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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 106:1

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Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for [he is] good: for his mercy [endureth] forever.

1. Praise ye the Lord ] Heb. Hallelujah. See on Psa 104:35. Here and elsewhere the initial Hallelujah is omitted in P.B.V., being regarded, as in LXX and Vulg., as a kind of title only.

O give thanks for ever ] A liturgical formula, found in the Psalter only in post-exilic Psalms (Psa 107:1; Psa 118:1; Psa 136:1; cp. Psa 100:5; Ezr 3:10-11; 1Ma 4:24 ), but in familiar use before the Exile. See Jer 33:11, and note the slight difference in the form, which militates against the view that the words are an interpolation there.

good ] LXX rightly , for it is not Jehovah’s essential goodness that is meant, but His kindness and graciousness towards Israel. Cp. Isa 63:7.

for his mercy endureth for ever ] Israel’s sin cannot exhaust Jehovah’s lovingkindness.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

1 5. The Psalmist prefaces his Psalm of penitence with a call to praise Jehovah for that unfailing goodness which is the ground of Israel’s hope in its present extremity; and with a prayer that he himself may be privileged to see and share in the restoration of Jehovah’s people.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Praise ye the Lord – Margin, Hallelu-jah. The two Hebrew words mean, praise ye the Lord. They are the same words with which the previous psalm closes, and are here designed to indicate the general duty illustrated in the psalm.

O give thanks unto the Lord – See the notes at Psa 105:1.

For he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever – See Psa 100:5, note; Psa 107:1, note; where the language in the Hebrew is the same.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Psa 106:1-5

Praise ye the Lord.

The true in praise, religion, and prayer

I. True. Praise and its reasons (verses 1, 2). This call to praise Jehovah is binding on all intelligent and moral creatures, because of–

1. The goodness of His nature.

2. The permanency of His mercy.

3. The immensity of His works.

II. True religion and its blessedness (verse 3). What is true religion? Keeping to the right at all times. If ye love Me, keep My commandments. The only hymn of praise acceptable to the ear of the Infinite is a life of rectitude. Now, this is happiness (Psa 1:1).

III. True prayer and its desires. What is the grand desire of true prayer? All may be summed up in one sentence–identification with the excellent of the earth (verses 4, 5). A desire to be identified with the rich, the powerful, and the distinguished of the earth is common, is of the earth, earthy; but a desire to be vitally associated with the morally excellent of the earth is rare and of heavenly origin. May this be our grand aspiration! (Homilist.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

PSALM CVI

God is praised for his manifold mercies, 1-3.

The prophet prays for himself, 4, 5.

A recapitulation of the history of the Hebrew people: of God’s

mercies toward them, and their rebellions, 6-39.

The judgments and afflictions which their transgressions brought

upon them, 40-42.

God’s mercy to them notwithstanding their transgressions, 43-46.

He prays for their restoration, 47, 48.

NOTES ON PSALM CVI

As a part of the preceding Psalm is found in 1Ch 16:7-14, so the first and two last verses of this are found in the same place, (1Ch 16:34-36,) and yet it is supposed by eminent commentators to be a prayer of the captives in Babylon, who acknowledge the mercies of God, confess their own sins, and those of their forefathers, and implore the Lord to gather them from among the heathen, and restore them to their own country. In none of the Versions except the Syriac has it any title, except HALLELUJAH, Praise ye the Lord, the word with which the original commences. The Syriac gives us a sort of table of its contents; or rather shows us the subjects to which it may be applied, and the uses we should make of it. After stating that it has no title, it says, “It calls upon men to observe the Divine precepts, and teaches us that the more the Jews transgressed, the more we should fear. That we should not talk together in the church, nor ever contend with our brethren on any account; and especially when we assist in the celebration of the Divine mysteries and in prayer: and that when we sin we should repent.” All this is very good: but it would be difficult to find these subjects in the Psalm, or any thing on which they could be rationally founded. But it shows us that the Scriptures were very easily accommodated to particular uses, not originally intended: and hence arose much of the practice of spiritualizing and allegorizing; which, to say the least of it, has been of no use to the Church of Christ.

Verse 1. Praise ye the Lord] This, which is a sort of title, is wanting in several MSS., and in the Syriac Version.

O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good] Ye who live by his bounty should praise his mercy. God is the good Being, and of all kinds of good he is the Author and Dispenser. That the term God among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, expressed both the Supreme Being and good or goodness, is evident from the Anglo-Saxon version of this clause: [Anglo-Saxon] “Confess Lord for that God, (or good,) for that on world mildheartness his.” Which the old Psalter thus translates and paraphrases: –

Trans. Schifes to Lorde for he is gude; for in worlde the mercy of him.

Par. Schryfes synes, and louyngs to God. for he is gude of kynde, that nane do bot aske his mercy; for it lastes to the worlds ende in wriches whame it comfortes and delyvers: and the blysfulhede that is gyfen thrugh mercy is endles. That is: –

Confess your sins, and give praise to God, for he is good in his nature to all that ask his mercy; for it lasts to the world’s end in comforting and delivering the wretched: and the blessedness that is given through mercy is endless.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

He deserves our praises, notwithstanding all our sufferings, which are not to be imputed to him, for he is gracious and merciful, but only to our own sins.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

1. Praise, &c.(See on Ps104:35), begins and ends the Psalm, intimating the obligations ofpraise, however we sin and suffer 1Ch16:34-36 is the source from which the beginning and end of thisPsalm are derived.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Praise ye the Lord,…. Or “hallelujah”; which, according to the Arabic version, is the title of the psalm; and so it stands in the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Ethiopic versions. Several psalms following begin in like manner; it begins as the former ended, and ends as it begins; praise being due to God at all times, and on all occasions.

O give thanks unto the Lord: always, for all things, temporal and spiritual, since not worthy of any: or, confess unto the Lord h; his great goodness, and your unworthiness; and all your sins and transgressions committed against him, who only can pardon.

For he is good; essentially, solely and originally; is communicative and diffusive of his goodness; is the author of all good, and of no evil; and is gracious and merciful, and ready to forgive.

For his mercy endureth for ever; notwithstanding the sins of his people; though he may sometimes hide his face from them, and rebuke them in his providence; and though he causes grief by so doing, he still has compassion upon them, his mercy continues towards them; yea, his mercies are new every morning, as to temporal things; and spiritual mercies, the sure mercies of David, redemption, remission of sins, and sanctification, issue in eternal life; the mercy of God is from eternity to eternity: these are reasons why he should be praised, and thanks be given, to him.

h “confitemini Domino”, V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, &c.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Psalm begins with the liturgical call, which has not coined for the first time in the Maccabaean age (1 Macc. 4:24), but was already in use in Jeremiah’s time (Psa 33:11). The lxx appropriately renders by , for God is called “good” not so much in respect of His nature as of the revelation of His nature. The fulness of this revelation, says Psa 106:2 (like Psa 40:6), is inexhaustible. are the manifestations of His all-conquering power which makes everything subservient to His redemptive purposes (Psa 20:7); and is the glory (praise or celebration) of His self-attestation in history. The proclaiming of these on the part of man can never be an exhaustive echo of them. In Psa 106:3 the poet tells what is the character of those who experience such manifestations of God; and to the assertion of the blessedness of these men he appends the petition in Psa 106:4, that God would grant him a share in the experiences of the whole nation which is the object of these manifestations. beside is a genitive of the object: with the pleasure which Thou turnest towards Thy people, i.e., when Thou again (cf. Psa 106:47) showest Thyself gracious unto them. On cf. Psa 8:5; Psa 80:15, and on , Jer 29:32; a similar Beth is that beside (at, on account of, not: in connection with), Psa 21:2; Psa 122:1. God’s “inheritance” is His people; the name for them is varied four times, and thereby is also exceptionally brought into use, as in Zep 2:9.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Praise for Divine Goodness.

1 Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. 2 Who can utter the mighty acts of the LORD? who can show forth all his praise? 3 Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times. 4 Remember me, O LORD, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; 5 That I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance.

We are here taught,

I. To bless God (Psa 106:1; Psa 106:2): Praise you the Lord, that is, 1. Give him thanks for his goodness, the manifestation of it to us, and the many instances of it. He is good and his mercy endures for ever; let us therefore own our obligations to him and make him a return of our best affections and services. 2. Give him the glory of his greatness, his mighty acts, proofs of his almighty power, wherein he has done great things, and such as would be opposed. Who can utter these? Who is worthy to do it? Who is able to do it? They are so many that they cannot be numbered, so mysterious that they cannot be described; when we have said the most we can of the mighty acts of the Lord, the one half is not told; still there is more to be said; it is a subject that cannot be exhausted. We must show forth his praise; we may show forth some of it, but who can show forth all? Not the angels themselves. This will not excuse us in not doing what we can, but should quicken us to do all we can.

II. To bless the people of God, to call and account them happy (v. 3): Those that keep judgment are blessed, for they are fit to be employed in praising God. God’s people are those whose principles are sound–They keep judgment (they adhere to the rules of wisdom and religion, and their practices are agreeable); they do righteousness, are just to God and to all men, and herein they are steady and constant; they do it at all times, in all manner of conversation, at every turn, in every instance, and herein persevering to the end.

III. To bless ourselves in the favour of God, to place our happiness in it, and to seek it, accordingly, with all seriousness, as the psalmist here, Psa 106:4; Psa 106:5. 1. He has an eye to the lovingkindness of God, as the fountain of all happiness: “Remember me, O Lord! to give me that mercy and grace which I stand in need of, with the favour which thou bearest to thy people.” As there are a people in the world who are in a peculiar manner God’s people, so there is a peculiar favour which God bears to that people, which all gracious souls desire an interest in; and we need desire no more to make us happy. 2. He has an eye to the salvation of God, the great salvation, that of the soul, as the foundation of happiness: O visit me with thy salvation. “Afford me (says Dr. Hammond) that pardon and that grace which I stand in need of, and can hope for from none but thee.” Let that salvation be my portion for ever, and the pledges of it my present comfort. 3. He has an eye to the blessedness of the righteous, as that which includes all good (v. 5): “That I may see the good of thy chosen and be as happy as the saints are; and happier I do not desire to be.” God’s people are here called his chosen, his nation, his inheritance; for he has set them apart for himself, incorporated them under his own government, is served by them and glorified in them. The chosen people of God have a good which is peculiar to them, which is the matter both of their gladness and of their glorying, which is their pleasure, and their praise. God’s people have reason to be a cheerful people, and to boast in their God all the day long; and those who have that gladness, that glory, need not envy any of the children of men their pleasure or pride. The gladness of God’s nation, and the glory of his inheritance, are enough to satisfy any man; for they have everlasting joy and glory at the end of them.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Psalms 106

Israel’s Rebellion and God’s Mercy

This psalm describes Israel’s persistent path of sin and God’s abounding patience, mercy and pity. It reviews her history from their Egyptian bondage to their return from Babylonian captivity. Finally it offers a cry of confession of sins and a plea for pity.

Scripture v. 1-5:

Verse 1 calls for praise and thanksgiving to the Lord for His goodness and mercy that continuously endure forever, that never cease, as related 1Ch 16:8; Psa 25:8; Deu 4:31; Psa 108:4. The word rendered praise is from the Hebrew “Hallelujah,” as in Psa 105:45.

Verse 2 inquires just who can “utter (describe) the mighty acts of the Lord?” indicating such is too great for any to do, except God should help. It challenges also, just “who can show forth all his praises?” praises justly due him, suggesting none can except by aid of the spirit, Psa 26:7; Psa 40:5; Psa 71:15; Psa 145:4.

Verse 3 declares that they are spiritually prosperous who “keep judgment” and “do righteousness (continually) at all times,” as related and attached to provided blessings, Psa 103:18; Psa 1:1; Deu 16:20; Deu 4:27.

Verse 4 relates David’s call on the Lord, to be remembered with favor that He shows His people, and to be visited, with his restoring salvation, to bring Israel back to her own land, Neh 13:14; Jer 15:15; Gen 43:29: 1Ch 16:35; Psa 119:41.

Verse 5 asks that David (the petitioner) may see (realize) the good of God’s chosen people, that he might rejoice in the gladness of his nation, Psa 1:3; Deu 12:7. The plea is that they are His chosen, His nation, and His inheritance, in spite of their sins, Isa 43:20; Isa 45:4; Deu 9:29. He desired to glory in Jehovah’s heritage, Psa 37:11.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

1. Praise ye Jehovah This exhortation supplies the want of a title; not that the psalm contains nothing else than thanksgiving and praise to God, but that the people, from the experience of past favors, may obtain the assurance of reconciliation; and thus entertain the hope that God, although at present offended, would soon be pacified towards them. In celebrating the praises of God, therefore, he orders them to call to mind such things as would have a tendency to assuage their grief on account of present ills, and to animate their spirits, and prevent them from sinking into despair. (241)

(241) It is the province of faith to celebrate the divine mercy in the most trying circumstances.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

INTRODUCTION

This it the first of a series of Hallelujah Psalms: Psalms of which the word Hallelujah is, as it were, the inscription (106, 111113, 117, 135, 146150.). As in the last Psalm, so here the history of Israel is recapitulated. In that it was turned into a thanksgiving; in this it forms the burden of a confession. There Gods mighty acts for His people were celebrated with joy; here His peoples Bin is humbly and sorrowfully acknowledged. Nothing is more remarkable in these great historical Psalms than the utter absence of any word or sentiment tending to feed the national vanity. All the glory of Israels history is confessed to be due, not to her heroes, her priests, her prophets, but to God; all the failures which are written upon that history, all discomfitures, losses, reverses, the sword, famine, exile, are recognised as the righteous chastisement which the sin of the nation has provoked. This is the strain of such Psalms as the 78th, the 105th, the 106th. This is invariably the tone assumed by all the divinely-instructed teachers of the people, by the prophets in their great sermons, by the poets in their contributions to the national liturgy.

From Psa. 106:47 it may be fairly inferred that the Psalm is of the date of the Exile, or was written shortly after the return of the first company of exiles.Perowne.

Hengstenberg: The situation is described exactly in Psa. 106:46-47; and is that towards the end of the captivity.

The author of the Psalm is not known.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BLESSED PEOPLE

(Psa. 106:1-5)

The first five verges, says Perowne, seem to stand alone, and to have little or no direct connection with the rest of the Psalm. The first verse, no doubt, is of the nature of a doxological formula, such as we find in some other of these later Psalms. But the second and third verses have an immediate bearing on what follows. What so fitting to introduce the confession of a nations sin and ingratitude as the rehearsal of Gods goodness manifested to it, and the acknowledgment of the blessedness of those who, instead of despising that goodness, as Israel had done, walked in the ways of the Lord, keeping judgment and doing righteousness (Psa. 106:3)? Or, again, what more natural than that the sense of the national privilege, the claim of a personal share in that privilege, should spring in the heart and rise to the lips of one who felt most deeply the national sin and ingratitude?

We regard these verses as presenting to us certain characteristics of the blessed people.

I. They are a worshipping people.

1. They have exalted views of the Divine greatness and glory. Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can show forth all His praise? The acts of the Lord are so many, so great, so marvellous, and so glorious, that man is unable adequately to celebrate them. The transcendent greatness of the deeds of God ought not to keep us back from praising Him, but contains in it the strongest motive to praise; the farther off the goal is, the more earnestly must we strive.Hengstenberg.

2. They appreciate the Divine benefits. He is good, His mercy endureth for ever. The goodness here mentioned is not so much the excellence of His own nature, as His gracious dealings with man. The manifestations of His mercy and generosity were so numerous, so constant, so glorious, that the Poet was moved by admiration, and desired to give God the honour of them.

3. They praise the Divine Being. Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks unto the Lord. Worshipthe adoration of the Divine excellence, and beneficence, and beautyis an essential element of the highest blessedness. The true worship of the true God is the heaven of the soul.

II. They are a righteous people. Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times. For moral beings there can be no blessedness except that which is based upon righteousness of principle and of practice. Conscience will not admit of blessedness on any other condition. The Psalmist speaks of habitual righteousness. If we would be truly blessed, righteousness must be not an occasional but a constant disposition of heart and rule of conduct. The blessed man is one who doeth righteousness at all times. Barnes points out that the Psalm is designed to illustrate by contrast; that is, by showing, in the conduct of the Hebrew people, the consequences of disobedience, and thus implying what would have been, and what always must be, the consequences of the opposite course

III. They are the Lords people. We cannot be truly blessed without a hearty recognition of our true relation to God. When by faith and consecration we are His people, great is our blessedness. Concerning the people of God and their blessedness the Poet indicates

1. The source of all their blessings. Remember me, O Lord, with the favour of Thy people. All our blessings flow from the unmerited and free favour of the Lord.

2. The sum of all their blessings. Oh visit me with Thy salvation. Salvation includes pardon for past sin, grace to help in time of need, and eternal and blessed life.

3. The result of all their blessings.

(1.) Gladness to man. That I may rejoice in the gladness of Thy nation. The favour of God is joy-inspiring.

(2.) Glory to God. That I may glory with Thine inheritance. The people of God glory not in their wisdom, wealth, or power, but in their relation to Him. In Him they make their boast. To Him they ascribe their praise.

CONCLUSION.

1. God has a people who are in a special manner His.

2. To these people He imparts special blessings.

3. Are we of the number of these people?

THE FAVOUR OF GOD DESIRED

Psa. 106:4. Remember me, O Lord, with the favour of Thy people.

I. That the Lord has a people, who in a different way from others are His. They are so by adopting love, Rom. 9:25; by renewing grace, Eph. 2:10; by voluntary consent, 2Co. 7:5; by public avowal, Isa. 44:5; by inward testimony, 1Jn. 5:19, Rom. 8:16; by divine appropriation, Zec. 13:9, and by open evidence, 2Co. 3:2-3.

II. That to these He bears a peculiar and distinguished favour. While others are the recipients of common mercies, they have blessings of a peculiar and pre-eminent description, so that the congratulation given by Moses to the Israelites is applicable to the Lords people in every age and place. (Deu. 33:29.)

III. That to be remembered of God with this favour is infinitely desirable. And why is this the case? Because it sweetens the comforts of life; because it quickens us in the performance of duty; because it yields relief in scenes of sorrow and suffering; and because it is the ground of all our hope.

IV. That those who would have the Divine favour must pray for it. God is ready to bestow His favour upon us (1Jn. 4:10, Rom. 8:32), but application on our part must be made (Eze. 36:37); and the reasonableness of the duty leaves without excuse those persons who refuse to comply with it. Let us never despise a favour so freely offered, so greatly needed; a favour which may be obtained on terms so easy.W. Sleigh.

