Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John Calvinhad fallen from his right of primogeniture, the posterity of Joseph justly had the pre-eminence, onaccount of the benefits which he had been instrumental in conferring; having been the father andnourisher of his brethren and of the whole nation. Moreover, the sacredness of the covenant iscommended by a special appeal to the fact, that at the time when God stipulated that this honorshould be yielded to him, he had purchased that people to himself; as if it had been said, Thecondition upon which the people were delivered was, that they should assemble together on thedays appointed for renewing the remembrance of the grace which had been exercised towards them.The words when he went forth will apply equally to God and to the people. 406 It is a common formof expression to speak of God as going forth before his people, as a shepherd goes before his flock,or as a general before his army. When it is said ABOVE the land of Egypt, some think there is anallusion to the situation of Judea, which was higher than that of Egypt; so that those who come outof Egypt to Judea ascend. But I understand the language as meaning simply, that the people, havingGod for their conductor, passed freely and without obstruction through the land of Egypt, theinhabitants having been so discouraged and dismayed as not to dare to make any opposition to theirpassage. 407 The prophet enhances the blessing of their deliverance, when, speaking in the name ofthe whole people, he affirms that he had been rescued from profound barbarism: I heard a languagewhich I understood not. 408 Nothing is more disagreeable than to sojourn among a people with whomwe can hold no communication by language, which is the chief bond of society. Language being,as it were, the image and mirror of the mind, those who cannot employ it in their mutual intercourseare no less strangers to one another than the wild beasts of the forest. When the Prophet Isaiah(Isaiah 33:19) intends to denounce a very dreadful punishment, he says, “Thou shalt see a fiercepeople, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue, that thoucanst not understand.” Thus the people acknowledge that the benefit which God conferred was somuch the more to be valued, because they were delivered from the Egyptians, with whose languagethey were unacquainted. 4096 I have removed his shoulder from the burden. Here God begins to recount the benefits whichhe had bestowed upon the Israelites, and the many ways in which he had laid them under obligationsto him. The more galling the bondage was from which they had been delivered, the more desirableand precious was their liberty. When, therefore, it is affirmed that their burdens were so heavy thatthey stooped under them, and that they were doomed to the labor of making bricks, and to otherslavish and toilsome occupations, the comparison of this their first state with their conditionafterwards is introduced to illustrate the more strikingly the greatness of the blessing of theirdeliverance. Let us now apply this to ourselves, and elevate our minds to a higher subject, of which406 “When he went forth, etc.; i.e., When God went forth to destroy the first-born in all the land of Egypt, on account of whichthe passover was appointed.” — Walford.407 “Going forth ( ) over the land of Egypt seems to express dominion over it, which God exercised in bringing out the Israelites;and they were then in what may be called a state of superiority over the Egyptians, and went out with a high hand. Exodus 14:8;Numbers 33:3. And soon after that the law was given.” — Archbishop Secker408 The Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate, and all the versions except the Chaldee, have the third person, “He heard a language whichhe understood not;” Doederlein reads, “I heard a voice which I understood not;” and retaining the first person, interprets thewords as an abrupt exclamation of the Psalmist upon feeling himself suddenly influenced by a divine afflatus, and upon hearingan oracle addressed to him by God, which consisted of what immediately follows, from the 6th verse to the close of the psalm,and which is spoken in the person of God. This voice he heard, but he did not understand it; that is, he did not fully comprehendits design and import.409 “The Egyptian language was not intelligible to the children of Jacob; for Joseph spake to his brethren by an interpreter,when he appeared as ruler of Egypt, and did not as yet choose to make himself known to them. See Genesis 42:23.” — Street.188