Psalms 74:12 - Meaning and Application

The suffering church fixes on one thing here, remembers it, and finds hope in it, as in (Lamentations 3:21). That memory quiets her grief and holds back her complaints. Two thoughts especially calm those who mourn over the ruined assembly.

First, God is the God of Israel, the God who has made a covenant with his people, as in (Psalm 74:12): “God is my King from of old.” The church uses this as a prayer, like in (Psalm 44:4), “You are my King, O God,” and also as a support for her own faith and hope. She looks back to the “days of old,” as in (Psalm 77:5), and remembers how God has always acted for his people.

The church speaks as one body through all generations, so she says, “My King, my King from ancient times.” He had long ago taken that place among them and shown himself as their King. As Israel’s King, he brought salvation in the middle of the earth, because everything he did in ruling the world served the good of his church. Several works of God are recalled here to strengthen trust in him.

First, he divided the sea before them when they came out of Egypt. This was not done by Moses’ power or by his rod, but by God’s own strength. The God who could do that can do anything.

Second, he destroyed Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Pharaoh was like a sea monster, and the Egyptians were like dragons, fierce and cruel enemies. God broke their heads and ruined their plans, as when Israel was oppressed more and more, yet kept multiplying. He crushed their power, laid waste their land through the ten plagues, and finally drowned them all in the Red Sea. This was Pharaoh and all his army, as in (Ezekiel 31:18). It was the Lord’s doing alone, and he did it with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

This victory also encouraged the church. “You gave him to be food for the people of Israel” means that the spoil from the Egyptians enriched them, since they stripped the dead and took their weapons and goods. It can also mean that this act of judgment fed their faith and hope as they faced the dangers of the wilderness. It became spiritual food for them. When God breaks the heads of the church’s enemies, his people find joy and strength in it.

Third, God changed the course of nature both by bringing water out of the rock and by drying up rivers. He brought out springs and floodwaters from the rock, as some translations read. Everyone knows where that water came from, from the rock, from the hard rock. This should never be forgotten, and especially not the deeper truth that the rock was Christ, and the water from it was spiritual drink. He also dried up mighty flowing rivers, especially the Jordan when it overflowed its banks. The One who did these things can now deliver his oppressed people and break the yoke of their oppressors, just as he did before. More than that, he will do it, because his justice, goodness, wisdom, and truth have not changed, and neither has his power.

Second, the God of Israel is also the God of nature, as in (Psalm 74:16-17). He orders the regular coming and going of day and night. He rules all time. Evening and morning are established by his command. He opens the eyes of morning light and draws the curtains of evening shadow. Some read this as, “You have prepared the moon and the sun,” the two great lights that rule by day and night in turn. Their being “prepared” points to their steady readiness and exact timing, for they never miss their appointed hour.

He also appoints summer and winter, and all the borders of the earth. That includes the different climates of the world, and also the steady changing of the seasons through the year. In this, we must acknowledge God, from whom all the laws and powers of nature come. But why is this mentioned here? Because the One who first set this order in place, and still keeps it going through the daily and yearly motions of the heavens, surely has full power to save and to destroy. With him, nothing is impossible, and no trouble is too great for him to overcome.

He is faithful to his covenant with day and night, and he keeps the laws of heaven from failing. So he will surely keep his promise to his people and never cast off those he has chosen, as in (Jeremiah 31:35-36) and (Jeremiah 33:20-21). His covenant with Abraham and his descendants is as firm as his covenant with Noah and his sons, as in (Genesis 8:21).

Since day and night, summer and winter, keep turning throughout the whole earth, we should expect trouble and peace, prosperity and hardship, to turn in the same way in the church’s life. We have just as much reason to expect affliction as we do to expect night and winter. But we have no more reason to despair of comfort returning than we have to despair of day and summer.