Psalms 105

Make his doings known among the peoples. The psalm opens as mission-shaped memory—thanks that goes public among the nations.

Both camps: thanksgiving and proclamation belong together. Wesley’s tradition hears a sincere call to make deeds known widely—the peoples are addressed as hearers of what God has done for Abraham's line.

Calvin's psalm magnifies singular grace in selecting and freely adopting one people from all nations. Opening thanks and calling on the name serve that story: deeds made known so the covenant God is confessed.

Praise that publishes particular mercy. Give thanks; call; make known among the peoples.

Sing to him! Tell of all his marvelous works. Song and storytelling are twin duties—works not left as private family lore.

Undisputed: wondrous works deserve voice. Classical Arminians stress telling as willing witness under grace.

Calvin reads the history that follows as proof that covenant was not word only. Singing and telling prepare the congregation to walk Abraham to Canaan under God's hand.

Here praise takes the form of telling the story. Sing and tell all His works.

Glory in His holy name; let heart of those who seek the LORD rejoice. Wesley: glory in the God whom you serve as the only true God. Boasting relocated to the Name.

Those who seek rejoice—seeking is motion of the heart enabled by grace, not a meritorious climb.

Calvin's frame: glory in the holy name of the God who chose a people. Seeking hearts rejoice because the Name is trustworthy in the story about to be told.

Glory in the Name that marked Jacob. Seek and rejoice.

Seek the LORD and his strength. Seek his face forever more. Wesley: seek the Lord in His strength—in His sanctuary, before the ark called God's strength; face—His gracious presence. Continual seeking, not a single visit.

Both camps: presence sought always. Arminian readers hear ongoing pursuit—resistible still if hearts cool—yet commanded as sincere duty.

Calvin: strength and presence language binds worship to the God of the ark and the God of the exodus about to be rehearsed. Continual seeking matches everlasting covenant.

Seek where He has pledged to meet His people. No dispute here: strength and presence, continually.

Remember wondrous works, miracles, and judgments He uttered. Wesley: judgments—punishments on Egypt by mere word. Memory is obedience; forgetting is the first unfaithfulness.

Remember. Arminian interpreters preach memory that can be neglected—hence the command—without denying that God keeps His own remembrance perfectly (v. 8).

Calvin will soon say God "has remembered" covenant; here the people must remember works and uttered judgments. Miracles are not entertainment; they are covenant enforcement in history.

Remember what God did and said. Both affirm: works, miracles, judgments.

Wesley: of Jacob—the only branch of Abraham's seed to whom the following blessings belong. Address is particular.

"Chosen ones" names the covenant people called into privilege and responsibility. Arminian interpreters confess election to service and blessing in Israel without reading every "chosen" as unconditional individual reprobation of the nations as such—and still refuse a God who fails His promise.

Calvin: seed of Abraham His servant, sons of Jacob His chosen—peculiar favor to Abraham's offspring while God reigns over all nations. The address fixes who is summoned to remember.

Chosen ones as the people God freely adopted from the nations. Abraham's offspring, Jacob's children, addressed as chosen.

He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth. Wesley: God executes judgments upon all nations and people. "Our God" does not shrink His jurisdiction.

Both camps: particular covenant, universal judgment. Classical Arminians refuse a tribal deity; Reformed refuse a covenant without the Judge of all the earth.

Calvin links "our God" to judgments through all the earth—reign alike over nations, peculiar favor to Abraham's line. The next verses prove the covenant by history.

Lord of all, God of ours. Where they meet: judgments in all the earth.

He has remembered his covenant forever, the word He commanded to a thousand generations. Wesley: remembered—so as to perform it; word—the promise; commanded—established; thousand generations—to all generations. Memory that performs.

Forever means God does not drop the promise when centuries yawn. Classical Arminians stress faithful performance toward the covenant people and, in gospel fullness, toward all who are in Abraham's seed by faith.

Calvin: remembers His covenant forever—celebrates effect and fulfillment. Ancient covenant caused deliverance for the chosen tribes. "Remember" intimates promises do not become obsolete by time; when the world imagines them forgotten, God retains distinct remembrance to accomplish them in due season. Not for a day—God of the seed to a thousand generations.

