O give thanks unto the Lord. Jehovah is the author of all our benefits; therefore let
him have all our gratitude. Call upon his name, or call him by his name;
proclaim his titles and fill the world with his renown. Make known his deeds
among the people, or among the nations. Let the heathen hear of our God,
that they may forsake their idols and learn to worship him.
2. Sing unto him.
Bring your best thoughts and express them in the best language to the sweetest
sounds. Take care that your singing is unto him, and not merely for the
sake of the music or to delight the ears of others. Talk ye of all his
wondrous works. People love to speak of marvels, and others are generally
glad to hear of surprising things; surely the believer in the living God has
before him the most amazing series of wonders ever heard of or imagined; his
themes are inexhaustible, and they are such as should hold people spellbound.
3. Glory ye in his holy name. Make it a matter of joy that you have such a God. His
character and attributes are such as will never make you blush to call him your
God. Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. If they have not yet found him so fully as they
desire, yet even to be enabled to seek such a God is cause for gladness. To
worship the Lord and seek his kingdom and righteousness is the way to
happiness; indeed there is no other. Even seekers find bliss in the name of
Jesus, but as for the finders, we may say with the poet:
And
those who find thee find a bliss
Nor
tongue nor pen can show;
The
love of Jesus what it is
None but his loved ones know.
4. Seek the Lord
and his strength. Put yourselves under his
protection. Regard him not as a puny God but look unto his omnipotence, and
seek to know the power of his grace. We all need strength; let us look to the
strong place, let us look to the Almighty Jehovah for it. Seek his face
evermore. Seek, seek, seek, we have the word three times, and though the
words differ in the Hebrew, the sense is the same. It must be a blessed thing
to seek, or we should not be thus stirred up to do so. To seek his face
is to desire his presence, his smile, his favor consciously enjoyed. First we
seek him, then his strength, and then his face; from the
personal reverence, we pass on to the imparted power, and then to the conscious
favor. This seeking must never cease—the more we know, the more we must seek to
know.
5. Remember his marvelous works that he hath done. Memory is never better employed than upon such topics.
Alas, we are far more ready to recollect foolish and evil things than to retain
in our minds the glorious deeds of Jehovah. His wonders, and the judgment of
his mouth—these also should be had in memory. The judgments of his mouth
are as memorable as the marvels of his hand.
6. O ye seed of Abraham his servant, ye children of Jacob
his chosen. Should all the world forget, you
are bound to remember. Your father Abraham saw his wonders and judgments upon
Sodom, and upon the kings who came from far, and Jacob also saw the Lord’s
marvelous works in visiting the nations with famine, yet providing for his
chosen a choice inheritance in a goodly land; therefore let the children praise
their father’s God. The Israelites were the Lord’s elect nation, and they were
bound to imitate their progenitor, who was the Lord’s faithful servant and
walked before him in holy faith: the seed of Abraham should not be unbelieving,
nor should the children of so true a servant become rebels. As we read this
pointed appeal to the chosen seed we should recognize the special claims which
the Lord has upon ourselves, since we too have been favored above all others.
Election is not a couch for ease, but an argument for sevenfold diligence. If
God has set his choice upon us, let us aim to be choice people.
7. He is the Lord
our God. Blessed be his name. Jehovah
condescends to be our God. This sentence contains a greater wealth of
meaning than all the eloquence of orators can compass, and there is more joy in
it than in all the sonnets of them that make merry. His judgments are in all
the earth, or “in all the land,” for the whole of the country was
instructed by his law, ruled by his statutes, and protected by his authority.
What a joy that God is never absent from us; his judgments are in all the
places in which we dwell.
8. He hath remembered his covenant for ever. Here is the basis of all his dealings with his people: he
had entered into covenant with them in their father Abraham, and to this
covenant he remained faithful. The exhortation to remember (in verse 5)
receives great force from the fact that God has remembered. If the Lord has his
promise in memory surely we ought not to forget the wonderful manner in which he
keeps it. To us it should be matter for deepest joy that never has the Lord
been unmindful of his covenant engagements, nor will he be so world without
end. Oh that we were as mindful of them as he is. The word which he
commanded to a thousand generations. This is only an amplification of the
former statement, and serves to set before us the immutable fidelity of the
Lord during the changing human generations. His promise is here said to be commanded,
or vested with all the authority of a law. It is a proclamation from a
sovereign, whose laws will stand fast though heaven and earth pass away.
