He sent Moses His servant, and Aaron, whom He had chosen. They performed His miraculous signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ham. He sent darkness, and it became dark—yet they defied His words. He turned their waters to blood and caused their fish to die. Their land teemed with frogs, even in their royal chambers. He spoke, and insects swarmed—gnats throughout their country. He gave them hail for rain, with lightning throughout their land. He struck their vines and fig trees and shattered the trees of their country. He spoke, and the locusts came—young locusts without number. They devoured every plant in their land and consumed the produce of their soil. Then He struck all the firstborn in their land, the firstfruits of all their vigor.
This is a plague recital, not a law text. Psalm 105:27 takes up the programmatic pair God announces in Exodus 7:3 — אוֹת (oth, "signs") and מוֹפֵת (mopheth, "wonders") — and 105:29 reuses the clause of Exodus 7:20 with three shared lexemes: הפך (haphak, "turned") + מַיִם (mayim, "water") + דָּם (dam, "blood"). Exodus 7 supplies both the announcement and the first blow.
Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Allusion
Connection Method(s)
Redemptive-Historical Progression
The psalmist arranges what he borrows. He opens the sequence with darkness (105:28), which stands ninth in Exodus, and gives eight plagues in a liturgical order rather than the narrative one; he sets them "in the land of Ham" (105:23,27); and he omits the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, keeping the whole recital on what God did rather than on what Egypt refused. The frame tells you why. Psalm 105 begins with the covenant God remembers "forever, the word He ordained for a thousand generations— the covenant He made with Abraham" (105:8-9), and closes the exodus section with "For He remembered His holy promise to Abraham His servant" (105:42). The plagues are not raw retribution in this psalm; they are covenant-keeping in action. Exodus 7 is the first stroke of a promise four hundred years old being made good.
That placement in the storyline is the connection method. The psalm is not drawing a shadow of a later reality but locating the plagues at their point in redemptive history — between the oath to the patriarchs and the gift of the land (105:44). And the plagues have a target: "I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt" (Exodus 12:12; cf. Numbers 33:4). The Nile turned to blood is a strike at what Egypt worshipped.
Christ's own exodus (Luke 9:31) is the greater one, and the greater disarming: "having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:15). The psalm's response to all this is not sober instruction but command: "Give thanks... sing to Him... let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice" (105:1-3). Remembering that God kept a promise across four silent centuries is grounds for gladness, and the psalm says so first.