Everlasting remembrance effectual for the promised seed. Covenant forever; thousand generations.

The covenant made with Abraham, his oath to Isaac. Wesley: oath—wherewith He ratified the covenant with Isaac (Gen 26:3). Promise climbs the patriarchs by oath.

Abraham and Isaac under sworn mercy. Arminian readers preach oath as assurance to faith, not a puzzle about divine changeableness.

Calvin traces the covenant made with Abraham and the oath to Isaac—form and tenor matching accomplishment. Patriarchal oath grounds national rescue.

Sworn promise, not bare wish. Abraham's covenant; Isaac's oath.

Confirmed it to Jacob for a statute; to Israel for an everlasting covenant. Wesley: a law—that it might be as firm and irrevocable as a law. God made the covenant as firm as a statute and as lasting as forever.

Arminians hear irrevocable kindness that still calls for keeping statutes (v. 45)—grace that binds without becoming license.

Calvin: established to Jacob for a law, to Israel for an everlasting covenant. Fulfillment long suspended still showed the promise did not fail by length of time.

Statute-firm, everlasting. Confirmed to Jacob; everlasting to Israel.

Saying, "To you I will give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance." Wesley: lot—portion assigned by lot. Land is gift-speech before conquest.

Both traditions hear: Canaan promised. The accent falls on a concrete gift God freely binds himself to give; gospel readers may also confess Christ as the heir in whom the promise is yes and amen (2 Cor 1:20), without thinning the land word itself.

Calvin: I will give thee the land of Canaan, the cord of your inheritance. The content of the remembered covenant is concrete: land as portion.

Gift of land by word. Canaan as inheritance promised.

When they were few, yes, very few, and foreigners in it. Weakness is the stage for protection—few, not formidable.

Both traditions see mercy toward a small band of sojourners. The emphasis is on care for the vulnerable without needing numerical strength to obligate God.

Calvin's history begins with patriarchal fragility—few and sojourning—so later fruitfulness and exodus shine as grace, not demographic destiny.

Little account, great Keeper. Few sojourners under promise.

They went about from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people. Wesley: they went—both in Canaan among seven nations, and in Egypt. The patriarchs wander as pilgrims from nation to nation.

Wandering under watch along the story's road.

Calvin: nation to nation under the same covenant God who will rebuke kings. Mobility does not equal abandonment.

Wandering inside remembrance. Common reading: from kingdom to kingdom.

He allowed no one to do them wrong. Yes, he reproved kings for their sakes. Patriarchs live under a shield—kings warned off.

"allowed no one" is restraint of oppressors. Classical Arminians confess providence that can rebuke kings without denying the kings' agency in the scenes Genesis records.

Calvin: protection of the anointed wanderers—God's hand on kings for the patriarchs' sake. Rebuke is effectual enough that oppression is held back.

Kings rebuked on their account. No oppressor allowed; kings warned.

Do my prophets no harm!" Wesley: anointed—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, consecrated as peculiar people and princes in their families; prophets—because God conversed with them and revealed His will. Anointed and prophets are the patriarchs here.

Both camps: touch-not is God's speech. Shared christology where agreed may later hear royal-prophetic lines without forcing a camp war on typology in this verse.

Calvin treats the line as God's charge protecting the patriarchal prophets. The quotation seals why kings were rebuked.

Anointed sojourners under ban of heaven. Both confess: touch not; do no harm.

He called for a famine on the land and cut off every supply of bread. Wesley: staff of bread—bread the support of life. Famine is summoned—called for.

God can summon famine as judgment and means without being author of Egyptian cruelty later. Arminians affirm secondary causes of drought and market under that summons.

Calvin's narrative logic: famine summoned so Joseph's sending ahead (v. 17) is providence, not coincidence. Breaking bread's staff is the Lord's act in history.

Summoned famine as deliberate means. God called for famine; bread's supply broke.

