Psalms 105: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm calls Israel to thank the LORD and to tell other nations what he has done. It then retells their history as a record of God keeping the covenant he made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: the promise of the land of Canaan, God's protection while the family was still small and wandering, Joseph's slavery and rise in Egypt, the plagues and the exodus under Moses and Aaron, and the food, water, and guidance in the desert. It closes with God giving them the lands of other nations, so that they would keep his rules and laws.

Claim by Claim

1. 105:1
   • The hearers are commanded to give thanks to the LORD.
   • The hearers are commanded to call upon his name.
   • The hearers are commanded to make his deeds known among the peoples.
2. 105:2
   • The hearers are commanded to sing to him.
   • The hearers are commanded to sing praises to him.
   • The hearers are commanded to speak of all his wondrous works.
3. 105:3
   • The hearers are commanded to glory in his holy name.
   • Let the heart of those who seek the LORD rejoice.
4. 105:4
   • The hearers are commanded to seek the LORD and his strength.
   • The hearers are commanded to seek his face continually.
5. 105:5
   • The hearers are commanded to remember the wonders he has done.
   • The hearers are commanded to remember his marvels.
   • The hearers are commanded to remember the judgments of his mouth.
6. 105:6
   • Those addressed are the offspring of Abraham.
   • Abraham is God's servant.
   • Those addressed are the sons of Jacob.
   • The sons of Jacob are God's chosen ones.
7. 105:7
   • He is the LORD our God.
   • His judgments are in all the earth.
8. 105:8
   • He has remembered his covenant forever.
   • He commanded his word to a thousand generations.
9. 105:9
   • He made that covenant with Abraham.
   • He swore his oath to Isaac.
10. 105:10
    • He established it for Jacob as a statute.
    • He established it for Israel as an everlasting covenant.
11. 105:11
    • He said, I will give you the land of Canaan.
    • The land of Canaan is the measured portion of your inheritance.
12. 105:12
    • At that time they were few men in number.
    • They were very few.
    • They were sojourners in that land.
13. 105:13
    • They wandered from nation to nation.
    • They wandered from one kingdom to another people.
14. 105:14
    • He allowed no man to oppress them.
    • He rebuked kings on their account.
15. 105:15
    • He said, Do not touch my anointed ones.
    • He said, Do my prophets no harm.
16. 105:16
    • He called a famine upon the land.
    • He broke every staff of bread.
17. 105:17
    • He sent a man ahead of them.
    • That man was Joseph.
    • Joseph was sold as a slave.
18. 105:18
    • They afflicted his feet with fetters.
    • The text says either that his neck was put into iron or that iron entered his soul; it is ambiguous which.
19. 105:19
    • This lasted until the time his word came to pass.
    • The word of the LORD tested him.
20. 105:20
    • The king sent and released him.
    • The ruler of peoples set him free.
21. 105:21
    • He made him lord of his house.
    • He made him ruler over all his possessions.
22. 105:22
    • Joseph was to bind the king's officials at his own will.
    • Joseph was to teach the king's elders wisdom.
23. 105:23
    • Israel came into Egypt.
    • Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.
24. 105:24
    • He made his people very fruitful.
    • He made them stronger than their adversaries.
25. 105:25
    • He turned their heart to hate his people.
    • He turned their heart to deal craftily with his servants.
26. 105:26
    • He sent Moses his servant.
    • He sent Aaron, whom he had chosen.
27. 105:27
    • They performed his signs among them.
    • They performed wonders in the land of Ham.
28. 105:28
    • He sent darkness.
    • He made it dark.
    • They did not rebel against his word.
29. 105:29
    • He turned their waters into blood.
    • He killed their fish.
30. 105:30
    • Their land swarmed with frogs.
    • The frogs were in the chambers of their kings.
31. 105:31
    • He spoke, and swarms of flies came.
    • Gnats came in all their territory.
32. 105:32
    • He gave them hail as their rain.
    • He gave flaming fire in their land.
33. 105:33
    • He struck their vines and their fig trees.
    • He shattered the trees of their territory.
34. 105:34
    • He spoke, and locusts came.
    • Young locusts came.
    • They were without number.
35. 105:35
    • The locusts ate every plant in their land.
    • The locusts ate the fruit of their ground.
36. 105:36
    • He struck all the firstborn in their land.
    • The firstborn were the first of all their strength.
37. 105:37
    • He brought them out with silver and gold.
    • There was no one stumbling among his tribes.
38. 105:38
    • Egypt was glad when they departed.
    • The dread of them had fallen upon the Egyptians.
39. 105:39
    • He spread a cloud for a covering.
    • He gave fire to give light by night.
40. 105:40
    • They asked.
    • He brought quail.
    • He satisfied them with the bread of heaven.
41. 105:41
    • He opened a rock.
    • Waters gushed out.
    • The waters ran in the dry places like a river.
42. 105:42
    • He remembered his holy word.
    • He remembered Abraham his servant.
43. 105:43
    • He brought out his people with joy.
    • He brought out his chosen ones with glad shouting.
44. 105:44
    • He gave them the lands of the nations.
    • They inherited the labor of the peoples.
45. 105:45
    • The purpose was that they might keep his statutes.
    • The purpose was that they might observe his laws.
    • The hearers are commanded to praise the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