Therefore let us give thanks unto the Lord and talk of all his wondrous works,
so wonderful for their faithfulness and truth.
9. Which covenant he made with Abraham. When the victims were divided and the burning lamp passed
between the pieces (Genesis 15), then the Lord made, or ratified, the covenant
with the patriarch. This was a solemn deed, performed not without blood, and
the cutting in pieces of the sacrifice: it points us to the greater covenant
which in Christ Jesus is signed, sealed, and ratified, that it may stand fast
forever and ever. And his oath unto Isaac. Isaac did not in vision see
the solemn making of the covenant, but the Lord renewed unto him his oath
(Genesis 26:2–5). This was enough for him, and must have established his faith
in the Most High. We have the privilege of seeing in our Lord Jesus both the
sacrificial seal, and the eternal oath of God, by which every promise of the
covenant is made yea and amen to all the chosen seed.
10. And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law. Jacob in his wondrous dream (Genesis 28:10–15) received a
pledge that the Lord’s mode of procedure with him would be in accordance with
covenant relations: for said Jehovah, “I will not leave thee till I have done
that which I have spoken to thee of.” Thus, if we may so speak with all
reverence, the covenant became a law unto the Lord himself by which he bound
himself to act. Oh matchless condescension, that the most free and sovereign
Lord should put himself under covenant bonds to his chosen, and make a law for
himself, though he is above all law. And to Israel for an everlasting
covenant. When he changed Jacob’s name he did not change his covenant, but
“he blessed him there” (Genesis 32:29), and it was with the old blessing,
according to the unchangeable word of abiding grace.
11–12. Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan,
the lot of your inheritance.
This repetition of the great covenant promise is recorded in Genesis 35:9–12
in connection with the change of Jacob’s name, and very soon after that
slaughter of the Shechemites, which had put the patriarch into such great alarm
and caused him to use language almost identical with that of the next verse. When
they were but a few men in number; yea. very few. and strangers in it.
Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among
the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I
being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay
me, and I shall be destroyed, and my house.” Thus the fears of the man of God
declared themselves, and they were reasonable if we look only at the
circumstances in which he was placed, but they are soon seen to be groundless
when we remember that the covenant promise, which guaranteed the possession of
the land, necessarily implied the preservation of the race to whom the promise
was made. We often fear where no fear is.
13. Migrating
as the patriarchs did from the region of one tribe to the country of another
they were singularly preserved. The little wandering family might have been off
root and branch had not a special mandate been issued from the throne for their
protection. It was not the gentleness of their neighbors which screened them;
they were hedged about by the mysterious guardianship of heaven. Whether in
Egypt, or in Philistia, or in Canaan, the heirs of the promises, dwelling in
their tents, were always secure.
14. He suffered no man to do them wrong. Men cannot wrong us unless he lets them do so; the greatest
must wait his permission before they can place a finger upon us. The wicked
would devour us if they could, but they cannot even cheat us of a farthing without
divine sufferance. Yea, he reproved kings for their sakes. Pharaoh and
Abimelech must both be made to respect the singular strangers who had come to
sojourn in their land; the greatest kings are very second-rate persons with God
in comparison with his chosen servants.
15. Saying, touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no
harm. Abraham and his descendants were in
the midst of the world a generation of priests anointed to present sacrifice
unto the Most High God; since to them the oracles were committed, they were
also the prophets of mankind; and they were kings too—a royal priesthood; hence
they had received a threefold anointing. Their holy office surrounded them with
a sacredness which rendered it sacrilege to molest them. The Lord was pleased to
impress the wild tribes of Canaan with a respectful awe of the pious strangers
who had come to abide with them, so that they came not near them to do them
ill. The words here mentioned may not have been actually spoken, but the
impression of awe which fell upon the nations is thus poetically described. God
will not have those touched who have been set apart unto himself. He calls them
his own, saying, Mine anointed; he declares that he has anointed
them to be prophets, priests, and kings unto himself, and yet again he claims
them as his prophets—Do my prophets no harm.