THE LORDS GOODNESS AND MANS SIN

(Psa. 106:6-12)

In these verses the Psalmist begins the confession of the sin of the Israelites as manifested in their history. Let us notice

I. Mans sin notwithstanding the Lords goodness. Psa. 106:6-8. We have here-

1. The sins acknowledged.

(1) Thoughtlessness. Our fathers understood not Thy wonders in Egypt. Perowne: Our fathers in Egypt considered not, &c. The marvellous and glorious deeds of the Lord in their behalf they saw but did not consider, and therefore did not understand them. They thought the plagues of Egypt were intended for their deliverance, whereas they were intended also for their instruction and conviction, not only to force them out of their Egyptian slavery, but to cure them of their inclination to Egyptian idolatry, by evidencing the sovereign power and dominion of the God of Israel above all gods, and His particular concern for them.M. Henry. Want of consideration is a sin frequently charged against Israel, and to which men are painfully prone in our own day. We see the Divine wonders, receive the Divine benefits, but do not reflect on their significance, &c.

(2) Forgetfulness. They remembered not the multitude of Thy mercies. Although the wonders in Egypt were so many and great, yet they made so small an impression upon the people on whose behalf they were wrought that they were speedily forgotten by them. Eaten bread is soon forgotten.

(3) Rebellion. But provoked Him at the sea, at the Red Sea. Hengstenberg and Perowne translate: rebelled at the sea. (See Exo. 14:10-12.) Not withstanding all the mighty works that had been wrought for their deliverance from Egypt, on the first approach of danger they distrusted the Lord, and, like craven-hearted slaves, they murmured against the servant of the Lord. They distrusted the power, mercy, and faithfulness of God. Observe the gradation and connection of their sins. Want of reflection upon the mercy of God leads to forgetfulness of those mercies, and forgetfulness of His mercies leads to distrust, &c Evil is terribly progressive.

2. The aggravation of their sins. Many were the wonders wrought on their behalf, yet they failed to consider them. The Lord bestowed upon them a multitude of mercies; it is sinful to forget one of His loving-kindnesses; yet they forgot a multitude of them. The sin of their rebellion also was aggravated by the place in which they were guilty of it. It was at the Red Sea, directly after their emancipation from Egypt, when the wonders of power and grace which God had wrought for them should have been fresh in their minds, and a powerful inspiration to faith.

3. The confession of their sins. We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly. Here is

(1) A deep sense of great and manifold transgressions. This is impressively indicated by the three verbs.

(2) A sad successiveness of sin. We have sinned with our fathers. The sins of the fathers had been reproduced in the children, generation after generation; so that the nation as a whole was regarded by the Psalmist as guilty before God.

In most of the points which we have touched upon the sins of the Israelites, notwithstanding the goodness of the Lord, represent the sins of the men of our age and country. (Show this, and urge confession).

II. The Lords goodness notwithstanding mans sin. Psa. 106:8-12. Though the sins of Israel were so aggravated, yet the Lord continued to manifest His mercy to them.

1. His goodness was displayed in their salvation. The deliverance here referred to was a very remarkable one. It was

(1) A deliverance from extreme danger. They were shut in by the mountains, the sea, and the Egyptians. There seemed to be no way of escape.

(2) A deliverance marvellously effected. A path was opened through the sea, whose waters stood as guardian-walls on either hand of them.

(3) A deliverance effected with the utmost ease. The Poet represents the sea as dried up at the rebuke of the Lord. Nature is thoroughly loyal to the Divine will.

(4) A deliverance gloriously complete. Israel not only crossed over in safety, but the waters covered their enemies, there was not one of them left.

2. His goodness was displayed for His own glory. He saved them for His Names sake, that He might make His mighty power to be known. Notwithstanding their offences He saved them because of what He is in Himself,a being of unchanging truth and mercy; and that the glory of His power might be manifested.

3. The display of His goodness awoke them to a transient exercise of faith and praise. Then believed they His words; they sang His praise. (See Exo. 14:31; Exo. 15:1.) For a time distrust gave place to faith, and murmuring to praise. But it was only for a little time; for both the faith and the song are mentioned, not in praise of their conduct, but only as still further proof that whatever impressions were produced, whether by Gods judgments or His mercies, were but temporary and on the surface. The goodness of Israel was like the dew, early gone.Perowne.

CONCLUSION.This scene from Hebrew history presents to us

(1) Admonition. Let us not sin against that Being who is ever manifesting so much goodness to us.

(2) Encouragement. God does not deal with us after our sins, &c.

SIN IN ITS ROOT, EXPRESSIONS, AND PUNISHMENTS

(Psa. 106:13-23)

We now come to the confession of the transgressions of the Israelites in the wilderness; and in the verses now before us three of their offences are mentioned. As the Homiletic suggestions arising out of these sins and their punishments will be brought out in treating of their history as recorded in Exodus and Numbers, we shall simply deal with the points suggested by the Psalmist.

I. Sin in its root. They soon forgat His works They forgat God their Saviour, which had done great things in Egypt; wondrous things in the land of Ham; terrible things by the Red Sea. (See our remarks on Psa. 106:7, and on Psa. 78:11-12.) The small impression which the greatest mercies and most marvellous deliverances made upon them is astonishing. Bad as men are, it is not often that favours so extraordinary are forgotten so quickly. They made haste, they forgat His works. They, as it were, manifested impatience to rid themselves of the recollection of His glorious deeds wrought for them. Even the mighty miracles in Egypt and at the Red Sea passed away from them as tales that were told. Had they retained in their mind the great things which God had done for them, they would have had in these things such a revelation of His character as would have precluded the committal of their offences against Him. Forgetfulness of deeds of marvellous mercy and power wrought on their behalf, and of Him who wrought them, was the root from which their base rebellion sprang.

II. Sin in its expressions. From the root of forgetfulness of God there sprang up some base and pernicious branches. Here are three heinous sins

1. Their sin as regards the Divine provision. They waited not for His counsel; but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, &c. They were not content, says Perowne, to exercise a patient dependence upon God, leaving it to Him to fulfil His own purposes in His own way, but would rather rule Him than submit themselves to His rule. (See Homiletic Commentary on Psa. 78:17-18.)

2. Their sin as regards the Divinely-appointed leaders. They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the Lord. (Num. 16:1-3.) The reference in this place is rather to the rebellion which resulted from the envy, than to the envy itself. Aaron is denominated the saint, or the holy one of Jehovah, because of his priestly office. It is an official, not a personal designation. The leaders of the insurrection claimed that the whole congregation was holy, that they were all set apart and consecrated, and were therefore on an equality with Moses and Aaron. Rebellion against the Divinely-appointed leaders was equivalent to rebellion against Him who appointed them.

3. Their sin as regards the Divine Person. They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass. (Exodus 32) They madecontrary to the prohibition in Exo. 20:4-5a calf, intended to represent an ox (comp. Psa. 106:20). They would gladly have made an ox, but they were not able to get this length, so contemptible was the whole undertaking. The name calf is everywhere used in contempt; the worshippers without doubt called it a bull; according to Philo they made a golden bull.Hengstenberg. Their glory was the Lord God, and they changed Him for the likeness of an ox that eateth grass. (Comp. Rom. 1:23.) The intention of the people was to worship God under the symbol of the calf, but as this symbolising was utterly incompatible with the nature of Jehovah, and opposed to His express command, it was regarded by God as bartering Him for the image, the renunciation of Jehovah for the model of a calf. Miserable and terribly sinful absurdity to exchange the Lord of heaven and earth for a calf-like model of a grass-eating ox! The sin which began in forgetfulness of God ended in idolatry. The development of evil is from bad to worse, and is sometimes fearfully rapid.

II. Sin in its punishments. We have here

1. Punishment corresponding with sin. (On the punishment of those who lusted for flesh in the wilderness see Homiletic Commentary on Psa. 78:30-31). He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul. The soul here means the animal soul, the physical life. The Lord gratified their sinful desire, and in so doing and by the same means punished their sin; for they ate until there came on a wasting sickness which led to alarming mortality. But although the soul is here used with its physical meaning, the figurative sense is equally true, and equally pertinent. The very heart and spirit of a man, when bent only or supremely on the satisfaction of its earthly desires and appetites, is always dried up and withered. It becomes a lean, shrunk, miserable thing, always craving more food, yet drawing thence no nourishment, magnas inter opes inops.Perowne.

Heaven is most just, and of our pleasant vices
Makes instruments to scourge us.

Shakespeare.

In the rebellion against Moses and Aaron we note a correspondence between the sin and its punishment. In the rebellion against Moses, who was the ruler in all affairs of state, Dathan and Abiram, as princes of the tribe of Reuben, Jacobs eldest son, would claim to be chief magistrates, by the so-much-admired right of primogeniture. And for rebelling against the civil authority they were punished by the earth, which opened and swallowed them up, as not fit to go upon Gods ground, because they would not submit to Gods government.M. Henry. In the rebellion against Aaron, which took place among the Levites and was headed by Korah, a fire was kindled in their company, a flame burnt up the wicked. These had sinned by fire and were punished by fire like the sons of Aaron (Lev. 10:2). (Comp. Num. 16:1-35.)

2. Punishment averted by intercession. When the people made and worshipped the golden calf, God said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen stood before Him in the breach, to turn away His wrath, lest He should destroy them. Moses is here compared to a brave soldier who, when a breach has been made in the walls of the fortress which he is defending, plants himself in the breach, and so keeps back the invaders. (Comp. Exo. 32:11-14.) God would have destroyed the people, if Moses had not interposed and interceded for them. See here

1. The power of prayer.

2. The greatness of the Divine mercy.

3. An illustration of the intercession of Christ for our race.

FORGETFULNESS OF THE DIVINE WORKS

(Psa. 106:13.But they soon forgot His works.)

I. That the works of God are supremely worthy of an attentive review, and a thankful remembrance.

1. What did they forget? His works. Review all their varietythe creation, the appointment of a salvation, the work of redemption, the works of Providence; they are to be considered in their peculiar aspect, whether prosperous or adverse. Review their multitude; they are to be considered in their meaning. Providence is our daily preacher.

2. What sort of recollection should it be? Not a mere notional recollectiona recollection accompanied with suitable emotionsastonishment, gratitude, love, and heartfelt consideration. It must be a devotional and practical recollection.

3. Why are these works to be remembered? Because they are Gods works; because they are all-important; because the least of them is the purchase of infinite price.

II. That there is in human nature a strange tendency to forget the works of God.

This is no calumny on human nature. It is the express statement of Scripture, and is confirmed by daily experience. It arises from

1. The injury the memory has sustained by the Fall: it retains what is impure, but not what is holy.

2. The bias of our mind is directed to earthly things.

3. The secret disinclination to contemplate a subject in which God is intimately concerned.

III. The sinfulness and danger of thus forgetting the works of God.

1. It arises out of a sinful state of mind, and it is culpable forgetfulness.

2. It is an actual transgression of Gods Word. (Deu. 4:9; 1Ch. 16:12.)

3. It involves in it the commission of other sinsinconsideration and ingratitude.

4. They who forget their mercies forfeit them.

5. God has denounced fearful judgments on such. (Psa. 9:17.)

IV. What are the best means of preserving in our minds a grateful sense of the Divine goodness?

1. Seek that you be renewed and sanctified.

2. Attention will much assist in the recollection of mercies. (Pro. 4:20.)

3. Meditation cannot be done in a crowd; then seek solitude.

4. Order and arrangement are like cells in which our mercies may be deposited and called out in order.

5. Strive to maintain lively affections towards God; for what we love we do not easily forget.

LESSONS:

1. How mistaken are those who suppose that forgetfulness is not a sin!
2. Here a wide field is opened for the exercise of repentance.
3. Reprove those who have a good memory for their calamities and a bad one for their mercies.
4. Address those who will not recollect. God will not forget.George Clayton.From The Homiletic Quarterly.

THE GRANTING OF SELFISH DESIRES AN INJURY TO THE SOUL

(Psa. 106:15)

The history of the event referred to is given in Numbers 11.

I. Many things which are good in themselves may not be good for us individually. Material wealth is good; but upon attaining it some men have become spiritually bankrupt. (Luk. 12:15-21.) Popularity may be a good thing; but, having gained it, many a man has lost his integrity, independence, heroism. How this view of things corrects the prevalent notion of success in life! Success in life, says the world, is getting on in business, making money quickly, living well (by which is meant eating and drinking luxuriously), mixing in good society. How shallow, false, ruinous! These things may not only consist with spiritual poverty, imbecility, and ruin, but very frequently lead to them.

II. Many things may be good for us at one time and under certain circumstances which may not be good for us at another time and under other circumstances. The flesh which the Israelites desired would have been good for them when they arrived in Canaan; but in the wilderness, where they should have been satisfied with the Divinely-provided manna, it proved a terrible curse.

III. The most fervent prayers are not always most acceptable. The motive and the character of the fervour must be taken into consideration. Fervent prayers are sometimes only the passionate cries of selfish heartsthe determined pursuit of an object of selfish desire.

IV. God may grant the passionate desire of a selfish heart with terrible results. He may give the fancied good which is so eagerly demanded, and it may prove to be a direful injury. It was so in the case before us. Instances are numerous in which unsubmissive requests have been granted with most painful results.

V. God may refuse to grant the request of even a good man, and the refusal may be a blessing. It was in love that the Lord refused the repeated request of St. Paul for the removal of the thorn in the flesh. That torturing thorn was the means of preventing the spiritual pride which might otherwise have effected his overthrow. (1Co. 12:7-9.)

We, ignorant of ourselves,

Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good; so find we profit By losing of our prayers.Shakespeare.

VI. The wisest, holiest, most acceptable prayer is for conformity with the will of God. Not my will, but Thine be done, expresses the true spirit of acceptable prayer.

Covet earnestly the best gifts. Seek those things which are pure blessings for all persons, at all times and under all circumstances.

A SAD PICTURE OF HUMAN PERVERSITY

(Psa. 106:24-27)

The sinful perversity of the Israelites appears here in several mournful aspects.

I. Despising the choicest inheritance. They despised the pleasant land. Margin: A land of desire. Perowne: They rejected the desirable land. (Deu. 8:7-9; Deu. 11:9.) The Israelites frequently manifested a desire to return to Egypt. The good land before them had few attractions for them. God calls men to holiness, communion with Himself, heaven. All who do not heartily respond to His call despise the most glorious inheritance.

II. Disbelieving the best authenticated word. They believed not His word. They had proved the reliableness of the word of God; yet they did not believe it as regards the land which He had promised to them. They preferred to accept the testimony of the unbelieving and cowardly spies. (Num. 14:1-6; Num. 14:10.) We have here

1. Unbelief dishonouring God.

2. Unbelief excluding man from his inheritance. Mans unbelief has kept him out of many a good land.

III. Murmuring against the arrangements of the wisest and kindest of beings. They murmured in their tents. This they did repeatedly. (Num. 14:2-3; Num. 14:27.) They complained of Moses, of their food, of the hardships of their journey, of God. They did this when in their tents; when they had a comfortable home; when safe; when provided for; when under the direct Divine protection and care. So men often complain; perhaps oftener when they have many comforts than when they have few.Barnes.

IV. Disobeying the commands of the most sovereign authority. They hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord. Unbelief of Gods word speedily leads to refusal to listen to His voice and disregard of His commands. They disobeyed their Creator, Sustainer, Sovereign, and generous Benefactornot only the greatest, but the best being. His will is supremely binding. Yet they disobeyed it.

V. Receiving deserved punishment. Therefore He lifted up His hand against them, to overthrow them in the wilderness. The lifting up of the hand is the gesture of swearing. Ye shall not come into the land which I lifted up My hand to make you dwell therein (Num. 14:30). I lifted up My hand also to them in the wilderness, &c. (Eze. 20:23). I sware in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest. It is fitting that they who despise their inheritance shall not enter upon it.

VI. Entailing misery upon their posterity. He lifted up His hand to overthrow their seed also among the nations, and to scatter them in the lands. The result of their rebellion and murmuring would not terminate with them. It would extend to their posterity, and the rebellion of the fathers would be remembered in distant generations. The overthrow of the nation, and its captivity in Babylon, was thus one of the remote consequences of their rebellion in the wilderness.Barnes.

CONCLUSION.

1. Shun sin; for by committing it you may hand down to your descendants a heritage of woe.

2. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, &c. (Heb. 3:12; Heb. 4:1; Heb. 4:11).

PASSAGES FROM THE HISTORY OF A REBELLIOUS PEOPLE

(Psa. 106:28-33)

The heart grows weary and sad as we follow this narrative with its abounding unbelief, ingratitude, meanness, and rebellion. The picture which the Poet draws of Israel is painfully sombre, yet it is true. In no portion of it has he inserted too much shadow. We have in these verses

I. An incorrigibly rebellious people.

1. Here is idolatry. They joined themselves also unto Baal-Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead. Baal was the name of an idol; Peor was the name of a mountain in Moab where the idol was worshipped. The sacrifices of the dead are the sacrifices offered to idols, in contradistinction from the living God (Num. 25:1-3).

2. Here is adultery. The worship of Baal-Peor was connected with licentious rites. Fuerst: Baal of the shame uncovering, in whose honour virgins yielded up their innocence. (Num. 25:1-6.)

3. Here is rebellious murmuring. They angered Him also at the Waters of Strife (Num. 20:1-5; Num. 20:13). Here in the fortieth year of their wandering they are still an unbelieving, complaining, rebellious people.

II. A brave man acting as minister of justice in a critical time. Then stood up Phinehas and executed judgment, and so the plague was stayed (Num. 25:5-8).

1. Here is a brave act of justice. Moses had commanded the judges of Israel to stay the idolaters; but they seemed to have been deficient in the strength and courage necessary to enable them to obey the command; they only stand and weep. At this critical moment, with zeal and courage and energy, Phinehas rose up and slew two of the offenders of the first rank.

2. A brave act of justice staying the Divine vengeance. And the so plague was stayed. This act of justice was propitiatory; it appeased and turned away the wrath of God. National justice prevents national judgments.

3. A brave act of justice recognised and rewarded by God. And that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore (Num. 25:10-13). Perowne says: It was looked upon as a righteous act, and rewarded accordingly. This verse has given occasion to whole disquisitions on the subject of justification, with which it really has nothing to do, though at least the language is in perfect accordance with that of St. James (Jas. 2:20-26). The reward of this righteousness was the perpetual continuance of the priesthood in the family. Hereafter the position of Phinehas and his posterity was one of marked distinction and honour.

III. A holy man sinning and suffering by reason of the sin of others. It went ill with Moses for their sakes; because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips. Through the sin of the people Moses lost his self-control, was betrayed into the utterance of unbecoming and rash words, and to undue assumption of power; and in consequence was not permitted to enter the promised land. (Num. 20:7-12.)

1. Their provocation of Moses agravated the guilt of the rebellious people.

2. Their provocation does not exonerate Moses from guilt. Provocation is not compulsion.

3. God punishes sin even in the best of men, in whom it is a great exception.

IV. The great God contending against human sin.

1. By the plague, because of the idolatry and licentiousness of the people. The plague brake in upon them. Those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.

