BackgroundA communal thanksgiving that recounts the Exodus and shifts to an individual voice bringing burnt offerings. It was likely composed for use at one of the pilgrimage festivals when corporate memory and personal vow were liturgically joined.
Psalm 66: Come and See What God Has Done
For the choirmaster. A Song. A Psalm.
By Bea Zalel
Psalm 66
For the choirmaster. A Song. A Psalm.
- Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth!
- Sing the glory of His name; make His praise glorious.
- Say to God, “How awesome are Your deeds! So great is Your power that Your enemies cower before You.
- All the earth bows down to You; they sing praise to You; they sing praise to Your name.” Selah
- Come and see the works of God; how awesome are His deeds toward mankind.
- He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the waters on foot; there we rejoiced in Him.
- He rules forever by His power; His eyes watch the nations. Do not let the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah
- Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of His praise be heard.
- He preserves our lives and keeps our feet from slipping.
- For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us like silver.
- You led us into the net; You laid burdens on our backs.
- You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but You brought us into abundance.
- I will enter Your house with burnt offerings; I will fulfill my vows to You—
- the vows that my lips promised and my mouth spoke in my distress.
- I will offer You fatlings as burnt offerings, with the fragrant smoke of rams; I will offer bulls and goats. Selah
- Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will declare what He has done for me.
- I cried out to Him with my mouth and praised Him with my tongue.
- If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
- But God has surely heard; He has attended to the sound of my prayer.
- Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld from me His loving devotion!
Theme
The psalm is one of the few that swings deliberately from "we" to "I" in mid-stream. Verses 1-12 are sung by the whole assembly: "Come and see what God has done... he turned the sea into dry land." Verses 13-20 narrow to a single voice: "I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will pay you my vows." This shift mirrored the actual experience of a pilgrim festival in Jerusalem. A worshiper joined the great congregation in chanting the national story. Then he walked alone to the altar with the particular animal that fulfilled a personal vow. The psalm holds both motions in one liturgy.
The Exodus references in verses 5-6 are precise. "He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot." The mention of both sea and river is intentional. The sea is the Red Sea crossing of Exodus 14. The river is the Jordan crossing of Joshua 3. By bracketing these two events, the psalm names the boundaries of Israel's foundational deliverance. A first-temple worshiper hearing these lines would have understood the psalm as compressing the entire wilderness generation into two miracles. The assembly becomes participants rather than spectators ("there did we rejoice in him", verse 6).
Verse 10 introduces a striking metaphor. "You have tested us, O God; you have tried us as silver is tried." The Hebrew imagery is metallurgical. Silver was refined by repeatedly heating ore in a crucible and skimming off the dross until the smith could see his face reflected in the molten surface. That was the test of purity. The psalm reads Israel's hard seasons (verse 11 mentions a net laid on their loins and men riding over their heads) not as divine abandonment but as refining. The fire is not punishment. It is recognition. God will not call a people pure who have not been through the heat. The closing personal section centers on burnt offerings (verse 15) of bulls and goats with the smoke of rams. These were specifically "olah" offerings ("that which goes up") described in Leviticus 1, in which the entire animal was consumed on the altar with nothing returning to the worshiper. The silver came out of the fire.
Discussion questions
- Why do you think the psalm shifts from "we" (verses 1-12) to "I" (verses 13-20)? How would that shift have mapped onto the actual movements of a pilgrim at a festival?
- Verses 5-6 mention both the sea (Red Sea, Exodus 14) and the river (Jordan, Joshua 3). What is the psalm doing by bracketing these two crossings?
- How does the silver-refining metaphor of verses 10-12 reframe Israel's hard seasons as something other than divine abandonment?
- What was an "olah" or burnt offering (Leviticus 1)? How is it different from other sacrifices the worshiper could have brought?
- Verse 6 says "there did we rejoice in him" about an event the worshiper did not personally attend. How does corporate memory work in Israelite liturgy?
- Verse 18 reads "if I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened." What relationship does that establish between unconfessed sin and prayer?
- When you look back on a refining season, can you see what dross was burned off? What does that recognition do for present trials?
- How could you build rhythms in your own life that move (like this psalm does) between corporate worship and personal accountability?
- Compare verses 13-15 with Hebrews 13:15. How does the New Testament reinterpret burnt offerings for believers under the new covenant?
- Read Romans 12:1 where Paul calls believers to present themselves as a living sacrifice. How does that exhortation pick up the logic of Psalm 66's closing section?
Read this psalm in another translation
The inline text above is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Open in a new tab to compare with a modern licensed translation: