Will I remember, -- the works of Jah; for I will remember thy wonders of old,
Psalm 77 records a man in trouble. He looks inward and finds no comfort, until one decision changes everything: he stops examining himself and starts recalling what God has done. Verse 11 is the hinge. It raises the question every troubled believer asks: how does remembering the past help now?
You can trace the change in this psalm by watching the pronouns. Before verse 10 the psalmist's own case fills the page; from verse 10 onward God fills it.
In verses 2 to 6, it was all "my" — my this, that and the other. In verses 10 to 20, it is all "Your" — "Your years … Your wonders … Your work … Your doings … Your way … Your strength … Your arm … Your arrows … Your thunder … Your path … Your footsteps." What deliverance, what blessing, what strength there is in looking at God's things, after the weakness and humiliation of looking at our own.
Earlier in the psalm he had already looked backwards and gained nothing by it. The difference now is not that he looks back, but what he sees there.
Before, he was thinking about the "days of old" and finding no comfort in it. Now he is remembering "your wonders of old," which must have been a very welcome change.
Those wonders are not vague. They are a chain of things God really did, and for us that chain runs longer than it did for the psalmist.
This would include creation, then God's dealings in the flood, His choosing and blessing of Abraham, and His raising up of the nation Israel. It would include the power He showed when He delivered them from Egypt, brought them through the wilderness into the promised land, and did many other marvellous works of power and grace. Today we can add the wonders of the New Testament: the Son of God becoming man, His life of great goodness, His sacrifice of infinite value, His resurrection, and His return to heaven.
Some translations use "Jah" here for the LORD's name. What that name carries explains why remembering the LORD's deeds steadies a frightened heart.
We first meet Jah in Exodus 15:2, after God delivered the people from Pharaoh at the Red Sea. It appears often in the Psalms in the well-known compound Hallelujah, and it occurs in Psalm 77:11 too. If we look at the context of most of the places where it occurs, I think we will be convinced that it is not just a short form of Jehovah. It has a meaning of its own, reminding His people that He has stepped in with power for them, and will do so again.
Earlier in the psalm, thinking about God only made him more troubled. The cure was not more honesty about himself, but a new object to look at.
Only the enjoyment of grace, felt and known, casts fear out of the heart of a person born again. And you can never work out grace from the inward experience of a heart that judges itself by the truth. The springs of grace are in God. They flow out to meet the sinner in the word of His grace… Light and joy come back to the sin-burdened spirit of the self-condemned believer in one way only. The heart must turn away from cutting itself open and look at Him in whom the brightness of the Father's glory shines in loving mercy on us, as the effect of His atoning work.
Earlier he judged by what he found inside himself. What he does in verse 11 draws on something else.
Before, we judged from the resources of our own heart. Now we judge from the favour and resources God has shown. Remembrance of His doings is one of the marks of faith. "They soon forgot his works."
Remembering does not stop with the past. It gives back trust, speech, and praise.
A moment ago this broken-hearted man thought of God and only ended in complete confusion. Now his spirit revives at the fresh remembrance of God's ancient ways of truth and mercy. He finds heart and speech to trust Him and to speak His praise as he talks of His wonderful works. All turns to peace and hope when we remember God according to the proven truth of His own righteous and triumphant grace.
- Turn — The psalm turns from "my" to "Your". Strength comes from looking at God's things, not our own.
- Object — He was already remembering. Healing came when he looked at God's wonders instead of at the old days.
- Name — The name used here marks God as the One who stepped in with power for His people, and will again.
- Faith — Grace is never found by digging into yourself. It flows from God in His word, and remembering what He has done is a mark of faith.
- Result — Remembering gives back speech. Trust and praise return, and everything turns to peace and hope.
And I will meditate upon all thy work, and muse upon thy doings.
Psalm 77 records a man in the dark. He wears himself out asking whether God has forgotten to be gracious. Verse 12 is the hinge. He stops examining his own trouble and sets his mind on what God has done. The tone of the psalm changes from there.
Count the pronouns in the two halves of the psalm.
In verses 2 to 6, it was all "my" — my this, that and the other. In verses 10 to 20, it is all "Your" — "Your years … Your wonders … Your work … Your doings … Your way … Your strength … Your arm … Your thunder … Your footsteps." What deliverance, what blessing, what strength there is in looking at God's things, after the weakness and humiliation of looking at our own.
The thing he had to abandon first was a way of reasoning: measuring God by how His people have behaved.
It soothes the troubled soul of the psalmist to realize this: the sin of God's people can never be greater than the grace of God. He sees where the thought came from that God's people could be cast off. It came from the weakness of his own mind, which had judged God's ways towards His people by the way they had acted towards Him.
"Ponder" and "meditate" name work the mind chooses to do.
We exercise our minds when we use them for reflection and meditation. Of this the Psalms are full, speaking of meditation on God Himself, on His word and His works. It is often worth going over again in our minds the scriptures we have just read, the main point of a message we have heard, or some experience we have been through. That way we make sure we have taken in what it has to say to us.
What is there to meditate on? The list runs from creation to the rescue of a nation, and for a reader today it runs further still.
This would include creation, then God's dealings in the flood, and His choosing and blessing of Abraham. It would include raising up the nation Israel, showing His power in their rescue from Egypt, and bringing them through the wilderness into the promised land, along with many other marvellous works of power and grace. Today we can add the wonders of the New Testament: the Son of God becoming man, His life of great goodness, His sacrifice of infinite value, His resurrection and His ascension back to heaven.
The old wonders point to a way of working that is still going on around us.
If our eyes were completely clear, where would we find one thing that could not be a text for speaking of the "works of the Lord"? And with what blessing to our own souls, as well as to the souls of others! Even the "wonders of old" are only the visible signs and marks of a way of working that everywhere carries the stamp of the same Author. Indeed that is what gives them their main charm and interest.
Older translations end the verse "and talk of your doings," where the ESV has "meditate on your mighty deeds." The commentator below quotes that older wording. Meditation gave the psalmist his voice back.
Now, meditating on all the work of the Lord, he found his tongue once more. He had found something which gave him a worthy theme. "I will … talk," he said, "of Your doings."
The order matters: the heart is filled before the mouth opens.
Verses 11, 12 describe the renewing effect on the tried spirit of turning like this from self to God. Meditation on His work first fills the heart with joyful assurance and a full sense of blessedness, and then makes the lips open in His praise: "I will talk of Your doings."
The psalmist's meditation ends in God's presence. Verses 13 and 19 are quoted below from an older translation.
How infinitely precious it is to meditate like this on all God's work and to speak of His deeds! Thinking over all these wonderful works is more than enough to fill our hearts with eternal praise. In verse 19 we shall see that God's way is "in the sea," so far as our experience goes. Yet verse 13 gives us this assurance: "Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary." Certainly only in God's presence, in the calm of the sanctuary, will we truly learn God's way, and realize that no one could possibly be so great a God as our God, the God who does wonders.
- Diagnosis. The trouble was a mind that judged God's ways by how His people had behaved — as if sin were bigger than grace.
- Decision. Meditation here is a choice to use the mind: to go back over Scripture, a message, or an experience until you have taken it in.
- Material. "All Your work" runs from creation to the rescue from Egypt, and now takes in the Son of God becoming man, His sacrifice, His resurrection and ascension.
- Reach. The wonders of old carry the stamp of the same Author. He is still at work, so anything at all can become a text for speaking of the works of the Lord.
- Result. The man who could not speak finds a worthy theme, and "my" gives way to "Your" for the rest of the psalm.