All through the many years in which the three great fathers dwelt in Canaan no
one was able to injure them: they were not able to defend themselves by force
of arms, but the eternal God was their refuge.
16–23. The
presence of God having remained with his chosen ones while they sojourned in
Canaan, it did not desert them when they were called to go down into Egypt.
They did not go there of their own choice, but under divine direction, and hence
the Lord prepared their way and prospered them until he saw fit to conduct them
again to the land of promise.
16. Moreover he called for a famine upon the land. He had only to call for it as a man calls for his servant,
and it came at once. How grateful ought we to be that he does not often call in
that terrible servant of his, so meager and gaunt and grim, so pitiless to the
women and the children, so bitter to the strong men, who utterly fail before
it. He brake the whole staff of bread. Our feeble life cannot stand
without its staff—if bread fail us, we fall. To God it is as easy to make a
famine as to break a staff. He could make that famine universal, too, so that
all countries should be in like case: then would the race of man fall indeed,
and its staff would be broken forever. There is this sweet comfort in the
matter, that the Lord has wise ends to serve even by famine: he meant his
people to go down into Egypt, and the scarcity of food was his method of
leading them there, for “they heard that there was corn in Egypt.”
17. He sent a man before them, even Joseph. He was the advance guard and pioneer for the whole clan.
His brethren sold him, but God sent him. Where the hand of the wicked is
visible God’s hand may be invisibly at work, overruling their malice. No one
was more of a man, or more fit to lead the clan than Joseph: an
interpreter of dreams was wanted, and his brethren had said of him, “Behold,
this dreamer cometh.” Who was sold for a servant, or rather for a
slave. Joseph’s journey into Egypt was not so costly as Jonah’s voyage when he
paid his own fare: his free passage was provided by the Midianites, who also
secured his introduction to a great officer of state by handing him over as a
slave. His way to a position in which he could feed his family lay through the
pit, the slaver’s caravan, the slave market and the prison, and who will deny
but what it was the right way, the surest way, the wisest way, and perhaps the
shortest way. Yet assuredly it seemed not so. Were we to send a man on such an
errand we would furnish him with money—Joseph goes as a pauper; we would clothe
him with authority—Joseph goes as a slave; we would leave him at full
liberty—Joseph is a bondman; yet money would have been of little use when corn
was so dear, authority would have been irritating rather than influential with
Pharaoh, and freedom might not have thrown Joseph into connection with
Pharaoh’s captain and his other servants, and so the knowledge of his skill in
interpretation might not have reached the monarch’s ear. God’s way is the
way. Our Lord’s path to his mediatorial throne ran by the cross of Calvary; our
road to glory runs by the rivers of grief.
18. Whose feet they hurt with fetters. From this we learn a little more of Joseph’s sufferings
than we find in the book of Genesis: inspiration had not ceased, and David was
as accurate an historian as Moses, for the same Spirit guided his pen. He
was laid in iron, or “into iron came his soul.” The prayer book version,
“the iron entered into his soul,” is ungrammatical, but probably expresses
much the same truth. His fetters hurt his mind as well as his body.
19. Until the time that his word came. God has his times, and his children must wait till his until
is fulfilled. Joseph was tried as in a furnace, until the Lord’s assaying work
was fully accomplished. The word of the chief butler was nothing; he had to
wait until God’s word came, and meanwhile the word of the Lord tried him. He believed the
promise, but his faith was sorely exercised. A delayed blessing tests people,
and proves their metal, whether their faith is of that precious kind which can
endure the fire. Of many a choice promise we may say with Daniel, “the thing
was true, but the time appointed was long.”
20. The king sent and loosed him. He was thrust into the roundhouse by an officer, but he was
released by the monarch himself. Even the ruler of the people, and let him
go free. The tide had turned, so that Egypt’s haughty potentate gave him a
call from the prison to the palace. He had interpreted the dreams of captives,
himself a captive; he must now interpret for a ruler and become a ruler
himself. When God means to enlarge his prisoners, kings become his turnkeys.
