Psalm 105 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 105 (1928 BCP) is a psalm of remembered covenant history in the Psalter of the Book of Common Prayer (1928). Appointed for Morning Prayer on the Twenty-first Day of the month, it calls the Church to give thanks by rehearsing God's promises to Abraham, preservation of the patriarchs, providence in Joseph's suffering, deliverance from Egypt, and gift of the land. The final purpose of that history is not mere recollection but obedience: “That they might keep his statutes, and observe his laws.”
Prayer Book Text and Shape
GIVE thanks unto the LORD, and call upon his Name; * tell the people what things he hath done. 2 O let your songs be of him, and praise him; * and let your talking be of all his wondrous works. 3 Rejoice in his holy Name; * let the heart of them rejoice that seek the LORD. 4 Seek the LORD and his strength; * seek his face evermore. 5 Remember the marvellous works that he hath done; * his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth.
The opening gives the congregation verbs for grateful memory: give thanks, call, tell, sing, rejoice, seek, and remember. Israel's history is therefore not a private possession or an antiquarian chronicle; it is praise publicly spoken among “the people.” In the Daily Office the repeated summons to seek the Lord turns historical remembrance into present prayer.
O ye seed of Abraham his servant, * ye children of Jacob his chosen. 7 He is the LORD our God; * his judgments are in all the world. 8 He hath been alway mindful of his covenant and promise, * that he made to a thousand generations; 9 Even the covenant that he made with Abraham; * and the oath that he sware unto Isaac; 10 And appointed the same unto Jacob for a law, * and to Israel for an everlasting testament; 11 Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, * the lot of your inheritance:
The psalm holds particular election and universal lordship together: the God who covenanted with Abraham is “the LORD our God,” whose judgments are “in all the world.” Its account follows Genesis 12, 15, 17, 26, and 28, but its prayerful form refuses to treat promise as human achievement. Covenant, oath, law, and inheritance all begin with God's remembrance and initiative.
Providence in Israel's History
Moreover, he called for a dearth upon the land, * and destroyed all the provision of bread. 17 But he had sent a man before them, * even Joseph, who was sold to be a bond-servant; 18 Whose feet they hurt in the stocks; * the iron entered into his soul; 19 Until the time came that his cause was known: * the word of the LORD tried him. 20 The king sent, and delivered him; * the prince of the people let him go free. 21 He made him lord also of his house, * and ruler of all his substance; 22 That he might inform his princes after his will, * and teach his senators wisdom.
The Joseph section gives no easy account of providence. Joseph is genuinely sold, hurt, and tested; nevertheless, the psalm can say that God “had sent a man before them.” That conviction accords with Joseph's own word to his brothers in Genesis 50:20: their evil intention does not defeat God's saving purpose. It is not permission to call evil good, but confidence that God is not absent from suffering.
Augustine makes precisely that moral distinction when he comments on verse 17:
When this happened, it was the sin of his brethren, and, nevertheless, God sent Joseph into Egypt. We should therefore meditate on this important and necessary subject, how God uses well the evil works of men, as they on the other hand use ill the good works of God.
This is Augustine's theological reading, not an addition to the Prayer Book's text. It helps articulate why the psalm can give thanks while recounting Joseph's affliction: divine providence is confessed without excusing the brothers' sin.
Covenant, Seeking, and Christian Reading
The psalm's command to seek God's face “evermore” is neither a call to novelty nor a claim that the seeker has already mastered God. It is the fitting response to a covenant remembered in worship. Calvin, writing on the opening verses, observes that the psalm's praise is shaped by the particular grace of God's covenant with a people:
He does not treat of the government of the whole world as he did in the preceding psalm, but he celebrates the fatherly favor which God had manifested towards the children of Israel. He indeed names in general his works, and his wonders, but he limits both to that spiritual covenant by which God made choice of a church, that might lead on earth a heavenly life.
