Psalms 105:25 - Meaning and Application

After the story of the patriarchs comes the story of Israel, as they grew into a nation. Their suffering in Egypt is described here: God turned the hearts of the Egyptians, who had once protected them, to hate them and deal deceitfully with them (Psalm 105:25). God’s kindness to his people stirred up the Egyptians against them. An old dislike of the Hebrews, mentioned earlier in Genesis, woke up again with greater force.

At first, the Egyptians hated them because they looked down on them. Later, they hated them because they feared them. So they used trickery against them, planning carefully how to weaken them and stop their growth. They made their burdens heavier, their lives bitter, and even killed their male children as soon as they were born. Evil is crafty when it wants to destroy. Satan has the serpent’s slyness along with its poison.

It was God who turned the Egyptians’ hearts against his people. Every creature is to us what he makes it, whether friend or enemy. God is not the author of human sin, but he still uses sinful actions to carry out his own purposes.

Their rescue from Egypt was a great wonder, so great that it is placed in the introduction to the Ten Commandments. God sent Moses, his servant, and joined Aaron with him in the task (Psalm 105:26). Moses was meant to become their lawgiver and chief ruler, and Aaron their chief priest. Because of that, God used them first as their deliverers, so the people would respect them and submit more willingly.

The means of their deliverance were the plagues of Egypt. Moses and Aaron followed their instructions and brought each plague exactly as God commanded. They did not rebel against his word (Psalm 105:28), as Jonah did when he ran away after being sent to warn Nineveh. They were not held back by fear of Pharaoh, or by pity for Egypt’s suffering, so they carried out every plague as God directed.

Those who are sent to carry out judgment must remember that delay or half-hearted obedience can count as rebellion against God’s word. The plagues are called God’s signs and wonders (Psalm 105:27). They were not only displays of his power, but also signs of his anger, meant to be received with reverence and holy fear. The Hebrew wording suggests that these signs had a message with them, because each plague explained something about God’s rule and judgment.

The plague of darkness is mentioned first here, though it came near the end (Psalm 105:28). God sent darkness, and it came with power because he commanded it. Some think Israel used that time to do what God had required of them, perhaps circumcising those who had not yet been circumcised, since the three days of darkness would have protected them. Another old translation follows the Greek version and says, “They were not obedient to his word,” which some apply to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. But the Hebrew does not really support that reading.

Then God turned the River Nile, which the Egyptians worshiped, into blood, along with all their other waters. Their fish died, so they lost not only their drinking water, but also one of their best foods (Psalm 105:29). After that came frogs in huge swarms, so many and so troublesome that they entered even the rooms of kings and nobles, whose proud hearts had long been full of filth and hostility toward God and Israel.

Next came swarms of flies and lice in their clothing (Psalm 105:31; Exodus 8:17, Exodus 8:24). God can use the smallest, weakest, and most despised creatures to punish proud oppressors. The weakness of the instrument itself was part of the humiliation, and it also proved God’s power beyond doubt.

Hail broke their trees, even the strongest timber trees in their land, and destroyed their vines and other fruit trees (Psalm 105:32, Psalm 105:33). Instead of rain to nourish them, God gave hail to crush them. He added thunder and lightning, so that the fire seemed to run along the ground like burning brimstone (Exodus 9:23).

Locusts and caterpillars destroyed every herb meant for human use and ate the food from their mouths (Psalm 105:34, Psalm 105:35). See how many different judgments God has ready for proud oppressors who will not let his people go. He did not repeat the same plague twice. When another judgment was needed, he brought a new one, for he has many arrows in his quiver. Locusts and caterpillars are God’s armies, and though each one is weak, he can send such great numbers that they become terrible (Joel 1:4, Joel 1:6).

After leaving out the plagues of livestock disease and boils, the psalm ends with the final blow, the death of the firstborn (Psalm 105:36). In the middle of the night, the joy and hope of Egyptian families, the strongest and finest among them, were struck down by the destroying angel. They would not let God’s firstborn go, so God took their firstborn instead, in repayment. That forced them to release his people, though it was too late to recover their own children. When God judges, he will prevail, and those who fight against him will surely lose in the end.

Along with this deliverance came mercy. Israel had been poor in bondage, yet they came out rich and well supplied. God not only brought them out, he brought them out with silver and gold (Psalm 105:37). He enabled them to ask their neighbors for gifts, and the Egyptians were willing to give them what they asked. In truth, this wealth belonged to God, so he had the right to give it to Israel. The hearts of the Egyptians were in his hand, so he could also move them to supply his people.

