never forget the agreement[3] he made.
His vow to a thousand generations.
9He made the agreement with Abraham first.
And then to Isaac, Abraham’s son
10He confirmed the agreement to Jacob/Israel,[4]
A contract binding forever.
11The LORD told Jacob’s descendants,
“I’m giving you the land of Canaan
An inheritance gift to you.”

Israel’s small beginnings

12There were just a few in the beginning,
Nowhere near a nation full of people.
And they were homeless at the time.
13They wandered from nation to nation,
From kingdom to kingdom they moved.
14No one hurt them in all those travels.
The LORD wouldn’t allow it.
He put kings in their place with a warning:
15“Don’t even think
Of laying a hand on my chosen people.
And don’t try to hurt my prophets.”

Joseph rises from slavery

16God sent a drought that dried the land.
Crops died in the fields and food got scarce.
17He sent a man down before the others arrived:
Joseph, sold into slavery.
18They shackled his feet in chains.
And his neck in an iron[5] collar.
19Joseph remained a slave
Until his predictions came true.[6]
And the LORD tested his mettle to refine him.
20The king released him and called him.
The ruler set him free.
21The king put him in charge of his household,
In charge of everything he owned.
22Joseph could send officials into prison
Just to teach those wise elders a lesson.
23Israel came to Egypt later.
Jacob lived with descendants of Ham.[7]

God frees the Hebrews

24He gave his people lots of kids,
Who grew up stronger than others.
25God made the locals hate his people
To teach his people some wisdom.
26He sent Moses to deliver a message.
He picked Aaron[8] to go along.
27They showed the people God’s miracle power,
Wonders in the land of Ham.
28God draped the land in darkness.
No one dared to try and defy him.
29He turned the water blood red,
And the fish died where they swam.
30He sent frogs to swarm the land,
Even hopping to the king’s bedroom.
31He gave the order, and flies filled the air,
Then gnats joined with the swarm.
32For rain, he gave hail,
With fire and lightning in the storm.
33He pummeled their vines and fig trees.
He busted trees all over the land.
34He gave the order, and the locusts came,
Grasshoppers countless and creeping.
35If it grew, they ate it—all vegetation.
They ate it down to the ground.
36He took the life of the oldest son
Of each of the families there.
The first and the best and greatest hope
Of each of the families there.
37He brought his people out of the land,
Loaded with silver and gold.
Among all the tribes that left,
Not one of them fell behind.
38Egyptians were relieved to see them go.
They were terrified by then.
39He covered their escape in a blanket of fog,
And lit their night trail with a fire.
40They asked for meat, he delivered quail,
And added heaven’s bread on the side.
41He cracked open a rock and water gushed out.
It hit dirt like a river on the run.
42He remembered the sacred promise he made.
The contract with Abraham.
43And that’s how he gladly freed his people,
When his chosen ones shouted their joy.
44He gave them the land of the nations he promised.
So they took crops others had planted.
45Now it was time for their part of the deal:
Obey the laws of the LORD.
Let’s hear it: Hallelujah.

Footnotes

Intro Notes for Psalms

Intro Notes for Book 4 of 5 in Psalms

1105:3

Literally for “his holy name.” The holiness of God is as unique and distinct as his name, which he revealed to Moses: I Am (Exodus 3:14). The holiness refers to his pure goodness and to his “otherness,” which describes his uniqueness among all life. He is unique and supreme, the only I Am. He’s at the tiptop top of the ladder, as Goodness on guard and Goodness at the end of our climb.

2105:5

This seems to point to miracles God performed to free the Hebrew ancestors of the Jewish nation from slavery in Egypt. “I will lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My armies, My people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments” (Exodus 7:4, New American Standard Bible).

3105:8

The “agreement” is a contract between God and the Jewish nation. It’s often called a “covenant.” When Jewish people talk about their covenant with God, they are often talking about laws preserved in the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The covenant, or contract, between God and the Jewish people was a two-way street. The Jews obey God’s rules, and God gives them land to live on, and he protects them and blesses their families and their work with prosperity. Benefits for obedience and the consequences for breaking the contract were detailed by Moses in a speech shortly before he died (Deuteronomy 27—28).

4105:10

Jacob. God renamed him: “From now on you won’t be called Jacob. You’ll be called Israel, because you’re a fighter. You have fought with God and with people. And you’ve lived to tell about it” (Genesis 32:28). The Jewish nation adopted his name.

5105:18

Maybe bronze. The Iron Age in the ancient Middle East wouldn’t arrive until a few centuries after Joseph. He may have lived in about the 1800s BC. The Iron Age in this region appeared in about 1200-1000 BC. David, credited with many psalms in this collection, lived in about 1000 BC.

6105:19

More literally, “until his words came to pass.” Context clues suggest the writer was talking about young Joseph’s dream of his brothers bowing before him (Genesis 37:5-11).

7105:23

Ham was one of Noah’s sons. “Egyptians…. All descended from Noah’s son, Ham” (Psalm 78:52; see also Genesis 10:6).

8105:26

Aaron was the older brother of Moses, who was 80 years old when he confronted the king of Egypt (Exodus 7:7).