2. By the exclusion of Moses from the promised land. God is the determined antagonist of moral evil. The arrangements of the material universe, the workings of Providence, and the grand aim of redemption, are all utterly hostile to sin. The voice of God to man concerning sin in all history is, Oh, do not this abominable thing which I hate! From the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ He utters this entreaty in a manner that ought to arrest the attention and secure the compliance of all men. Let us listen to His voice, and heartily strive to comply with His entreaty.

SIN IN ITS PROGRESS, POLLUTION, AND PUNISHMENT

(Psa. 106:34-43)

In these verses we have

I. Sin in its progress. Here is

1. Disobedience. They did not destroy the nations concerning whom the Lord commanded them. (For the command and its reasons see Homiletic Commentary on Exo. 23:27-33; Exo. 34:11-16; Num. 33:50-56.) Though the command was express, solemn, and repeatedly proclaimed, yet they did not obey it by driving out or destroying the Canaanites.

2. Evil associations. They were mingled among the heathen and learned their works. By intermarriage and commerce they became mixed up among the Canaanites, and conformed to their evil customs and practices. Had they not first been guilty of disobedience, they could not have been guilty of entering into these prohibited and evil associations.

3. Idolatry. They served their idols, which were a snare unto them (Jdg. 2:11-13). God had warned them that, if they did not drive out the Canaanites, they would be snared by them and drawn into their idolatrous customs. And this result very speedily appeared.

4. Offering human sacrifices. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, &c. Hengstenberg: And offered their sons and their daughters to the lords. Perowne: And they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to false gods. Heb. = lords; it is here used to designate the gods of the Canaanites. God had strictly prohibited the offering of these sacrifices (Deu. 12:29-32; Deu. 18:10). Yet they offered them, thus adding to their idolatry the most unnatural and horrible murder. Now, mark their progress in evil. The way of sin, says Matthew Henry, is down hill; omissions make way for commissions; when they neglect to destroy the heathen, the next news we hear is, They were mingled among the heathen, made leagues with them, and contracted an intimacy with them, so that they learned their works. The beginning of idolatry and superstition, like that of strife, is as the letting forth of water, and there is no villany which those that venture upon it can be sure they shall stop short of, for God justly gives them up to a reprobate mind. Avoid the first step in evil courses.

These sins are still flourishing in different forms. The professed people of God are still guilty of disobedience in many things, and of conformity to the world in many customs that are questionable, and in some which are unmistakably evil; they are often found bowing at the shrines of mammon and fashion, and still they sacrifice their sons and daughters to idols. Among us such sacrifices take place by careless bringing up of children, when parents encourage them, for example, in pride and other sins, offer them to the god of the world, carefully inculcate the maxims of the world, and fill them with love of vanity and show.Berleb.

II. Sin in its pollution. The land was polluted with blood. Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring after their own inventions. The very soil itself is here represented as polluted and accursed by reason of the sin of the people. The religious practices which they had adopted became a source of terrible contamination and corruption to their nature. Their very worship was spiritual whoredom. This corrupting tendency of sin is one of its most fearful characteristics. It effects a terrible deterioration in mans moral and religious nature.

III. Sin in its punishment. Psa. 106:40-43.

1. Their punishment was long delayed. Many times did He deliver them. The reference is to the deliverances effected on their behalf during the time of the judges, and afterwards during the time of the kings. Jdg. 2:11-19 furnishes a clear exposition of Psa. 106:43. The Lord was loath to leave them in the hands of their enemies, or to send them into captivity. He is slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

2. Their punishment was an expression of Divine anger. Therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against His people, insomuch that He abhorred His own inheritance. Gods anger burns against sin and against the workers of iniquity. God pities the sinner as a man, and seeks to save him, but as a worker of iniquity He abhors him. Sin persisted in renders the people of God an offence and abomination unto Him. Nothing shows the enormity of sin more than this, that it renders those who were once well-pleasing in His sight loathsome unto Him.

3. Their punishment corresponded with their sin. He gave them into the hand of the heathen, &c. (Psa. 106:41-42). This punishment the Lord had threatened them with if they failed to drive out the Canaanites. (Num. 33:55-56.) And it came to pass according to His word. Their punishment grew out of their sin, and was its natural result. In opposition to the will of God, they intermingled with the heathen and adopted their worst customs; and, after long forbearance and many deliverances, God at length abandoned them to the heathen, who led them into captivity, and tyrannically lorded it over them. They had forsaken the Lord, and given their hearts to heathen customs, and after long patience the Lord forsook them, leaving them to the heathens, whose ways they so much admired. Sinners often see themselves ruined by those by whom they have suffered themselves to be debauched. Satan, who is a tempter, will be a tormentor. The heathen hated them. Apostates lose all the love on Gods side, and get none on Satans. Thus a mans punishment is not a something tacked on to his sin, but ever grows out of his sin. The wicked man collects the fuel for his own hell-fire.

CONCLUSION. The chief Lessons of our subject are:

(1) Do not enter upon an evil course.

(2) If any one find himself already in the way of evil, let him retrace his steps at once. Let the wicked forsake his way, &c.

(3) The surest means of guarding against evil courses is to walk diligently in the way prescribed by God. He will give us wisdom and strength so to do, if we ask Him.

STAGES FROM MISERY TO EXULTATION

(Psa. 106:44-47)

The Poet now presents to us another aspect of the dealings of the Lord with His people. He visited them in anger, because of their ungodly counsels and iniquitous practices. But He never forgets His loving-kindness and His truth concerning them. Soon as their sufferings led them to cry unto Him, He sent them relief. The Psalmist indicates the stages from misery to exultation.

I. Misery leading to a cry for mercy.

He heard their cry. In their prosperity they had forgotten the Lord, had forsaken Him for idols. In their misery they cried to Him for relief. This is common. Sometimes the cry is the utterance of mere selfishness. In this case, when the suffering is removed, men pursue their old course of ingratitude and rebellion. Sometimes the cry is the utterance of penitence. In this case the sin which caused the suffering is felt more keenly than any outward affliction. Reformation of life is the result. In the former case the cry is worthless and mean; in the latter it indicates that suffering has led to gracious results.

II. A cry for mercy securing the Divine regard. He regarded their affliction when He heard their cry.

1. God heard their cry. The cry of distress, the sigh of unutterable sorrow, the whispered longing of the heart, the reverent prayer of devout worship, all are heard by God. This is a fact fraught with consolation, inspiration, and strength.

2. God graciously regarded their cry. He remembered for them His covenant, and repented according to the multitude of His mercies. Perowne: And pitied them according to the greatness of His loving-kindness. Gods repentance is not a change of His will, but of His work. Repentance with man is the changing of his will; repentance with God is the willing of a change. Mutatio rei, non Dei; effectus, non affectus; facti, non consilii. In answer to their cry the Lord turned to them in mercy. Man may forget Him, but He never forgets His covenant. Great is the sin of man; but the mercy of God is incomparably greater. The reason of His loving-kindness to the Jews, and to all men, is to be found in the perfections of His own nature.

III. The Divine regard securing relief from trouble. He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captive. Notice here

1. The power of God over all men. He made the hearts of the oppressors of His people to relent towards them, so that they treated them with kindness. The kings heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever He will. Even so can He turn the hearts of all men.

2. The kindness of God to His people. He influenced the hearts of their oppressors in their favour. He employs His power to promote the interests of His Church.

IV. Relief from trouble awakening prayer for complete salvation. Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the heathen, &c. The grace of God, already shown to His people, says Perowne, leads to the prayer of this versea supplication for which the whole Psalm has prepared the way. The language would seem to indicate that the Psalm was written in exile, though the same prayer might also have been uttered by one of those who returned in the first caravan, on behalf of his brethren who were still dispersed.

1. The beginning of the work of Divine grace is an encouragement to expect and pray for full salvation.

2. The Divine praise should ever be regarded as the grand end of salvation. The glory of redemption is due wholly and solely to God in Christ.

DOXOLOGY

(Psa. 106:48)

This Doxology marks the close of the fourth book of the Psalms. For its Homiletic suggestions see a Sketch on the Doxology to the first book, Psa. 41:13; on that to the second book, Psa. 72:18-20; and on that to the third book, Psa. 89:52.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Psalms 106

DESCRIPTIVE TITLE

Humbled Israel Confessing Her Sins as a Nation.

ANALYSIS

Enclosed within an Introduction of Praise and Prayer, Psa. 106:1-5, and a Conclusion of Prayer and Doxology, Psa. 106:47-48, stands a National Confession of Sin, Psa. 106:6-46, Relieved only by the Merciful Deliverances of Jehovah, the Intercession of Moses, Psa. 106:23, the Interposition of Phinehas, Psa. 106:30, and the Compassion of Israels Captors, Psa. 106:46. The Sins Confessed are chiefly the following:Incredulity, Psa. 106:7; Murmuring for Food and Drink, Psa. 106:13; Rebellion against their Leaders, Psa. 106:16; Worship of the Golden Calf, Psa. 106:19; Refusal of the Land, Psa. 106:24; Worship of the Moabitish Baal, Psa. 106:28; Rebellion against Moses and Aaron, Psa. 106:32; Non-Extermination of Idolatrous Peoples, and the Taking Part in their Licentious and Cruel Idolatry, Psa. 106:34-40.

(P.R.I.) Praise ye Yah![434]

[434] Cp. 105 notes at beginning and end.

Give ye thanks unto Jehovah for he is good,

for to the ages is his kindness.[435]

[435] Cp. refrain of 136; also 1Ch. 16:34, Ezr. 3:11, Jer. 33:11.

Who can express the mighty deeds of Jehovah?

cause to be heard all his praise?

How happy they who observe justice,

he that doeth[436] righteousness at all times!

[436] Some cod. (w. Aram., Sep., Syr., Vul.): they that doGn.

Remember me[437] O Jehovah when thou favourest thy people, [438]

[437] Some cod. (w. Sep., Syr., Vul.): usGn.

visit me[438] with thy salvation:

[438] When thou again (cp. Psa. 106:47) showest thyself gracious unto themDel.

That I[439] may gaze upon the good things of thy chosen ones,

[439] Or: we (according to the pronoun adopted above).

may rejoice in the rejoicing of thy nation,

may glory with thine inheritance.

We have sinned[440] with our fathers,

[440] Here begins the confession of sin. Cp. 1Ki. 8:46-53, Nehemiah 9

we have acted perversely have been lawless:

Our fathers in Egypt heeded not thy wondrous works,

they remembered not the abundance of thy kindnesses,

but rebelled against the Most High[441] at the Red-sea.[442]

[441] So Gt. Cp. Psa. 78:17; Psa. 78:56Gn. So also Br.

[442] Cp. Exo. 14:11-12.

Yet saved he them for the sake of his name,

to make known his heroic might:

So he rebuked the Red-sea and it dried up,[443]

[443] Exo. 14:21-29.

and he led them in the deeps as a wilderness.[444]

[444] Isa. 63:13.

Thus saved he them from the hand of a hater,

and redeemed them from the hand of a foe;

And the waters covered their adversaries,

not one from among them was left:

So they believed in his words,[445]

[445] Exo. 14:30-31.

they sang his praise.[446]

[446] Exodus 15.

They soon forgot his works,[447]

[447] Or: doings.

they tarried not for his counsel:

But longed a longing in the desert,

and put GOD to the proof in the waste;[448]

[448] Exodus 15, 16, 17; Numbers 11.

And he gave them their request,

and sent them food[449] to their desire.[450]

[449] So Br. The most probable reading of a difficult passage [mazon for razon]. Maclaren, content with razon [leanness, wasting] smartly says: Full-fed flesh makes starved souls.

[450] Ml.: soul. Cp. Psa. 78:18.

And they were jealous of Moses in the camp,

of Aaron the consecrated one of Jehovah:[451]

[451] Numbers 16, 17.

Earth opened and swallowed up Dathan,

and covered the company[452] of Abiram;

[452] U.: congregation.

And a fire consumed their company, [452]

a flame licked up the lawless ones.

They made a calf in Horeb,[453]

[453] Exodus 32; Deu. 9:8-12.

and bowed down to a molten image;

And changed my[454] glory

[454] So it was originally; but was changed by the Sopherim to their glory. G. Intro., 360. Cp. ante, Intro., Chap. I., Obs. 1.

for the similitude of an ox eating herbage.

They forgot GOD their saviour,

though he had done[455] great things in Egypt,

[455] Ml.: Doing.

Wondrous works in the land of Ham,

fearful things at the Red-sea.

Then would he have commanded to destroy them,

had not Moses his chosen

stood forth in the breach before him,
to turn back his wrath from inflicting ruin.

Moreover they refused the desired land,[456]

[456] Numbers 13, 14.

they believed not his word;

And they murmured in their tents,

they hearkened not unto the voice of Jehovah.

Then lifted he his hand unto them,

that he would let them fall[457] in the desert;

[457] The permissive hiphil. There is no need to introduce active causation here.

And would disperse[458] their seed among the nations,

[458] So it shd. be (w. Syr.; cp. Eze. 20:23)Gn.

and would scatter them through the lands.

And they joined[459] themselves to Baal-peor,[460]

[459] Points to the prostitution with which Baal Peor, this Moabitish Priapus, was worshippedDel.

[460] Baal of PeorDr. Num. 25:2-5.

and did eat the sacrifices of the dead:

So they gave provocation by their doings,

and a plague made a breach among them.

Then stood forth Phinehas[461] and interposed,

[461] Num. 25:7-13.

and stayed was the plague;

And it was accounted to him as righteousness,

to generation after generation unto the ages.

And they gave provocation at the waters of Meribah,

and it fared ill with Moses for their sakes;

For they embittered his spirit,

and he spake rashly with his lips.[462]

[462] Num. 20:11 f, Deu. 1:37; Deu. 32:51.

They did not destroy the peoples,

of whom Jehovah had spoken to them;[463]

[463] Exo. 23:32; Exo. 34:12, Deu. 7:16, Jdg. 1:36.

But had fellowship with the nations,

and learnt their doings.

And they served their idols,

and they[464] became to them a lure;

[464] Some cod. (w. Sep., Vul.): itGn.

And they sacrificed their sons

and their daughters unto demons.[465]

[465] Unto Shedim: Or: demi-gods; mentioned besides only in Deu. 32:17Dr. Cp. Deu. 12:31.

And they poured out innocent blood,

the blood of their sons and their daughters,
whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan,
and polluted was the land with bloodshed:

And they became unclean in their deeds,

and unchaste in their practices;

And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against his people,

and he abhorred his inheritance.

So he gave them over into the hand of the nations,

and they who hated them ruled over them;

And their enemies oppressed them,

and they had to bow down under their hand.

Many times he rescued them,

but they rebelled in their counsel,
and sank low in their iniquity.

Then looked he on the strait they were in,

when he heard their piercing[466] cry;

[466] U.: ringing. As in I. K. 8:28 . rinnah is a loud lamentationDel.

And he remembered for them his covenant,

and was moved to pity according to the abundance of his kindnesses;[467]

[467] Authorities divided between singular and plural.

And gave them to be objects of compassion

before all their captors.

Save us Jehovah our God,

and gather us from among the nations:
to give thanks unto thy holy name,
to make our boast of thy praise.

Blessed be Jehovah God of Israel,

from antiquity even unto futurity![468]

[468] Ml. (as at the close of Book I., Psalms 41): From the age (concealed duration in the past) even unto the age (concealed duration in the future).

and let all the people sayAmen.[469]

[469] M.T.: Praise ye Yah (not found in Sep. or Syr.Gn.) carried forward to head of next psalm. See notes at beginning and end of Psalms 105.

(Nm.)

PARAPHRASE

Psalms 106

Hallelujah! Thank You, Lord! How good You are! Your love for us continues on forever.
2 Who can ever list the glorious miracles of God? Who can ever praise Him half enough?
3 Happiness comes to those who are fair to others and are always just and good.
4 Remember me too, O Lord, while You are blessing and saving Your people.
5 Let me share in Your chosen ones prosperity and rejoice in all their joys, and receive the glory You gave to them.
6 Both we and our fathers have sinned so much.
7 They werent impressed by the wonder of Your miracles in Egypt, and soon forgot Your many acts of kindness to them. Instead they rebelled against You at the Red Sea.
8 Even so You saved themto defend the honor of Your name and demonstrate Your power to all the world.
9 You commanded the Red Sea to divide, forming a dry road across its bottom. Yes, as dry as any desert!
10 Thus You rescued them from their enemies.
11 Then the water returned and covered the road and drowned their foes; not one survived.
12 Then at last His people believed Him. Then they finally sang His praise.
13 Yet how quickly they forgot again! They wouldnt wait for Him to act,
14 But demanded better food,[470] testing Gods patience to the breaking point.

[470] Literally, lusted exceedingly.

15 So He gave them their demands, but sent them leanness in their souls.[471]

[471] Or, but sent a plague to punish them.

16 They were envious of Moses; yes, and Aaron, too, the man anointed[472] by God as His priest.

[472] Literally, the holy one of Jehovah.

17 Because of this the earth opened and swallowed Dathan, Abiram and his friends;
18 And fire fell from heaven to consume these wicked men.
19, 20 For they preferred a statue of an ox that eats grass, to the glorious presence of God Himself.
21, 22 Thus they despised their Savior who had done such mighty miracles in Egypt and at the Sea.
23 So the Lord declared He would destroy them. But Moses, His chosen one, stepped into the breach between the people and their God and begged Him to turn from His wrath, and not destroy them.
24 They refused to enter the Promised Land, for they wouldnt believe His solemn oath to care for them.
25 Instead, they pouted in their tents and mourned and despised His command.
26 Therefore He swore that He would kill them in the wilderness
27 And send their children away to distant lands as exiles.
28 Then our fathers joined the worshipers of Baal at Peor and even offered sacrifices to the dead![473]

[473] Or, to lifeless idols.

29 With all these things they angered Himand so a plague broke out upon them
30 And continued until Phineas executed those whose sins had caused the plague to start.
31 (For this good deed Phineas will be remembered forever.)
32 At Meribah, too, Israel angered God, causing Moses serious trouble,
33 For he became angry and spoke foolishly.
34 Nor did Israel destroy the nations in the land as God had told them to,
35 But mingled in among the heathen and learned their evil ways,
36 Sacrificing to their idols, and were led away from God.
37, 38 They even sacrificed their little children to the demonsthe idols of Canaanshedding innocent blood and polluting the land with murder.
39 Their evil deeds defiled them, for their love of idols was adultery in the sight of God.
40 That is why Jehovahs anger burned against His people, and He abhorred them.
41, 42 That is why He let the heathen nations crush them. They were ruled by those who hated them and oppressed by their enemies.
43 Again and again He delivered them from their slavery, but they continued to rebel against Him, and were finally destroyed by their sin.
44 Yet, even so, He listened to their cries and heeded their distress;
45 He remembered His promises to them and relented because of His great love,
46 And caused even their enemies who captured them to pity them.
47 O Lord God, save us! Regather us from the nations so we can thank Your holy name and rejoice and praise You.

