Psalms 105:1

The Bible says in Psalm 105:1-2, “O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people.[2] Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him: talk ye of all his wondrous works.” Verse one tells us to be thankful, to be a person of prayer, and to be an outspoken witness about the “deeds” that God has done. Verse two tells us to “sing” to the Lord, and to talk of “all his wondrous works.” Every person has thousands or more reasons to thank God every day. We call upon His name because we need Him. When we came to know Christ, it was by calling upon His name. God likes us to talk to Him. He also likes us to talk to people about Him. Both verse one and two remind us of that truth. When we sing, our songs should be directed to God from our hearts and not to the ears of others. God thinks we are all wonderful singers. Notice that we are told to sing “psalms.” The New Testament also tells us to do that. In talking about how to be filled with the Spirit, it says in Ephesians 5:19, “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;” The New Testament tells us to go back to the Old Testament to the book of Psalms and sing.

The Bible says in Psalm 105:3-4, “Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the LORD.[4] Seek the LORD, and his strength: seek his face evermore.” What does it mean to “glory” in His holy name? It certainly means to respect and honor His name. In the Old Testament many names were given for God and perhaps the most well-known was Jehovah, which means the eternally existent One: the great I AM. The emphasis here being on the fact that God gives eternal life. He is the source of all life. Become connected to God and you will have life. In the New Testament the name of God is Jesus. The name Jesus means Savior. If you want to be saved from your sins and go to heaven and live forever, make sure that you are connected to Jesus by faith in Him.

How does a person become happy in life? The last part of Psalm 105:3 gives a clue. It says, “let the heart of them rejoice that seek the LORD.” We were created to know the Lord Jesus and to serve Him, and so it is understandable that true happiness comes from knowing the Lord Jesus and serving Him. Part of serving the Lord is to “seek” Him. To seek the Lord, you must really want Him badly. To seek the Lord means that the great desire of your heart is to be close to Jesus, walk in fellowship with Him, and serve Him in your life. None of those things will happen unless you seek Him by stirring up your own heart to want Him more than anything or anyone else.

Verse four says to “Seek the LORD, and his strength.” One reason to seek Him is because we know that He has all power. We know that we need His power in our lives. The problems and challenges that we face are too much for us without God. We need the Lord. We know that we are as sheep who need a shepherd, and we want Jesus to be our Shepherd. Therefore, we seek Him.

The Bible says in Psalm 105:5, “Remember His marvelous works that He hath done; his wonders and the judgments of His mouth.” One thing that helps a believer to keep seeking God is to “remember.” We know His marvelous works, His wonders, and His judgments because we have read about them in the Bible, and we have experienced them ourselves. He created the universe, the solar system, the earth, and all life. He delivered the children of Israel from Egypt by the crossing of the Red Sea. He kept His promises to Abraham in spite of the failures of the children of Israel through all the years that they inhabited the Promised Land. He gave them King David as a witness to the King that would come. When Jesus was born finally all the promises about the future Messiah were starting to be fulfilled. God always keeps His promises. And so we can look forward to the fulfillment of the promise about the Second Coming of Christ. If we would only remember what we have already learned and seen and known, certainly we will seek Him.

The Bible says in Psalm 105:6-7, “O ye seed of Abraham his servant, ye children of Jacob his chosen,[7] He is the Lord our God: his judgments are in all the earth.” Our relationship to Abraham and Jacob is emphasized here. God made promises to Abraham and to his “seed.” God will keep His promises, and that should be a source of great comfort for all of us. Abraham’s God is our God, and He is the only God. God is everywhere, He is on our side, and “his judgments are in all the earth.” People will be judged according to how God thinks they deserve judgment. And so we can just sit back and watch what the Lord does.

