God’s ways in grace, from Abraham to the giving of the land
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 forever. 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 promises, and Abraham his servant,1 and 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 (vs. 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.
(1. The difference of a reference to the promises to Abraham, and those to Moses the blessings of which depended on the faithfulness of the people, is a marked feature in all the renewals of mercy to the people and the faith that referred to one or the other.)
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.