105:1

"The LORD" in small capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters usually written YHWH. Jewish readers came to avoid pronouncing it and said "Lord" instead, and English Bibles have followed that practice ever since. Verses 1–15 of this psalm appear almost word for word in 1 Chronicles 16, as a song sung when the ark was brought to Jerusalem.

105:2

A psalm is a song sung to God. This whole book is full of them.

105:3

"Glory ye in his holy name" does not mean showing off. To glory in something meant to be proud of it and glad to be part of it.

105:4

"Seek his face" is court language. To see a ruler's face meant to be granted an audience with him; to be denied his face meant being shut out. The phrase asks for access to God's presence, not for a literal sight of him.

105:5

The Hebrew word behind "judgments" covers both senses at once: the legal rulings a judge pronounces and the acts by which he enforces them. Here it points forward to the plagues on Egypt described later in the psalm.

105:6

Abraham, his son Isaac, and Isaac's son Jacob are the three generations Israel traced itself back to. Jacob was also called Israel, and his twelve sons gave their names to the twelve tribes, so "sons of Jacob" means the whole nation.

105:8

A covenant was a formal, binding agreement, sworn with oaths and often with a ceremony, the same kind of arrangement kings made with each other or with the peoples they ruled. The covenant meant here is God's promise to Abraham of descendants and land.

105:9

"A thousand generations" is a Hebrew way of saying "for as long as anyone can count," not a figure meant to be worked out in years.

105:10

God gave Jacob a second name, Israel. His whole family came to be called Israel too.

105:11

Canaan was the strip of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, roughly modern Israel, the Palestinian territories, and southern Lebanon. "The lot of your inheritance" uses the language of dividing land by casting lots, small marked stones or sticks thrown to decide who got which portion, and so means the share assigned to you.

105:12

A "stranger" in this sense was a resident foreigner: someone living permanently among a people not his own, unable to own land and dependent on local goodwill for protection. That was the position of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Canaan.

105:13

This summarizes the wanderings told in Genesis: Abraham moving from Mesopotamia into Canaan, down to Egypt and back, Isaac among the Philistines at Gerar, Jacob in Haran and later in Egypt.

105:14

In 1611 English, "suffered" meant allowed. "He suffered no man to do them wrong" means he did not let anyone hurt them.

105:15

To anoint someone was to pour olive oil on his head, a public act marking him out for a special role, normally a king or a priest. Here the word is applied to the wandering ancestors themselves. "Prophet" means a person who speaks on God's behalf; Genesis 20:7 calls Abraham one. The verse recalls the episodes where foreign rulers took Abraham's or Isaac's wife and were warned off.

105:16

"He brake the whole staff of bread" is a Hebrew idiom. A staff is a walking stick that holds a man up, so bread is pictured as the support that holds life up; breaking it means cutting off the food supply. The famine is the one in Genesis 41–47.

105:17

Joseph, Jacob's son, was sold by his brothers to traders who took him to Egypt, where he was resold as a household slave (Genesis 37).

