Psalms 135:8–12

Psalms 135:8 — "He struck the firstborn of Egypt" The opening verb, wayyak (He struck), is blunt and unsparing, the same word used in Exodus 12:29. Its placement first — before any mention of signs and wonders — is deliberate. The tenth plague is the climactic act of liberation, the hinge upon which the entire Exodus turns. Every Passover lamb, every smeared lintel, every spared Israelite firstborn stands in direct contrast to the Egyptian dead. The Psalmist does not elaborate on Egypt's suffering as cruelty; he presents it as the righteous consequence of Pharaoh's hardened opposition to God's command. Within the hymn's structure (vv. 1–7 praise God's universal lordship; vv. 8–12 prove it through history), this verse begins the historical "evidence" section.

Psalms 135:9 — "He sent signs and wonders into the middle of you, Egypt" The sudden shift to direct address — bĕtôkēk, "into your midst," O Egypt — is rhetorically striking, almost prosecutorial. It cites a living witness against any who would doubt God's power. "Signs and wonders" ('ôtôt ûmôpĕtîm) is the formulaic pair (cf. Deut 4:34; 6:22) encompassing all ten plagues taken together as a unified theological testimony. Each plague systematically dismantled an Egyptian deity — the Nile-god Hapi, the sun-god Ra, the frog-goddess Heqet — demonstrating YHWH's incomparability, which is precisely the theme of Psalm 135 (cf. v. 5: "our Lord is above all gods"). The phrase "into your midst" underlines that this was not remote divine action but an intimate, unavoidable intervention within Egypt's own territory and social order.

Psalms 135:10 — "He struck many nations" The scope now widens beyond Egypt to the nations inhabiting Canaan. The shift from singular (Egypt) to plural (nations) is significant: the Exodus was not simply an escape from one enemy but the beginning of a sustained campaign of divine conquest. The word gôyim (nations) echoes Genesis 17:4–6, where God promised Abraham he would be the father of many nations — here those same nations yield before Israel. Theologically this verse insists that the Lord is not a regional deity; his striking power is universal.

Psalms 135:11 — "Sihon king of the Amorites" Two kings are named: Sihon and (implicitly) Og of Bashan (compare the fuller formula in Psalm 136:19–20 and Numbers 21:21–35). They appear here as synecdoche for all conquered peoples. Their naming is not decorative; it functions as legal testimony, the naming of specific defeated adversaries making the claim undeniable. Sihon and Og became legendary in Israelite tradition precisely because they were the first great trans-Jordanian obstacles to the Promised Land. Their defeat assured Israel that no earthly power could block what God had purposed.

Psalms 135:12 — "And gave their land for a heritage" The Hebrew naḥălāh (heritage, inheritance) carries enormous weight. Land in the ancient Near East was not merely property but identity, ancestry, and future. YHWH's gift of the land transforms conquered territory into covenantal inheritance — something held from God, not seized by mere military prowess. This verse is the destination toward which all the preceding strikes were aimed: not destruction for its own sake, but the establishment of a people in a place where they could worship their God. The whole movement — plague, wonder, conquest, inheritance — follows a single divine logic of redemptive gift.

Typological and Spiritual Senses Christian exegesis, from Origen through the medieval quadriga, reads this passage as a type of baptismal liberation. Egypt is the realm of sin; the firstborn represent the "first fruits" of the old life of bondage; the signs and wonders are the sacramental actions of Christ; the conquered nations are the spiritual powers (cf. Eph 6:12) overcome in the paschal mystery; and the inherited land is the Kingdom of God — the Church on earth and eternal life in its fullness. The Fathers consistently read the Exodus as the great biblical type of Christian salvation, and this compact recitation in Psalm 135 functions as a liturgical creed of that saving story.

Catholic tradition illuminates this passage in several interconnected ways.

Typology and the Paschal Mystery. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "the Church sees in the Passover a type of the Redemption accomplished by Christ" (CCC §1340). The striking of Egypt's firstborn (v. 8) anticipates the sacrificial death of Christ, the true Firstborn (Col 1:15), who is struck so that we might not be. St. Augustine in Contra Faustum notes that every act of divine power in the Old Covenant is "pregnant with the things to come in Christ." The "signs and wonders" of v. 9 find their fulfillment in the miracles of Jesus (Jn 20:30–31), which the Fourth Gospel frames explicitly as sēmeia (signs) pointing to his identity as the new Moses and more.

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom. The repeated "He struck… He gave" cadence of these verses insists on divine initiative. The Second Council of Orange (529 AD), confirmed by Trent, teaches that salvation begins with God's action, not human merit. This Psalm models the disposition of grateful acknowledgment: God acts first; our role is to receive, remember, and praise.

The Land as Eschatological Type. St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 102, a. 4) treats the Promised Land as a figure of the beatific vision — the true naḥălāh to which the earthly inheritance always pointed. The Church's liturgy carries this forward: the "heritage" of v. 12 echoes in every sung Kyrie, every Eucharistic Prayer that "remembers" God's saving deeds (anamnesis), re-presenting them sacramentally until the final inheritance is received.

The Problem of Divine Violence. The Church Fathers, especially Origen (Homilies on Exodus), were careful to note that God's "striking" of nations is an act of justice, not arbitrary cruelty, directed against the hardness of sin rather than against persons as such — a spiritual reading that does not negate the literal sense but opens it to a deeper logic of mercy that culminates in the Cross.

For a Catholic today, Psalm 135:8–12 is not ancient war poetry at a safe distance. It is a summons to liturgical memory — to what the Church calls anamnesis: the living re-presentation of God's saving acts. Every time a Catholic attends Mass and hears the Eucharistic Prayer recall the Exodus and Passover, this Psalm is the biblical heartbeat beneath those words.

Concretely, this passage challenges the contemporary Catholic to resist a privatized, merely personal faith. The God of these verses acts in history — publicly, specifically, naming nations and kings. He gives land, shapes peoples, redirects the course of civilizations. This calls Catholics to trust that God is at work not only in the interior life but in the actual structures of their family, community, and world — even when, especially when, those structures seem as immovable as Pharaoh or Sihon.

Practically: when you face what seems like an unyielding obstacle — an illness, a broken relationship, a seemingly irreversible injustice — Psalm 135 invites you to rehearse what God has already done. Name the specific moments in your own history where "He struck" and "He gave." Make your prayer a liturgy of testimony, not just petition.