Psalm 66

Psalms 66:1-4

The summons opens beyond Israel to all ye lands and all the earth, praise assigned to every nation before the psalm names a single deliverance. The word rendered submit themselves in verse 3 carries in the Hebrew a note of feigned or reluctant submission, enemies cringing rather than truly yielding, a reading several of the older commentators draw from the verb. The call is public and vocal throughout, make a joyful noise, sing forth, make his praise glorious, worship that is heard rather than merely felt.

Psalms 66:5-7

Come and see the works of God: Come and see turns the congregation's eye from summons to spectacle: he turned the sea into dry land, and they went through the flood on foot, one line doing service for both the Red Sea of Exodus 14 and the Jordan of Joshua 3, two crossings a generation apart telescoped into a single memory. There did we rejoice in him claims the fathers' deliverance as the singers' own, a later generation speaking of an exodus none of them witnessed as though they had stood on the far bank. Verse 7 turns the recital into warning, his eyes behold the nations, let not the rebellious exalt themselves, the same power that dried the sea still watching the proud.

Psalms 66:8-9

The refrain turns from what God did long ago to what he does now, holdeth our soul in life and suffereth not our feet to be moved a present preservation the singers credit to the same hand that dried the sea. Henry reads the verb held as continuous rather than a single rescue, life sustained moment by moment against dangers the psalm does not name. The praise commanded in verse 8 is public again, the voice of his praise to be heard, matching the psalm's opening call to the whole earth.

Psalms 66:10-12

The testing is named outright, proved us, tried us as silver is tried, the images of the net, the affliction laid on the loins, and men made to ride over our heads gathering the weight of a national trial the psalm does not date. Commentators differ on which deliverance stands behind these lines, some naming the Assyrian threat of Sennacherib's day, others reading a general figure for hardship under invasion; the psalm itself gives no name and none is supplied. The section ends where every trial in the psalm ends, into a wealthy place, water and fire crossed rather than avoided, the deliverance costing the passage through rather than around.

Psalms 66:13-15

The voice narrows from we to I, the congregation's recital becoming one worshiper's vow, burnt offerings, rams, bullocks and goats named in the detail of Levitical sacrifice. I will pay thee my vows, which my lips have uttered ties the offering to a promise spoken in trouble and now kept in relief. Spurgeon notes the size of what is brought, fatlings and rams and bullocks and goats together, a worshiper paying more than a vow strictly required.

Psalms 66:16-20

Come and hear answers come and see from verse 5, sight offered first to the whole earth and hearing now offered to all ye that fear God, the personal testimony declared where the national one had been. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me states the condition the prayer that follows rests on, not sinlessness but a heart that does not shelter sin knowingly. But verily God hath heard me closes the psalm where it began, the private hearing answering the public praise, and the last line, nor his mercy from me, ties the mercy kept back to the prayer that was not.