Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.
Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed. In this third and concluding strophe the poet makes a natural transition from the justice of God executed upon His enemies, to the gracious and timely protection vouchsafed to His people. The Israelites, after having been rescued by the direct interposition of God from the house of bondage, would inevitably have perished amid the privations and perils of their journey (Exodus 14:14; Exodus 14:30: cf. Psalms 124:1-8), had not God benignantly condescended to conduct them by the visible symbol of His presence; and that safe guidance, in circumstances so menacing, and by a path so new and untrodden, was a pledge that He would establish them in the possession of the promised land. So sure a pledge was it regarded, that the sacred bard, transporting himself in imagination to scenes of the visioned future, speaks of it as actually fulfilled. "Thou hast guided them in thy strength to thy holy habitation" - i:e., Canaan, which, from the many revelations made there to the patriarchs, might be called, in a wide sense, Bethel, the house of God (Genesis 28:16; Genesis 35:7), and the way for their settlement in which would he paved by the widespread panic which the events of the exodus produced among the inhabitants of all the neighbouring countries.