O God, thy way is in the sanctuary who is so great a god as God?
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Thou art the God that doest wonders; thou hast declared thy strength among the peoples.
Asaph begins Psalm 77 sleepless, asking whether God has abandoned His people for good. Then his tone turns: in verse 14 the man who was counting his own miseries names God by what God does.
The turn is visible in the psalm's own vocabulary. One writer traces it through the possessive pronouns in each half:
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.
The same writer turns the contrast into two questions, quoting verse 13 in an older wording:
Suppose we fix the eye of our hearts, not on the seen things, not on the failings of others and on the peculiar things they say and do, but on the God who marches through the circumstances, who works His sovereign will, who has revealed Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ… we should be transformed! There could not be a greater contrast than between the spirit of these early verses of the psalm and the spirit of verse 13… borrowing the language of Romans 7, he was previously saying, "Who is so wretched a man as I am?" Now he says, "Who is so great a God as our God?"
Asaph does not reason his way to this. The verse before points to a place: the sanctuary, the holy place where Israel worshipped God. That is where the answer comes:
When perplexed by the prosperity of the wicked, the soul found the answer to its difficulties in the sanctuary (Ps. 73:17). So, when puzzled by God's apparent silence while His people are in trial, he again finds an answer to his exercises in the sanctuary. There he learns that God has a settled way that governs His acts; that God is great and does wonders. In accordance with His way God makes known His strength among the peoples to redeem His own.
Asaph goes on to recall God's works of long ago, so the wonders include old ones. But the verse itself is not in the past tense:
He quite recognised that God had worked great wonders in the past, as the following verses of the psalm show. Still, in saying, "You are the God who works wonders," he laid the stress on the present, and that is the great test of faith. It is comparatively easy to believe that God has done great wonders in the past, and that He will do them in the future. To genuine faith God is a present reality: He is a God who is doing wonders today.
If God is still working wonders, what are they? One answer is what He does inside His people:
What wonders does He not do in the hearts and minds of His saints? — lifting them out of themselves, in their littleness and feebleness, into the greatness and strength and love which is found in Himself. It is by faith that His people are enabled to endure, and out of weakness are made strong, for Hebrews 11 tells us this plainly. Still it is God who does it, and faith on our side simply lays hold on His strength.
The second half of the verse looks outward. God does not keep His power to Himself or to Israel alone. He makes it known where the nations can see it, and He does it to rescue:
His own perfection must hide Him. Yet He is not outside the knowledge of men everywhere, for "You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples." And in Israel especially — through His relationship to them — He makes Himself known, and known in the grace which this declares: "You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph."
Commentators also read the verse forward, to a declaration not yet complete. One notes that redemption's full reach is still ahead for Israel, and reads the two names in the next verse as a pair:
Jacob is mentioned to indicate their unworthiness of the blessing, while Joseph indicates the place of blessing to which God will elevate His people.
- Trouble — Asaph's darkness came from staring at himself. The first half of the psalm is crowded with "my," and it produced only the cry of a wretched man.
- Sanctuary — he did not argue his way out. He learned God's settled way in the sanctuary, as in Psalm 73.
- Wonders — there he finds that God's greatness is not a memory. The verse is present tense, and present-tense faith is the real test.
- Strength — what God works, He also announces. He makes His might known among the nations instead of hiding it.
- Redemption — wonders and strength serve one end: an arm stretched out to redeem His people. For us, that redemption reaches into weak hearts and makes them strong.
Thou hast with [thine] arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.
The psalmist has spent the first half of this psalm asking whether the Lord has cast him off for ever and forgotten to be gracious. Verse 15 is where his answer lands: a redemption worked by God's own arm, for a people named after Jacob and Joseph.
The psalmist finds no relief while he studies his own state.
He remembers Jehovah's works. When he reached Jehovah with his own humbled spirit, he reached One who had always been for His people, who had worked for them and redeemed them long ago. Their God became the source of his thoughts, not his own state towards Him.
Why an arm? The same picture runs all through the Old Testament, and redemption is only one of the things it stands for.
The part of the body that can lift burdens and defend the person: Scripture uses it as a picture of the power and strength of God on behalf of His saints (Ex. 15:16; Ps. 77:15; Isa. 51:9). The arm of Jehovah is often spoken of in the Old Testament. It redeemed (Ex. 6:6); it gathers His own (Isa. 40:11); and it rules for Him (Isa. 40:10), as in the kingdom... God reveals the arm of the Lord to those who repent and believe the report He sends (Isa. 53:1; Rom. 10:16). Even the far-off nations are to trust in it — that is, sinners everywhere in creation (Isa. 51:5).
That redemption came in two stages, and the sheltering blood of the Passover was only the first.
But Israel was not redeemed — though perfectly safe under the shelter of the blood — as long as they were in Egypt. So the second part, the completion of their redemption, came when God brought them out of the land of Egypt through the Red Sea with a high hand and an outstretched arm. There He destroyed Pharaoh and all his army in its mighty waters. On the basis of the shed blood, God — now satisfied as Judge — can act for His people as their Deliverer.
The psalm calls God by several names, and each one is chosen with care.
The use of the divine names is beautiful and definite. In the day of his trouble the psalmist seeks Adonay, the Deliverer of His people (v. 2), and asks, "Will Adonay cast off for ever?" (v. 7). He asks, "Has El [the Supreme over evil in holy power] forgotten to be gracious?" — "the El that does wonders" (vv. 9, 14), the Redeemer of His people (v. 15).
God makes His strength known to all peoples. In Israel He makes more than strength known.
And here He makes Himself known especially in Israel, through His relationship to them — known in the grace which this declares: "You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph."
Commentators differ on why these two names stand together. One reads them as a contrast, with the full blessing still ahead.
With His arm He will have redeemed His peoples, the sons of Jacob and Joseph (v. 15). The work of redemption was accomplished at Calvary, and believers today enjoy it. But Israel will share in the blessing of redemption only when the millennium comes in. Jacob's name shows how little they deserve the blessing, while Joseph shows the place of blessing to which God will raise His people.
Another looks back further, to how Joseph's name gained such weight in the first place.
Reuben lost the birthright by his sin, and it came naturally to Joseph, Rachel's firstborn. The tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh were the two-fold witness of this, and so was the tabernacle at Shiloh in the land of Ephraim... It is no wonder, then, that Asaph should make Joseph prominent, since he goes back to the beginning of the nation.
- Memory. His darkness lifts when God's past works, not his own state, feed his thoughts.
- Arm. The arm is God's power acting for His people. It redeems, it gathers, it rules — and God reveals it to those who repent and believe.
- Two stages. Blood sheltered Israel in Egypt; the outstretched arm brought them out. Once satisfied as Judge, God acts as Deliverer.
- Name. The El who does wonders in verse 14 is the same El who redeems in verse 15 — power and grace under one name.
- Reach. God shows His strength to all peoples, yet He names the redeemed: Jacob the unworthy, and Joseph the place of blessing He gives.