He destroyed the food supplies. He sent a man before them. Joseph was sold for a slave. Sale and sending in one verse—human crime inside divine mission (cf. Gen 45:5; 50:20).

Brothers sell; God sends. Classical Arminians hold both without making the brothers innocent or God the author of their envy—governance of evil acts without erase of blame.

Calvin: Joseph sent ahead—sold as slave—yet the sending is God's. The chain from pit to palace is covenant logistics.

Sent by God, sold by men. Joseph ahead of them as providence.

His feet hurt with fetters; his neck in a collar of iron. Suffering is not edited out of the success story—iron before lordship.

Both readings keep the fetters in view. Arminians refuse a providence that skips the collar; Reformed refuse a collar outside God's watch.

Calvin's path: humiliation precedes elevation. Iron collar is the road tested by the word (v. 19).

The fetters fell under the watch of the God who sent Joseph ahead. Neither side disputes this: hurt feet; iron neck.

Until the time that his word happened, and the LORD’s word proved him. Wesley: his word—revelation first to Pharaoh in a dream, then to Joseph in interpretation; purged from calamities, preparing release. Testing by the word.

What comes through is a trial that proves and refines without teaching that God tempts to evil.

Calvin: until the word came to pass—the Lord's word tested him. Promise and prison run together until the time.

Tested by the word until fulfillment. Saying comes to pass; word tests Joseph.

The king sent and freed him, even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free. Royal initiative on the surface; covenant timing underneath.

Both sides agree: release by the king. Arminian readers note Pharaoh's act as genuine; Reformed note it as instrument.

Calvin: king and ruler free him—means of the elevation God intended when He sent Joseph ahead.

Release on time. Sent and released; set free.

He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all of his possessions. From collar to keys—house lordship.

Both camps: "He made" points past Pharaoh to the Lord of the psalm. Promotion is gift.

Calvin: lord of the house, ruler of possessions—Joseph's authority as providence for the family's coming down.

Made lord by God's story. House and possessions under Joseph.

To discipline his princes at his pleasure, and to teach his elders wisdom. Authority to restrain and to instruct—power with pedagogy.

Neither side disputes this: princes and elders under Joseph's hand. Wisdom taught to Egypt for Israel's sake.

Calvin: binding princes and teaching elders—completeness of rule granted for the famine years.

Wisdom in the foreign court. Bind and teach at pleasure.

Then Israel also came into Egypt. Jacob lived in the land of Ham. Wesley: Ham—father of Mizraim/Egyptians (Gen 10:6). Descent into Ham's land is covenant travel.

Both camps: sojourn, not abandonment. One hears a temporary stay under promise of land still unpaid in full.

Calvin: Israel in Egypt, Jacob in Ham—stage set for fruitfulness and oppression. Sojourning precedes the exodus joy.

Ham's land under the Lord's timeline. Israel came; Jacob sojourned.

The Lord made His people greatly, and made them stronger than their adversaries. Fruitfulness is the Lord's making—Exodus 1 echoed.

God makes fruitful; growth is population under blessing. Strength relative to foes prepares the envy of v. 25 without excusing it.

Calvin: increased and strengthened by the Lord—grace in demographics before the turning of Egyptian hearts.

Made fruitful, made stronger. The Lord's making, not Egypt's gift.

He turned their heart to hate his people, to conspire against his servants. Wesley: turned—that is, suffered them to be turned. The hardest line in the psalm for dual agency.

Hatred is Egypt's sin; "turned" is permission-governance language in Wesley's note—God judges and orders history without authoring the hate as holy. Crafty dealing remains culpable.

Calvin reads the turning inside the same providence that sent Joseph and summoned famine: God hardens/turns as Judge while Egypt remains wicked. Hearts turned to hate is not a surprise detour from the covenant plan but the dark road to the exodus.

Effectual turning of hearts in judgment, not bare foresight. Hate and craft against His servants under the Lord's rule of the story.

He sent Moses His servant, and Aaron, whom He had chosen. Sending and choosing again—instruments named.

Chosen for the mission of deliverance. Classical Arminians confess God's selection of Moses and Aaron for office without requiring that "chosen" here settle the whole ordo of individual salvation.