Their lives had been made bitter, and their bodies and spirits had been worn down by slavery. Yet when God brought them out, not one of them was weak. None was sick, and none was even frail among their tribes. They left on the very night that the plague killed Egypt’s firstborn, and still they went out in full health. They did not carry any of Egypt’s diseases with them.

Surely nothing like this had ever happened before, that among so many thousands, not one person was sick. The enemies of the Jews in later times gave a false account of this matter. They claimed that all the Israelites had leprosy, or some other foul disease, and that this was why the Egyptians drove them out of the land.

They had been trampled on and insulted, yet they were brought out with honor (Psalm 105:38). Egypt was glad when they left, because God had so clearly stood up for his people and defended their cause. The fear of Israel fell on the Egyptians, and they admitted they had been beaten and defeated. God can make his church, that is, his people, like a heavy stone to all who try to move or harm it, so that those enemies will think themselves lucky just to get out of its way (Zechariah 12:3). When God judges, he will win.

They had spent their days in sorrow and sighing because of slavery, but now he brought them out with joy and gladness (Psalm 105:43). When Egypt cried out in grief because all their firstborn had died, Israel shouted for joy. They looked back on the land of slavery from which they had been rescued, and they looked ahead to the pleasant land they were moving toward. God gave them a new song to sing.

Then comes the special care God took of them in the wilderness. For their shelter, besides the open sky above them, he gave them another kind of heaven-like covering. He spread a cloud over them as a covering (Psalm 105:39). It was more than shade and protection, it was like a royal canopy. A cloud was often the place where God made his presence known (Psalm 18:11), and now it was also Israel’s shelter, for they were his hidden people too.

For their guidance and comfort in the dark, he set a pillar of fire to give them light at night, so they would never be lost. God kindly provides for every trouble his people face and gives them help for every time of life, day and night, until they come to heaven, where it will be day forever.

He fed them both with plain food and with rich food. At times he supplied their tables with quail (Psalm 105:40). When they were not given that feast, they were still fully satisfied with the bread of heaven. Anyone who is too fussy or too greedy to be content with that is hard to please indeed. People ate the food of angels, and they received it continually and without cost.

Every bite they ate carried a miracle, and so did every drop they drank. He opened the rock, and water poured out (Psalm 105:41). Ordinary providence brings water from the sky and bread from the ground, but for Israel God’s power brought bread from the clouds and water from the rocks. This shows that the God of nature is never limited by nature’s usual laws. The water did not come out just once. It flowed like a river, abundantly and steadily, and it followed their camp wherever they moved. That is why Scripture says the rock followed them (1 Corinthians 10:4). Even more amazing, this river of God flowed in dry places and was not soaked up and lost in the sands of the Arabian desert. That is what the promise points to: “I will give rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen” (Isaiah 43:19, Isaiah 43:20).

At last, he brought them into Canaan (Psalm 105:44). He gave them the lands of the nations and put them in possession of what they had long been promised. What the Canaanites had worked for, God’s people enjoyed. “They inherited the labor of the peoples,” and the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous. The Egyptians had long enjoyed the fruit of Israel’s labor, and now Israel enjoyed the fruit of the Canaanites’ labor. In this way, one enemy of God’s people sometimes ends up paying another enemy’s debts.

God did all this for two reasons. First, he meant to keep the promises of his word (Psalm 105:42). Though Israel did not deserve it and often failed to give thanks, he did these great things for them because he remembered the word of his holiness, meaning his covenant with Abraham his servant. He would not let even the smallest part of that promise fail. See (Deuteronomy 7:8).

Second, he meant to bring them to obey the commands of his word. To bind them to himself in this way was the greatest kindness he could give them. He placed them in Canaan not so they could live in wealth, ease, and honor, and make a name for themselves among the nations. He gave them the land so they could keep his statutes and laws, and so their nation would live directly under God’s rule. He gave them a good land so they could use its fruit to bring sacrifices to his altar. And when God had done so much for them, they had every reason to receive his law gladly, knowing it was also for their good, and to feel bound by gratitude to obey him.

We are made, kept, and redeemed so that we may live in obedience to God’s will. So the hallelujah at the end of the psalm is both a thankful response to God’s kindness and a willing agreement with the great purpose of all his gifts. Has God done so much for us, and does he ask so little in return? Praise the Lord.