How can we "make known His deeds" to others (Psalm 105:1)?

(vv. 1-7) The psalm opens with a call to Israel to give thanks to the Lord; to call upon His name, and to make known His deeds among the peoples. Thus restored Israel are to be a praising people, a dependent people and a witnessing people.

They are called to praise the Lord for what He has done and for what He is in the glory of His Person. He has done wondrous works, and His name sets forth what He is — He is holy.

If we are to understand God's ways with Israel, we must first know something of God Himself, and we surely have sufficient evidence as to His glory, if we only listen to it. How well He deserves our giving thanks to Him; and this will be specially realized by Israel in the millennial age. His deeds should certainly be made known among the peoples, the Gentile nations (v. 1). Singing is also advised (v. 2), for singing is the language of a redeemed people (Ex. 15); and speaking of His wondrous works is only becoming when we are the recipients of the blessing of those works.

They are to call upon Him, or “seek the Lord,” because they are weak and “strength” is with Him. This dependence must be constant: they must “seek his face continually” (cp. John 15:5).

To be witnesses among the peoples they must remember His marvelous works that He has done; the judgments of His mouth, and the judgments He has executed in all the earth.

Were we thus more realizing the ways of God with us, the natural consequence would follow that we should be (how much!) more competent witnesses to those that come after us in the same path. "What we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us, we will not hide from their children, showing to the generations to come the praises of Jehovah, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He has done." This is what secures the blessing that is in it, that it is His praises that are being thus sustained and spread abroad. God is in His place, and thus all else, in the same proportion that He is so.

Psalm 105 — Grace and election, for the accomplishment of promise in giving the inheritance to Israel, are next celebrated. That these are the acts and works by which His name is made known among the peoples, is evident by comparing the first fifteen verses with 1 Chron. 16:8-22. The change is very marked from 'Israel,' the national name of power, to Abraham in the psalm (v. 6), the solitary pilgrim of grace, calling, and election; as also the turn given to the statement in verse 8 of Jehovah's faithfulness to His covenant, instead of merely exhorting His people to be mindful of it. The divine Mind, in the psalm, rests first upon Jehovah's faithful care of the pilgrim of faith (vv. 8-15); then upon the exaltation of the afflicted Man. (vv. 16-22; cf. Acts 7:1-10.) Upon this, Israel came into Egypt, and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. (Cf. Acts 7:11-16.) There they were oppressed and hated; but He brought them forth with power (vv. 23-38), and Egypt rejoiced at their departure. (Cf, Acts 7:17-36.) But wilderness grace, with gladness and joy, accompanied them to put them in possession of the lands of the nations. (Cf. Acts 7:37-45.) It is remarkable, as a type, that Israel's sojourn in a strange land is embraced between their going out to a living and glorified Man, and their carrying back to their land the memorial of One who had died. This is what Stephen did. (Acts 7:52; cf. v. 45 with his peroration.) Jehovah, 5; Jah, 1; Elohim, 1.

The psalm begins with an outburst of praise to the Most High — that millennial name of God with which the seventh psalm ended. Israel's tongue is loosed, the whole heart united in this praise. It is Jehovah, the covenant God, the Living and Unchangeable, who is now manifested as this, whose wondrous, works have made Him known, and these as being the means of their own deliverance, and with their new-opened mouth, Israel will declare. David the Israelite has long since led, and still leads, in such strains as these; and Christ, the anti-type of David, will lead "in the midst of the assembly," in the days to come.

Though those in the millennium have not previously been present when God's marvelous works were accomplished in liberating Israel from Egypt, yet they are told to "remember His marvelous works." Of course they can do this just as we can remember all the events of the history of the Lord Jesus in His incarnation, His life of great goodness, His sufferings and sacrifice on Calvary, His resurrection and exaltation to God's right hand. We can remember because we have God's Word for all this. "His wonders and the judgments of His mouth" may thus be remembered too. But the "seed of Abraham, God's servant, are addressed, and also called "You children of Jacob, His chosen ones" (v. 6). No doubt this has direct reference to Israel in her being blessed in the millennium, but even today all believers are classified as children of Abraham: "If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to promise" (Gal. 3:29). Because we have faith, we are seen as Abraham's children; and because believing Israelites are unworthy of the least of God's mercies, they are looked at as Jacob's children, -chosen in spite of being totally undeserving. Israel will be able to speak this way firmly and decidedly only when restored to God in the millennium, and voice the unshaken conviction, "He is the Lord our God: His judgments are in all the earth" (v. 7), for this fact will only then be clearly and fully demonstrated.

Psalm 105 offers thanksgiving to Jehovah, and calls on the seed of Abraham and Jacob to remember Him and glory in His name. Verses 7, 8 give the occasion. He is Jehovah, their God. His judgments are in all the earth. And He has remembered His covenant for ever. It was to be permanent. It was commanded to a thousand generations. He had now remembered it. The psalm then recites how God had cared for the fathers, and judged Egypt for the deliverance of His people; and, in spite of bondage, there was not a feeble person among their tribes. "He remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant, and he brought forth his people with joy and his chosen with gladness, and gave them the lands of the heathen, that they might observe his statutes and keep his laws." All their subsequent failure is not touched on. For now again (v. 8) He had remembered His covenant with Abraham and had delivered His people by judgments; for it is the accomplishment of promise. And the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. The following psalm will tell us Israel's ways, but only so to bring out His mercy and never-failing goodness; for this is the theme.

So in the next Psalm, where Messiah takes up the congregation and judgment into His own hand, the first verse giving the thanksgiving of the people saved and avenged in answer to their cry in Ps. 74, we have the name again. God's work in their deliverance has shewn Him to be near His people, as here they celebrate. So for us, "all the power of the name of Father, all the grace and faithfulness of it for those who are risen with Christ, and loved as He is loved, is ever near to us, and the wondrous work of Christ, resurrection declares it." For in the deliverance of His people He acts righteously, and in His actings manifests all the principles of His throne, so as to give the place and ground of confidence to all that seek the right (Ps. 9:7-10). The throne prepared for judgment, and righteous judgment, but the Lord, also a refuge, so when His doings are declared among the heathen (ver. 11), it shall be to the Lord a name of joy, a praise, and an honour (Jer. 33:9), and indeed (vers. 6-11), a learning from the dealings of the Lord on behalf of the confiding remnant, the faithfulness, the goodness, and full name of the Lord. The mercy-seat was God's throne in Israel, and the blood sprinkled on it met all the demands of His holiness. So again in Ps. 105, which is the supremacy of pure grace, facts taken up between the Red Sea and Sinai, all from Sinai onward omitted. "O give thanks unto the Lord, call upon His name; glory in His holy name; He remembered His covenant" (vers. 8 and 42)

"Shout aloud unto God, all the earth! Sing the glory of His Name, ascribe to Him glory, in His praise." This will be done in the coming kingdom age. And Israel will be the leader of that praise, calling upon the nations to join into the glory song. "All the earth shall worship Thee, and shall sing unto Thee, they shall sing Thy Name, Israel will worship in the beauty of holiness, and this people, now a holy nation and kingdom of priests, become His witnesses." "Come and hear all ye that fear God, and I will declare what He has done for my soul."