He Brought Them Out With Joy
26 He sent Moses, his servant, and Aaron, whom he had chosen. 27 They performed miracles among them, and wonders in the land of Ham. 28 He sent darkness, and made it dark. They didn’t rebel against his words. 29 He turned their waters into blood, and killed their fish. 30 Their land swarmed with frogs, even in the rooms of their kings. 31 He spoke, and swarms of flies came, and lice in all their borders. 32 He gave them hail for rain, with lightning in their land. 33 He struck their vines and also their fig trees, and shattered the trees of their country. 34 He spoke, and the locusts came with the grasshoppers, without number. 35 They ate up every plant in their land, and ate up the fruit of their ground. 36 He struck also all the firstborn in their land, the first fruits of all their manhood. 37 He brought them out with silver and gold. There was not one feeble person among his tribes. 38 Egypt was glad when they departed, for the fear of them had fallen on them. 39 He spread a cloud for a covering, fire to give light in the night. 40 They asked, and he brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread of the sky. 41 He opened the rock, and waters gushed out. They ran as a river in the dry places. 42 For he remembered his holy word, and Abraham, his servant. 43 He brought his people out with joy, his chosen with singing. 44 He gave them the lands of the nations. They took the labor of the peoples in possession, 45 that they might keep his statutes, and observe his laws. Praise Yah!
The plagues listed as a series of divine sendings, and the whole rescue given a purpose in the last line.
He sent Moses, his servant, and Aaron, whom he had chosen.
Sent, as Joseph was sent. The psalm's vocabulary is consistent: everything that happens is dispatched.
He sent darkness, and made it dark Psalms 105:28.
The list of plagues follows, and it is not in the order of Exodus. Darkness comes first, which was the ninth, and the tally is shorter than ten. The psalm is recalling rather than cataloguing, and it takes the liberty a memory takes.
What is uniform is the grammar. He sent, he turned, he spoke, he gave, he struck — every plague is a verb with God as its subject, and Egypt's kings appear only as the owners of rooms the frogs got into Psalms 105:30.
He struck also all the firstborn in their land, the first fruits of all their manhood.
The phrase first fruits is the language of harvest and offering, used here of the dead. It is the only comment the psalm makes on the tenth plague.
He brought them out with silver and gold. There was not one feeble person among his tribes.
Two details, and the second is the more remarkable. A population of slaves, leaving in a night, and nobody stumbling — the psalm reports the departure as though a nation of manual laborers had been made fit for a march.
Egypt was glad when they departed Psalms 105:38. The nation that would not let them go for a festival is relieved to see them leave.
He spread a cloud for a covering, fire to give light in the night.
The pillar described by what it was for rather than what it looked like: shade in a desert day, light in a desert night.
They asked, and he brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread of the sky.
And here the two histories part company. The seventy-eighth psalm treats the same request as a test of God, and the hundred and sixth says he sent leanness into their soul Psalms 106:15. This psalm records only that they asked and were satisfied. It is not contradiction but selection, and it is deliberate: this is the account of what God did, with the complaining left out.
For he remembered his holy word, and Abraham, his servant.
The thesis restated at the end. The exodus happened because of a sentence spoken to a man four hundred years earlier.
44 He gave them the lands of the nations. They took the labor of the peoples in possession, 45 that they might keep his statutes, and observe his laws. Praise Yah!
The purpose clause of the whole psalm, and it comes last. The land was not the point either; obedience was what the land was for.
settled What this mark means