21. He made him lord of his house. Reserving no power, but saying, “only in the throne will I
be greater than thou.” The servitor of slaves becomes lord over nobles. How
soon the Lord lifteth his chosen from the dunghill to set them among princes. And
ruler of all his substance. He empowered him to manage the storing of the
seven plenteous harvests, and to dispense the provisions in the coming days of
scarcity. All the treasures of Egypt were under his lock and key; indeed the
granaries of the world were sealed or opened at his bidding. Thus was he in the
best conceivable position for preserving alive the house of Israel with whom
the covenant was made. As our Lord was himself secured in Egypt from Herod’s
enmity, so, ages before, the redeemed race found an equally available shelter,
in the hour of need.
22. To bind his princes at his pleasure. He who was bound obtains authority to bind. He is no longer
kept in prison, but keeps all prisons, and casts into them the greatest nobles
when justice demands it. And teach his senators wisdom. The heads of the
various peoples, the elders of the nations, learned from him the science of
government, the art of providing for the people. Joseph was a great instructor
in political economy, and we doubt not that he mingled with it the purest
morals, the most upright jurisprudence, and something of that divine wisdom
without which the most able senators remain in darkness.
23. Israel also came into Egypt. The aged patriarch came, and with him that increasing
company which bore his name. He was hard to bring there. Perhaps nothing short
of the hope of seeing Joseph could have drawn him to take so long a journey
from the tombs of his forefathers; but the divine will was accomplished and the
church of God was removed into an enemy’s country, where for a while it was
nourished. And Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. Shem the blessed came
to lodge awhile with Ham the accursed. God so willed it for a time, and
therefore it was safe and right; still it was only a sojourn, not a settlement.
The fairest Goshen in Egypt was not the covenant blessing, neither did the Lord
mean his people to think it so; even so to us “earth is our lodge” but only
our lodge, for heaven is our home.
Thus the song rehearsed the removals of the Lord’s people,
and was a most fit accompaniment to the upbearing of the ark, as the priests
carried it into the city of David, where the Lord had appointed it a
resting-place.
24. And he increased his people greatly. In Goshen they seem to have increased rapidly from the
first, and this excited the fears of the Egyptians, so that they tried to
retard their increase by oppression, but the Lord continued to bless them. And
made them stronger than their enemies. Both in physical strength and in
numbers they threatened to become the more powerful race. Nor was this growth
of the nation impeded by tyrannical measures, but the very reverse took place,
thus giving an early instance of what has since become a proverb in the
church—“the more they oppressed them the more they multiplied.” It is idle to
contend either with God or his people.
25. He turned their heart to hate his people. It was his goodness to Israel which called forth the
ill-will of the Egyptian court, and so far the Lord caused it, and moreover he
made use of this feeling to lead on to the discomfort of his people, and so to
their readiness to leave the land to which they had evidently become greatly
attached. Thus far but no further did the Lord turn the hearts of the
Egyptians. God cannot in any sense be the author of sin so far as to be morally
responsible for its existence, but it often happens through the evil which is
inherent in human nature that the acts of the Lord arouse the ill-feelings of
ungodly people. Is the sun to be blamed because while it softens wax it hardens
clay? Hatred is often allied with cunning, and so in the case of the Egyptians,
they began to deal subtilely with his servants. They treated them in a
fraudulent manner, they reduced them to bondage by their exactions, they
secretly concerted the destruction of their male children, and at length openly
ordained that cruel measure, and all with the view of checking their increase,
lest in time of war they should side with invaders in order to obtain their
liberty. Surely the depths of Satanic policy were here reached, but vain was
the cunning of man against the chosen seed.
26. When the
oppression was at the worst, Moses came. For the second time we have here the
expression he sent; he who sent Joseph sent also Moses and his eloquent
brother. The Lord had the men in readiness, and all he had to do was to
commission them and thrust them forward.
27. The
miracles which were wrought by Moses were the Lord’s, not his own: hence they
are here called his signs, as being the marks of Jehovah’s
presence and power.
