He Remembers His Covenant Forever
1 Give thanks to Yahweh! Call on his name! Make his doings known among the peoples. 2 Sing to him, sing praises to him! Tell of all his marvelous works. 3 Glory in his holy name. Let the heart of those who seek Yahweh rejoice. 4 Seek Yahweh and his strength. Seek his face forever more. 5 Remember his marvelous works that he has done: his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth, 6 you offspring of Abraham, his servant, you children of Jacob, his chosen ones. 7 He is Yahweh, our God. His judgments are in all the earth. 8 He has remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations, 9 the covenant which he made with Abraham, his oath to Isaac, 10 and confirmed it to Jacob for a statute; to Israel for an everlasting covenant, 11 saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance,” 12 when they were but a few men in number, yes, very few, and foreigners in it. 13 They went about from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people. 14 He allowed no one to do them wrong. Yes, he reproved kings for their sakes, 15 “Don’t touch my anointed ones! Do my prophets no harm!” 16 He called for a famine on the land. He destroyed the food supplies. 17 He sent a man before them. Joseph was sold for a slave. 18 They bruised his feet with shackles. His neck was locked in irons, 19 until the time that his word happened, and Yahweh’s word proved him true. 20 The king sent and freed him, even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free. 21 He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all of his possessions, 22 to discipline his princes at his pleasure, and to teach his elders wisdom. 23 Israel also came into Egypt. Jacob lived in the land of Ham. 24 He increased his people greatly, and made them stronger than their adversaries. 25 He turned their heart to hate his people, to conspire against his servants.
The national history told with every failure left out, and a promise made to a family of nomads treated as the engine of it.
Give thanks to Yahweh! Call on his name! Make his doings known among the peoples.
The psalm is a history of Israel, and it should be read beside the one that follows it. This one recounts what God did; the hundred and sixth recounts what Israel did, over the same events. Neither is complete, and the collection puts them side by side deliberately.
8 He has remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations, 9 the covenant which he made with Abraham, his oath to Isaac, 10 and confirmed it to Jacob for a statute; to Israel for an everlasting covenant,
The thesis. Everything in the psalm is presented as the working out of a single promise, and the promise is named three times over three generations to establish that it did not change.
11 saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance,” 12 when they were but a few men in number, yes, very few, and foreigners in it.
The contrast between the promise and the circumstances is stated without embarrassment. A land promised to a handful of resident foreigners who owned none of it.
14 He allowed no one to do them wrong. Yes, he reproved kings for their sakes, 15 “Don’t touch my anointed ones! Do my prophets no harm!”
The patriarchs are called anointed ones and prophets — titles that belong to kings and to men like Elijah — and applied to a family with tents and livestock. The protection they received is described as the reason nothing happened to them, which is a claim about the years the narrative passes over in silence.
16 He called for a famine on the land. He destroyed the food supplies. 17 He sent a man before them. Joseph was sold for a slave.
The psalm's boldest reading of the history, and it is the same one Joseph gave his brothers Genesis 45:5. The famine was called for; the man was sent. What the brothers did is described in a single passive clause — was sold — and the sending is credited elsewhere.
18 They bruised his feet with shackles. His neck was locked in irons, 19 until the time that his word happened, and Yahweh’s word proved him true.
The detail about the irons is not in Genesis, and the phrase about the word is the psalm's explanation of the delay. The years in prison were the interval between a word given and a word fulfilled, and the psalm says that the interval was doing something: it proved him.
24 He increased his people greatly, and made them stronger than their adversaries. 25 He turned their heart to hate his people, to conspire against his servants.
The hostility of Egypt is attributed to God, in the same manner as the hardening of Pharaoh — a settled disposition confirmed, and turned to a purpose it did not intend.
held with reason What this mark means