The Bible says in Psalm 105:8-10, “He hath remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.[9] Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac;[10] And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant.” One of the reasons that God keeps His promises is that God cannot forget. God never forgets what He said to His believers. God made His covenant with Abraham, and then God repeated it to Isaac, and then God repeated it to Jacob. Because God’s covenant is recorded in the written “word,” that covenant is valid for every generation of believers. It is valid for “a thousand generations.” A generation in the Bible is about forty years, and so a thousand generations is 40,000 years. That covers all of human history several times over. And if that is not enough to assure you, it says in verse ten that it is “an everlasting covenant.” The covenant that God made with Abraham has to do with the land of Israel, the descendants of Abraham both physical and spiritual, and the most important seed of Abraham who is the Messiah Jesus Christ. God promised Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:[2] And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:[3] And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” And the Bible also says about the covenant in Genesis 13:14-16, “And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:[15] For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.[16] And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.” And God also said in Genesis 17:6-8, “And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.[7] And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.
[8] And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

The Bible says in Psalm 105:11-16, “Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance:[12] When they were but a few men in number; yea, very few, and strangers in it.[13] When they went from one nation to another, from one kingdom to another people;[14] He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he reproved kings for their sakes;[15] Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.[16] Moreover he called for a famine upon the land: he brake the whole staff of bread.” These verses tell us the circumstances that Abraham and his immediate descendants were in when God first made this great covenant with them. And the purpose of the verses is to show that God made His covenant come to pass no matter what the circumstances were and no matter what happened. They were “few men in number.” They were “strangers” and foreigners in new places and new lands. They “went from one nation to another.” But God did not permit any “man to do them wrong.” And God “reproved kings for their sakes” so that they would be protected and so that God’s covenant would be fulfilled. If you are rightly related to Christ, He will do these types of things for you too. God is in control of your life and in control of every person that affects your life. Jesus will protect you as long as He wants you to be protected.

Notice in verse sixteen that a “famine” is mentioned. That is the famine that forced the children of Israel to move to Egypt. Notice also that God made the famine happen. God “called for a famine upon the land.” Famines might very well be the worst of all disasters that can happen to a nation. Millions upon millions of people have died because of famine. This is a reminder that God is in control of all things, and that He gives life and He takes it when He will. And He uses all these things to accomplish His will upon the children of men. One of God’s purposes for this particular famine was so that the little family that had descended from Abraham would move to Egypt. God is definitely in control.

The Bible says in Psalm 105:17-19, “He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant:[18] Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron:[19] Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him.” Joseph was hated by his brothers. Joseph was sold into slavery. Joseph was taken to Egypt long before the famine of the land of Canaan. All of that was the hand of God. God is in control. God has a reason for all things. We may not know what the reason is, but there is a reason. God is at work even in the storms of life. God is at work even when things do not work out the way that we hoped and prayed. God was at work even when Potipher’s wife tried to seduce Joseph. Thankfully, Joseph ran away from the temptation.

The Bible says in Psalm 105:20-23, “The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of the people, and let him go free.[21] He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his substance:
[22] To bind his princes at his pleasure; and teach his senators wisdom.[23] Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.” How marvelous is the plan of God. Everything fits into His great plan. The “king” in verse twenty was the Pharaoh of Egypt. God works in the hearts of leaders of nations as well as in the hearts of ordinary people. God is God of all. God made sure that Joseph was in a position of power in Egypt so that Joseph would be able to help the descendants of Abraham when they came into Egypt. Leaders of the world would be smart to help the Jewish people. The blessings of God will fall upon those who do. Curses will fall upon those who do not.

The Bible says in Psalm 105:24-25, “And he increased his people greatly; and made them stronger than their enemies.
[25] He turned their heart to hate his people, to deal subtilly with his servants.” In verse twenty-four good things happened to the children of Israel, and in verse twenty-five bad things happened to them. The point is that in both cases it was God’s hand and God’s will guiding all that took place. As Christians we know that Bible principle very well because we have Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and to them that are the called according to His purpose.”

The Bible says in Psalm 105:26-27, “He sent Moses his servant; and Aaron whom he had chosen.[27] They shewed his signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ham.” When the children of Israel were in Egypt, God sent two leaders to help them: Moses and Aaron. God works through people. People need good leaders. God uses a prepared person for a prepared place. We know how Moses was prepared. First, he was well-educated because he was brought up in Pharaoh’s household. Secondly, Moses was prepared spiritually for two reasons: his own mother became his nurse, and Moses would have learned the teachings of the people of God from her. And then when Moses was forty years old, he went into the wilderness for forty years where he learned both practical and spiritual lessons as he lived and worked with the priest of Midian, and Moses married one of the priest’s daughters. Her name was Zipporah. And after all these things, Moses was called God’s “servant,” as it says in Psalms 105:26. Moses learned to obey God. Moses learned to follow God. Moses learned to find out what God wanted him to do, and then to do it. That is what a servant of God does. Are you a servant of God? You are if your goal is to find out what God wants you to do, and then you do it.

