He sent Moses his servant, [and] Aaron whom he had chosen
Psalm 105 retells Israel's story, and here it reaches the darkest point: a people enslaved in Egypt. At that moment the psalm names two men. It credits both to God's sending and God's choosing, not to Israel's planning.
Israel's history holds plenty of failure. This psalm still tells it as a story of grace:
In Psalm 105, God reviews His people — all that they were and all that they had done lay before His eyes. And right through that Psalm, whatever He may have to say, grace triumphs.
Here is the history packed into that one line:
Then the Lord sent Moses, who had been born in Egypt, back to that country to deliver His people from their bondage. Aaron, his older brother, was chosen to support Moses.
God sent Moses when the pressure on Israel was at its worst:
In Egypt, the burdens of the Israelites had grown to their highest, just when the Lord was preparing Moses's deliverance for them… As has been said, the hour of preparation for a better order of things is not a time when things look promising. It is the opposite.
Another writer points to where the call was given, and whose cry it answered:
Alone with God in the distant desert of Horeb, Moses received his commission of deliverance. He was sent to break the iron yoke of those whose groan of helpless misery had come into the ears of Israel's God.
Aaron's place at Moses's side began with a failure in Moses himself:
This is how one of the very greatest of God's servants grieved God. He was angry at the unbelief. But in mercy He stooped to the weakness of His servant. He joined Aaron with him to carry out the deliverance He had planned for Israel.
The psalm attaches the word "chosen" to Aaron, the man who would later hold the priesthood. That office never rested on popular support or personal ambition:
Aaron was not the people's choice, just as the need for priesthood was not something the people discovered for themselves. Nor did he elect himself. His fitness for the office came from the God who called him, and who laid down the pattern of his consecration and the order of his ministry.
God did not send the two men without backing. The verses that follow supply the proof:
Moses is sent, and Aaron too. Signs and wonders clearly show the broad seal of their commission.
Moses led the people out; Aaron stood as priest between God and the people. Commentators see the two offices meeting in one Person:
The separate ministries of Moses and Aaron come together, in the fullness of divine perfection, in the Person of the Son of God… The heavenly Deliverer was sent in the same way. He had come from the secret of the Father's bosom to do His bidding as the Saviour of His people. They lay without any strength, in hopeless bondage under sin and death.
- Sent, not self-starting. Moses went back to Egypt because God sent him. The psalm keeps the whole rescue in God's hands, where "grace triumphs" from start to finish.
- Sent at the worst hour. The burdens had "grown to their highest" just as God was preparing the deliverance. The hour of preparation does not look promising.
- Sent with help for weakness. Moses met God's call with unbelief. God did not drop him. He "stooped to the weakness of His servant" and gave him Aaron.
- Chosen, not self-elected. Aaron held his place only because God called him. His fitness "came from the God who called him," not from anything in himself.
- Sealed, and pointing beyond. Signs and wonders were "the broad seal of their commission." The two ministries they carried — deliverer and priest — meet in the Son, sent from the Father's bosom to free people from a deeper bondage.
They set his signs among them, and miracles in the land of Ham.
Psalm 105 is a song of thanksgiving. Here the singer reaches the moment when two men stand before the king of Egypt and the wonders begin. Three questions follow. Whose power was at work? Why does the psalm call Egypt the land of Ham? And why does a song of praise dwell so long on disasters?
The same events carry two names, depending on who is watching.
In relation to Egypt, God's dealings were plagues. Each one displayed the wrath and power of God. Through them God made His name known throughout all the earth, and He overthrew Pharaoh, whose stubborn resistance was useless. Yet Pharaoh's spirit remained unchanged. But to the people of God these "great judgments" were signs and wonders. By them God would bring His people out of the enemy's power, out of the house of slavery.
Two men perform the signs, but the rod is God's.
The whole land of Egypt trembled under the repeated strokes of the rod of God. God made everyone feel the terrible weight of that rod, from the king on his throne to the servant at the mill.
The psalm's name for Egypt reaches back to the family lists in Genesis. The old Egyptian word for the country also has a meaning.
The family record of the nations in Genesis 10 lists Mizraim as the son of Ham. In the Psalms, Egypt bears the name "the land of Ham" (Ps. 105:23, 27). Chem or Khem is surely the same word. It is the name for Egypt in the hieroglyphic inscriptions. Its meaning is "black," or "sun-burnt" — darkened by the light. And this is what the "natural state," as we call it, really is. It is not a darkness that comes from the absence of light. It is the effect of the light itself on someone like man.
The plagues were not only punishment. They carried a lesson, and it had two audiences.
The plagues were signs as well as judgments. God sent them to prove who Jehovah was. Egypt once knew enough of God to stay clear of idolatry, but it did not want to hold on to that knowledge of God, and so it sank into the worst idolatry. Above all, God sent them to teach Israel that Jehovah alone is God.
Each plague took a particular shape, and God chose the shape with care.
The character of the plagues shows the wisdom of God. They were suited to humble Egypt and its king. It was not only a blow on the land, with all the pain and anguish it brought the people. It was a solemn contest between Jehovah, the true God, and the false gods of Egypt. God aimed His judgment at the false gods the Egyptians worshipped. He stained the glory they boasted in and made them something to loathe.
God chose the setting with care.
Egypt was both the chief centre of civilization and the country with the most animal gods. There God showed Himself in judgments that humbled their king and their many gods at the same time.
This psalm never mentions Israel's failures. The next psalm is full of them.
Psalm 105 shows only God's goodness to Israel, along with His judgments on their enemies, and it ends in Hallelujah. Psalm 106 begins and ends with Hallelujah too. But there we have only Israel's evil ways confessed, and divine mercy in answer to their cry.
One detail stands out to anyone who knows the story. The plagues here are not in the order they happened.
God also led them in performing signs and wonders that proved God had sent them. The psalm mentions darkness first (v. 28). That was not the first of the plagues but the ninth. Yet from the very beginning the darkness in the hearts of the Egyptians was clear... We may be sure that God has good reason for changing the order of these plagues here, even if we understand little of it.
- Sent — Moses and Aaron do the work, but the psalm calls the wonders His. The servants hold the rod. God swings it, and it lands on king and servant alike.
- Signs — the same events are plagues to Egypt and signs to Israel. They judge one nation and teach the other.
- Sun-darkened — "the land of Ham" names Egypt by its ancestor. The word means black, or sun-burnt. Man's natural darkness is not missing light; it is what light does to him.
- Showdown — each blow was aimed. The whole was a contest between the living God and Egypt's gods. It humbled king and gods together in the most civilized nation on earth.
- Song — this psalm remembers it all as pure goodness, and even rearranges the order of the plagues. Confession waits for the next psalm. Here praise stands alone.