105:18

The Hebrew of the second line is compressed and can be read two ways: that iron entered his neck (a collar or shackle), or that his very self came into iron. The King James "he was laid in iron" takes the first sense.

105:19

"His word" is most likely Joseph's own prediction, his interpretation of the prisoners' and then Pharaoh's dreams, which the passing of time proved right. "Tried" here means tested, the way metal is put through fire to prove it, not "tried" in the sense of a trial in court.

105:20

The king is Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, who released Joseph from prison to interpret his dream (Genesis 41).

105:21

Substance meant everything a person owned: money, land, animals, and goods.

105:22

"Senators" is the King James word for elders, the senior men who advised a ruler. The first line is disputed: the Hebrew as written says "to bind his princes," but the same consonants, read with different vowels, give "to instruct his princes," which fits the parallel with "teach" in the second line. Both readings are ancient.

105:23

"The land of Ham" is a poetic name for Egypt. Ham was one of Noah's three sons, and Genesis 10 lists Egypt among his descendants. To "sojourn" is to live somewhere as a resident foreigner rather than a citizen.

105:25

"Subtilly" in 1611 English meant craftily or by cunning scheming, with no sense of the modern word's delicacy or restraint.

105:26

Moses led Israel out of Egypt; Aaron was his older brother, who acted as his spokesman before Pharaoh and later became the first priest.

105:27

Verses 27–36 run through the plagues of Exodus 7–12, but not in the order Exodus gives them and without listing all ten; the boils and the cattle disease are left out, and the darkness is moved to the front.

105:28

The Hebrew here is genuinely uncertain. As written, the line says "they did not rebel against his word," which would refer to Moses and Aaron doing as they were told; some ancient copies and translations lack the "not," giving "they defied his words," referring to the Egyptians. Translators split on which to follow.

105:29

The water is the Nile River, which Egypt depended on for drinking, washing, and fish.

105:30

Chambers were the private inner rooms of a house or palace, including bedrooms. Frogs got even into the most protected rooms.

105:31

"Divers sorts of flies" means various kinds of flies, "divers" was the ordinary 1611 word for "different" or "assorted." The Hebrew term means a swarm and does not specify the insect. "Lice" translates a word whose exact meaning is unknown; gnats or mosquitoes are equally possible. "Coasts" in the King James means borders or territory generally, with no reference to the sea.

105:32

"Flaming fire" means lightning flashing down with the hail.

105:33

A vine is the plant that grapes grow on. Figs are a sweet fruit. Both were important food.

105:34

"Caterpillers" is the King James rendering of a Hebrew word for locusts at a young, wingless stage of growth, not caterpillars in the modern sense.

105:35

"Herbs" in the King James means all green plants and leafy growth, not just the herbs used in cooking.

105:36

"The chief of all their strength" is a literal rendering of a Hebrew idiom: the firstborn son was regarded as the first product of his father's vigor, and so as the pick of the household.

105:37

Exodus 12 records that the Israelites, on leaving, asked their Egyptian neighbors for objects of silver and gold and were given them. The second line says literally that none among the tribes stumbled: that is, no one lagged or fell behind on the journey out.

105:38

"The fear of them fell upon them" means the Egyptians had become terrified of the Israelites and wanted them gone.

105:39

Exodus 13 describes a pillar of cloud that went ahead of Israel by day and a pillar of fire by night. The psalm adds the idea of the cloud spread overhead as shade in the desert.

105:40

The quails are from Exodus 16 and Numbers 11. "The bread of heaven" is manna, the flaky substance that appeared on the ground each morning during the years in the desert; the Israelites named it from their own question, "man hu", "what is it?"

105:41

This refers to the occasions when Moses struck a rock and water came out for the thirsty people (Exodus 17 and Numbers 20).

105:44

"Heathen" translates the ordinary Hebrew word for "the nations": that is, peoples other than Israel. In 1611 it carried no suggestion of savagery or ignorance. "Inherited the labour of the people" means they took over fields, vineyards, wells and towns that others had built and planted.

105:45

"Statutes" and "laws" render two Hebrew words for what God commanded: fixed decrees, and instructions or rulings. "Praise ye the LORD" translates the single Hebrew word hallelu-yah, which is simply carried over untranslated into English as "hallelujah."