Psalm 105:26 says that Aaron was one that God “had chosen.” God decides who will be in positions of leadership. God has a plan for everyone. You will become what God has chosen for you to become, assuming that you surrender to His calling. Strange how the selfish human nature tends to resist God when God has something very good in store for you. Because Moses and Aaron did what God wanted, it says in verse twenty-seven that God “shewed his signs among them,” God used them in wonderful ways in the great deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt. If you become a true servant of Christ, it may be that He only wants you to be a door-keeper in a small house in a remote land, unknown to the world, but known only to God. But also, there is no limit to what He may want to use you to do.

The next nine verses describe the plagues that God brought upon the land of Egypt in order to get Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go away into freedom. The Bible says in Psalm 105:28-36, “He sent darkness, and made it dark; and they rebelled not against his word.[29] He turned their waters into blood, and slew their fish.[30] Their land brought forth frogs in abundance, in the chambers of their kings.[31] He spake, and there came divers sorts of flies, and lice in all their coasts.[32] He gave them hail for rain, and flaming fire in their land.[33] He smote their vines also and their fig trees; and brake the trees of their coasts.[34] He spake, and the locusts came, and caterpillers, and that without number,[35] And did eat up all the herbs in their land, and devoured the fruit of their ground.[36] He smote also all the firstborn in their land, the chief of all their strength.” We know that God gives great abundance, and we are careful to be thankful for all of His blessings. But God also can withhold the blessings of life on this earth when He so chooses. God controls everything: the insects, the rivers, the frogs, the flies, the trees, the little babies: everything.

God brought plagues on Egypt, but God gave great blessing to Israel. The Egyptians gave the Israelites money, gold, and other valuables to encourage them to leave. It says in Psalms 105:37-38, “He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.[38] Egypt was glad when they departed: for the fear of them fell upon them.” God brought the ten plagues upon Egypt, but He brought those plagues on the behalf of the Israelites. Of course, the Egyptians knew this. God used this whole circumstance to cause the Egyptians to fear the Israelites and to give them valuables to encourage them to leave Egypt. God is in charge of the hearts of all people. Whatever attitude that someone has and whatever reaction that someone has, God is in charge. Jesus is Lord. He is in charge of all things.

The Bible says in Psalm 105:39-45, “He spread a cloud for a covering; and fire to give light in the night.[40] The people asked, and he brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.[41] He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out; they ran in the dry places like a river.[42] For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant.[43] And he brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness:[44] And gave them the lands of the heathen: and they inherited the labour of the people;[45] That they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws. Praise ye the LORD.” It is interesting that the forty years of wandering in the wilderness are covered in these few verses, and it is very important to notice that none of the sins and mistakes of the children of Israel are mentioned at all. The only things that are mentioned are the good things that happened and the good things that God did for them during that time period. Their complaining, their idolatry, their desire to turn back to Egypt, their lack of faith, their lust: none of these things are mentioned. What is mentioned is God’s goodness to them and God’s blessings upon them. It will probably be like that when those who believe in Jesus go to heaven. None of our sins and failures will be mentioned or will be known: only the good things that God did in our lives.

God is doing for us exactly what He did for the children of Israel. In verse thirty-nine, it says that God led them. In verse forty it says that He answered their prayers. In verses forty and forty-one it says that God supplied their needs. In verse forty-two it says that God remembered His promise to them. God always keeps His promises. In verse forty-three it says that God gave them joy and gladness. One of the great benefits of knowing Jesus as Savior is having the joy of the Lord available to us. Verse forty-four tells us that God gave them victory over their enemies. Every Christian can have spiritual victory. After mentioning all these wonderful things that the Lord does for us in this life, verse forty-five tells us what the Lord wants from us: that we should “observe his statutes, and keep his laws.” Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”

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