Psalm 77
20 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Exodus 14×3Psalms 142×2Psalms 50×2Isaiah 26×2Psalms 105×22 Samuel 22×2
Summary
Chapter summary
A night of no comfort: 'my soul refused to be comforted.' The terrible questions are asked aloud: 'Will the Lord cast off for ever?… Is his lovingkindness clean gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious?' The turn is deliberate memory: 'I will remember the deeds of Jah… I will meditate also upon all thy work.' The remembered exodus answers the questions: 'Thy way was in the sea, and thy paths in the great waters, and thy footsteps were not known. Thou leddest thy people like a flock, by the hand of Moses and Aaron.'
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 77The history
The night was divided into watches, with guards changing at set hours, so a man lying awake could measure exactly how long he had been awake. The psalm says God holds his eyelids open — the sleeplessness is not incidental, it is the setting of the whole prayer.
The middle of the psalm is six questions in a row with no answers attached. Will the Lord cast off for ever? Is his mercy clean gone? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Israel put unanswered questions into its hymnbook and sang them in the sanctuary.
The turn is a decision about memory: I will remember the works of the LORD, and remember thy wonders of old. Nothing in the man's circumstances changes anywhere in this psalm. What changes is what he makes himself look at.
And what he looks at is the Red Sea, told in storm language — thunder in the sky, lightning lighting the world, the earth trembling, the waters seeing God and writhing. The whole region used that vocabulary for a god arriving. Israel used it for one specific night at one specific shoreline, and the last line is the strangest: thy footsteps are not known. A path straight through the water that leaves no track behind it.
What it meant to them
The song ends by naming the shepherds: thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. A whole nation moved the way a flock moves, by two men and a staff.
For hearers whose situation gave them no reason for hope, the medicine here is old evidence sung back at a new fear.
Sources cited
- Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 77. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.