48 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Let all the people say, Amen! Hallelujah!

EXPOSITION

Attention has already been called to this psalm (see Exposition of 105) as not only one of a series of historical psalmsand as such serving an important purpose in the training of the people,but especially as a national confession of sin. This characteristic is so marked, and morally so significant, as to be worthy of further thought. Not only are our minds arrested by the evident honesty of the nation, and especially its prophets, in thus recording their own shame; but we are made to pause and ponder in presence of this spiritual phenomenon. If we try to conceive of this psalm as being originated earlier than the Exile, we shall probably fail. We can easily imagine an Isaiah or a Jeremiah charging sin home upon the people; but we find the greatest difficulty in representing it to ourselves as possible that they could have led the way in a national confession such as this psalm supplies. The time was not ripe for this: the atmosphere of public confession did not yet exist. As we read the great national confession of sin preserved in Nehemiah 9, or that found in the early part of Daniel 9 which though not national in form is nevertheless intensely and intentionally national in spirit, we feel at home in the prayer and realise that the prayer is at home in its historical and literary surroundings. It fits in with the time: is the genuine product of the strange and startling events which have come to pass in Israelitish history. There had been earlier invasions of the holy land, and the lessons of Divine providence had sunk deep into the best and most thoughtful minds in Israel; but nothing like this had happened before: that Jerusalem itself should be overthrown, and the whole land permanently brought under the heel of the Foreigner. The effect on the minds of the people must have been profound. There was no denying the great, sad fact of Hebrew humiliation; and though many of the people may have shrewdly and stoically adapted themselves to this revolutionary change in their environment, yet the moral only needed to be pointedly drawn and strongly driven home by prophetic voices in and after the Babylonish Exile, to carry home conviction to the average Hebrew mind. This is not to say, that the spiritual sense of humiliation was equally deep in all minds; but it is to say, that when prophets declaredOur sins as a nation have brought these evils upon us, the general conscience must have respondedThere is no denying it! This acquiescence in the undeniable, it was, which created the atmosphere in which public confession of national sin could live; for it should be well noted that both these elementsthat the confession is public and the sin nationalare involved in the case now before us. Its being publicly made with general consent silences cavil; and the sins being national lifts them up to the level of undeniable notoriety. From this point of view, survey the long catalogue of sins, beginning with the first protests of incredulity in Egypt, down to the latest practices of licentious cruelty perpetrated in Palestine. Imagine the humiliation and severe spiritual discipline involved in reciting so many national sins in a single psalm. What spiritual authority in these Western Isles would dare to draw up such a catalogue of national offences against the laws of God and man? How can we picture to ourselves congregations throughout our land publicly humbling themselves under the piled-up iniquities of many centuries? The attempt to conceive these things may open our eyes to something of the startlingly unique spiritual phenomenon which the ancient temple-use of this psalm presents to our view. No man can study the Hebrew nation successfully who does not study its solidarity; and no man can appreciate its solidarity in the highest realm of the spirit, who does not bend his mind to the spectacle of a nation confessing the sins it had committed from the Exodus to the Exile. That is the spectacle we have here.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

What is the major emphasis of this psalm?

How is the element of honesty of the nation and their prophets seen?

At about what time was this psalm originated?

What other texts seem to be like this psalm?

There seems to be the most profound of impressions involved in this psalm. Why?

When the prophets said: Our sins as a nation have brought these evils upon uswhat was the response?

Catalogue the sins of Israel and relate them to America. What should be our attitude?

Rotherham cannot imagine the British Isles confessing their sins in 1909. What has happened since should teach us something. Discuss.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(1) This formula of praise in the Jewish Church occupied, as a choral refrain, a similar position to the Gloria Patri in Christian worship. The precise date of its first appearance cannot be ascertained. The chronicler includes it in the compilation from different psalms, which he introduces as sung when the Ark was brought to Zion (1Ch. 16:34): and represents it not only as chanted by the procession of priests and Levites, but as bursting spontaneously from the lips of the assembled multitudes at the dedication of Solomons Temple (2Ch. 7:3). He mentions it also in connection with Jehoshaphats revival of choral music. And it is probable that he was not guilty of any great anachronism in giving it this early existence; for Jeremiah speaks of it as a refrain as familiar as those customary at weddings (Jer. 33:11), and, indeed, foretells its revival as of a practice once common, but long disused. But the fact that it is found in four liturgical hymns, besides Psalms 136, where it becomes a refrain after every verse, as well as its express mention in Ezr. 3:11 as used at the dedication of the second Temple, shows that its use became more general after the Captivity; and it was in use in the Maccaban period (1Ma. 4:24).

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

(1-5) These verses form an introduction to the psalm, and make it evident that while the writer spoke as one of a community, and for the community, he still felt his personal relation to Jehovah.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

1. Praise ye the Lord Hebrew, Hallelujah. The Septuagint and Vulgate place this word (in Hebrew two words, hallelu jah,) as the title of the psalm, and as such we must here accept it. It is not found in 1Ch 16:34, from which this verse is taken. This is the first of a series of Hallelujah Psalms; so called because they begin with this word, consisting of Psalms 106, 111-113, 117, 135, 146-150.

O give thanks This was a favourite liturgical form for calling and inciting the people to the praise and worship of Jehovah. See 2Ch 5:13; 2Ch 7:3; Ezra 11:3; Jer 33:11. Used, also, in later Maccabaean times. 1 Mac.

Psalm 4:24.

For ever To eternity. Not only is God good in himself, but his outflowing, revealed mercy, is without end.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Psalms 106

Outline – Outline of Psalms 106:

A. God’s praise (Psa 106:1-3)

for His goodness and mercy

for His mighty acts and praise beyond utterance

The righteous are bless.

B. Our plea (Psa 106:4-5)

C. Our confession (Psa 106:6)

D. God’s show of mercy and kindness to Israel (Psa 106:7-46)

1. The Red Sea Deliverance (Psa 106:7-12)

a. People’s sin (Psa 106:7)

b. God’s mercy (Psa 106:8)

c. God’s mighty acts (Psa 106:9-11)

d. Praise the Lord (Psa 106:12)

2. The Wilderness experience (Psa 106:13-33)

a. Lusting (Psa 106:13-15)

b. Envy, Jealousy (Psa 106:16-18)

c. Idolatry (Psa 106:19-23)

d. Unbelief (Psa 106:24-27)

e. Disobedience (Psa 106:24-27)

f. Idolatry (Psa 106:28-31)

g. Provoking God (Psa 106:32-33)

3. Idolatrous Nation (Psa 106:34-39)

4. Judgment, pity, mercy (Psa 106:40-46)

E. Conclusion (Psa 106:47-48)

1. Cry for deliverance (Psa 106:47)

2. Doxology to praise the Lord (Psa 106:48)

Psa 106:4 Remember me, O LORD, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation;

Psa 106:4 Comments – The writer of Psalms 106 asks for same favour that God showed Israel many times in the past.

Psa 106:5 That I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance.

Psa 106:5 Comments – Three parallel statements can be seen in Psa 106:5:

1. See the good of thy chosen

2. Rejoice in the gladness of thy nation

3. Glory with thine inheritance

Psa 106:6-46 Israel’s Rebellion – These stories of Israel’s rebellion in Psa 106:6-46 are discussed again in 1Co 10:1-13. This passage in 1 Corinthians give us the purpose for recounting these stories of rebellion, so that they serve as examples for the New Testament Church.

1Co 10:6, “Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.”

Psa 106:12 Then believed they his words; they sang his praise.

Psa 106:13-16 Comments – Sin, and therefore, a great fall, are preceded by a turning from God’s counsel.

Psa 106:20 Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.

Psa 106:20 Old Testament Quotes in the New Testament – Paul quotes Psa 106:20 in Rom 1:23.

Rom 1:23, “And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.”

Psa 106:35 But were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works.

Psa 106:34-35 Comments – Psa 106:34-35 reveals the reason God wanted Israel to destroy the idolatrous nations. God did not want Israel to learn their wicked ways.

Psa 106:37 Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils,

Psa 106:37 Scripture Reference – Note:

1Co 10:20, “But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils , and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.”

Psa 106:47 Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the heathen, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise.

Psa 106:47 Comments – Psa 106:47 seems to indicate that it was Israel that had been scattered abroad in the Babylonian captivity. So, this psalm was written perhaps after the exile and before the return, a 70-year span.

This prayer sums up the wicked acts of Israel as confession of sin, and remembers God’s forgiveness each time:

Psa 106:7-46 – Israel’s past evil.

Psa 106:1-6; Psa 106:47-48 – Israel’s plea for help

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

God’s Blessings in Spite of Israel’s Unfaithfulness.

This psalm, whose author is not known, gives a detailed confession of the sins of Israel, as contrasted with the wonders of God’s mercy, the conclusion being a supplication for God’s favor.

v. 1. Praise ye the Lord, for the attitude of praise should characterize the believers at all times. O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good, He has revealed himself to men in the beauty of His goodness; for His mercy endureth forever, the hand of His merciful kindness is always extended in a loving appeal to all men.

v. 2. Who can utter, fully declare, sufficiently describe, the mighty acts of the Lord, as He manifested them in the power of His mercy, for the salvation of men? Who can show forth all His praise, the glory of His essence as He revealed Himself in history?

v. 3. Blessed are they that keep judgment, observing the demands of right and justice, and He that doeth righteousness at all times, in accordance with the holy will of the Lord.

v. 4. Remember me, O Lord, the psalmist here seeking the application of God’s blessings to Himself, with the favor, the unmerited affection and good pleasure, that Thou bearest unto Thy people: O visit with Thy salvation, letting the inspired singer have the assurance that he also is included in the saving grace of the Lord,

v. 5. that I may see the good of Thy chosen, taking part in the blessings which God had promised to Israel, the nation of His choice, that I may rejoice in the gladness of Thy nation, that I may glory with Thine inheritance, boasting of the favor of the Lord as shown in His many miracles in their behalf. Note that four different names are given to Israel in these two verses, all of them denoting the close fellowship which the Lord intended between Himself and them. But now follows the recital of Israel’s trespasses.

v. 6. We have sinned with our fathers, the present generation following their fathers in wickedness, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly, all of them forming one mass of corruption and the terms denoting a rising gradation of sinning. Note the emphatic “we,” which is essential for a full and free confession of sins.

v. 7. Our fathers understood not Thy wonders in Egypt, they did not realize the Lord’s purpose or the fullness of His divine favor; they remembered not the multitude of Thy mercies, but provoked Him, rather, they showed themselves rebellious, at the sea, even at the Red Sea, all the miracles of the Lord for their deliverance having been forgotten in this short space of time.

v. 8. Nevertheless He saved them, in spite of their ungrateful behavior He delivered them, for His name’s sake, without any merit or worthiness on their part, solely with the intention of keeping His glory untarnished, that He might make His mighty power to be known, and thus be exalted in the eyes of men everywhere.

v. 9. He rebuked the Red Sea also, which apparently obstructed their way to liberty, and it was dried up; so He led them through the depths, the bed of the sea, as through the wilderness, ordinary plain country.

v. 10. And He saved them from the hand of him that hated them, Pharaoh of the exodus, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.

v. 11. And the waters covered their enemies; there was not one of them left, Exo 14:21-31.

v. 12. Then believed they His words, for God constrained even such a hard-hearted people to turn to Him in momentary faith; they sang His praise, Exo 15:1-21. But the reaction came almost immediately.

v. 13. They soon forgat His works, literally, “they made haste, they forgot,” their flare of faith lasting barely three days; they waited not for His counsel, the plan which He had for their care,

v. 14. but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, demanding to be given their desire, and tempted God in the desert, trying Him out, wearing down His patience with their constant grumbling. Cf 1Co 10:6.

v. 15. And He gave them their request, sending them water, manna, quails, Exo 15:22-24; Exodus 16; Exo 17:2; Numbers 11, but sent leanness into their soul, by consuming them with a very great plague, Num 11:33-35.

v. 16. They envied Moses also in the camp and Aaron, the saint of the Lord, Num 16:1, the rebels desiring the places of authority for themselves.

v. 17. The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan and covered the company of Abiram, Numbers 16, 23-35.

v. 18. And a fire was kindled in their company; the flame burned up the wicked. After this reference to the rebellion of Korah the psalmist returns to the early days of the wilderness journey.

v. 19. They made a calf in Horeb, while Moses was on the mount with God, and worshiped the molten image, Exo 32:4.

v. 20. Thus they changed their glory, Jehovah, the true God Himself, as He had manifested and proved Himself before the people, into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.

v. 21. They forgat God, their Savior, who had delivered them by such a signal deliverance, which had done great things in Egypt, in the ten plagues upon Pharaoh and his people;

v. 22. wondrous works in the land of Ham, Egypt being called so because the descendants of Ham had settled there, and terrible things, which caused Him to be feared, by the Red Sea.

v. 23. Therefore He said that He would destroy them, Exo 32:10; Num 14:12, had not Moses, His chosen, stood before Him in the breach to turn away His wrath, lest He should destroy them, for in one case the plague had already made great headway, Num 16:44-50.

v. 24. Yea, they despised the pleasant land, when they rebelled after the report of the spies had been received, Numbers 13, 14, they believed not His word, Heb 3:18,

v. 25. but murmured in their tents, Num 14:1-4, and hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord.

v. 26. Therefore He lifted up His hand against them to overthrow them in the wilderness,

v. 27. to overthrow their seed also among the nations, dispersing them with the effect of destroying their national identity, and to scatter them in the lands, a fate which Moses then averted, but which later struck the northern-tribes. Cf Deu 9:23-26. Another occasion is now cited.

v. 28. They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor, Numbers 25, in the immoral worship introduced by the Moabites, and ate the sacrifices of the dead, so called because the idols are dead, lifeless nothingnesses, as they are sometimes designated.

v. 29. Thus they provoked Him to anger with their inventions, with their idolatrous and immoral doings; and the plague brake in upon them, Num 25:8-9.

v. 30. Then stood up Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, and executed judgment, by summarily putting to death two flagrant malefactors; and so the plague was stayed.

v. 31. And that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations forevermore, Num 25:11-13; for his deed was an act of faith and received the reward of faith. Still another event is here listed.

v. 32. They angered Him also at the waters of strife, at Meribah and Massa, Num 20:3-13, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes, his disgust causing him to give way to doubt, at least for a moment,

v. 33. because they provoked His Spirit, resisting and grieving the Spirit of the Lord, Psa 78:17, so that he, Moses, spake unadvisedly with his lips, thereby forfeiting his right to enter the Promised Land, Deu 1:37; Deu 3:26. Israel’s disobedience continued even after they had taken possession of Canaan.

v. 34. They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the Lord commanded them, Deu 7:2-16; Exo 23:32-33,

v. 35. but were mingled among the heathen, permitting them to live in their midst and in many cases intermarrying with them, and learned their works. Cf Judges 1, 2.

v. 36. And they served their idols, the many cases of wholesale idolatry during the time of the judges and later being included here; which were a snare unto them, Exo 23:33.

v. 37. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, by letting them pass through the fire of Hinnom or actually offering them to Moloch, the abomination of the Moabites, Lev 17:7,

v. 38. and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood, Num 35:33-34.

v. 39. Thus were they defiled with their own works, through the spiritual adultery of their idolatrous practices, and went a whoring with their own inventions, with the doings dictated by their rejection of the true God.

v. 40. Therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against His people, whom He had chosen for His own, insomuch that He abhorred His own inheritance, looking upon them with aversion and loathing.

v. 41. And He gave them into the hand of the heathen, as stated throughout the Book of Judges and later; and they that hated them ruled over them.

v. 42. Their enemies also oppressed them, not only by exacting tribute, but also by sending marauding parties into Canaan whenever it suited their fancy, and the were brought into subjection under their hand, in the great humiliation of being servants to the despised heathen.

v. 43. Many times did He deliver them; but they provoked Him with their counsel, being self-willed and rebellious, and were brought low for their iniquity, the same circle of apostasy, servitude, deliverance, and relapse being found time and again during the four hundred years following the conquest of Canaan.

v. 44. Nevertheless He regarded their allocation when He heard their cry, the reference here probably being to the time of Samuel and the century following;

v. 45. and He remembered for them His covenant, Lev 26:41-42, and repented, turning to them in sympathy, according to the multitude of His mercies, out of free grace and mercy, and not because of any merit or worthiness in them.

v. 46. He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives, as in the case of Jehoiachin, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. In firm reliance upon this mercy of Jehovah the psalmist concludes with an appeal and a doxology.

v. 47. Save us, O Lord, our God, and gather us from among the heathen, these words apparently pointing to the exile as the probable time when this psalm was written, to give thanks unto Thy holy name and to triumph in Thy praise, their boast being not of themselves, but of the wonderful attributes and works of Jehovah.

v. 48. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting, throughout all eternity, and let all the people, especially all believers, all members of the Church of God, say, Amen, in joyful, believing assent. Praise ye the Lord! This hallelujah will be the chief content of the hymns in heaven, the song of the saved. while eternal ages run.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

This is the first of the strictly “Hallelujah psalms”i.e. of the psalms beginning with the phrase “hallelujah”which are Psa 106:1-48, Psa 111:1-10, Psa 112:1-10, Psa 113:1-9, Psa 135:1-21, Psa 146:1-10, Psa 147:1-20, Psa 148:1-14, Psa 149:1-9, and Psa 150:1-6. Eight of these ten also end with the phrase. Psa 104:1-35, Psa 105:1-45, and Psa 107:1-43, end with it, but do not begin with it. This psalm has a general resemblance to Psa 78:1-72 and Psa 105:1-45, but carries the historical sketch to a later period, and makes more pointed allusion to the Babylonish captivity (Psa 105:41 -46). It consists of an introduction (Psa 105:1-5), comprising praise and prayer; an historical sketch, which is mainly a confession of the sins of the people (Psa 105:6 -46); and a conclusion, in which prayer and praise are again united, as in the introduction.

Psa 106:1

Praise ye the Lord (comp. Psa 104:35; Psa 105:45). O give thanks unto the Lord (so in Psa 105:1). Even in their greatest afflictions, the Israelites were bound to give God thanks. His mercies always exceeded his punishments. For he is good (see the comment on Psa 100:5). For his mercy eudureth forever. According to Chronicles, this phrase was used at the dedication of David’s tabernacle (1Ch 16:34, 1Ch 16:41), and again at the dedication of the temple (2Ch 5:13). It here first occurs in the Psalms.

Psa 106:2

Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? (comp. Psa 50:2; and for the impossibility of expressing God’s greatness, see Job 11:7-9; Psa 92:5; Isa 40:12-17; Rom 11:33-36). Who can show forth all his praise? i.e. “all the praise really due to him.”