28. He sent darkness, and made it dark. It was no natural or common darkness; it was beyond all
precedent and out of the range of ordinary events. It was a horrible palpable
obscurity which people felt clinging about them as though it were a robe of
death. It was a total darkness, a darkness which lasted three days, a darkness
in which no one dared to stir. And they rebelled not against his word.
Moses and Aaron did as they were bidden, and during the darkness the Egyptians
were so cowed that even when it cleared away they were anxious for Israel to be
gone, and had it not been for the pride of Pharaoh they would have rejoiced to
speed them on their journey there and then.
29. The
plague was not a mere coloring of the water with red earth, as some suppose,
but the river was offensive and fatal to the fish.
30. Their land brought forth frogs in abundance. If fish could not live frogs might; indeed they multiplied
both on land and in the water till they swarmed beyond all count. In the
chambers of their kings. They penetrated the choicest rooms of the palace,
and were found upon the couches of state.
31. He spake.
See the power of the divine word. He had only to say it and it was done: and
there came divers sorts of flies. Insects of various annoying kinds came up
in infinite hordes, a mixture of biting, stinging, buzzing gnats, mosquitoes,
flies, beetles, and other vermin such as make people’s flesh their prey, the
place of deposit for their eggs, and the seat of particular torments. And
lice in all their coasts. These unutterably loathsome forms of life were as
the dust of the ground, and covered their persons, their garments, and all they
ate. Nothing is too small to master man when God commands it to assail him.
32. He gave them hail for rain. They seldom had rain, but now the showers assumed the form
of heavy, destructive hailstorms, and being accompanied with a hurricane and
thunderstorm, they were overwhelming, terrible, and destructive. And flaming
fire in their land. The lightning was particularly vivid, and seemed to run
along upon the ground, or fall in fiery flakes. Thus all the fruit of the trees
and the harvests of the fields were either broken to pieces or burned on the
spot, and universal fear bowed the hearts of men to the dust. No phenomena are
more appalling to most people than those which attend a thunderstorm; even the
most audacious blasphemers quail when the dread artillery of heaven opens fire
upon the earth.
33. He smote their vines also and their fig trees. So that all hope of gathering their best fruits was gone,
and the trees were injured for future bearing. All the crops were destroyed,
and these are mentioned as being the more prominent forms of their produce,
used by them both at festivals and in common meals. And brake the trees of
their coasts. From end to end of Egypt the trees were battered and broken
by the terrible hailstorm. God is in earnest when he deals with proud spirits;
he will either end them or mend them.
34–35. He spake, and the locusts came, and caterpillars,
and that without number. One word
from the Captain and the armies leaped forward. The expression is very
striking, and sets forth the immediate result of the divine word. The
caterpillar is called “the licker,” because it seems to lick up every green
thing as in a moment. Perhaps the caterpillar here meant is still the locust in
another form. That locusts swarm in countless armies is a fact of ordinary
observation, and the case would be worse on this occasion. We have ourselves
ridden for miles through armies of locusts, and we have seen with our own eyes
how completely they devour every green thing. The description is not strained
when we read, And did eat up all the herbs in their land, and devoured the
fruit of their ground. Nothing escapes these ravenous creatures; they even
climb the trees to reach any remnant of foliage which may survive. Commissioned
as these were by God, we may be sure they would do their work thoroughly, and
leave behind them nothing but a desolate wilderness.
36. Now came
the master blow. The Lord spoke before, but now he smites; before he only smote
vines, but now he strikes men themselves. The glory of the household dies in a
single night, the prime and pick of the nation are cut off, the flower of the
troops, the heirs of the rich, and the hopes of the poor all die at midnight.
Now the target was struck in the center; there was no confronting this plague.
Pharaoh feels it as much as the woman-slave at the mill; he had smitten Israel,
the Lord’s firstborn, and the Lord repaid him to his face. What a cry went up
throughout the land of Egypt when every house wailed its firstborn at the dead
of night! O Jehovah, thou didst triumph in that hour, and with an outstretched
arm didst thou deliver thy people.