Calvin: Moses sent, Aaron chosen—deliverers appointed by the God who turned Egypt and remembered Abraham.

Chosen servants for the exodus. Moses sent; Aaron chosen.

They performed miracles among them, and wonders in the land of Ham. Signs are His; performance is through servants.

Classical Arminians and Reformed alike refuse naturalistic erasure of the plagues in this telling.

Calvin: signs and wonders in Ham—public proof of the arm that keeps covenant. Performance answers the "uttered judgments" of v. 5.

Signs among them. His signs; their performance.

He sent darkness, and made it dark. They didn’t rebel against his words. Wesley: they—Moses and Aaron, who inflicted the plague after Pharaoh threatened them. Agents obedient in the dark plague.

Both camps: darkness sent. The "didn’t rebel" comforts regarding the messengers' fidelity in Wesley's reading.

Calvin: darkness sent—first of the rehearsed plagues in this telling. Land made dark by His sending.

He sent; land dark. Both traditions see: darkness as judgment sign.

He turned their waters into blood, and killed their fish to die. Nile judgment—life-source made death.

Turned waters; fish died. Both camps preach plague, not mere symbol emptied of force.

Calvin's plague chain: waters to blood—undoing Egypt's boast in the river.

Turned and caused. Both note: blood and dead fish.

Wesley: land—their country; chambers—entered in; kings—Pharaoh, sons, chief nobles. No palace privacy against frogs.

Swarm to the throne room. Judgment ignores velvet curtains.

Calvin: frogs even in royal chambers—humiliation of kings who oppressed the servants.

Chambers of kings invaded. Land swarmed.

He spoke, and swarms of flies came, and lice in all their borders. Wesley: coasts—all their land to the utmost borders. Speech summons pests.

He spoke—and they came. Word-agency in judgment.

Calvin: He spoke—flies and gnats nationwide. The utterance of v. 5 made visible.

Speech effects the swarm. Common confession: flies and gnats at His word.

He gave them hail for rain, with lightning in their land. Rain replaced by hail and fire—sky turned against the fields.

Gave hail; lightning through the land. Gift-language for judgment.

Calvin: hail and fire—agricultural ruin as covenant vengeance on oppressors.

He gave hail for rain. Both readings hold: fiery bolts through the land.

He struck their vines and also their fig trees, and shattered the trees of their country. Cash crops and shade alike shattered.

Both camps: struck and shattered—verbs of the Lord's war on Egypt's pleasant plantings.

Calvin: vines, figs, trees—economic and ecological undoing.

The lesson is that God struck the vines and shattered the trees. Both agree: trees of the country broken.

He spoke, and the locusts came with the grasshoppers, without number. Again speech; again innumerable devourers.

He spoke; locusts came. Numberless under command.

Calvin: locusts at His speech—without number, as the sea's creatures were innumerable under kindness in Psalm 104; here innumerable under judgment.

Speech and locusts. Agreed: young locusts without number.

Which devoured all vegetation and ate up the fruit of their ground. Total crop loss—ground stripped.

Both traditions note that the locusts consumed every plant. The land that starved Israel by famine (v. 16) now starves Egypt by locust.

Calvin: devouring completion before the firstborn blow. Fruit of the ground gone.

Ate up the fruit. Vegetation and fruit consumed.

He struck also all the firstborn in their land, the first fruits of all their strength. Climactic plague—firstborn as firstfruits of strength.

Both hear: all the firstborn struck. Both camps take the death of firstborn as historical judgment, not a metaphor to soften. Fairness: grief is not softened; God's justice in the story is genuine.

Calvin: firstborn struck—firstfruits of strength removed. The last Egyptian word before silver and gold exit.

He struck also all the firstborn. Firstfruits of strength cut off.

Then He brought them out with silver and gold, and none among His tribes stumbled. Wesley: feeble—diseased or unable for journey; in so vast a body so oppressed, wonderful. Strength for the march is miracle.

Brought out with wealth; none stumbled—providence in legs as in plagues. Arminians praise enabling mercy for the journey.

