1Acclaim the LORD, call out His name,
make His deeds known among the peoples.
2Sing to Him, hymn to Him,
speak of all His wonders.
3Revel in His holy name.
Let the heart of the LORD’s seekers rejoice.
4Inquire of the LORD and His strength,
seek His presence always.
5Recall the wonders that He did,
His portents and the judgments He issued,
6O seed of Abraham His servant,
sons of Jacob, His chosen ones.
7He is the LORD our God—
through all the earth, His judgments.
8He recalls His pact forever—
the word He ordained for a thousand generations—
9which He sealed with Abraham,
and His vow to Isaac,
10and He set it for Jacob as a statute,
for Israel an eternal pact,
11saying,
“To you will I give the land of Canaan
as the plot of your estate,”
12when they were a handful of men,
but a few, and sojourners there.
13And they went about from nation to nation,
from one kingdom to another people.
14He allowed no man to oppress them
and warned kings on their account:
15“Touch not My anointed ones,
and to My prophets do no harm.”
16And He called forth famine over the land,
every staff of bread He broke.
17He sent a man before them—
as a slave was Joseph sold.
18They tortured his legs with shackles,
19until the time of his word had come,
the LORD’s utterance that purged him.
20The king sent and loosed his shackles,
the ruler of peoples set him free,
21made him master of his house
and ruler of all his possessions,
22to admonish his princes as he desired
and to teach wisdom to his elders.
23And Israel came to Egypt,
Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.
24And He made His people very fruitful,
made them more numerous than their foes.
25He changed their heart to hate His people,
to lay plots against His servants.
26He sent Moses his servant,
Aaron, whom He had chosen.
27They set among them the words of His signs,
His portents in the land of Ham.
28He sent darkness, and it grew dark,
yet they did not keep His word.
29He turned their waters to blood
and made their fish die.
30Their land swarmed with frogs,
into the chambers of their kings.
31He spoke, and the swarm did come,
lice in all their region.
32He turned their rains into hail,
tongues of fire in their land.
33And He struck their vines and their fig trees
and shattered the trees of their region.
34He spoke, and the locust came,
grasshoppers without number.
35And they ate all the grass in their land
they ate up the fruit of their soil.
36And He struck down each firstborn in their land,
the first yield of all their manhood.
37And He brought them out with silver and gold,
and none in His tribes did falter.
38Egypt rejoiced when they went out,
for their fear had fallen upon them.
39He spread a cloud as a curtain
and fire to light up the night.
40They asked, and He brought the quail,
and with bread from the heavens He sated them.
41He opened the rock, and water flowed,
it went forth in parched land as a stream.
42For He recalled His holy word
with Abraham His servant.
43And He brought out His people in joy,
in glad song His chosen ones.
44And He gave them the lands of nations,
they took hold of the wealth of peoples,
45so that they should keep His statutes,
and His teachings they should observe.
Hallelujah!
PSALM 105 NOTES
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1. Acclaim the LORD . . . / make His deeds known. The initial formulas of this psalm reflect a kinship with the psalms of thanksgiving, but the “deeds” (or “feats”) referred to are God’s wondrous acts in history on behalf of Israel, as the next few lines make clear. This is, then, a historical psalm, reviewing in versified summary (perhaps as part of a temple ritual) the following sequence of events familiar from Genesis and Exodus: the covenantal promise to the patriarchs (verses 6–15); Joseph’s descent into Egypt and his eventually triumphant career there (verses 16–23); the enslavement of the Hebrews, the mission of Moses and Aaron, and the plagues (verses 24–36); the Exodus and God’s providence to Israel in the wilderness (verses 37–43); and the inheritance of the promised land (verses 44–45). The length of the psalm is dictated by the necessity to cover all this narrative material. Even more than in the analogous Psalm 78, the poetry does not go much beyond a simple versification of known events.
5. the wonders that He did. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “His wonders that He did.”
the judgments He issued. Literally, “the judgments of His mouth.”
6. O seed of Abraham His servant. This is almost certainly a vocative, as it is translated here. The whole national community of Israel is exhorted to contemplate and celebrate God’s great deeds on behalf of the nation.
11. saying. This formulaic term for the introduction of direct speech is used here as a preface to the quotation of God’s words that convey the essence of His pact with the patriarchs—the promise of the promised land.
12. when they were a handful of men. The unusual phrase used here, metey mispar, is a quotation of Jacob’s words to his sons in Genesis 34:30 about the vulnerable smallness of his clan as sojourners in the land of Canaan.
14. He allowed no man to oppress them / and warned kings on their account. The most likely reference is to the three sister-wife stories (Genesis 12, 20, and 26). The mention in the previous verse of “nation to nation” and “from one kingdom to another people” would refer to Egypt and Gerar, where Abraham and then Isaac went in a time of famine. “Anointed ones” in the next verse then conflates the terminology of the later monarchy with the idea of the patriarchs as God’s elected ones.
16. every staff of bread. Some scholars think this refers to a pole on which the round, flat loaves of bread were spooled.
18. his neck was put in iron. Literally, “his neck came into iron.” The Hebrew nefesh refers here to the neck (a complementary parallel to the shackled feet) and certainly does not mean “soul.”
19. the time of his word. The formulation is somewhat crabbed, but this has to mean the prophecy (through the dream-vision) of Joseph’s future greatness.
the LORD’s utterance that purged him. The translation follows the received text, though the verb used in it is cryptic. The idea seems to be that God’s word or promise now exonerates Joseph of the crime of which he had been accused.
20. shackles. This is merely implied in the Hebrew.
22. to admonish. The translation reads, with the Septuagint, leyaser instead of the Masoretic leʾesor, “to bind.” The sense of “bind” is possible (as a counterpoint to Joseph’s having been loosed from his shackles), but “admonish” is a much more plausible parallel to “teach wisdom.”
24. very fruitful, / . . . more numerous. This is a citation of Exodus 1:7.
27. the words of His signs. This is a literal representation of the Hebrew, the idea being that the signs are not just spectacles but bear a message. “Signs” and “portents” are key terms in the narrative of the mission of Moses and Aaron in Egypt.
28. darkness. The recapitulation of the Plagues narrative does not entirely follow the order of the story in Exodus. It begins here with the ninth plague, then goes back to the first, second, fourth, and third, the seventh, the eighth, and the tenth. The blight of the cattle and the epidemic of burning rash are not mentioned in this version.
40. They asked. The received text here has “he asked,” but the letter waw at the end of the verb, which would make it a plural, in all likelihood was inadvertently dropped in scribal copying because the next word in the text also begins with a waw.
43. in joy, / in glad song. This could refer to the triumphant Song of the Sea (Exodus 15), even though the stories of the quail and the water from the rock follow it in Exodus. Its position here might be because it is a grand summary of the story of the Exodus.
44. He gave them the lands of nations. The verse narrative now leaps forward to the conquest of the promised land, skipping the Sinai epiphany, for reasons that remain unclear.
the wealth of peoples. The literal sense of the Hebrew ʿamal is “toil,” wealth being the product of the toil.
45. so that they should keep His statutes. The psalm concludes on a didactic, perhaps Deuteronomistic, note. The people’s inheritance of the land, the fulfillment of the promise first made to Abraham, is not simply to possess political sovereignty over territory but to observe God’s statutes, which is Israel’s part in the covenantal agreement.