One Answer Through Creation, Deliverance, and Daily Bread

Jewish tradition calls this psalm the Great Hallel (Talmud, Pesachim 118a). Its refrain, ki le’olam chasdo, the Levites’ line of 1 Chronicles 16:34, comes twenty six times, once in every verse. The opening line is that of Psalms 106, 107 and 118.

Deuteronomy 10:17 says “the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords”, and this verse and the next divide that sentence in two. “God of gods” is Elohei ha’elohim, a superlative: the supreme God, not one among a crowd.

The second half of Deuteronomy 10:17. “Lord of lords” is Adonei ha’adonim, the master over all masters. Revelation 19:16 writes the same title on the thigh of the rider on the white horse.

“Alone” is levaddo, by himself, with no helper. Psalm 72:18 praises the God “who only doeth wondrous things”. The great wonders, niphla’ot gedolot, are a heading for what follows: creation first, and then the exodus.

“By wisdom” is bitvunah, by understanding. Proverbs 3:19 says the same: “by understanding hath he established the heavens”. Creation is presented as the work of skill, like a master builder’s, before it is presented as the work of power.

“Stretched out” is raqa, to beat out or spread, the verb from which the raqia, the firmament of Genesis 1:6, is named. Psalm 24:2 says he “founded it upon the seas”. The dry land is pictured spread flat above the waters.

Genesis 1:16 calls them me’orot, light-holders or lamps; the psalm says orim, lights, but the phrase “great lights” is taken from there. Genesis does not name them. The psalm will name them in the next two verses.

Genesis 1 calls it only “the greater light”; the psalm says shemesh, sun, the word that was also the name of a god across the ancient Near East. “To rule” is memshalah, dominion: the sun governs the day as an appointed officer, not a deity.

In Genesis 1:16 the stars are almost an afterthought, “he made the stars also”. Here they share the rule of the night with the moon. The refrain is the same after sun, moon and stars as after the plagues: all of it is chesed.

Passover fell on the fourteenth day of a lunar month, the night of the full moon. The moon appointed to rule by night in verse 9 was shining at its fullest over Egypt when the firstborn died (Exodus 12:29). The psalm moves from one to the other in consecutive lines.

“From among them” is mittokham, from their midst. Israel was not across a border from Egypt but inside it, woven into its labour force, and had to be pulled out. The same word, “midst”, will describe the path through the sea in verse 14.

“A strong hand and a stretched out arm” is the formula of Deuteronomy (4:34, 5:15, 26:8). Egyptian royal inscriptions praised Pharaoh’s own mighty arm, and several scholars think the phrase deliberately turns that boast against him; that is an inference, but a well supported one.

“Divided into parts” is gozer ligzarim, cut into pieces. The noun gezarim is the word for the halves of the animals between which the smoking furnace passed when God made his covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15:17). The sea is cut like a covenant sacrifice.

“Through the midst of it” is betokho, the word of Exodus 14:22, “the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground”. Brought out of the midst of Egypt in verse 11, Israel now goes through the midst of the sea.

“Overthrew” is ni’er, to shake off, as dust is shaken out of a garment (Nehemiah 5:13). Exodus 14:27 uses the same verb: the LORD shook the Egyptians off into the sea. The refrain follows unchanged even here.

Forty years are given a single line. The participle, molikh, means one who kept on leading, day after day. Deuteronomy 8:15 describes the route: “that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought”.

The adjective “great” threads the psalm: great wonders (verse 4), great lights (verse 7), and now great kings. The kings are measured on the same scale as the sun and moon, and the same God handles all of them.

“Famous” is addirim, majestic or mighty. The word is used in the Song of the Sea for the “mighty waters” in which Egypt sank like lead (Exodus 15:10). The kings are given the grandeur of the sea, and the same end.

Sihon ruled from Heshbon. Israel asked only to pass through his land on the King’s Highway, promising not to drink from his wells, and he came out to fight instead (Numbers 21:21–24). His refusal is what put his land in Israel’s hands.

Og of Bashan was the last of the Rephaim, the giants, and Deuteronomy 3:11 records his iron bedstead, nine cubits long and four wide, still on show at Rabbah. A king remembered by his furniture is named in one line and passed over.

The kingdoms of Sihon and Og, east of the Jordan, were the first land Israel held, given to Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh before the river was crossed (Numbers 32:33). The inheritance began before the promised land proper was entered.

Psalm 135:12 said “Israel his people”; this says “Israel his servant”, the title Isaiah gives the nation, “thou, Israel, art my servant” (Isaiah 41:8). The heritage is given to someone who belongs to the giver.

The history suddenly becomes “us”. “Low estate” is shefel, lowliness, humiliation, perhaps the exile, though the psalm does not say. Mary uses the Greek form of the phrase: he “hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden” (Luke 1:48).

“Redeemed” is paraq, to tear away or break off, the verb Isaac uses when he tells Esau “thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck” (Genesis 27:40). The rescue is pictured as a yoke wrenched off.

“All flesh”, kol basar, is every living creature, not Israel alone. Psalm 145:15 and 104:27 say the eyes of all wait on him for their food. After kings and seas, the psalm ends its list with the daily meal of every animal on earth.

“The God of heaven”, El hashamayim, appears only here in the Psalms. It is the title most used in the Persian period books (Ezra 1:2, Nehemiah 1:4, Daniel 2:18). The psalm that began in Deuteronomy’s words closes in a later idiom.