When they were few in number, Indeed very few, and strangers in it.
Parallel translations
- WEB when they were but a few men in number, yes, very few, and foreigners in it.
- KJV When they were but a few men in number; yea, very few, and strangers in it.
- BSB When they were few in number, few indeed, and strangers in the land,
- NASB When they were only a few people in number, Very few, and strangers in it.
- NLT He said this when they were few in number, a tiny group of strangers in Canaan.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
When the promise was given, they were few in number and foreigners in the land. God's great promise rested on a tiny, vulnerable family.
Overview
The psalmist recalls that the patriarchs were a small band of strangers in Canaan when God made His promise. The greatness of the pledge stood in stark contrast to their weakness. This shows that God's purposes rest on His power and faithfulness, not human strength, as supremely seen in the cross of Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Deut 7:7Yahweh didn’t set his love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples:
- Gen 34:30Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have troubled me, to make me odious to the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am few in number. They will gather themselves together against me and strike me, and I will be destroyed, I and my house.”
- Heb 11:9By faith, he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.
- Gen 23:4“I am a stranger and a foreigner living with you. Give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”
- Deut 26:5You shall answer and say before Yahweh your God, “My father was a Syrian ready to perish. He went down into Egypt, and lived there, few in number. There he became a great, mighty, and populous nation.
- Ezek 33:24–33Son of man, they who inhabit those waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance.
- Gen 17:8I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are traveling, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. I will be their God.”
- Acts 7:5He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. He promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his offspring after him, when he still had no child.
- Heb 11:12Therefore as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as innumerable as the sand which is by the sea shore, were fathered by one man, and him as good as dead.
- Isa 51:2Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many.
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 105:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.