Our promise-keeping God
Since we take our bearings in the present by recalling the past, distorted memories disorient us. Together with Psalms 104 and 106, this psalm helped set the Israelites’ record straight.
1 Give YHWH praise—
call on his name
and tell everyone what he’s done.
2 Sing to him
sing his praises.
Tell about all the miracles he’s performed.
3 Boast about his holy character.
Let every heart that seeks YHWH rejoice.
4 Search for YHWH and rest in his power—
seek his face always.
5 Recall God’s displays of power on our behalf
his wonders and the judgments he’s pronounced
6 you descendants of his servant Abraham
offspring of Jacob, his chosen one.
7 YHWH, he is our God
and everywhere on planet earth
whatever he says goes.
8 He’s mindful of his eternal covenant
the promise he made for a thousand generations
9 the covenant he made with Abraham
the promise he swore to Isaac
10 and then confirmed to Jacob
as an eternal covenant to Israel:
11 “To you I give the land of Canaan
as your allotted inheritance.”
12 He made that promise
when they were a paltry few
and aliens at that
13 wandering from land to land
and from one kingdom to the next.
14 But refusing to let anyone oppress them
God rebuked kings for their sake, saying:
15 “Don’t touch my anointed ones
or harm my prophets in any way.”
16 Eventually YHWH ordered a famine
cutting off their food supply in the land.
17 But first he sent a man ahead of them
Joseph, sold as a slave.
18 They bruised his feet with shackles
and bound his neck with iron.
19 YHWH’s word refined him
until Joseph’s word finally came true.
20 Then Pharaoh ordered him released—
the ruler of many peoples set him free.
21 He put Joseph in charge of his household
responsible for all his possessions
22 with power to imprison the king’s officials
and teach his advisers true wisdom.
23 Then Israel migrated to Egypt
Jacob and his family settled
as aliens in the land of Ham.
24 YHWH made his people flourish there
till they became more powerful than their foes
25 whose hearts he turned to hate his people
and double-cross his servants.
26 Then he sent his servant Moses
along with Aaron, the man he chose
27 to perform his miraculous signs among them
his wonders in the land of Ham.
28 He made darkness blanket the land
for hadn’t they rebelled against God’s word?
29 He turned Egypt’s rivers into blood
killing all their fish.
30 Then the land was overrun with frogs—
even the king’s apartment!
31 YHWH spoke and swarms of insects came—
gnats everywhere in the land.
32 He sent them hail instead of rain
and fiery lightning bolts throughout the country
33 wasting their grapevines and fig trees
shattering trees everywhere.
34 He spoke and hordes of grasshoppers came—
ravenous locusts beyond counting
35 consuming the land’s vegetation
devouring every last blade of grass.
36 He killed all of Egypt’s firstborn sons
every Egyptian man’s proof of virility.
37 He brought the Israelites out
loaded down with silver and gold
though no one in all their tribes stumbled.
38 The Egyptians were glad to see them go—
so terrified had they become of the Israelites.
39 God spread a cloud cover over his people
and lit the night sky up with a fire overhead.
40 They asked for meat
and he served up quail
and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.
41 He split open solid rock
making water gush out
and stream like a river across the desert.
42 He did this because he remembered
his holy word to Abraham his servant.
43 He brought his people out with rejoicing
his chosen ones with songs of joy.
44 Then he gave them the lands of other peoples
making them inherit
the fruit of other people’s labor.
45 All this he did
so the Israelites would conform to his teachings
and obey his laws.
Praise YHWH!
Psalms 104-106 take readers from earth’s creation to Canaan’s conquest. Here we come to the land grant God, as earth’s creator/owner, made to Abraham—a grant Abraham’s descendants would possess only in the distant future. Taking Abraham’s descendants on a circuitous route, God brought them back centuries later, in time for his eviction of Canaan’s rebel tenants. Eternal though God’s promise was, it was also qualified: Israel would possess the land only if they trusted and obeyed him. This psalm omits that, however, and many other well-known details since its focus is primarily on God’s grace and faithfulness. Psalm 106 gives us the other side of the equation: Israel’s frequently sorry response to it.
YHWH protected the nomadic patriarchs and matriarchs roaming the land. He gave the young Joseph, whose oversized dreams antagonized his jealous older brothers, a crash course in character. Joseph’s painful shackles made his early dreams seem like a sick joke till YHWH finally fulfilled his word. Joseph’s years of waiting—in slavery and then prison—were no needless detour. They were instead the shortest route God had of making Joseph into a statesman who could provide for the Israelites in a way Joseph couldn’t have imagined till his dreams finally came true.
Decades after God took his people to Egypt, they suffered oppression. Then he sent Moses to liberate them. God decimated the superpower with his plagues, set his people free, cared for them in the desert, and finally gave them the land he’d long ago promised them.
Focusing on the divine side of the equation throughout, the psalm ends with the point of all God’s faithful dealings with the Israelites: he gave them their own land so they could freely worship and lovingly obey him. He wanted a beachhead, one kingdom on earth where his will was done among the nations. And the Israelites’ obedience was always the result of God’s grace, never vice-versa.
Prayer:
Thank you, Jesus, that your grace always precedes your call to obey. You’ve chosen your Church, like Israel before it, to show the world what life under your loving rule looks like. I worship you, Lord. Help me to rest in your faithfulness till I think and live only as you want me to. Amen.
In your free moments today, meditate on these words:
All this he did
so the Israelites would obey his laws
and conform to his teachings.
Praise YHWH!
