He turned their heart to hate His people, To deal craftily with His servants.
Parallel translations
- WEB He turned their heart to hate his people, to conspire against his servants.
- KJV He turned their heart to hate his people, to deal subtilly with his servants.
- BSB whose hearts He turned to hate His people, to conspire against His servants.
- NASB ¶He turned their heart to hate His people, To deal cunningly with His servants.
- NLT Then he turned the Egyptians against the Israelites, and they plotted against the Lord’s servants.
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
God allowed the Egyptians' hearts to turn against Israel in hostility. It matters because even opposition unfolds within God's sovereign plan.
Overview
As Israel multiplied, the Egyptians grew to fear and oppress them (Exodus 1:8-14). The psalm acknowledges God's overruling hand even in this hostility, without excusing the oppressors' guilt. The setting of bondage prepared the stage for the Exodus, God's mighty act of redemption and a pattern of the greater deliverance in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Acts 7:19The same took advantage of our race, and mistreated our fathers, and forced them to throw out their babies, so that they wouldn’t stay alive.
- Gen 15:13He said to Abram, “Know for sure that your offspring will live as foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years.
- Exod 9:16but indeed for this cause I have made you stand: to show you my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth;
- Exod 1:16and he said, “When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool; if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.”
- Rom 9:17–19For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
- Exod 4:21Yahweh said to Moses, “When you go back into Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart and he will not let the people go.
- Exod 10:1Yahweh said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I may show these my signs among them,
- Exod 1:8–14Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who didn’t know Joseph.
- Deut 2:30But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him; for Yahweh your God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into your hand, as it is today.
- Exod 2:23In the course of those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 105:25 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.