Big Idea: God’s redeeming work in our lives is the extension of his great redeeming acts in history.

Understanding the Text

This psalm appears to be a hybrid of a hymn, a community psalm of thanksgiving, and an individual psalm of thanksgiving.1It only hints at the adversity that has prompted the psalmist to make and pay his vows of thanksgiving to God in the temple (“when I was in trouble,” 66:14). This hint, though nothing more than that, takes its place parallel to Israel’s trial in Egypt, which he likens to “prison” and going through “fire and water” (66:11–12).

Some believe the psalm is composed of two independent psalms (66:1–12 and 66:13–20). A. A. Anderson resolves the problem by proposing that the second part of the poem is spoken by the king and that the entire psalm is a na…