Psalm 77:15

Psalm 77:15

You redeemed Your people

If the Lord God only had to speak to bring the world into being, what “on earth” would happen if He started waving His arms about? The Bible writers loved to think in these terms, they witnessed such incredible miracles of deliverance that it seemed to them that the Lord had indeed reached down from heaven, and literally picked up His people and moved them out of Egypt and ultimately, placed them in the Promised Land. He was their Deliverer and Redeemer in a very literal sense. 

We need to often celebrate the fact that the Lord has worked an even greater miracle in our lives! He lifted us, not out of Egypt, but out of the grave! He has already freed us from slavery to sin and death, something the Israelites could never experience without Messiah. A further miracle of redemption awaits us, the Lord intends to extend His mighty arm and lift the bodies of believers, en masse out of this world, and transfer us into His eternal kingdom!

It's curious that the writer of this Psalm refers to the descendants of Jacob and Joseph here. Joseph doesn’t normally feature in these kinds of statements. However, the northern tribes were often referred to as Ephraim, Joseph’s oldest son. In Genesis 48:5 Jacob claimed Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as his own and they became the fathers of two of the tribes of Israel. In fact, Jacob gave his two grandsons equal status with his own two firstborn sons, Reuben and Simeon, who were eventually superseded by Ephraim and Manasseh, or Joseph.

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