Commentary - Psalm 105:7-15

Bird's-eye view

Psalm 105 is a grand historical recital, a celebration of God's covenant faithfulness to His people. It is a call to remember and to declare. The psalmist is not just telling stories for the sake of nostalgia; he is recounting God's mighty acts in history in order to ground the faith of the current generation. This is redemptive history, which means it is our history. The section before us, verses 7 through 15, focuses on the foundational promise God made to the patriarchs. It establishes the bedrock of Israel's identity and claim to the land, but more than that, it establishes the character of the God who made the promises. He is a covenant keeping God, and His promises are not subject to the whims of pharaohs or the passage of millennia. This is a psalm about roots, about the unshakeable ground of our salvation, which is the unshakeable word of God Himself.

The movement is from the general declaration of God's universal authority (v. 7) to the specific, unbreakable covenant He made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (vv. 8-11). Then the psalmist contrasts the grandeur of this everlasting covenant with the humble, vulnerable state of the patriarchs themselves (vv. 12-13). They were few, they were sojourners, they were nobodies. But they belonged to Somebody. The passage concludes by showing God's fierce, sovereign protection over these chosen ones, rebuking kings for their sake and declaring them off limits (vv. 14-15). The central theme is this: God's covenant is not dependent on the strength or numbers of His people, but solely upon His own character and decree. He remembers His word, and He protects His own.

Outline

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 7 He is Yahweh our God; His judgments are in all the earth.

The psalmist begins by anchoring everything that follows in the character of God. Before we get to the covenant with Abraham, we must first establish who is making the covenant. He is Yahweh our God. This is personal. He is not an abstract deity or a distant force; He is our God. This is the language of covenant relationship. But this personal relationship does not diminish His sovereign authority. On the contrary, it establishes it. Because He is our God, we know that His judgments are in all the earth. His rule is not provincial. He is not the tribal deity of Israel, competing with the gods of Egypt or Babylon. He is the God of all the earth, and His decrees, His standards of right and wrong, His verdicts, are operative everywhere. This is a foundational claim. The God who made a particular promise to a particular man is the same God who runs the entire cosmos. This means that no corner of the earth is outside His jurisdiction, and no king or emperor can operate beyond the reach of His arm. This sets the stage for the entire drama of the Exodus that the psalm will later recount. Pharaoh was not defying a local god; he was picking a fight with the Judge of all the earth.

v. 8 He has remembered His covenant forever, The word which He commanded for a thousand generations,

God's memory is not like our memory. When we remember something, it is because we might have forgotten it. When Scripture says God "remembered," it means He has now begun to act upon a promise He has never forgotten. His covenant is forever. It does not have an expiration date. It is an eternal commitment rooted in His own unchanging nature. The psalmist emphasizes this by describing it as the word which He commanded. This is not a negotiated treaty between two equal parties. This is a divine decree. God commanded it, He set it in place, and it stands. And how long does it stand? For a thousand generations. This is Hebrew poetic language for "a very, very long time," essentially, forever. A thousand generations would take you from Abraham's time well past the time of Christ and into our own. The point is emphatic: God's covenant promises are not temporary arrangements. They are the bedrock of history, the organizing principle of everything God is doing in the world.

v. 9 Which He cut with Abraham, And His oath to Isaac.

Now the psalmist gets specific. Where did this eternal word come from? It came from a historical transaction. God cut a covenant with Abraham. This language refers to the ancient practice of ratifying a covenant by cutting animals in half and having the parties walk between the pieces (Genesis 15). It was a solemn, bloody affair, a self-maledictory oath that said, "May it be done to me as was done to these animals if I break this covenant." In the Genesis 15 account, it is God alone, represented by a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, who passes between the pieces. He takes the entire obligation upon Himself. This covenant was not based on Abraham's faithfulness, but on God's. This same promise was then confirmed as an oath to Isaac. God did not just make a promise; He swore by His own name (Genesis 26:3), because there was no one greater by whom He could swear. The covenant is not a flimsy thing; it is reinforced with the very honor and being of God Himself.

v. 10 Then He confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, To Israel as an everlasting covenant,

The promise did not die with Abraham or Isaac. It was passed down, re-established, and confirmed to Jacob. What was a promise and an oath now becomes a statute, a settled, binding law. It is a fixed principle of God's government. And it is confirmed not just to Jacob the man, but to Israel the nation that would come from him. The covenant has a corporate and generational dimension. And again, the psalmist hammers the point home: it is an everlasting covenant. Do you see the pattern? Forever, a thousand generations, an oath, a statute, everlasting. The Holy Spirit is not being needlessly repetitive. He is building a case, brick by solid brick, for the absolute reliability of God's word. Our faith is not in our feelings or our circumstances, but in the objective, historical, sworn, decreed, and everlasting covenant of God.

