Commentary - Psalm 77:10-15

Bird's-eye view

This section of Psalm 77 marks a crucial turning point in the psalmist's spiritual struggle. The first nine verses are a raw, honest cry from the depths of despair, where the psalmist feels abandoned by God and questions His very faithfulness. But here, beginning in verse 10, the psalmist makes a deliberate, cognitive decision to pivot. He recognizes his grief for what it is, his own affliction, and resolves to change his focus from his subjective feelings to the objective, historical reality of God's mighty works. This is not a denial of his pain, but a refusal to let his pain have the last word. He moves from introspection to retrospection, from the stormy sea of his own heart to the solid rock of God's redemptive history. This conscious choice to remember, meditate, and muse upon God's deeds is the engine that pulls him out of the pit. He recalls God's unique greatness, His holy character, and His powerful redemption of His people, culminating in the foundational event of the Exodus. It is a masterful display of how to preach the gospel to one's own soul in the midst of darkness.

The movement is from a heart overwhelmed by the present to a mind anchored in the past for the sake of the future. The psalmist teaches us by example that the antidote to spiritual despair is not found by looking deeper into our own feelings, but by looking back at the unchangeable record of God's faithfulness. Faith is not a feeling; it is a decision to trust God's resume. The psalmist resolves to do just that, and in doing so, he finds his way back to the truth of who God is, which is the only stable ground in a collapsing world.

Outline

Context In The Psalms

Psalm 77 is one of the psalms of Asaph, and it fits within a collection of psalms that often wrestle with the difficult questions of God's justice and His apparent silence in times of trouble (e.g., Psalm 73). This psalm begins with one of the most poignant expressions of spiritual anguish in the entire Psalter. The psalmist is sleepless, overwhelmed, and feels that God has forgotten to be gracious. The first half of the psalm is a downward spiral of questioning. Has God's lovingkindness ceased? Has His promise failed? It is a dark night of the soul. The passage we are examining (vv. 10-15) is the hinge upon which the entire psalm turns. It is the moment where the psalmist stops the spiral by an act of the will, grounded in faith. He intentionally shifts his gaze from his circumstances to God's character and past actions. This movement from lament to remembrance is a common pattern in the Psalms and provides a divinely inspired roadmap for believers on how to navigate seasons of profound doubt and sorrow.

Key Issues

The Hinge of Faith

Every believer who has walked with the Lord for any length of time knows the feeling described in the first part of this psalm. It is the suffocating sense that God is distant, that His promises feel hollow, and that your prayers are hitting a brass ceiling. The temptation in such moments is to treat our feelings as the ultimate reality. If I feel abandoned, then I must be abandoned. If God feels different, then He must have changed. But here, Asaph shows us the way out. The way out is not to feel your way to a different conclusion, but to think your way there. He makes a conscious, deliberate turn. He says, in effect, "My feelings are telling me one story, but God's history tells another. I will stake my life on God's history."

This is the hinge of faith. It is a resolute determination to build your house on the rock of what God has done and said, not on the sinking sand of your emotional state. The psalmist doesn't pretend his grief isn't real. He names it. But then he chooses his weapon against it, and that weapon is remembrance. He is going to fight his present darkness with the light of God's past faithfulness. This is not wishful thinking; it is warfare. It is taking thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ and forcing your soul to listen to the truth of the gospel.

Verse by Verse Commentary

10 Then I said, “It is my grief, That the right hand of the Most High has changed.”

This verse is the turning point, and it can be understood in a couple of ways. One reading is that the psalmist is identifying the source of his grief: his perception that God's power and favor have changed. The "right hand" of God in Scripture is the symbol of His strength, His salvation, His active power in the world. To say it has changed is to say that God is no longer acting for His people as He once did. But a better way to read this, given what follows, is as a confession. He is saying, "This thought, this terrible conclusion that God has changed, is my sickness, my affliction, my weakness." He is diagnosing his own despair. He is admitting that the problem is not that God's hand has withered, but that his own perspective has been crippled by grief. This is a crucial first step. He stops blaming God for changing and starts to recognize that his own heart is the source of the distortion. It is my grief, my infirmity.

11 I shall remember the deeds of Yah; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old.

Having diagnosed the problem, he now prescribes the cure. And the cure is a deliberate act of the will: "I shall remember." Notice the resolve in this. It is not, "I hope I feel better soon," but rather, "I am going to do something." And what is that something? He is going to engage in the spiritual discipline of remembrance. He forces his mind away from the black hole of his own feelings and directs it toward the fixed stars of God's historical acts. He uses the covenant name of God, Yahweh (Yah), reminding himself that he is dealing with the God who makes and keeps promises. He is not going to remember generic good thoughts; he is going to remember specific "deeds" and "wonders of old." He is opening up the history books, the sacred record of God's mighty interventions on behalf of His people. Faith is not generated out of thin air; it is nourished by rehearsing God's faithfulness.

12 I will meditate on all Your work And muse on Your deeds.

Remembrance here is not a fleeting thought. The psalmist commits to two deeper activities: meditation and musing. To "meditate" means to ponder, to chew on something, to turn it over and over in your mind until you have extracted all its nourishment. To "muse" carries the idea of speaking to oneself about something, rehearsing the story. He is not just glancing at the highlight reel of Israel's history. He is immersing himself in it. He is going to preach the story of God's works to his own soul until his soul starts listening. This is the opposite of the morbid introspection that characterized the first half of the psalm. Instead of meditating on his own sorrow, he will meditate on God's work. This is a fundamental principle of the Christian life: what you set your mind on will determine the state of your soul.

13 O God, Your way is holy; What god is great like God?

And what is the first conclusion that this meditation produces? It is a declaration of God's fundamental character. "Your way is holy." This means God's way is set apart, distinct, utterly unique, and morally perfect. His ways are not our ways. When we are in the pit, we are tempted to judge God by our standards, to think He is acting unjustly or unfaithfully. But remembrance brings us back to the truth. God's way is in a category all by itself; it is the standard. This leads to the rhetorical question: "What god is great like God?" The answer is obvious. There is no other. The pagan gods are nothing, impotent idols. The God of Israel, Yahweh, is incomparably great. The psalmist's world, which had shrunk down to the size of his own sorrow, is now expanding again to a God-centered reality. Worshipping God for who He is, for His holiness and greatness, is the beginning of spiritual recovery.

14 You are the God who works wonders; You have made known Your strength among the peoples.

From God's character, he moves to God's actions. God's greatness is not an abstract philosophical concept; it is demonstrated in history. He is the God who "works wonders." This is His consistent pattern of activity. And this is not done in a corner. He has "made known" His strength not just to Israel, but "among the peoples." The nations have seen it. The Egyptians saw it, the Canaanites heard of it. God's power has been publicly displayed. The psalmist is reminding himself that his faith is based on public, verifiable events. God has a track record. He has put His strength on display for all to see, and this objective reality is a firm anchor for the psalmist's struggling soul.

15 You have by Your arm redeemed Your people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.

Here he comes to the pinnacle of his remembrance, the central, defining act of God in the Old Testament: the redemption from Egypt. The "arm" of God is a metaphor for His active, saving power, just as His "right hand" was in verse 10. With that mighty arm, He "redeemed" His people. This is the language of the kinsman-redeemer, of buying back, of setting free at a great cost. And who are these people? "The sons of Jacob and Joseph." This specific naming is significant. It recalls the patriarchal promises. God is the God of Jacob, the schemer whom He transformed into a prince. He is the God of Joseph, who was sold into slavery and raised to glory to save his family. He is a God who is faithful to His covenant people, despite their flaws. The Selah marks a pause, a moment to let the weight of this foundational truth sink in. God is a Redeemer. He has done it before, and therefore He can, and will, do it again.

Application

This passage is a divine prescription for every Christian who finds himself in a spiritual fog. Our feelings are real, but they are not reliable. They are the caboose, not the engine. The engine of the Christian life is truth, and the truth is found in the finished work of God in history. For the psalmist, the peak of that history was the Exodus. For us, we look back to an even greater redemption. We look back to the cross and the empty tomb.

When your soul is in turmoil and you are tempted to believe that God's right hand has changed, you must do what the psalmist did. You must, by a sheer act of faith-driven will, resolve to remember. You must meditate and muse on the deeds of the Lord. Remember that He redeemed you, not from Egypt, but from sin and death. Remember that He did it not just with a strong arm, but with the outstretched arms of His Son on a Roman cross. Remember that the ultimate wonder is not the parting of the Red Sea, but the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That is the ultimate public display of God's strength.

Preach this gospel to yourself. Remind your soul that God's way is holy, even when you cannot understand it. Remind your soul that there is no god great like our God, who saves sinners. Anchor your faith not in the shifting sands of your emotional landscape, but on the immovable rock of what God has accomplished for you in Jesus Christ. That is the only way out of the pit, and it is a way that is always open to us.