Calvin: brought out with silver and gold—plundering as promised; no stumbler in the tribes. Exit under power.

He brought out; none stumbled. Both see: silver, gold, steady tribes.

Egypt was glad when they departed, for the fear of them had fallen on them. Gladness of relief—oppressors relieved to be rid of the people they hated.

Undisputed: dread fallen; Egypt glad at departure. The irony is plain without being turned into a cartoon.

Calvin: Egypt glad—dread had fallen. The exit is mercy to Israel and judgment-fear to Egypt.

Egypt dreaded Israel and was glad to see them go. Egypt glad when they left.

He spread a cloud for a covering, fire to give light in the night. Wesley: covering—to protect from the sun's heat. Cloud and fire as traveling sanctuary.

Both camps: spread cloud; fire by night. Guidance and shade are gifts of the very God who sent darkness on Egypt.

Calvin: cloud covering, fire lighting—presence on the road matching presence in the plagues.

He spread; fire gave light. No dispute here: cloud by day logic; fire by night.

They asked, and he brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread from heaven in abundance. Wesley: first giving of quails (Ex 16)—refreshment notwithstanding their sin in desiring, graciously pardoned; bread—manna from the air called heaven. Asking meets abundance; sin meets pardon.

Asked and received; pardon alongside provision. Wesleyan Arminians hear generous answer without denying Israel's fault in the fuller Exodus account.

Calvin: quail and bread from heaven—abundance in the wilderness from the remembered promise. Asking answered by gift.

Brought quail; gave bread in abundance. God gave bread from heaven to those who asked.

He opened the rock, and waters gushed out. They ran as a river. Wesley: river—channels God provided; waters followed Israel in the march. Rock becomes riverbed.

Both camps may hear 1 Cor 10's spiritual Rock where they agree christologically, without a camp war on typology method here.

Calvin: rock opened—water in desert like a river. Same providence that sent springs in Psalm 104 now splits stone for the covenant people.

He opened; water gushed. Desert flowing like a river.

For he remembered his holy word, and Abraham, his servant. The "for" grounds the whole rescue—memory of holy promise and of Abraham.

Both camps: remembrance as performance (Wesley on v. 8). Arminian interpreters stress holy promise kept; Reformed stress the same as Calvin's non-obsolete covenant.

Calvin: remembered holy promise and Abraham—returns to v. 8–9. Exodus is covenant fidelity in event form.

Remembered promise and Abraham. Holy promise as the reason.

He brought his people out with joy, his chosen with singing. Wesley's line of chosen ones again—joy and singing as exit music.

Chosen ones singing—the people brought out rejoicing. Election to deliverance celebrated in song; the nations still hear deeds (v. 1).

Calvin: brought out with joy, chosen ones with singing—peculiar people exiting under grace. Joy is the mark of effectual rescue.

Chosen ones with singing. People out with joy.

He gave them the lands of the nations. They took the labor of the peoples in possession. Wesley: labour—fruits of labour; cities, vineyards, olive-yards. Gift of others' toil as inheritance.

Both camps: gave and took possession. Hard providence toward the nations driven out is stated, not softened into modern slogans; both camps still confess the Judge of all the earth does right.

Calvin: lands of the nations given—possession of peoples' fruit. Promise of Canaan (v. 11) paid in history.

He gave; they possessed. Lands and fruit as gift.

That they might keep His statutes and observe His laws. Praise the Lord! Purpose clause: inheritance unto obedience; then Hallelujah. Wesley ends the notes on observing statutes. Grace aims at glad law-keeping.

Brought out in order to keep—obedience as living response, enabled, not earning the exodus after the fact. Praise the Lord closes history with doxology. Both camps: statutes and laws matter after silver and gold; Reformed and Arminian together refuse antinomian exodus.

Calvin's design statement for the psalm: God conferred innumerable benefits after Egypt that those delivered might faithfully keep His covenant and devote themselves unfeignedly to His service. Inheritance is unto observance; Praise the Lord seals it.

Kept by grace for keeping statutes. Where they meet: that they might keep and observe; Hallelujah.