Psalm 66:1-12

“Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.” (Psalm 66:5)

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 national thanksgiving after some unspecified victory.2 In a collection of Davidic psalms (with the exception of Psalms 50; 66; 67; and 71), the editor of Book 2 evidently sees thematic reasons for including Psalms 66 and 67 in the collection.

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