Psalms 66:8

THAT SPECIAL GRAND DELIVERANCE

"Oh bless our God, ye peoples,

And make the voice of his praise to be heard;

Who holdeth our soul in life,

And suffereth not our feet to be moved.

For thou, O God, hast proved us:

Thou hast tried us as silver is tried.

Thou broughtest us into the net;

Thou layedst a sore burden upon our loins.

Thou didst cause men to ride over our heads;

We went through fire and through water;

But thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place."

"Bless our God, ye peoples" (Psalms 66:8). The contrast between "our God" and "ye peoples" here indicates that the psalmist was calling all the Gentiles to praise Israel's God for such a marvelous demonstration of God's power. Under the circumstances there was utterly no way to deny that God had indeed wrought a mighty deliverance upon behalf of Israel.

"Holdeth our soul in life ... suffereth not our feet to be moved" (Psalms 66:9). Leupold wrote that, "The deliverance wrought in Hezekiah's day (by the death of the Assyrian army) furnishes a suitable background for every figure used in Psalms 66:8-12."

As Sennacherib's army approached, most Israelites no doubt felt that the destruction of Jerusalem was imminent. The city was already under the burden of immense tribute to the Assyrians; and the taunting remarks of Rabshakeh had struck fear into the whole nation. Despite all the threats, God kept the hopes of the nation alive, not allowing their `feet to be moved.'

"Thou hast tried us as silver is tried" (Psalms 66:10). The presence in the vicinity of Jerusalem of an immense Assyrian army was as great a `trial' as could have been imagined in those days. The Assyrians were historically called `The Breakers'; and their atrocious cruelties were terrible and inhuman. They flayed alive many of their captives; and the ancient artists of that sadistic people were more familiar with the human anatomy without the skin than they were with it. This is demonstrated by the so-called `art' and sculpture which have been excavated from the ruins of ancient Nineveh.

"Thou layedst a sore burden upon our loins" (Psalms 66:11). This appears to be a reference to the extravagant tribute Hezekiah was forced to pay to the Assyrians; 2 Kings 18 relates how Israel had great difficulty raising the hundred talents of silver and the thirty talents of gold, which they were led to believe would avert the destruction of Jerusalem. They even cut off the gold from the doors of the temple itself and left the city bankrupt of all of its precious treasures. It was `a sore burden' indeed.

"We went through fire and through water" (Psalms 66:12). These are metaphors of the most galling trials. "Fire and water in Isaiah 43:2 are figures of vicissitudes and perils of the most extreme character. Israel was indeed near to being `burned up and drowned.'"[11]

"But thou broughtest us forth into a wealthy place" (Psalms 66:12). The RSV has rendered this, "Thou hast brought us forth to a spacious place"; but we fail to see any improvement in the meaning. Certainly, as Delitzsch noted, "The period of their oppression was indeed a state of privation (and poverty); and the antithesis was surely `an abundant fulness of abundance and superabundance of prosperity.'"[12]

Under the circumstances, it seems to us that "a wealthy place" is appropriate. After all, that overwhelming tribute Hezekiah had just paid to the Assyrians would have been recovered after the death of the whole army, to say nothing of all the loot and wealth extracted from the cities of Judah that were in the process of being carried back to Nineveh by Sennacherib's rapacious soldiers.

The words here, "a wealthy place," seem to be required by the incredible riches that came to Israel as a result of God's magnificent deliverance of Hezekiah and the city of Jerusalem.

From the end of Psalms 66:12, the psalmist speaks of himself, rather than of the nation; but the kind of sacrifices offered and the general vocabulary indicate that the psalmist belonged to the nation of Israel, and in all probability, was either a prominent leader or the ruler of it.