Psalm 105 (the land and the Land)

The land and the Land

One concrete way in which the dynamic of hiddenness or obscurity and openness and glory is in how the psalmist characterizes the land. The basis and theme of the psalm is the outworking of Yhwh’s covenant promise to Yhwh that he will give him Canaan, “allocating it to you to possess.” Once the promise is given, Abraham and his people are, importantly, described as only “temporary residents in it”, the psalm making clear that while they are ‘in the land’ they do not “possess it.” They move “from nation to nation and from one realm to another people.” At the end of the psalm, when the people actually enter the Land, it is not described as Canaan, however. It is described as “the lands of the nations”. It is a key phrasing—whereas before, as temporary residents, they moved “from nation to nation” while in Canaan, at the end, when they come to possess it, is the “lands of the nations”. Israel has become the ‘lords of the land’, so to speak, and rulers of the ‘nations’. The land that had previously been owned by the nations, is now owned by Israel. And the land that produced “fruit” for the nations through their “toil”, now is possessed by Israel, who come to “enjoy the fruit of the people’s toil.”

Between this movement from temporary to permanent stands Egypt. Egypt is, though, also described in the possessive, as “Ham’s country”. At first glance, this simply appears to be another, perhaps more poetic, way of describing Egypt. However, the use of the possessive is important. Israel is constantly referred to as “Yhwh’s people”, “his servants”, “his tribes”. More important still is that when Yhwh sends plagues on Egypt, in almost every single line, Egypt is described as “theirs”—“their water”, “their fish”, “their country”, “their territory”, “their vines and fig trees”, “their country”, “their ground”, “their masculinity”.  

There is a profound point to this—while Israel, through Joseph, could rise to the level of ruling all of Egypt, and while they could, in Egypt, become the saviors of the world through their ability to deliver bread, and while they could even become “abundantly fruitful” there, in seeming fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that his descendants would be numerous—it is not “their land”, it is not the Land that Yhwh promised them. Yhwh promised them Canaan. It is there, and there alone, that Israel will find a permanent glory, an abiding glory, and a glory that is such precisely because it is leavened by Yhwh’s covenant memory and blessing. There is something in this almost mystical and sacramental about the Land, about Canaan, the “land of the nations”. It is a uniquely blessed place. It is a place specially designated by Yhwh to be the place of “his people”. As we will see later, it is, importantly, the place of Yhwh’s “house”, the Temple. This is where the final resting place of openness, of proclamation, can occur. It is here where the “beacon set on a hill” can begin to shine to “all nations”. It could not occur in Egypt. That is not Israel’s land. Things might succeed for a time there but, in the end, to stay there would be reside in futility and vanity because it is not the place of the covenant promise. These are all important insights as we continue to move deeper into the psalm.