The God Who Owns History Text: Psalm 135:8-12
Introduction: History with a Point
We live in an age that is terrified of history. Modern man wants to live in a perpetual present, untethered to the past and unaccountable to the future. He wants a story with no author, a plot with no purpose, and a conclusion that is whatever he wants it to be. But the God of Scripture is the Lord of history. He does not simply observe it; He writes it. Every event, from the fall of an empire to the fall of a sparrow, is a sentence in the grand narrative He is composing. And because He is the author, history has a point. It is not, as the cynic says, just one thing after another. It is a story, and it is His story.
The Psalmist here, in this great hymn of praise, does not offer us abstract theological platitudes about God's power. He does not say, "God is very strong and does impressive things." No, he gets his hands dirty with the grit and grime of actual history. He points to specific events, names specific names, and identifies specific real estate. He reminds Israel that their God is not a philosophical concept but a God who acts, a God who judges, and a God who gives. He is the God who showed up in Egypt and later showed up in Canaan.
This is profoundly offensive to the modern therapeutic mindset, which wants a God who is all affirmation and no judgment, all mercy and no wrath. But the God of the Bible is the God of Exodus and Conquest. He is a God who drowns armies, topples kings, and dispossesses nations in order to keep His promises to His people. This is not a bug; it is a central feature of His character. He is a covenant-keeping God, which means He is a faithful friend to His people and a terrifying enemy to those who set themselves against His purposes. In these verses, we are called to praise God for His mighty acts in history, acts that reveal His absolute sovereignty, His righteous judgment, and His lavish grace.
The Text
He struck the firstborn of Egypt, From man to beast. He sent signs and wonders into your midst, O Egypt, Amongst Pharaoh and all his slaves. He struck many nations And slew mighty kings, Sihon, king of the Amorites, And Og, king of Bashan, And all the kingdoms of Canaan; And He gave their land as an inheritance, An inheritance to Israel His people.
(Psalm 135:8-12 LSB)
The Humiliation of a Superpower (vv. 8-9)
The Psalmist begins his historical recital with God's decisive action against Egypt.
"He struck the firstborn of Egypt, From man to beast. He sent signs and wonders into your midst, O Egypt, Amongst Pharaoh and all his slaves." (Psalm 135:8-9)
Notice the bluntness. "He struck the firstborn." This is not an apology; it is a boast. This was the culmination of the plagues, the final, devastating blow that broke the back of Egyptian pride. But we must understand what was happening. This was not arbitrary cruelty. This was targeted, theological warfare. The plagues were a systematic dismantling of the Egyptian pantheon. God turned the Nile to blood, humiliating Hapi, the god of the Nile. He sent frogs, mocking Heqet, the frog-headed goddess of fertility. He sent darkness, shaming Ra, the sun god. And in this final plague, He struck the firstborn, which was a direct assault on Pharaoh himself, who was considered a living god, and on the entire principle of succession and divine inheritance in Egypt.
God was not just flexing His muscle; He was executing judgment against the gods of Egypt (Ex. 12:12). He was demonstrating that the so-called deities of the most powerful empire on earth were nothing but impotent figments of the rebellious human imagination. They were vanities, unable to protect their own people, their own livestock, or even their own divine king from the decree of the God of a slave-people.
The strike was comprehensive, "From man to beast." This shows the totality of God's claim. He is Lord over all of life, not just the religious bits. The Egyptians had deified animals, worshipping bulls and cats and crocodiles. God showed that He was sovereign over the whole created order by striking down their sacred cows, quite literally. The signs and wonders were sent "amongst Pharaoh and all his slaves." God's judgment is no respecter of persons. From the throne room to the slave pits, from the highest man to the lowest beast, all of Egypt stood under the judgment of a holy God. This is a terrifying thought for any culture that builds its security on its own power, its own technology, or its own political might. God can unmake a superpower overnight.
