God in history.
"Tell the people what things he hath done" (Prayer book Version). As the word rendered "people" is a plural, the prominent idea seems to be the duty of making the God of history, whose working is so evident in the Jewish history, known to the heathen. If we can read history aright, and see God's working in it, we must read it aloud, so that others may be helped to find what we have found. Reviews of history are always interesting, and were specially pleasing to the Jews, who regarded themselves as a specially favoured nation. History at first is but a collection of facts, then it becomes the estimate of relations, causes, and results, which we call the philosophy of history. But that philosophy is not complete or satisfactory which fails to recognize the overruling and modifying Divine force which moves history to preordained ends. He only reaches the true philosophy of history who finds God in history. In this psalm we have such a reading of the national history as the Jewish exiles would undertake when the prospect of return to Canaan was near. We have to see the special points of view from which they would conduct their review. The thing prominent in their minds was, that God was about to redeem them from captivity, and to restore them to their own land; so they read the story of their race to find God's redemptions. And they were easy to find when men looked for them in such a mood.
I. GOD'S REDEMPTION OF ISRAEL FROM THE EGYPTIAN FAMINE. This was at the very outset of the national history. The famine affected the neighbouring countries, and God made Egypt a refuge for his redeemed people. Deliverance by quiet providences.
II. GOD'S REDEMPTION OF ISRAEL FROM THE EGYPTIAN BONDAGE. For the place of refuge presently became a place of slavery. This deliverance was accompanied with displays of august power, which reached their climax in the death of the Egyptian firstborn. Deliverance by miraculous interventions.
III. GOD'S REDEMPTION OF ISRAEL FROM ITS OWN WILFULNESS. God's deliverance of a man is never complete while it deals exclusively with his circumstances and surroundings. A man is not redeemed until he is redeemed from his bad self. The nation was not redeemed until God's gracious working within it had been completed. We see this in scenes of the wilderness journey. We see it all through, up to the great Babylonish captivity. Redemption comes by Divine discipline.—R.T.