Calvin's wording interprets the sequence of praise and covenant rather than replacing Israel's concrete history. For Christian prayer, it illuminates the Church's grateful dependence on grace while leaving the text's own rehearsal of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Aaron intact.
Augustine likewise treats perpetual seeking as a life in which faith, hope, and love are joined:
Faith has already found Him, but hope still seeks Him. But love has both found Him through faith, and seeks to have Him by sight, where He will then be found so as to satisfy us, and no longer to need our search.
That distinction lets the Office's “seek his face evermore” be heard as patient devotion. Christians seek the Lord because he has made himself known, and they continue to seek him in hope for the sight and fullness promised in Christ (1 John 3:2).
Exodus, Gift, and Obedience
He brought them forth also with silver and gold; * there was not one feeble person among their tribes. 37 Egypt was glad at their departing; * for they were afraid of them. 38 He spread out a cloud to be a covering, * and fire to give light in the night season. 39 At their desire he brought quails; * and he filled them with the bread of heaven. 40 He opened the rock of stone, and the waters flowed out, * so that rivers ran in the dry places. 41 For why? he remembered his holy promise; * and Abraham his servant.
The exodus is narrated as the fulfillment of promise. Cloud, fire, quails, heavenly bread, and water are not isolated marvels; they are signs that the God of Abraham remains faithful in a wilderness. The Prayer Book's language invites a corporate thankfulness shaped by Israel's deliverance, while the New Testament can also hear the wilderness gifts in relation to Christ without erasing their original setting (1 Corinthians 10:1–4).
And he brought forth his people with joy, * and his chosen with gladness; 43 And gave them the lands of the heathen; * and they took the labours of the people in possession; 44 That they might keep his statutes, * and observe his laws.
The final clause supplies the psalm's moral end: promise and deliverance are ordered to keeping God's statutes. Augustine stresses this conclusion when distinguishing the faithful seed from merely outward membership:
Lastly, since by the seed of Abraham he wished those to be understood here, who were truly the seed of Abraham ... this Psalm praises such men as this, he has said nothing here of the iniquities and provocations and bitterness of those with whom God was not well pleased.
His reading sharpens, rather than softens, the Prayer Book text's ending. The remembered mercy of God forms a people for grateful obedience; it cannot be used as a pretext for presumption.
Prayer Book Use
Psalm 105 is appointed for Morning Prayer on the Twenty-first Day. Its place early in the day trains worshippers to begin with God's acts before their own plans: to name the covenant, remember deliverance, seek the Lord's face, and receive obedience as the proper fruit of grace.
See Also
External Links
- The 1928 BCP Psalter: Psalms 101–150 (Justus Anglican)
- Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 105
- Calvin, Commentary on Psalm 105:1–5
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 105, Confitemini Domino, verses 1–5, pp. 478–479, Twenty-first Day, Morning Prayer, Justus Anglican, “The Psalter (1928)”, Psalm 105.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 105, Confitemini Domino, verses 6–11, pp. 478–479, Twenty-first Day, Morning Prayer, Justus Anglican, “The Psalter (1928)”, Psalm 105.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 105, Confitemini Domino, verses 16–22, pp. 478–479, Twenty-first Day, Morning Prayer, Justus Anglican, “The Psalter (1928)”, Psalm 105.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 105, §11 (Psalm 104 in the Vulgate/LXX numbering), trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888), New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 105”.
- ↑ John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 4, trans. James Anderson (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849), Psalm 105:1–5, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, “Psalm 105:1–5”.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 105, §3 (Psalm 104 in the Vulgate/LXX numbering), trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888), New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 105”.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 105, Confitemini Domino, verses 36–41, pp. 478–479, Twenty-first Day, Morning Prayer, Justus Anglican, “The Psalter (1928)”, Psalm 105.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 105, Confitemini Domino, verses 42–44, pp. 478–479, Twenty-first Day, Morning Prayer, Justus Anglican, “The Psalter (1928)”, Psalm 105.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 105, §33 (Psalm 104 in the Vulgate/LXX numbering), trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888), New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 105”.