The Lord’s Wonderful Works in Behalf of Israel.
1O give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name;
Make known His deeds among the people.
2
Sing to Him, sing praises to Him;
Speak of all His wonderful acts and devoutly praise them.
3
Glory in His holy name;
Let the hearts of those who seek and require the Lord [as their most essential need] rejoice.
4
Seek and deeply long for the Lord and His strength [His power, His might];
Seek and deeply long for His face and His presence continually.
5
Remember [with awe and gratitude] the wonderful things which He has done,
His amazing deeds and the judgments uttered by His mouth [on His enemies, as in Egypt],
6
O you offspring of Abraham, His servant,
O you sons of Jacob, His chosen ones!
7
He is the Lord our God;
His judgments are in all the earth.
8
He has remembered His covenant forever,
The word which He commanded and established to a [a]thousand generations,
9
The covenant which He made with Abraham,
And His sworn oath to Isaac,
10
Which He confirmed to Jacob as a statute,
To Israel as an everlasting covenant,
11
Saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan
As the measured portion of your inheritance.”
12
When there were only a few men in number,
Very few [in fact], and strangers in it;
13
And they wandered from one nation to another,
From one kingdom to another people,
14
He allowed no man to oppress them;
He rebuked kings for their sakes, saying,
15
“Do not touch My anointed ones,
And do My prophets no harm.”
16
And He called for a famine upon the land [of Egypt];
He [b]cut off every source of bread.
17
He sent a man before them,
Joseph, who was sold as a slave.
18
His feet they hurt with shackles;
[c]He was put in chains of iron,
19
Until the time that his word [of prophecy regarding his brothers] came true,
The word of the Lord tested and refined him.
20
The king sent and released him,
The ruler of the peoples [of Egypt], and set him free.
21
He made Joseph lord of his house
And ruler of all his possessions,
22
To imprison his princes at his will,
That he might teach his elders wisdom.
23
Israel also came into Egypt;
Thus Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.
24
There the Lord greatly increased [the number of] His people,
And made them more powerful than their enemies.
25
He turned the heart [of the Egyptians] to hate His people,
To deal craftily with His servants.
26
He sent Moses His servant,
And Aaron, whom He had chosen.
27
They exhibited His wondrous signs among them,
Great miracles in the land of Ham (Egypt).
28
He sent [thick, oppressive] darkness and made the land dark;
And Moses and Aaron did not rebel against His words.
29
He turned Egypt’s waters into blood
And caused their fish to die.
30
Their land swarmed with frogs,
Even in the chambers of their kings.
31
He spoke, and there came swarms of flies
And gnats in all their territory.
32
He gave them hail for rain,
With flaming fire in their land.
33
He struck their vines also and their fig trees,
And shattered the [ice-laden] trees of their territory.
34
He spoke, and the [migratory] locusts came,
And the young locusts, even without number,
35
And ate up all the vegetation in their land,
And devoured the fruit of their ground.
36
He also struck down all the firstborn in their land,
The first fruits and chief substance of all their strength.
37
He brought the sons of Israel out [of Egypt] with silver and gold,
And among their tribes there was not one who stumbled.
38
Egypt was glad when they departed,
For the dread and fear of them had fallen on the Egyptians.
39
The Lord spread a cloud as a covering [by day],
And a fire to illumine the night.
40
The Israelites asked, and He brought quail,
And satisfied them with the bread of heaven.
41
He opened the rock and water flowed out;
It ran in the dry places like a river.
42
For He remembered His holy word
To Abraham His servant;
43
He brought out His people with joy,
And His chosen ones with a joyful shout,
44
He gave them the lands of the nations [of Canaan],
So that they would possess the fruits of those peoples’ labor,
45
So that they might observe His precepts
And keep His laws [obediently accepting and honoring and valuing them].
Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)
Footnotes
- Psalm 105:8 There were twenty-six recorded generations from Adam to Moses. The ancient rabbis took “thousand” here very literally and maintained that God originally planned to give the Law to the thousandth generation, but He foresaw that they would be wicked, so He declined to create 974 generations and gave the Law to the twenty-sixth generation (Moses) instead.
- Psalm 105:16 Lit broke the whole rod of, referring to the fact that bread was stored as ring-shaped loaves on a rod. If the rod was broken, the loaves fell off and were lost or ruined.
- Psalm 105:18 Lit his soul came into.