Psa 106:3

Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times. No distinction of meaning is intended between “keeping judgment” and “doing righteousness.” The second clause merely repeats the first.

Psa 106:4

Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people. A prayer for individual blessing, not very usual in a psalm concerned with national sins and national deliverances. Professor Cheyne compares the parenthetic utterances of Nehemiah (Neh 5:19; Neh 13:14, Neh 13:22, Neh 13:31), but doubts whether the entire passage (verses 4, 5) is not an interpolation. O visit me with thy salvation (comp. Psa 18:35; Psa 85:7).

Psa 106:5

That I may see the good of thy chosen; or, the good fortune, the prosperity, of thy chosen; i.e. their happiness when they are released from the captivity, and return to their own land (comp. Psa 106:47). That I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation; i.e. “the gladness” that would be theirs when re-established in their own country (see Ezr 3:12; Ezr 6:22). That I may glory with thins inheritance; or, triumph.

Psa 106:6-46

The psalmist now enters on his main subjectthe transgressions of Israel in the past, and God’s manifold mercies vouchsafed to them. These he traces from the time of the Exodus (Psa 106:7) to that of the Babylonish captivity (Psa 106:46).

Psa 106:6

We have sinned with our fathers (comp. Le 26:40; 1Ki 8:47; Ezr 9:6, Ezr 9:7; Neh 1:6, Neh 1:7; Neh 9:16-18, Neh 9:26; Dan 9:5-8). We have committed iniquity; or, “dealt perversely” (Kay). We have done wickedly. The confession is as broad and general as possible, including all under sinthe “fathers” from Moses downwards, the whole nation from the time of its settlement in Canaan, and even the afflicted exiles in Babylon. Their guilt is emphaized by the use of three verbs, each more forcible than the last.

Psa 106:7

Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; rather, considered notdid not give serious thought to them; took them as matters of course, and so were not impressed by them. They remembered not the multitude of thy mercies (comp. Psa 69:16; Isa 63:7; Lam 3:32; and infra, Lam 3:45). But provoked him; rather, were rebellious (see the Revised Version). At the sea, even at the Red Sea (comp. Exo 14:11, Exo 14:12).

Psa 106:8

Nevertheless he saved them for his Name’s sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known. (On this motive for the mighty works done in Egypt, see Exo 7:5; Exo 14:4, Exo 14:18; Exo 15:11-16.)

Psa 106:9

He rebuked the Red Sea also (comp. Psa 104:7, “At thy rebuke they [i.e. the waters] fled;” see also Isa 50:2; Nah 1:4). The Hebrew poets constantly represent God’s dealings with inanimate nature in terms proper to his dealings with his rational creatures, thus personifying material things. And it was dried up (see Exo 14:21, Exo 14:22). So he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness (comp. Isa 63:13). Midbar, the word translated “wilderness,” is properly a smooth stretch of down, very level, and suited for sheep walks.

Psa 106:10

And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them. The Pharaoh of the Exodus, whose “hatred” had been shown by his oppression (Exo 2:23; Exo 3:9; Exo 5:6-19), his prolonged refusal to let Israel go, and final pursuit of them, and attempt to destroy them on the western shore of the Red Sea (Exo 14:5-10). And redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. The deliverance from Egypt, typifying man’s deliverance from sin, is constantly spoken of as a “redemption” (Psa 74:2; Psa 107:2; Exo 6:6, Exo 6:7; Exo 15:16, etc.).

Psa 106:11

And the waters covered their enemies (see Exo 14:28-30; Exo 15:10). There was not one of them left. The words of Exo 14:28 (last clause) are almost exactly followed.

Psa 106:12

Then believed they his words. So in Exo 14:31, “The people feared the Lord and believed the Lord”believed, that is, when they could no longer disbelieve. They sang his praise. The allusion is to the “Song of Moses” (Exo 15:1-18), in which the Israelites generally joined (Exo 15:1, Exo 15:20).

Psa 106:13

They soon forgat his works; literally, they hasted and forgat his works. Their gratitude and devotion were short-lived. They almost immediately forgot the omnipotence and extreme goodness of God towards them. They “murmured” at Marah (Exo 15:24), complained in the wilderness of Sin (Exo 16:3), “lusted” (Num 11:4), “tempted God,” etc. They waited not for his counsel; i.e. “they did not wait for the development of God’s plans respecting them, preferring (Psa 106:43) their own counsel” (Kay).

Psa 106:14

But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness; literally, “lusted a lust.” The expression is taken from Num 11:4, where it is translated in the Authorized Version by “fell a-lusting.” The lust was for “flesh,” and for “the fish, the cucumbers, the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic, which they did eat in Egypt freely” (Num 11:5). And tempted God in the desert (comp. Psa 78:18).

Psa 106:15

And he gave them their request. By sending the quails (Num 11:31, Num 11:32). But sent leanness into their soul. By “leanness” is meant dissatisfaction or disgust. After eating freely of the quails for a full month, the food became “loathsome” to them (Num 11:20). Whether it actually produced the pestilence which followed (Num 11:33). or whether that was a separate and distinct affliction, it is impossible to determine (compare, on the whole subject, Psa 78:18-31, and the comment ad loc.).

Psa 106:16

They envied Moses also in the camp. The writer passes now to the sin of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with their followers, which was “envy” or jealousy of the high position assigned by God himself (Exo 3:10; Exo 4:1-17) to Moses and Aaron (comp. Num 16:1-3). These “gainsayers” (Jud 1:11) maintained that they had as much right to be priests as Moses and Aaron, since “all the congregation was holy” (Num 16:3). And Aaron the saint of the Lord; or, the holy one. It is rather Aaron’s official sanctity (Le Psa 8:2 -12) than his personal holiness that is intended. (Compare the use of the phrase “man of God” in 1Ki 13:1, 1Ki 13:4, 1Ki 13:6, etc.)

Psa 106:17

The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan (see Num 16:31-33). And covered the company of Abiram. It is asked why there is no mention of Korah here, and suggested that he owed his escape from mention to the favouritism of the Levitical “temple poets” (Cheyne). But the real reason seems to be that Korah was not “swallowed up;” he and his company were destroyed by fire, and are alluded to in Psa 106:18 (so Hengstenberg).

Psa 106:18

And a fire was kindled in their company (see Num 16:35, Num 16:40; Num 26:10). The flame burned up the wicked. Korah and his “company” were more “wicked” than Dathan, Abiram, and their followers, since they had received a favour from God which ought to have satisfied them (Num 16:9, Num 16:10), and since they ought to have been better instructed in the Law than ordinary Israelites. Hence Korah alone is mentioned in Jud 1:11.

Psa 106:19

They made a calf in Horeb (comp. Exo 32:4; Deu 9:8-16). And worshipped the molten image; rather, a molten image (comp. Exo 32:4, Exo 32:24; Deu 9:12, Deu 9:16). The sin was not only against the light of nature, but was expressly forbidden by the second commandment (Exo 20:4, Exo 20:5).

Psa 106:20

Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass; i.e. they exchanged the spiritual revelation of Jehovah, in all his glorious attributes, for a material emblem, which would naturally suggest low and unworthy thoughts of the supreme Being. So Schultz and Cheyne. The expression, “an ox that eateth grass,” emphasizes the contempt of the writer for a people who could so act. He has, probably, in his thoughts not only the golden calf, but the Apis bulls of Egypt.

Psa 106:21

They forgat God their Saviour (comp. Psa 106:13). “God their Saviour” is “God who had so recently saved them out of the hands of Pharaoh.” Which had done great things in Egypt. The allusion is principally to the long series of “plagues.”

Psa 106:22

Wondrous works in the land of Ham (comp. Psa 78:51; Psa 105:23, Psa 105:27, for the expression “land of Ham;” and for the “works” themselves, see Exodus 7-12). And terrible things by the Red Sea (see Exo 14:24, Exo 14:27-30).

Psa 106:23

Therefore he said that he would destroy them; literally, and he said. On the apostasy at Sinai, God expressed to Moses an intention to destroy the entire people of Israel, save only himself, and to “make of him a great nation” (Exo 32:10; comp. Deu 9:14, Deu 9:25). Had not Moses his chosen steed before him in the breach. Moses was “chosen” by God to lead the Israelites out of Egypt (Exo 3:10), and forced to accept the office (Exo 4:1-17). When Israel angered God at Sinai, he “stood in the gap,” like a brave soldier guarding his city when the enemy has breached the wall (Exo 32:11-13, Exo 32:31-34). To turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them. God was ready to have destroyed all Israel, and to have raised up a new Israel out of the descendants of Moses, had not Moses pleaded with extreme earnestness on the people’s behalf (Exo 32:32).

Psa 106:24

Yea, they despised the pleasant land. The psalmist passes to the consideration of another sin. After the ill report of the spies (Num 13:27-33), the Israelites “despised” the land promised to them (Num 14:31), and relinquished all desire for it. They were ready to have turned back into Egypt (Num 14:3). They believed not his word; i.e. his promise to give them the land (Gen 15:18-21; Exo 23:31, etc.).

Psa 106:25

But murmured in their tents. The “murmuring” intended is undoubtedly that mentioned in Num 14:1-4. The phraseology employed is from Deu 1:27. And hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord; i.e. hearkened not to the many promises which God had made to drive out the Canaanitish nations before them (Exo 3:17; Exo 6:8; Exo 15:15-17, etc.).

Psa 106:26

Therefore he lifted up his hand against them. The phrase is used with reference to the uplifting of the hand width accompanied an oath. To overthrow them in the wilderness (see Num 14:29, Num 14:32, Num 14:37). The death in the wilderness of the entire generation which had set out from Egypt, save only Joshua and Caleb, is the “overthrow” intended.

Psa 106:27

To overthrow their seed also among the nations. Like Ezekiel (Eze 20:23), the writer regards the Babylonish captivity as in part a punishment for the sins committed in the wilderness. And to scatter them in the lands (comp. Le 26:33; Deu 28:64). The Israelites were punished, not merely by being carried into captivity, but by being completely broken up as a nation, and “scattered” widely over Western Asiasome in Gozan and on the Khabonr (2Ki 17:6), some in Haran (1Ch 5:26), some in “the cities of the Modes” (2Ki 18:11; Tobit 1:14; 3:7), others in Babylonia (2Ki 24:14-16; 2Ch 36:20; Eze 1:1-3, etc.). The “scattering” has in later times increased ever more and more.

Psa 106:28

They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor (see Num 25:3). The exact expression used in the Pentateuch is repeated. It signifies a mystic union, such as was supposed to exist between a heathen god and his worshippers, and to be kept up by sacrificial meals and the like. “Baal-peor”i.e. “the Lord of Pehor”is probably identified with Chemosh. And ate the sacrifices of the dead. The corresponding phrase in Numbers (Num 25:2) is, “the sacrifices of their gods,” who were “dead,” as opposed to the true living God.

Psa 106:29

Thus they provoked him to anger with their inventions; or, with their doings. And the plague; rather, a plague. Brake in upon them. The judicial slaughter inflicted by command of Moses (Num 25:4-8) is called here, as it is also in Num 25:8, Num 25:9, Num 25:18, “a plague.”

Psa 106:30

Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment (see Num 25:7, Num 25:8). Some critics, however, translate , by “mediated” (Kay, Cheyne). And so the plague was stayed (comp. Num 25:8).

Psa 106:31

And that was counted unto him for righteousness (comp. Num 25:11-13, and see also Ecclesiastes 45:23, 24; 1 Macc. 2:26, 54). Unto all generations forevermore. The praise awarded to Phinehas, here and in Num 25:1-18; is an everlasting testimony to him, though the “everlasting priesthood” of Num 25:13 has passed away.

Psa 106:32

They angered him also at the waters of strife; or, “at the waters of Meribah” (Revised Version, Kay, Cheyne); comp. Num 20:2, Num 20:10, Num 20:13. So that it went ill with Moses for their sakes. Moses was not punished for the people’s sin, but for his own sin (Num 20:10-12), to which theirs led. The expression, “for their sakes,” is used loosely (comp. Deu 1:37; Deu 3:26).

Psa 106:33

Because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips. One man’s sin often leads to another’s, but does not necessitate it. The people “provoked Muses’ spirit” by their murmurs and reproaches (Num 20:3-5). Moses, being provoked, made his rash utterance (Num 20:10). He was vexed, impatient, carried away by a gust of passion, and made the unfitting speech, “Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of the rock?” speaking as if the power were his own.

Psa 106:34

They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the Lord commanded them. This is reckoned as another sin. Israel, once comfortably settled in Palestine, with sufficient room for its numbers, did not carry out the Divine command to “destroy,” or “cast out,” the Canaanitish nations, but was content to share the land with them. “The children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem” (Jdg 1:21); “neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Bethshean and her towns, nor Taanach and her towns; nor the inhabitants of Dor and her towns” (Jdg 1:27); “neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer” (Jdg 1:29); nor “Zebulon the inhabitants of Kitten, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol” (Jdg 1:30); “neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Accho” (Jdg 1:31); nor “Naphtali the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath” (Jdg 1:33); nor Dan the Amorites, who “would dwell in Mount Heros in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim” (Jdg 1:35). It was not compassion that restrained them, but love of ease, idleness, one of the seven deadly sins; and the results were those described in the next verse.

Psa 106:35

But were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works. This was the effect of the continuous contact. “Evil communications corrupted good manners.” The command to exterminate, which to moderns seems so terribly severe, and almost cruel, was undoubtedly based upon God’s foreknowledge of the fact, that otherwise there would be contact, and if contact, then contamination. (For the actual fact, see Jdg 2:11-13, Jdg 2:19; Jdg 3:6, Jdg 3:7; Jdg 6:25; Jdg 10:6, etc.)

Psa 106:36

And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them; or, which became a snare unto them. The idols worshipped were especially Baal and Ashtoreththe nature-god and nature-goddess, sometimes identified with the sun and moon. These alone are mentioned in the time of the Judges. Afterwards, however, Chemosh, Molech, Remphan, the gods of Syria, and perhaps Ammon of Egypt, were added to the catalogue (1Ki 11:7; 2Ki 21:19; 2Ch 28:23; Act 7:43).

Psa 106:37

Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils. The Moloch sacrifices of children by their parents are evidently intended (comp. Le Psa 18:21; Deu 18:10; 2Ki 3:27; Jer 7:31; Eze 23:37, etc.). (For the identification of the false gods of the heathen with “devils,” comp. Le 17:71; Deu 32:17; 2Ch 11:15; 1Co 10:20, 1Co 10:21.) It is argued by some that the use of the word “devils,” or “demons,” here does not imply that the objects of the worship were evil spirits. But it is difficult to see what else can be meant.

Psa 106:38

And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters. Infants, who could have committed no actual sin, were the ordinary victims in the Moloch sacrifices (see Jarchi on Jer 7:31; Diod. Sic; Jer 20:14; Dollinger, ‘Judenthum und Heidenthum,’ 1:427, Engl. trans.). Whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan. Bloody offerings of this horrible kind were made, not only to Moloch, but also to Baal (Jer 19:5), to Chemosh (2Ki 3:27), and perhaps to other deities. And the land was polluted with blood. Contrary to the commandment given in Deuteronomy 35:33, “Ye shall not pollute the laud wherein ye are.” The “innocent blood” shed in the land is often declared to have been the especial cause of God’s anger against Israel, and of his final casting away of his inheritance (2Ki 24:4; Isa 59:7; Jer 7:6; Jer 22:3, Jer 22:17, etc.).

Psa 106:39

Thus were they defiled with their own works. The heathen “works,” which they adopted from them (Psa 106:35), had become “their own works,” and made them a “defiled” and “polluted” people. And went a-whoring with their own inventions; i.e. “became spiritually adulterous,” deserted God, and were unfaithful to him (comp. Eze 23:2-21; Hos 2:2-5).

Psa 106:40

Therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people (comp. Psa 78:58, Psa 78:59). Insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance (see Psa 78:62). It justly increased God’s anger that the sinners were his own people, his own inheritance.

Psa 106:41

And he gave them into the hand of the heathen. This is the great lesson taught by Jewish history, and especially impressed upon us by Judges and Chronicles. When a nation sins, it is delivered over to its enemies, partly for punishment, partly to lead it to repentance. Israel was delivered into the hand, first, of Mesopotamia (Jdg 3:10), then of Moab (Jdg 3:12), next of the Philistines (Jdg 3:31), then of the Canaanites (Jdg 4:2), later on of Midian (Jdg 6:1), still later of Ammon (Jdg 10:7-18), and then of the Philistines once more (Jdg 13:1)on each occasion because of some flagrant sins, and suffered chastisement until it repented. So we are told in Chronicles with respect to the invasions of Shishak (2Ch 12:2-5), of Pul (1Ch 5:25, 1Ch 5:26), of Tiglath-pileser (2Ch 28:19, 2Ch 28:20), and of Nebuchadnezzar (2Ch 36:13-17), that they were on account of the people’s transgressions. God “slew” them that they might “seek him,” and the ordinary result was, that they “turned themselves, and inquired after God.” And they that hated them ruled over them. Chushan-rishathaim for eight years (Jdg 3:8), Eglon for eighteen (Jdg 3:14), Jabin for twenty (Jdg 4:3), the Midianites for seven (Jdg 6:1), the Ammonites for eighteen (Jdg 10:8), the Philistines for forty (Jdg 13:1).

Psa 106:42

Their enemies also oppressed them (see Jdg 4:3; Jdg 10:8; 1Sa 9:16; etc.). And they were brought into subjection under their hand. (For pictures of the “subjection,” see Jdg 4:6-11; 1Sa 13:19, 1Sa 13:20.)

Psa 106:43

Many times did he deliver them. By Othniel (Jdg 3:9), by Ehud (Jdg 3:15-29), by Shamgar (Jdg 3:31), by Deborah and Barak (Jdg 4:4-24), by Gideon (Jdg 7:19-25), by Jephthah Jdg 11:12-33), by Samson (Jdg 15:1-20. (8-20), and finally by David (2Sa 5:22-25). But they provoked him with their counsel; rather, they were rebellious in their counsel (see the Revised Version). And were brought low for their iniquity; rather, in their iniquity (comp. Le 26:39).

Psa 106:44

Nevertheless he regarded their affliction; or, “he saw them in their trouble,” i.e. he looked on them, and had regard to them (see 2Ki 17:13; 2Ch 36:15). When he heard their cry. As God “heard the cry” of his people, when they suffered oppression in Egypt (Exo 2:23; Exo 3:7, Exo 3:9), so also in their other oppressions (Jdg 3:9, Jdg 3:15; Jdg 4:3; Jdg 6:6; Jdg 10:10; 1Sa 12:10, 1Sa 12:11, etc), if they did but humble themselves and “cry” to him, he always hearkened and gave them deliverance (1Ch 5:20; 2Ch 12:7; 2Ch 14:11, 2Ch 14:12; 2Ch 20:4-24; 2Ch 32:20, 2Ch 32:21; 2Ch 33:11-13).

