The Divine Voice begins with recapitulating the facts which the feast was intended to commemorate--namely, the act of emancipation from Egyptian bondage (ver. 6), and the miracles of the wilderness sojourn (ver. 7). The compulsory labour, from which God delivered the people, is described by two terms, of which the former (burden) is borrowed from Exodus, where it frequently occurs (Exod. i. 11, v. 4, vi. 6), and the latter (basket) is by some supposed to mean the wicker-work implement for carrying, which the monuments show was in use in Egypt (so LXX., etc.), and by others to mean an earthen vessel, as "an example of the work in clay in which the Israelites were engaged" (Hupfeld). The years of desert wandering are summed up, in ver. 7, as one long continuance of benefits from God. Whenever they cried to Him in their trouble, He delivered them. He spoke to them "from the secret place of thunder" ("_My thunder-covert_," Cheyne). That expression is generally taken to refer to the pillar of cloud, but seems more naturally to be regarded as alluding to the thick darkness, in which God was shrouded on Sinai, when He spoke His law amid thunderings and lightnings. "The proving at the waters of Meribah" is, according to the connection and in harmony with Exod. xvii. 6, to be regarded as a benefit. "It was meant to serve the purpose of binding Israel still more closely to its God" (Baethgen). It is usually assumed that, in this reference to "the waters of Meribah," the two similar incidents of the miraculous supply of water--one of which occurred near the beginning of the forty years in the desert, at "Massah and Meribah" (Exod. xvii. 7), and the other at "the waters of Meribah," near Kadesh, in the fortieth year--have been blended, or, as Cheyne says, "confused." But there is no need to suppose that there is any confusion, for the words of the psalm will apply to the latter miracle as well as to the former, and, if the former clause refers to the manifestations at Sinai, the selection of an incident at nearly the end of the wilderness period is natural. The whole stretch of forty years is thereby declared to have been marked by continuous Divine care. The Exodus was begun, continued, and ended amid tokens of His watchful love. The Selah bids the listener meditate on that prolonged revelation.