16 And he called for a famine upon the land; he broke the whole staff of bread.
And the centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not fit that thou shouldest enter under my roof; but only speak a word, and my servant shall be healed. For *I* also am a man under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say to this [one], Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my bondman, Do this, and he does it.
And Joseph said to Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one. What God will do he has made known to Pharaoh. The seven fine kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. And the seven lean and bad kine that came up after them are seven years; and the seven empty ears, parched with the east wind, will be seven years of famine. This is the word which I have spoken to Pharaoh: what God is about to do he has let Pharaoh see. Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout the land of Egypt. And there will arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt, and the famine will waste away the land. And the plenty will not be known afterwards in the land by reason of that famine; for it will be very grievous. And as regards the double repetition of the dream to Pharaoh, it is that the thing is established by God, and God will hasten to do it.
Therefore over you the heavens withhold their dew, and the earth withholdeth its fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon man, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.
Thus did the Lord Jehovah shew unto me; and behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth, and behold, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings. And it came to pass, when they had wholly eaten the grass of the land, that I said, O Lord Jehovah, forgive, I beseech thee! How shall Jacob arise? for he is small. Jehovah repented for this: It shall not be, said Jehovah. Thus did the Lord Jehovah shew unto me; and behold, the Lord Jehovah called to contend by fire; and it devoured the great deep, and ate up the inheritance.
So the sons of Israel came to buy [grain] among those that came; for the famine was in the land of Canaan. And Joseph, he was the governor over the land -- he it was that sold [the corn] to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brethren came and bowed down to him, the face to the earth.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 105
Commentary on Psalms 105 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 105
Some of the psalms of praise are very short, others very long, to teach us that, in our devotions, we should be more observant how our hearts work than how the time passes and neither overstretch ourselves by coveting to be long nor over-stint ourselves by coveting to be short, but either the one or the other as we find in our hearts to pray. This is a long psalm; the general scope is the same with most of the psalms, to set forth the glory of God, but the subject-matter is particular. Every time we come to the throne of grace we may, if we please, furnish ourselves out of the word of God (out of the history of the New Testament, as this out of the history of the Old) with new songs, with fresh thoughts-so copious, so various, so inexhaustible is the subject. In the foregoing psalm we are taught to praise God for his wondrous works of common providence with reference to the world in general. In this we are directed to praise him for his special favours to his church. We find the first eleven verses of this psalm in the beginning of that psalm which David delivered to Asaph to be used (as it should seem) in the daily service of the sanctuary when the ark was fixed in the place he had prepared for it, by which it appears both who penned it and when and upon what occasion it was penned, 1 Chr. 16:7, etc. David by it designed to instruct his people in the obligations they lay under to adhere faithfully to their holy religion. Here is the preface (v. 1-7) and the history itself in several articles.
In singing this we must give to God the glory of his wisdom and power, his goodness and faithfulness, must look upon ourselves as concerned in the affairs of the Old-Testament church, both because to it were committed the oracles of God, which are our treasure, and because out of it Christ arose, and these things happened to it for ensamples.
Psa 105:1-7
Our devotion is here warmly excited; and we are stirred up, that we may stir up ourselves to praise God. Observe,
Psa 105:8-24
We are here taught, in praising God, to look a great way back, and to give him the glory of what he did for his church in former ages, especially when it was in the founding and forming, which those in its latter ages enjoy the benefit of and therefore should give thanks for. Doubtless we may fetch as proper matter for praise from the histories of the gospels, and the acts of the apostles, which relate the birth of the Christian church, as the psalmist here does from the histories of Genesis and Exodus, which relate the birth of the Jewish church; and our histories greatly outshine theirs. Two things are here made the subject of praise:-
Psa 105:25-45
After the history of the patriarchs follows here the history of the people of Israel, when they grew into a nation.