37. He brought them forth also with silver and gold. This they asked of the Egyptians, perhaps even demanded,
and well they might, for they had been robbed and spoiled for many a day, and
it was not meet that they should go forth empty-handed. Glad were the Egyptians
to hand over their jewels to propitiate a people who had such a terrible friend
above; they needed no undue pressure, they feared them too much to deny them
their requests. And there was not one feeble person among their tribes—a
great marvel indeed. The number of their army was very great and yet there was
not one in hospital, not one carried in an ambulance, or limping in the rear.
38. Egypt was glad when they departed, which would not have been the case had the gold and silver
been borrowed by the Israelites, for men do not like to see borrowers carry
their goods into a far country. What a change from the time when the sons of
Jacob were the drudges of the land, the offscouring of all things, the
brickmakers whose toil was only requited by the lash or the stick. Now they
were reverenced as prophets and priests; for the fear of them fell upon
them, the people proceeded to a superstitious terror of them. Thus with
cheers and good wishes their former taskmasters sent them on their way: Pharaoh
was foiled and the chosen people were once more on the move, journeying to the
place which the Lord had given to them by a covenant of salt.
39. He spread a cloud for a covering. Never people were so favored. What would not travelers in
the desert now give for such a canopy? The sun could not scorch them with its
burning ray; their whole camp was screened like a king in his pavilion. Nothing
seemed to be too good for God to give his chosen nation. And fire to give
light in the night. While cities were swathed in darkness, their town of
tents enjoyed light.
40. The people asked.
But how badly, how wickedly! And yet his grace forgave the sin of their
grumbling and heard its meaning: or perhaps we may consider that while the
multitude grumbled there were a few who were really gracious people, who prayed,
and therefore the blessing came. He brought quails, and satisfied them with
the bread of heaven. He gave them what they asked amiss as well as what was
good for them, mingling judgment with goodness, for their discipline. The
quails were more a curse than a blessing in the end, because of their greed and
lust, but in themselves they were a particular indulgence, and favor: it was
their own fault that the dainty meat brought death with it. As for the manna it
was unmingled good to them, and really satisfied them, which the quails never
did. It was bread from heaven, and the bread of heaven, sent by
heaven; it was a pity that they were not led to look up to heaven whence it
came, and fear and love the God who out of heaven rained it upon them. Thus
they were housed beneath the Lord’s canopy and fed with food from his own
table; never people were so lodged and boarded. O house of Israel, praise ye
the Lord.
41. He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out. With Moses’ rod and his own word he cleft the rock in the
desert, and forth leaped abundant floods for their drinking where they had
feared to die of thirst. From most unlikely sources the all-sufficient God can
supply his people’s needs; hard rocks become springing fountains at the Lord’s
command. They ran in the dry places like a river, so that those at a
distance from the rock could stoop down and refresh themselves, and the stream
flowed on, so that in future journeyings they were supplied.
42. Here is
the secret reason for all this grace. The covenant and he for whose sake it was
made are ever on the heart of the Most High. He remembered his people because
he remembered his covenant.
43. Up from
the wilderness he led them, rejoicing over them himself and making them rejoice
too. They were his people, his chosen, and hence in them he
rejoiced, and upon them he showered his favors, that they might rejoice in him
as their God, and their portion.
44. And gave them the lands of the heathen. He drove out the Canaanites and allotted the lands to the
tribes. They were called on to fight, but the Lord wrought so wonderfully that
the conquest was not effected by their bow or spear—the Lord gave them
the land. And they inherited the labor of the people; they dwelt in
houses which they had not built, and gathered fruit from vines and olives which
they had not planted.
45. That they might observe his statutes, and keep his
laws. The chosen nation was to be the
conservator of truth, the examplar of morality, the pattern of devotion:
everything was so ordered as to place them in advantageous circumstances for
fulfilling this trust. Theirs was a high calling and a glorious election. It
involved great responsibilities, but it was in itself a distinguished blessing,
and one for which the nation was bound to give thanks. Most justly then did the
music close with the jubilant but solemn shout of Hallelujah. Praise ye the
Lord. If this history did not make Israel praise God, what would?
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David
By Charles H Spurgeon
