1 Sing aloud to God our strength;
shout for joy to the God of Jacob!
2 Raise a song; sound the tambourine,
the sweet lyre with the harp.
3 Blow the trumpet at the new moon,
at the full moon, on our feast day.
4 For it is a statute for Israel,
a rule of the God of Jacob.
5 He made it a decree in Joseph
when he went out over the land of Egypt.
I hear a language I had not known:
6 “I relieved your shoulder of the burden;
your hands were freed from the basket.
7 In distress you called, and I delivered you;
I answered you in the secret place of thunder;
I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
Comment: Jacob and Israel were two names of a single person. His name was changed after he met and wrestled with ‘a man’. The Biblical record is is in Genesis 32: 24-28 – “And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” The event is also recorded in Hosea ch 12. Between the two passages we have 3 words used to describe Jacob’s opponent – man, angel and God. In Hebrew the word for angel is the same as the word for messenger. I think the wrestler was a messenger sent from God, either a man chosen by God as His messenger to deal with Jacob, an angel who looked like a man or possible one of appearances of Jesus before His incarnation at Christmas time, called a ‘Theophany’. A very significant change of names from ‘Supplanter’ to ‘He strove with God’. Thus the people, the descendants of Jacob, became the nation of Israel, but frequently the people of Israel were considered to be Jacob’s offspring. Calling the people to worship God with joy and enthusiastic music, singing and a mini-orchestra, Asaph gives a quick history lesson. Joseph was able to settle the whole tribe of Jacob in Egypt in a terrible famine and save them from extermination. They were initially in Egypt about 70 years in number. But they were forced to ‘shoulder a burden and carry a basket’ of slavery! God delivered them with ‘the thunder’ of a number of trials for the Egyptians, and provided food and water for them as they travelled through the wilderness on their way to the promised land! There is enough information dispersed in these opening words to make the Israelis remember in detail the way that God had dealt with them! The ‘Selah‘ at the end calls upon them to stop and think about all that – the music probably went on softly playing while they thought!
Deuteronomy 32: 7 – Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.
Prayer: Please help me to never forget the treasure chest of Your Goodness to me and our family!