Psa 106:45

And he remembered for them his covenant. According to the promise in Le 26:42. And repented according to the multitude of his mercies (comp. Exo 32:14; 2Sa 24:16; 1Ch 21:15; Jer 26:19, etc.). The expression is anthropomorphic, and must be understood so as not to clash with the declaration, “God is not a man, that he should repent” (1Sa 15:29).

Psa 106:46

He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives. Solomon had prayed that so it might be (1Ki 8:50). The fact that compassion was shown to many of the captives appears from 2Ki 25:27-30; Dan 1:3-5, Dan 1:19; Dan 2:49; Dan 3:30; Dan 6:28; Ezr 1:4-6; Neh 1:11; Neh 2:1-8.

Psa 106:47

The historical portion of the psalm here ends, and the writer, in a brief epilogue, returns to the topic of prayer (see Psa 106:4, Psa 106:5), only substituting now for the personal supplications of the prologue, a general prayer for the entire nation, and especially for its deliverance from captivity. “It can scarcely be doubted,” as Dean Johnson well observes, “that the words of Psa 106:47 refer to deliverance from the Babylonish captivity,” which was the only one that involved the dispersion of the whole people, and the suspension of the liturgical offering of thanks and praise.

Psa 106:47

Save us, O Lord our God. Contrast with this the “remember me” of Psa 106:4. The review of the national history has quickened the psalmist’s sympathies and widened them. Previously he prayed only for himself. Now it will not content him unless the people generally are “saved.” And gather us from among the heathen. (On the wide dispersion of the Israelites at the time of the Babylonian captivity, see the comment on Psa 106:27.) To give thanks unto thy holy Name, and to triumph in thy praise. This is spoken of as the consequence of the gathering together. Dispersion could not, of course, prevent the rendering of praise and thanks by individual Israelites (Dan 6:10); hut it had stopped the united liturgical expression of them. On the restoration of the Israelites to their own land, this was resumed (Ezr 3:2-11).

Psa 106:48

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting. This verse is not so much a part of the particular psalm, as a mark that here another Book of the Psalms has reached its conclusion (comp. Psa 41:13; Psa 72:19; Psa 89:52). The form has, however, been modified so as to make it run on smoothly with the verse immediately preceding. And let all the people say. In their praises and thanks to God (see verse 47). Amen. Praise ye the Lord. The other terminal psalms end with “Amen and Amen;” here alone do we have “Amen. Praise ye the Lord.” the intention being evidently that the last words of the psalm should be an echo of the first (see verse 1).

HOMILETICS

Psa 106:1-5

The spirit of godliness.

This, under all dispensations, is

I. THE SPIRIT OF THANKFULNESS. (Psa 106:1.) The godly man is he in whose mouth the praise of the Lord is found continually, because the spirit of gratitude is deep in his heart.

II. THE SPIRIT OF TRUSTFULNESS. (Psa 106:1.) “His mercy endureth forever.” To what the past has witnessed the future will testify. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow,” etc. (Psa 23:1-6.).

III. THE SPIRIT OF REVERENCE. (Psa 106:2.) The godly man stands uncovered, awed, filled with a sense of the nearness and greatness of God, sensible of the wonderful works of his holy and mighty hand. This whole world is the temple of God, and every act of ours should be a sacrifice.

IV. THE SPIRIT OF OBEDIENCE. (Psa 106:3.) The godly man is earnestly desirous of “keeping judgment and doing righteousness,” of preserving inward integrity and. bringing forth its fruits; and this because

(1) it is a blessed thing to be right;

(2) filial obedience secures the loving favour of the Divine Father;

(3) it is attended with a variety and continuity of blessings; it brings a large reward.

V. THE SPIRIT OF CONSCIOUS DEPENDENCE ON GOD. (Psa 106:4.) He who is “of God” knows well that it is only as God enlarges and enriches him that he will be blessed indeed; therefore he lifts his heart in daily prayer for God’s “remembrance” and his “salvation.” He knows the need of perpetual supplies and of frequent interposition from above.

VI. THE SPIRIT OF SACRED, SOCIAL JOY. (Psa 106:5.) It is not a truly Christian spirit to rest, let our hope and our joy to our own well being. This should continually overflow; it should spread and circulate far and wide. We should enter into the spirit of Moses and of Paul in their magnanimity (see Exo 32:31, Exo 32:32; Rom 9:3). Our joy is never so pure, so elevating, so noble, as when we are sharing it with others, and are rejoicing in their blessedness as well as, and as much as in our own.

Psa 106:6-39

Sin in many forms.

It is not only the psalmist who says, “I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord” (Psa 32:5). It becomes us all to say, “We have sinned we have committed iniquity” (Psa 106:6). Sin takes many forms, as this psalm makes clear. We may be guilty of

I. SINFUL FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND. (Psa 106:7.) As the children of Israel “understood not God’s wonders in Egypt,” so we guiltily fail to recognize the wonderful working of the Divine hand, not only in human history and in domestic experience, but also in the daily and hourly ministries of nature, and in the ordering of our individual life (see Jas 1:16, Jas 1:17).

II. SINFUL FORGETFULNESS. (Psa 106:7, Psa 106:21, Psa 106:22.)

1. We also “remember not the multitude of his mercies,” oblivious of all that God has been doing for us and in us through all our days.

2. We are too ready to forget the special deliverances which, at the time of their occurrence, we resolved to keep continually before our eyes; we allow them to be hidden, and to disappear beneath the engagements and excitements that supervene.

III. THE SIN OF FITFULNESS. (Psa 106:12, Psa 106:13.) Is not the Divine Master grieved with us when he has to think of us as he did of his own apostle, who in a few hours passed from loud profession to positive denial (see Joh 13:36-38)? Spiritual fickleness is a very grave offence; it is also particularly injurious.

IV. THE SIN OF UNRESTRAINED APPETITE. (Psa 106:14.) In this case it led to unhallowed importunity; to a request that became an impious demand, and that brought down retribution (Psa 106:15). More often such “lust” of the flesh conducts to other evilsto bodily deterioration, to loss of self-respect, to injury wrought on others, to ruin and to death.

V. THE SIN OF ENVY. (Psa 106:16-18.) To envy those who are distinguished from ourselves by the favour of God is most unworthy and culpable. Instead of being grateful to the Divine Giver for bestowing so great a blessing as a strong and helpful man, we cherish a spirit that is mean and selfish. It is a common but a serious sin.

VI. THE SIN OF IDOLATRY. (Psa 106:19, Psa 106:20, Psa 106:28.) The guilt of idolatry is in the substitution of the creature for the Creator, rendering that honour to the visible or the human which is due only to the Divine (see Rom 1:19-25).

VII. THE SIN OF UNBELIEF; leading here (Psa 106:24, Psa 106:25) to discontent, to the loss of inheritance, to cowardly inactivity; leading, in our case, to the neglect of God’s Word and will, to continuance in spiritual obduracy, to a fatal forfeiture of eternal life.

VIII. IMPERFECT OBEDIENCE, WARFARE, SEPARATION. (Psa 106:34, Psa 106:35.)

(1) To leave undone any duty of any kind to which our Lord is calling us, in discharge of what we owe to ourselves, or to our neighbours, or to our kindred, or to our race;

(2) to fail to subdue and cast forth from our soul the evil dispositions and unholy principles which are there, when Christ claims us as his own;

(3) to admit to close familiarity those who are alien in spirit and opposite in belief to ourselves;this is to fall short of “the will of God in Christ Jesus,” and it is to lay for ourselves a “snare,” through which we may fall into grievous wrong.

Psa 106:15

Outward prosperity, inward decline.

Let no one think that God’s goodness to us is to be measured by the degree in which he satisfies our craving. It may be that the worst thing that can happen to us is to secure

(1) the bodily gratification, or

(2) the unhallowed ambition, or

(3) the unfavourable friendship on which we have set our hearts.

God’s truest kindnesses are often found in his withholding or his removing the objects of our regard. He “breaks our schemes of earthly joy,” that we “may find our all” in him and his service.

Psa 106:20

Our God our glory.

The “glory” of Israel was found, as this verse indicates, in the God whom her sons worshipped; not in her cultivated fields, not in her varied scenery, not in her peculiar civilization, not even in her temple and its rites, but in her God. No other contemporary nation worshipped one, pure, righteous, pitiful God, who sought the well being, material and spiritual, of all his children. Well may we, to whom God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, claim that our God is the glory of our land.

Psa 106:44, Psa 106:45

The hope of the exile.

Israel in exile had no hope at all, but in the mercy and the faithfulness of her redeeming God (Le 26:41, 42). When a human soul is far away from God, and can sing no song of joy in the “strange land” of sinful alienation; when it is brought very low with a sense of Divine disapproval, and of a future which it dare not face; when it shrinks from the society of those with whom it once had sweet and sacred fellowship, and shuns the eye of human piety;there is one thing to remember, one refuge in which to hidethe boundless mercy and the inviolable Word of God. That will not fail a human soul at its very worst. Up that pathway there is an escape from the “lowest hell” to the highest heaven.

HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY

Psa 106:1-48

The nevertheless of God’s mercy.

This is actually expressed in Psa 106:44, but it is the theme of the whole psalm. Note concerning it

I. IT IMPLIES PREVIOUS AND TERRIBLE PROVOCATION. And, indeed, there had been such:

1. In sins actually committed. What a catalogue of them the psalm contains! Sin at the very beginning (Psa 106:7). The former psalm reviewed the history of God’s people as a subject for adoring praise, because of God’s never-failing care. Here, also, a “Hallelujah!” is raised, in view of the same history, because of God’s never-failing forgiveness. And the sins that needed this forgiveness are confessed herethe shortlived gratitude (Psa 106:13); the shameful murmuring (Psa 106:15); the wicked envy (Psa 106:16); the disgraceful idolatry (Psa 106:19); their unbelief (Psa 106:24); their sacrifices to Baal-peor (Psa 106:28): their murmuring at Meribah (Psa 106:32); their disobedience (Psa 106:34). What a melancholy list it is! And this is not all; for see:

2. The mercies of God despised. (Psa 106:13.)

3. Their treatment of Moses. (Psa 106:16, Psa 106:23, Psa 106:32.)

4. Their hardened resistance, so that God’s punishments had no power to change their evil will (cf. Joh 1:5). Yes, there had been provocation indeed.

II. IT PROCLAIMS THE INFINITE COMPASSION AND FORBEARANCE OF GOD. Sin is the dark foil on which the brightness of God’s mercy is all the more seen. That is why the angels of God can never render the praises of the redeemed. What a marvel it is that he should have spared Israel! It is equalled only by the marvel of his sparing us.

III. WHEN THE SOUL BECOMES CONSCIOUS OF ALL THIS, IT IS OVERWHELMED IN GRATITUDE, LOVE, AND PRAISE. See the opening of this psalm and its close. Thus is God’s mercy the spring and abiding impulse of the new life unto him. See the well known verse

“Oh the sweet wonders of that cross

On which my Saviour groaned and died

Her noblest life my spirit draws

From his dear wounds and bleeding side.”

S.C.

Psa 106:3

The blessedness of the holy life.

I. SUCH LIFE IS POSSIBLE. It would not be spoken of here and throughout the Scriptures as it is, if it were only an ideal but not a possible life. Surely, if sin be the abominable thing which God hates, he must have contemplated, in his redemptive work, our deliverance from it. What is the first and great commandment, but a command to cherish that spirit towards God which is the spring of the holy life?

II. IT IS ENTERED INTO BY A DEFINITE WAY.

1. By self-surrender, which consists in the abandoning of whatever we know to be contrary to the will of God; giving it up, though it be dear as the right hand or eye; and in the surrender of all our powers and possessions to the absolute control and direction of God.

2. Then, when we have thus given ourselves up to God, we are to believe that he accepts us, and we are to keep trusting him, day by day and hour by hour, to cleanse us by the blood of Christ from all sin. If we will persevere in this surrender and trust, nothing can hinder our entering into this holy life. Then

III. IT IS MOST BLESSED.

1. For what it escapes: the misery of a condemning conscience; of paralyzed powerfor none can effectually work for God if they are abiding in sin; of knowing that your influence has been evil rather than good; of God’s face hidden from you.

2. For what it wins: the blessedness of inward peace; of confidence towards God; of power with God for man, and with man for God; of the possession of God’s loving kindness, which is better than life (Psa 63:1-11), and of assured hope. When the people of God live this life, then there will be a turning to God on the part of the world, as now there is not, and for long ages has not been. For men will see that God’s people possess a secret spring of joy, and peace, and purity, and strength, and they will come to covet it with a great desire (Psa 106:4, Psa 106:5).S.C.

Psa 106:4, Psa 106:5

A holy aspiration.

It is threefold (see Psa 106:5), and it is preceded by earnest prayer for that grace of God which, in the psalmist’s belief, was indispensable for its fulfilment.

I. THE ASPIRATION.

1. “That I may see the good of thy chosen.“ He regards God’s people as the subject of a Divine choice; as, indeed, they are. There were many others who, to human eyes, seemed more worthy and more likely to bring glory to God. But God had chosen them. And he had appointed “good” for them. Good outwardly, in the possession of the promised land; good inwardly, in the possession of God’s Holy Spirit and the Divine Law written on their hearts; good instrumentally, in the blessed influence they should exert on others (cf. Psa 67:1-7.). And all this abiding evermore. And this he craved to see; that is, to share in. It is a good desire.

2. “That I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation.“ He believed Israel to be God’s nation; as, indeed, the true Israel of God are. And he believed that the mark of their life was gladness. In their best days Israel was a glad people (Psa 144:15). And the Israelite, indeed, is ever a happy man. We are made for gladnessthe ways of the Lord lead surely to it; but men do not believe this. Nevertheless, these “ways are ways of pleasantness,” etc. (Pro 3:17). And in this gladness the psalmist would share.

3. “That I may glory with thine inheritance.“ Note, again, the title given to the people of God. They will glory in God himself, for he is their “exceeding joy;” in what he has done for them, in them, through them. What themes for glorying there are in all this! “Worthy is the Lamb,” etc. (Rev 5:12). Now, this holy aspiration is preceded by Psa 106:4.

II. THE PRAYER for what is needed for its fulfilment. He prays:

1. “Remember me, O Lord, with,“ etc. What a humble prayer it is! as if he feared he might be overlooked and forgotten, and felt that he deserved to be. And what a holy prayer! And it is one that has never yet been refused.

2. “Visit me,“ etc. He would that God would have compassion on him, and actually bring him his salvation.S.C.

Psa 106:15

But sent leanness into their soul.

Kibroth-Hattaavah, or “the graves of lust.” So the place has been named, for it testified to the terrible truth declared in our text. The history to which it refers is familiar enough, And what followed for Israel has followed again and again, and does so still.

I. SEE INSTANCES OF IT.

1. Israel here. The leanness in their souls was caused by a sense of God’s condemnationthey knew they had done wrong; terror of his wrath; hardening of their hearts in sin; the plague that followed.

2. Israel‘s desiring a king (Hos 13:11).

3. Judas. He had plotted and planned, and thought success was sure; but when he saw Jesus was condemned, those thirty pieces of silver burnt him as with the fires of hell.

4. The rich fool. His desire for wealth had been granted; but the Lord had said, “Thou fool” (cf. also 2Sa 13:15). The full purse and the lean soul are common companions.

5. The “whips” with which “our pleasant vices“ scourge us. Cf. Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities; all,” etc.; cf. Ahab’s getting Naboth’s vineyard, and Elijah along with it. “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” (1Ki 21:20).

II. THE CAUSES OF IT.

1. Not necessary. If God give us our heart’s desire, that need not send leanness into our soul. Cf. Psa 116:1-19.: there was no “leanness” there, but the reverse. And, indeed, the sense of God’s favour and help does aid the soul’s true life.

2. But are found in the motive of the prayer, which may be sinful and selfish only; and in the use we make of the answer. If we love God’s gifts better than the Giver of them, then “leanness” will be sure to follow.

III. THE LESSONS OF IT. The lines which follow tell them

“Not what we wish, but what we want,

Oh let thy grace supply!

The good, unasked, in mercy grant;

The ill, though asked, deny.”

S.C.

HOMILIES BY R. TUCK

Psa 106:1

Goodness is graciousness.

“For he is gracious” (Prayer book Version). The term which the Authorized Version and Revised Version render “good,” the Prayer book renders “gracious;” and so is suggested what is perfectly true when applied to God, that goodness is graciousness. The goodness of God dwelt on in this psalm is his patience and long suffering gentleness with his most trying and wilful people. Psa 105:1-45 treated Israel chiefly as the passive recipient of Divine favour. Psa 106:1-48 portrays Israel as continually set in opposition to Jehovah; faithful only when afflicted, and succoured only to apostatize again. Eight illustrative instances are given.

I. GOODNESS IN THE LIGHT OF MAN‘S RELATION TO GOD. In that light goodness is rightness; it is accordance with an authoritative standard. A good man is a good creature who is right with his Creator, a good servant who is obedient to his master, a good son who does the will of his father. This being man’s goodness, and man’s idea of goodness, he tries to transfer it to God, who then becomes the eternally right One. The “Judge of all the earth does right.” God is good in the sense of being right, in the sense of willing that which is right, and in the sense of approving those who do the right. “Righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.”

II. GOODNESS IN THE LIGHT OF GOD‘S RELATIONS WITH MAN. In this psalm with man corporate. But the national relations do but illustrate the personal and individual. Here comes in a difficulty. God, the infinitely right One, dealing with creatures who were right in all purpose and endeavour, would not need to show the special characteristics that are gathered into the word “gracious.” God had to deal with a nation that was wayward, wilful, and self-pleasing, with a stiff-necked generation, one that was troublesome as any spoiled child. Goodness in dealing with such a nation must show itself as patience, pitifulness, considerateness, gentleness, or, to sum up in one word, “graciousness.” Illustrate it as

(1) goodness that can chastise;

(2) that can limit chastisement;

(3) that can restore, and give fresh opportunity;

(4) that cannot be wearied out;

(5) that gives the fullest influence to all qualifying considerations;

(6) that keeps on hoping for the best, and working for it.

It may also be shown that the gracious goodness of God makes necessary judgments inflicted on some educational and moral forces for the warning and guiding of all.R.T.

Psa 106:7

The roots of disobedience.