v. 11 Saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan As the portion of your inheritance,”

Here is the content of the promise. The covenant had many facets, but the psalmist here focuses on the promise of the land. To you I will give the land of Canaan. This was not a suggestion; it was a divine grant. The land was given as a portion, an allotted inheritance. This is key. An inheritance is not earned; it is received by virtue of one's relationship to the one who gives it. Israel's claim to the land was not based on their military might or moral superiority, but solely on God's gift. Of course, we know from the New Testament that the earthly land of Canaan was a type and a shadow of a greater inheritance, a heavenly country, a city whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:10, 16). The promise of the land was a down payment, a tangible picture of the ultimate rest and inheritance God gives to all His people in Christ.

v. 12 When they were only a few men in number, Of little account, and sojourners in it.

Now comes the great contrast. God makes this massive, everlasting promise of a great nation and a land of their own. And to whom does He make it? A powerful army? A thriving civilization? No. He makes it when they were only a few men in number. Abraham's household was not a superpower. They were statistically insignificant. They were of little account, literally, "like a nothing." In the eyes of the world, they were nobodies. And to top it off, they were sojourners in it. They were resident aliens, living on someone else's property. They didn't own a square inch of the promised land, save a burial plot. This is how God works. He chooses the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He makes His glorious promises to the least likely candidates so that when the promise is fulfilled, no one can boast in human strength. The glory must go to God alone.

v. 13 And they wandered about from nation to nation, From one kingdom to another people.

Their existence was not only small, it was precarious. They were nomadic, wandering from place to place. They moved between different nations and kingdoms, subject to the laws and whims of foreign rulers. They had no home base, no security, no political clout. They were utterly vulnerable. This highlights the sheer audacity of God's promise. He promises a fixed inheritance to a wandering people. He promises national greatness to a tiny clan. This is the logic of faith. God calls those things that are not as though they were (Romans 4:17).

v. 14 He permitted no man to oppress them, And He reproved kings for their sakes:

Here is the flip side of their vulnerability. Because they were weak, God's protection was their only strength. And it was more than enough. He permitted no man to oppress them. This does not mean they never faced threats. Abraham faced Abimelech, Isaac dealt with the Philistines, Jacob fled from Esau and dealt with Laban. But in every instance, God intervened. He did not allow the oppression to succeed. He did not just protect them from random marauders; He reproved kings for their sakes. Think of Pharaoh and Abimelech, who were warned by God in dreams concerning Sarah (Genesis 12, 20). These patriarchs, who were of "little account" in the world's eyes, had the King of Heaven as their personal bodyguard. God steps onto the world stage and tells the most powerful men on earth that they answer to Him, especially when it comes to His people.

v. 15 “Do not touch My anointed ones, And to My prophets do no evil.”

This is the content of God's rebuke to the kings. This is the divine "hands off" policy. He calls the patriarchs My anointed ones. Anointing was a sign of being set apart for a special purpose, usually for kings and priests. Here, God applies this royal and priestly title to this wandering family. They are His chosen representatives. He also calls them My prophets. A prophet is one who speaks for God. Abraham is explicitly called a prophet in Genesis 20:7. They were the bearers of the covenant word, the living oracles of God in their generation. To harm them was not just to harm a wandering shepherd; it was to attack God's designated ambassador and to do violence to His chosen king. This status was not something they achieved; it was something God declared over them. And this is our status in Christ. We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9). And the God who protected the patriarchs is the same God who guards us today. He still says to the powers of this world, "Do not touch My anointed ones."

Application

The central application of this passage is to ground our faith not in what we see, but in what God has said. Like the patriarchs, we often find ourselves few in number, of little account, and sojourners in a world that is not our home. The promises of God, that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, can seem a long way off. But this psalm reminds us that God's covenant is everlasting, commanded for a thousand generations.

Our security does not lie in our political influence, our cultural cachet, or our personal strength. Our security lies in the fact that we belong to Yahweh, and His judgments are in all the earth. He is the God who rebukes kings for the sake of His people. We are His anointed ones, His prophets, set apart in Christ. Therefore, we are to live with a quiet confidence, a sturdy faithfulness. We are to remember His marvelous works, just as the psalmist does here, because the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is our God. His historical faithfulness is the guarantee of His future faithfulness. He remembered His covenant then, and He remembers it now.