The Conquest of Kings (vv. 10-11)
From Egypt, the Psalmist moves to the wilderness and the threshold of the promised land.
"He struck many nations And slew mighty kings, Sihon, king of the Amorites, And Og, king of Bashan, And all the kingdoms of Canaan;" (Psalm 135:10-11)
Again, the language is stark and unsentimental. God struck nations. God slew kings. This is the language of holy war. We must not try to soften this or explain it away. The conquest of Canaan was a divine judgment. The iniquity of the Amorites was full (Gen. 15:16). These were cultures steeped in child sacrifice, ritual prostitution, and grotesque idolatry. God, in His patience, had given them centuries to repent. They did not. And so, He used Israel as His scalpel to cut this cancer out of the land.
The Psalmist names names, which gives the account the solid feel of real history. Sihon and Og were the first two major obstacles. They were Amorite kings on the east side of the Jordan, and they were formidable. Og, we are told, was a giant, the last of the Rephaim, whose bed was a tourist attraction (Deut. 3:11). These were not petty tribal chieftains; they were "mighty kings." And Israel, a rag-tag group of recently freed slaves, defeated them utterly. Why? Because the Lord fought for them. The victories over Sihon and Og were the down payment, the tangible proof that God would be faithful to give them the rest of the land.
This history serves as a permanent testimony to the fact that no earthly power can stand against the purposes of God. When God determines to advance His kingdom, He will remove any obstacle, whether it is a hardened Pharaoh, a giant king, or the collected armies of "all the kingdoms of Canaan." The church must remember this. We are often intimidated by the Sihons and Ogs of our day, the mighty cultural and political forces that seem so entrenched and invincible. But our God is the one who slays mighty kings. Our task is not to be intimidated, but to be faithful, and to watch Him work.
The Gift of Inheritance (v. 12)
The climax of this historical recital is not the destruction, but the gift that follows.
"And He gave their land as an inheritance, An inheritance to Israel His people." (Psalm 135:12)
This is the central point. God's judgments are never an end in themselves. They always serve His redemptive purposes. He clears the ground in order to build. He dispossesses the wicked in order to enfranchise His people. The land was not won by Israel's military prowess; it was given by God's grace. The repetition of the word "inheritance" is crucial. An inheritance is not earned; it is received as a gift based on relationship. Israel's claim to the land was not based on their merit, they were a stiff-necked people, but on God's covenant promise to Abraham.
God gave them the land of Canaan, a land He had prepared, with cities they did not build, wells they did not dig, and vineyards they did not plant (Deut. 6:10-11). This was a tangible picture of the nature of salvation. We do not earn our place in God's kingdom. We do not conquer heaven by our own strength. We receive it as an inheritance, purchased for us by the work of another. God, in Christ, has struck down our great enemies, sin, death, and the devil. He has slain that mighty king, the prince of the power of the air. And He has given us an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for us (1 Peter 1:4).
Conclusion: Our Place in His Story
So what are we to do with this bloody, triumphant history? We are to praise God for it. We are to praise Him because it shows us who He is. He is the sovereign Lord who governs the affairs of men and nations. He is the righteous judge who will not allow wickedness to stand forever. And He is the gracious Father who gives good gifts to His children.
This psalm teaches us to read our own history, and the history of the world, through a biblical lens. We are not adrift in a sea of meaningless events. We are part of a story that God is writing, a story that moves from judgment to inheritance. The Exodus and Conquest are a type, a foreshadowing, of the greater work of Christ. He is our Joshua who leads us into the promised land of our salvation.
Like the Egyptians, our idols have been judged at the cross. Like Sihon and Og, our spiritual enemies have been defeated by the resurrection. And like Israel, we have been given an inheritance. We are "His people," His treasured possession. Our response, therefore, should be the same as the Psalmist's. We are to remember God's mighty acts. We are to recount them. We are to sing about them. And in doing so, we declare to a rebellious world that our God is the great God, that our Lord is above all gods, and that He is the one who truly owns all of history.