It is not sufficient to say that the root of disobedience is “wilfulness.” Fairly reading human nature, we can find other roots from which it springs. In the history of the people Israel we can see that they did not always sin from sheer wilfulness. Sometimes they had really lost their faith hold of Jehovah, and sometimes the burdens and trials of the way brought them into conditions of despondency; and unbelief and despondency became roots of disobedience. It is usual to treat the conduct of the Israelites without giving due consideration to their difficult, perilous, perplexing, and wearisome circumstances. Rightly viewed, it would have been the supreme human marvel if they had not failed in obedience and trust. Think what a mighty host it was, yet how imperfectly organized. Think of the strain of their manifest peril at the Red Sea, and the exceeding toil and weariness of their climb up the wadies to Sinai. Think of the difficulty, in that arid region, of providing food and water for so many creatures. Think kindly of them, and though the sense of their sin is not lightened, considerateness for the sinners is nourished. The disobedience that roots in unbelief, or in despondency, puts men into the pitifulness and mercy of their God.

I. DISOBEDIENCE ROOTED IN UNBELIEF. Here a distinction is necessary. Here is an unbelief which is wilful, which a man chooses, and for which he seeks reasons, and this is wholly sinful, and needs humbling punishment. And there is an unbelief which is the natural human response to difficult and trying circumstances, which seem to force doubts upon us. All are liable to this kind of unbelief in sharing the trials of human life. But there is a Divine gentleness in the dealing with the disobedience which has its root in this unbelief.

II. DISOBEDIENCE ROOTED IN DESPONDENCY. This reminds us how differently things affect different dispositions. Some are naturally despondent. They always see the dark sides, are ever ready to give up in despair. And this spirit often leads to failing obedience. Men have not spirit enough to do what they ought. But God “knoweth our frame.”R.T.

Psa 106:15

Gratifying sinful wants creates sinful wants.

“And he gave them their desire: and sent leanness withal into their soul” (Prayer book Version). These people longed for food of a luxurious character; they asked for it, received what they asked, and discovered that self-indulgence nourished appetite into passion, which carried them away beyond all possibility of self-restraint. Indulgence involved loss of moral power. Feed the body and you will inevitably starve the soul, bring “leanness into the soul.” “The gratification of wilful and presumptuous desire begets only an intenser sense of want.” Chateaubriand tells how the “Meschacebe, soon after leaving its source among the hills, began to feel weary of being a simple brook, and so asked for snow from the mountains, water from the torrents, rain from the tempests, until, its petitions granted, it burst its bounds, and ravaged its hitherto delightsome banks. At first the proud stream exulted in its force, but seeing ere long that it carried desolation in its flow, that its progress was now doomed to solitude, and that its waters were forever turbid, it came to regret the humble bed hollowed out for it by nature, the birds, the flowers, the trees, and the brooks, hitherto the modest companions of its tranquil course.” In Num 11:4 we are told that “the mixed multitude that was among them fell a-lusting,” and the Israelites joined them in crying for flesh to eat. What ought they to have done?

I. SINFUL DESIRES WILL SOMETIMES ARISE EVEN IN GOOD MEN. Wanting what is not provided, or what is contrary to the Divine will, under the urgings of bodily passion, is a constant experience. It is even illustrated in the idea of making bread out of stones, to satisfy hunger, which came to Jesus in the wilderness. Every man must take account of the fact that his bodily passions may at any time become temptations.

II. SINFUL DESIRES MUST BE REPRESSED WITHIN SAFE LIMITS. And this we do by refusing to let them say anything or do anything. Compelled silence soon weakens them. That power of self-mastery a man may have and hold if he gains it in the first occasion of struggle with uprising desires; but it is very hard to win again if once it is lost.

III. SINFUL DESIRES INDULGED GAIN RUINOUS MASTERY. The common law of wanting to do a thing again which we have once done acts in this. And all indulgence tends to weaken moral power. Illustrated by the drunkard and by the devil possessions (Legion) of the New Testament.R.T.

Psa 106:16

The character of Aaron.

“The saint of the Lord.” Perowne renders, “the holy one of Jehovah.” The word “saint” is equivalent to “set apart one,” “consecrated priest.” “The term denotes official sanctitythat derived from a Divine consecration. It will be remembered that Korah, Dathan, and Abiram denied the privileges of the priesthood on the ground that all the congregation were holy, every one of them, and that Moses replied, ‘The man whom the Lord doth choose, he shall be the holy one'” (Num 16:3-7). Every man, to be studied fairly, must be viewed both in his public and his private character. Officialism may but present to us a character put on. It may be the fair and honest expression of what a man really is.

I. THE CHARACTER OF AARON AS A MAN. It has been summarized in this way: “Aaron was of an impulsive character, leaning for the most part on his brother, but occasionally showing, as is not infrequent with such minds, a desire to appear independent.” It must be borne in mind that Aaron received no such personal revelations from God as Moses received, and that he never occupied other than a subordinate place, and so never felt the sanctifying pressure of supreme responsibility. He was a man who could follow, but could not lead; who could serve, but could not rule. There are such among us; men who are good and trustworthy servants, but who ruin every business of which they have control. And these very men are often like Aaron, hankering after the positions for which they are unfitted. There is tinder of jealousy in such men at the success of others, which a spark will easily set alight. Aarons can carry out; they cannot initiate.

II. THE CHARACTER OF AARON AS A PRIEST. This office suited him precisely, because in it he could be wholly occupied with providing details. A priest is a man who is not required to have a will of his own. A course is prescribed; he is to be loyal in following out that course. Aaron’s official character comes out well, but it was subject to some severe strains. He would have kept all right if things had continued in their regular routine. Routine does not weary the Aaron-type of man. But the unusual upset him. He felt nervous. He could not decide and stand firm; he let others overrule him, and unduly influence him; he could not rely on his own judgment; he tried to master difficulties in the weakest of ways, by compromises.R.T.

Psa 106:19, Psa 106:20

The sin of the golden calf.

“They changed their glory for the likeness of an ox that eateth grass” (Revised Version). “Into the similitude of a calf that eateth hay” (Prayer book Version). The idea is that the revelation of God as an unseen spiritual Being, requiring the service of righteousness, was the distinguishing glory of Israel. But this revelation they did not rightly value, but, at the first opportunity, bartered it away for a material god, of sensual character, who was served by the licence of self-indulgence. In this they were not merely disobedient; they showed their incapacity for high things, their unfitness to become the agents of God’s most gracious designs for the human race. The sin was a fourfold one.

I. IT WAS THE SIN OF DISOBEDIENCE TO COMMAND. It should be clearly shown that Israel was bound to obedience to Jehovah before the Decalogue was given. The scene of Sinai is improperly called the giving of the Law; it is properly the formulating of the Law. The people owned allegiance to the God of their fathers, to the God who had delivered them from Egypt; and their willingness to obey was actually pledged afresh before Moses ascended the mount (see Exo 19:7, Exo 19:8). They were bidden wait to receive a communication from God; they disobeyed, and acted without direction. Disobedience is often due to the restlessness that cannot wait.

II. IT WAS THE SIN OF UNFAITHFULNESS TO TRUST. The spirituality of God was the supreme national trust. Neither Abraham, Isaac, nor Jacob ever saw God, but he was a real Power in their lives. In Egypt God was never seen, but he did mighty deeds. Put fully, the unity, spirituality, and holiness of Jehovah were committed to the care of the Abrahamic race, and that race was to preserve these truths while the rest of the world freely experimented on constructing religions and deities for itself. To make idolatrous images of God, the spiritual Being, was unfaithful to trust.

III. IT WAS THE SIN OF “FOLLOWING THE DEVICES OF THEIR OWN HEARTS.” Or self-willedness. They asked what they liked, as if they were independent; not what God liked, as if they were dependent on him. The essence of sin for a creature is self-will. Triumph over self-will is the supreme aim of religion. That golden calf was a self-willed thing; as such there could be no religion in it. Through, and by means of, that golden calf the people did but worship themselves; what they personified was their own will, not God. Men deceive themselves when they fashion their own gods; they can only rightly take God as revealed to them.

IV. IT WAS THE SIN OF DISHONOURING GOD. The symbol they chose was an insult. True, their associations in Egypt suggested no other; and perhaps the ox was in some sense their national symbol. So their god was the personified nation. The spiritual Jehovah is degraded in men’s minds when associated with a mere beast.R.T.

Psa 106:23

Moses as mediator.

“Had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.” “The intercession of Moses is compared to the act of a brave leader, covering with his body the breach made in the walls of his fortress.” See the figure as given in Eze 22:30. The account of Moses’ intercession is found in Exo 32:10-14. The point on which we dwell is the fitness of Moses to be the mediator on this occasion.

I. THE FITNESS ARISING FROM HIS OFFICIAL POSITION. He was the agent appointed by God, through whom his will might be sent to the people. He was the representative of the people, appointed by them to conduct all negotiations with Jehovah in their name. He was the proper person; and foreshadows the Lord Jesus Christ as revealer of God to men, and negotiator for men with God.

II. THE FITNESS ARISING FROM THE CONFIDENCES MOSES HAD WON. He had gained both power and right by his faithful service of the people, and by his holy familiarity with God. We may say that God had proved him, and so had confidence in him. And the people had proved him, and knew well that they had no better friend. Christ is “beloved Son,” and our best Friend.

III. THE FITNESS ARISING FROM THE PERSONAL FEELING OF Moses. He was supremely indignant at the sin of the people; so much so as to have lost his self-control, and flung down the tables. That right feeling towards the sin fitted him to mediate. He made no excuse; he could but plead for pardon. A man with no adequate sense of the iniquity could not have been acceptable as a mediator. But Moses was also supremely pitiful towards the erring people, and this gave him the fitting tenderness in pleading for their forgiveness. So in Christ we find deepest impressions of the evil of sin, uniting with supreme love for the sinners.

IV. THE FITNESS ARISING FROM THE VIGOUR OF MOSES‘ RULE. God knew that Moses could punish; and if the more serious judgment on the sin was removed, still there must be such punishment as would adequately impress the evil of the sin. Moses was a fitting mediator, because God was assured that he would not neglect this educative and disciplinary judgment. God, if we may so speak, graciously yielded to Moses’ persuasions, because he knew that his honour was safe in Moses’ hands. So Christ in his mediation “magnifies the Law, and makes it honourable.”R.T.

Psa 106:30

The atonement of Phinehas.

(See Num 25:11-13.) “Phinehas, himself perhaps a judge in authority, became the type of a righteous zeal, exercising summary vengeance, informal and unbidden, against outrage on decency and on reverence for God” (Dr. Barry). “It is a picture of the one zealous man rising up from the midst of the inactive multitude, who sit still and make no effort.” The incident occurred toward the close of the wanderings, when the Israelites were in the neighbourhood of Moab. Unable to gain the right to curse Israelas Balsam wished, and as it would have paid him well to doBalsam persuaded King Balak to allow free intercourse between his people and them. “Let the Israelites fall into immorality and sin, and then their God will destroy them, and your end will be accomplished.” The scheme succeeded. The vice and iniquity of Israel was full in God’s sight, and the immediate execution of the Divine judgment was commanded. Some great public act of vindication was called for; such a manifest upholding of the Divine authority and holiness as would make a sin-cover, occupy the Divine attention, gain the Divine approval, and be a basis on which judgment might be stayed. Phinehas was the man to do it. A flagrant case of unlawful intercourse had occurred, and when he saw the wicked couple he “rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand, and he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.”

I. PHINEHAS WAS ZEALOUS FOR THE HONOUR OF JEHOVAH.

II. HIS PUBLIC ACT OF VINDICATION MADE A SIN–COVER.

III. BECAUSE OF THAT SIN–COVER, JEHOVAH‘S JUDGMENT MIGHT BE STAYED.

See, then, what we must look for in the great atonement, made for us by the Son of God, is some fitting vindication of the outraged honour of God our Father, and so restored relations. Reconciliation can only come with solemn honouring of God’s authority and claim by some public act of loyalty. Scripture presents to us different things that made atonement. A man’s prayer made atonement (case of Moses). An act of official duty made atonement (case of Aaron). An act of judgment made atonement (case of Phinehas). We are left to think what act of Christ’s made atonement for us all.R.T.

Psa 106:43, Psa 106:44

The Divine pity and patience.

The exiles, when about to return to their own land, were brought to repentance by their sense of the goodness of God to them. In the spirit of penitence, the psalmist, a devout exile, reviews the national history, and finds that over and over again his people had to be penitent for their sins, and over and over again their God found them space and opportunity for repentance. Now, that exile read the national history aright, and he helps us in the endeavour to read our lives aright, and find in them ever-recurring proofs of the Divine pity and patience with the wilful and the wayward.

I. SOME OF THE SOURCES WHENCE COME OUR SINS.

1. Fear. Illustrate by provocation at Red Sea (Psa 106:7).

2. Lust. Inordinate desire. Putting God to the test (Psa 106:14). Envy.

3. Story of Dathan (Psa 106:17).

4. Unspirituality. Incident of the calf (Psa 106:19).

5. Impatience. Despising the pleasant land, because it did not come to them at once (Psa 106:24).

6. Licence. Case of immorality at Beth-peor (Psa 106:28)

7. Distrust. Waters of strife (Psa 106:32).

8. Imperfect obedience, a sign of self-will.

They did not destroy the Canaanites, which they were commanded to do (Psa 106:34).

II. THE SORROWS WHICH OUR SINS HAVE CAUSED GOOD MEN. These help us to realize how bad those sins must be. See what sorrow Moses felt in connection with the sin of the golden calf. See what sorrow Aaron felt in the matter of Dathan’s rebellion. See what sorrow Phinehas felt in the matter of Ball-peor.

III. THE PITIFUL PATIENCE WITH WHICH GOD HAS EVER DEALT WITH OUR SINS.

1. Waiting until we came to a better mind. Let evil do its own work; it will be sure to punish and humble. God often does so much for us by doing nothing, leaving us to suffer the natural consequences of our sins.

2. Helping us by chastisements to come to a better mind. There may be occasions on which the infinite wisdom decides that it is better not to wait, because there may be active leaders in the evil, or strong self-will, which needs to be dealt with at once. Judgment for some, as in Dathan’s case, may be chastisement for all. The worst thing that could happen to us would be to be finally “let alone.” If God is in our lifeacting in our lifeall is right, however trying the circumstances of life may be.R.T.

HOMILIES BY C. SHORT

Psa 106:40-46

Man’s misery and God’s compassion.

“The design of the whole psalm is to awaken the people to a lively consciousness of the truth, that though there is much of sin in us, there is much more of grace in God;” that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Suggests

I. GOD LOVES ALL HIS CREATURES, BUT HATES THEIR SINS. (Psa 106:40.) That is, he makes us feel sensible that he is forever opposed to our evil conduct, and creates in us a terror of the consequences of our sinsthe punishment they entail.

II. PART OF THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN IS THAT WE ARE GIVEN OVER TO ITS TYRANNY. (Psa 106:41.) Give ourselves over. This is a natural consequence, a Divine law of our constitution, and is a galling and terrible penalty of the habit of transgression. Our passions come thus to rule over us, instead of our ruling over them.

III. WHEN WE ATTEMPT TO RESIST THIS TYRANNY, WE FIND THAT OUR SLAVERY IS MORE OPPRESSIVE THAN WE THOUGHT. (Psa 106:42). Men often may make some effort to break off from evil ways, but discover that they are under a heavier bondage to their sins than they had supposed. This, too, is a part of the punishment of sinits enfeebling, debilitating influence.

IV. MEN WHOM GOD SEEMS TO HAVE DELIVERED FROM THEIR SINS, AFTER A TIME RETURN TO THEIR FORMER INIQUITY. (Psa 106:43.) They are then brought low, or impoverished, or weakenedlower than they were before, because now they begin to lose all hope of recovery. House “swept and garnished” is prepared for the return of sevenfold powers of evil, that rule more absolutely than ever.

V. SUCH HELPLESS MISERY EXCITES THE DIVINE COMPASSION. (Psa 106:44.) “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” God pities those whom he cannot savebecause of their unwillingness. “How often would I have gathered thee as a hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”

VI. GOD DOES NOT REPENT TILL MEN REPENT. (Psa 106:45) God does not change his laws to relieve the disobedient from suffering; but when they change from disobedience to obedience, the result is so great that God seems to them to have changed. To row against the current and to row with the current seems like rowing upon a different river.S.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Psalms 106.

The Psalmist exhorteth to praise God: he prayeth for pardon of sin: the history of the people’s rebellion, and God’s mercy: he concludeth with prayer and praise.

halleluiah.

THE first, and the two last verses of this psalm, are given us as David’s in 1 Chronicles 16. It is therefore most probable, that the whole of it was composed by him; particularly as the subject is very similar to that of the preceding psalm: only that here, besides commemorating God’s mercies towards their forefathers, he reproves the Israelites for the ungrateful return they made. Mudge, however, thinks that the psalm was composed during the captivity: an opinion which is much countenanced by the fourth and fifth verses.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Psalms 106

1Praise ye the Lord.

O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good:

For his mercy endureth for ever.

2Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord?

Who can shew forth all his praise?

3Blessed are they that keep judgment,

And he that doeth righteousness at all times.

4Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people:

O visit me with thy salvation;

5That I may see the good of thy chosen,

That I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation,
That I may glory with thine inheritance.

6We have sinned with our fathers,

We have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly.

7Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt;

They remembered not the multitude of thy mercies;
But provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea.

8Nevertheless he saved them for his names sake,

That he might make his mighty power to be known.

9He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up:

So he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness.

10And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them,

And redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.

11And the waters covered their enemies:

There was not one of them left.

12Then believed they his words;

They sang his praise.

13They soon forgat his works;

They waited not for his counsel:

14But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness,

And tempted God in the desert.

15And he gave them their request;

But sent leanness into their soul.

16They envied Moses also in the camp,

And Aaron the saint of the Lord.

17The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan,

And covered the company of Abiram.

18And a fire was kindled in their company;

The flame burned up the wicked.

19They made a calf in Horeb,

And worshipped the molten image.

20Thus they changed their glory

Into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.

21They forgat God their saviour,

Which had done great things in Egypt;

22Wondrous works in the land of Ham,

And terrible things by the Red sea.

23Therefore he said that he would destroy them,

Had not Moses his chosen
Stood before him in the breach,
To turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.

24Yea, they despised the pleasant land,

They believed not his word:

25But murmured in their tents,

And hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord.

26Therefore he lifted up his hand against them,

To overthrow them in the wilderness:

27To overthrow their seed also among the nations,

And to scatter them in the lands.

28They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor,

And ate the sacrifices of the dead.

29Thus they provoked him to anger with their inventions:

And the plague brake in upon them.

30Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment:

And so the plague was stayed.

31And that was counted unto him for righteousness

Unto all generations for evermore.

32They angered him also at the waters of strife,

So that it went ill with Moses for their sakes:

33Because they provoked his spirit,

So that he spake unadvisedly with his lips.

34They did not destroy the nations,

Concerning whom the Lord commanded them:

35But were mingled among the heathen,

And learned their works.

36And they served their idols:

Which were a snare unto them.

37Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils,

38And shed innocent blood,

Even the blood of their sons and of their daughters,

Whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan:
And the land was polluted with blood.

39Thus were they defiled with their own works,

And went a whoring with their own inventions.

40Therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people,

Insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance.

41And he gave them into the hand of the heathen;

And they that hated them ruled over them.

42Their enemies also oppressed them,

And they were brought into subjection under their hand.

43Many times did he deliver them;

But they provoked him with their counsel,

And were brought low for their iniquity.

44Nevertheless he regarded their affliction,

When he heard their cry:

45And he remembered for them his covenant,

And repented according to the multitude of his mercies.

46He made them also to be pitied

Of all those that carried them captives.

47Save us, O Lord our God,

And gather us from among the heathen,
To give thanks unto thy holy name,

And to triumph in thy praise.

48Blessed be the Lord God of Israel

From everlasting to everlasting:
And let all the people say, Amen.
Praise ye the Lord.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Contents and Composition.This Psalm, which bears the Hallelujah as an inscription, begins with a doxology. This doxology was not first employed in 1Ma 4:24, but occurs already in Jer 33:11 as being then in common use. Then in Psa 106:2 a question is uttered of such a kind, as to create an expectation that a song of praise to Jehovah would here strike in. But the verses which follow give to the thought another turn. For Psa 106:3 passes over to the praise of the righteous, and Psa 106:4-5, to a prayer for personal favor, in common with favor to the people, and for participation in the happiness and rejoicing which should follow. From this point onwards the Psalm assumes fully the form of a prayer of confession, which unites the universal acknowledgment of sins (Psa 106:6) with a description of the conduct of the fathers, as it was displayed during the journey through the desert (Psa 106:7-32), as related in the Books of Exodus and Numbers, and during their residence in the Holy Land itself (Psa 106:33-46), as related in Jdg 2:11 ff. The closing verse forms a prayer for deliverance from the present captivity.

The Babylonish Exile is rightly assumed as the period of composition. For the liturgical doxology, which marks the close of the fourth Book of the Psalms (Psa 106:48), is with Psa 106:1; Psa 106:47, and the portions of Psalms 96, 105 already mentioned, put in 1Ch 16:36 into the mouth of king David, at the removal of the ark to Jerusalem; and, though treated in the historical manner, it is there placed in such connection with the portions taken from our Psalm, as to justify us in believing, that it was already attached to it in the manner presented to us here. It can the more readily be regarded as having been specially connected with this Psalm, as its peculiar form has unmistakably been preserved by the influence of the latter. Delitzsch adduces three peculiarities of the liturgical prayer, and especially of the prayer of confession (viddui): (1) A fondness for a rhyme-like final sound in like suffixes, (2) an accumulation of synonyms, (3) the unfolding of the course of thought in a continuous line. He considers the oldest types of such liturgical prayers, to be the two forms, employed at the presentation of the first-fruits (Deuteronomy 26) and the dedication-prayer of Solomon (1 Kings 8). The supposition of Ewald that this Psalm was sung by alternate performers, is based only upon the interchange of singular and plural in Psa 106:4; Psa 106:6, which is insufficient for its support. The plural reading, also, in Psa 106:4 f. (Sept., Syr., Aq., Symm., Theod., Vulg., Luther) is supported by only a few unimportant manuscripts.

[Hengstenberg: According to the common idea, the author of Chronicles is understood to relate that this composition was sung at the erection of the sanctuary on Zion under David. The older expositors hence concluded that those Psalms from which this fragment is made up, were composed by David, or at least in the time of David. In more modern times a proof has been sought of the non-genuineness of Chronicles, or of the arbitrary manner in which the Jews fixed the authors and the dates of the Psalms. But the whole is founded upon a mistake. The description of the service which took place at the bringing-in of the ark of the covenant in 1 Chronicles 16, terminates before the Psalm composition is introduced, so that we do not need to suppose that any use was made of the latter at the celebration. David had already pronounced the blessing, Psa 106:2, and the people had been dismissed with the gifts which, according to 2Ch 6:18-19, terminated the festival. A narrative is next given of the arrangement of the sacred music in the tabernacle. It is recorded next in Psa 106:7 that David, on the same day, caused thanks to be given by Asaph and his brethren, and, on the occasion of the great memorable day of the establishment of the sacred music, there is given, Psa 106:8-16, the essence of those Psalms which at all times were sung, accompanied by their music, as a representation of the whole Psalter. The author of Chronicles naturally formed his composition out of those Psalms, which were sung in his day most frequently and with the greatest relish. In like manner it was natural that he should not bind himself strictly to the text of the borrowed passages, but should introduce slight alterations wherever such seemed suitable. The defence lies in this, that he does not, like the author of the Books of Samuel in 2 Samuel 22, pledge himself to give a faithful transcript of another mans labor, but has rather published expressly an abstract by himself, and we must expect a priori, that it would be given with that freedom, which is manifested in selecting from Psalms 105 only the beginning, and from our Psalm the beginning and the conclusion.J. F. M.]

[In Psa 106:4, E. V. has: with the favor that thou bearest unto thy people. This should probably be replaced by the rendering: in favor to thy people. For the connection compare the next verse.J. F. M.]

Psa 106:5-7. Of thy nation. is parallel to [Psa 106:4] as in Zep 2:9; the singular being employed to designate the people of Israel, whereas the plural always expresses the nations, as contrasted with the people, , united under the dominion of Jehovah. In Psa 106:7 the Sept. have evidently read instead of , for they translated . The word is not a gloss from Psa 106:22 (Clericus, Kster), nor a mutilation of (Houbigant) or (Venema). A local designation is quite in place, and it is not at all surprising that in the name of the sea, which follows immediately, the preposition is used instead of , in a like signification (comp. Psa 106:19; Psa 106:22; Eze 10:15). The appellation is not a proper name, that of a city at the northern extremity of the Red Sea (Knobel on Exo 13:18), but is connected with the ancient Egyptian sbe=reeds, or sippe=sea-weed. The common idea that it signifies: sea of reeds, rests especially upon Exo 2:3; Isa 19:6. The absence of the article is due to the circumstance that this designation had already come into common use, as though it were a proper name.

Psa 106:15. We are not to render: satiety (Sept., Vulg., Syr.) instead of: emaciation, that is, leanness, as consumption (Isa 10:16; Isa 17:4), which God sent into their soul=their life. The former is an inadmissible explanation of after the fundamental passage, Num 11:20, which states that , loathing, came upon them. Luther combines the two ideas: He sent them enough, until they were surfeited. The passage before us, however, specifies the disease which resulted from this, as the punishment decreed by God.

Psa 106:20. Their glory is, as in Jer 2:11, is used of God Himself, and in a twofold relation.His manifestation of Himself to His people, and His being thus glorified before all nations (Deu 4:6 f.; Deu 10:21). A somewhat different turn is given to the sentence, if Jehovah is here called the Pride of Israel (1Sa 15:29; Hos 5:5; Hos 7:10).

Psa 106:24-27. The pleasant land. So Jer 3:19; Zec 7:14. The lifting up of the hand is here not a gesture of threatening, raising it to strike, but an attitude employed in taking an oath, (Exo 6:8; Deu 32:40, comp. Dan 12:7; Psa 144:8). It was because they despised the land, that God would make them perish in the wilderness. (Num 14:32). Because they murmured in their tents (Deu 1:27), they were, in the persons of their descendants, to be dispersed among the heathen. As Psa 106:26 f. is unmistakably connected with Eze 20:23, the repeated would appear to be a chirographical error (Hitzig, Del.) for . Accordingly, the translation: overthrow (Sept., Syr., Chald.), is preferred by many. But the word may have been repeated intentionally, for in Psa 106:43, (to sink down, decay) occurs, instead of (to dissolve, become corrupt), which is retained in Eze 24:23; Eze 33:10, from the fundamental passage Lev 26:39. Hitzig regards it as an error; Delitzsch as a deliberate alteration.

Psa 106:28 employs, as it seems, after Num 25:3; Num 25:5, a technical word denoting connection with the Moabitish priapus. [For the mode of expression comp. 1Co 6:16, and Kling thereon in the Bibelwerk.J. F. M.]. It expresses, at all events, a closer intercourse and more complete yielding up, than would be conveyed by the translation: they were initiated (Sept., Jerome), or: they served (Gesenius, after the Ethiopic usage of the kindred word), Nothing is known of any special ceremony in which bands or fillets were worn (J. D. Michaelis). The dead are not gods of the under world (Selden), or departed spirits (Deu 18:11; Isa 8:19), for which sacrifices of the dead were brought (Kster, De Wette); for mention is also made here of eating the offerings, and Num 25:2 calls them, sacrifices of their gods. Accordingly, Moabitish gods are meant here also (Hupfeld and others), which are called dead as contrasted with the living God (Wis 13:10 ff.).

Psa 106:30. is not to be understood merely of stepping forth (Num 25:7), but also of coming forward, as mediator, for Phinehas, by intervening with his spear, performed an act of judgment, and that through zeal for Gods justice. By this act of faith (Gen 15:6), that justice was satisfied, and as a Divine acknowledgment of its religious worth, the priesthood was bestowed upon him and his descendants for ever. (Num 25:10 ff.). The signification of judging is established for the Piel (1Sa 2:25); the signification of interceding (Chald., Syr., Geier) is that of the Hithpael, that of atoning (Vulg.) or expiating (Sept.) has, in fact, been assigned.

Psa 106:32-33. The unadvised words of Moses allude to His question to the people (Num 20:10), which was shown to be one of impatience and doubt by his twice striking the rock, and was therefore designated by God as unbelief and disobedience (Num 20:12; Num 20:24; Num 27:14), and punished as such. But, because the people had given occasion to this fault, it is said in Psa 106:32 b, in accordance with the complaint of their leader (Deu 1:37; Deu 3:26), that it went ill with Moses for their sakes. Yet we are not to translate: they embittered his (Moses) spirit (Sept., and most), but, according to the historical account and the usage of the phrase (Psa 106:7; Psa 106:43; Psa 78:17; Psa 78:40; Psa 78:56, Isa 63:10), this reference is only to resisting the Spirit of God (Chald., Geier, Hengst., and the recent expositors).

Psa 106:37. The are, according to Deu 32:17; Jdg 2:11, not demons (Sept., and others), Bar 4:7, but gods, under the appellation: powers, or: lords.

[In Psa 106:46 render: and has given them favor in the sight of all those that carried them captive. Alexander: The literal translation of the first clause is, and has given them for mercies or compassions. This remarkable expression is borrowed from 1Ki 8:50, (compare 2Ch 30:9), not only here, but in the history of Daniel and his fellow-captives (Dan 1:9), which makes it not at all improbable, that what is there recorded is among the indications of returning Divine favor, here referred to by the Psalmist.J. F. M.].

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Human understanding and human speech and never measure the greatness of Gods deeds or the depth of His mercy; but the grateful acknowledgment and extolling proclamation of them are not merely an expression, becoming to the people of God, of the relation in which they stand to Him, but are also the ordained means of spreading the glory due to Him, and of strengthening confidence in the eternal efficiency of His grace.
2. The strengthening of this confidence is indispensable, especially as every legitimate claim, which men could be tempted to found upon the covenant relation, is altogether cancelled by sins which are renewed from generation to generation. Accordingly, a new display of mercy is the only means of deliverance. But the seeking after and imploring this mercy presupposes, not only an experience of the need and a desire of its satisfaction, but also a belief of the possibility of the latter, and of the readiness of God to afford the means that are necessary thereto. And it is only as resting upon this ground, that courage will be imparted to appropriate personally, with all the earnestness of a soul-stricken confession of sin, the Divine promises and means of grace.
3. The contemplation of the history of Gods people is specially adapted to awaken both a penitent frame of mind, and a believing seeking after the Divine favor. For that history exhibits, in impressive sketches, ingratitude displayed anew on every occasion, disobedience, fickleness, and partial defection on the one side, and, on the other, brings before the view judgments and acts of deliverance on the part of God, which are not isolated, but form one connected course of leading, for the unfolding of His purposes of mercy and plan of salvation.

4. It was a part of the design of these dealings to impress and develop the truth, that punishment attends upon guilt, and that without expiation there is no forgiveness of sin; that there is, however, a means of delivering the people by substitution, not performed by legal works and practices, not by priestly ceremonies and forms, not by external actions and sacrifices, but by the personal self-devotion of those, who, whether by acting or suffering, by interceding or judging, step into the breach, and, by yielding up their own persons satisfy the actual demands of justice, rescue and purify the people of God, and set them upon the way of salvation.

5. Such a view of history, together with its instructive use, is immediately applicable to purposes of edification. It has, indeed, to do with universal transgressions, judgments, deeds of deliverance, and experiences of mercy; yet it regards them not as general truths, but with historical particularity and in their concrete definiteness. And, accordingly, it does not excite a more general consciousness of guilt, desire for salvation, or feeling of gratitude; it rather evokes, amid the songs of the Church to the praise of Gods glory, a special prayer of confession. And these are the more worthily united, the more such a prayer issues forth, with the vigor of life, from belief in the perpetual efficiency of the Divine mercy, which has been so often attested and assured in history, and the more decidedly if is expressed and animated with the sense of a community of interests, both in confession of sins and in supplications for supplies of grace, which are sought not merely with a view to personal participation, but also with a view to the needs of the united Church.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

It is well for us, that, while confessing our sins, we can confidently offer a prayer for the Divine favor, and can begin and end with praise to God.All suffering endures its time, but Gods love to eternity.The history of the Church as a testimony, that grace is mightier than sin.God remembers His covenant with us according to His mercy and truth; but we often forget His blessings and judgments, even although we remain mindful of the words of His promises and threatenings.Only those can draw consolation from the proclamation of Gods mercy, who are truly in earnest in the confession of their sins.Though we can never praise God adequately, yet the greatness of His deeds must not cause us to be silent, but must animate us to praise.If we are no better than our fathers, the fact should not serve to excuse us, but urge us more earnestly to penitence.It were good for us, if the judgments of God were not our first reminders that He has not forgotten us.We must most rightly count those happy who practise righteousness; but we are not to forget that all men are sinners, that we obtain salvation through grace, and that righteousness is the fruit of faith.

Starke: We have always sufficient reason to praise God: but let us, above all, assiduously preserve the memory of His goodness.A dark cloud, though it may conceal, can never destroy or extinguish the sun; so the clouds of affliction cannot blot out or quench the goodness and mercy of God.If thou dost but truly humble thyself in prayer before God. He will ever remember thee for good.There are still many after the fashion of the Israelites of old: they will not recognize Gods wonders as wonders, they do not fittingly regard His goodness. What can be the result but forgetfulness of God, which is the source of many other sins?A man gives proof of a most depraved heart, when he does not fear to sin in the very place, where he has been delivered from imminent danger.When God will serve us, nature must give way to Him.If faith is of the true kind, it will soon make itself seen in good works.If we would abide faithful in Gods word, and be counselled ever by it, we would not so soon or so lightly forget His gracious benefits.To demand anything from God in impatience and doubt, and thus, as it were, to force it from Him, is to tempt Him.If we pray for temporal things without any conditions, and therefore against Gods command, God may indeed hearken to us sometimes, but how often does the fulfilment humble us, and bring us to shame, when we have brought harm upon ourselves by our foolish request:Almost every man has some moulds in which he casts the molten calves of his worship, until God alone becomes great in his eyes.Nothing is more unbecoming and disgraceful to a man of understanding, than to set his heart on unworthy objects more worthless than himself.He is blessed who can regard the great works of God with delight and not be terrified by them.O believing soul, if thou art filled with dismay that so few stand in the breach, do it thyself; and all the more, the less others do it; if none will pray with thee, thou hast still the best of all fellow-suppliants, and the best Intercessor with the Father in heaven, Jesus Christ Himself.The devil has still many kinds of enticing food, through which he seduces lusting souls to the service of idols.A little word can often create a great disquietude in the heart, and yet there are many so thoughtless in the use of their tongues, that they speak not one, nor a few, but indeed numberless idle words. Will they become swords too, that will vex and torment their consciences?Mistimed leniency is opposed to God, and injures also him who displays it, for it makes him a partaker in the sins of others.The first step towards sin is the conscious neglect of Gods commands.Intercourse and association with the wicked are calculated to produce much evil.How easily intimacies are contracted in these days! But how heavy many a heart becomes thereby! How sorely wounded is many a conscience!There are many who become only the more wicked, the more gracious and merciful God proves Himself to them.

Osiander Sometimes a single mischance will make us forget all Gods benefits.Arndt: Men cannot, without repentance, become partakers of Gods grace, and all Gods wonders are performed that He may bring them to conversion.God must work long before He excites and maintains faith in us.How God may be overcome by prayer.Renschel: Gods favor outweighs all guilt.Frisch: There is first shown in the example of Israel the constant inconstancy of the human heart; there is then extolled the unwearied mercy and compassion of God, and lastly, David shows the true means of becoming a partaker in such compassion.Richter: Each individual believer should appropriate specially to himself Gods gracious promises to His whole people. If we do not lay hold upon them, to whom are they to be made good? To unbelievers?Diedrich: The best kind of confession is this: to give all the glory to God, to take all the guilt to ourselves, and to hope for the best in Gods glorious grace.Taube: True sorrow, which is from God, not only does not make us incapable of praising God, but bears within itself the seeds of true joy, joy in the Lord.Faith in Gods mercy is the only anchor of safety for His people.

[Matt. Henry: What is asked in passion is often given in wrath.Those wretchedly forget themselves who feed their bodies and starve their souls.Then God gives the good things of this life in love, when, with them, He gives grace to glorify God in the midst of them; for then the soul delights itself in fatness. Isa 55:2.This is the worst thing in sin, that it makes us loathsome to God, and the nearer any are to God in profession, the more loathsome they are if they rebel against Him.Bishop Horne: In general, we learn from this part of sacred history, how acceptable to God is a well-timed zeal for His service, as also, how dangerous it is to converse too freely with those of the other sex, especially when they have been educated in a false religion or in no religion at all.We stand astonished, doubtless, at this horrid, barbarous, and unnatural impiety of offering children by fire to a Moloch: but how little is it considered that children, brought up in the ways of ignorance, error, vanity, folly and vice, are more effectually sacrificed to the great adversary of mankind. Scott Often have we, forgetful of the terrors of Sinai, and even of the scene exhibited on Mount Calvary, and of our marvellous deliverance from the hand of the enemy, been setting up idols in our hearts, and cleaving to some forbidden object, so that, if a greater than Moses had not stood in the breach, to turn away the anger of the Lord, we should have provoked Him to destroy us.J. F. M.].

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

This is not so properly a new psalm, as a continuation of the former: it takes up the subject where the preceding left off in the church’s history. The Lord’s goodness, and Israel’s unworthiness, form the principal contents.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Here is a general call to the praise of Jehovah, for his glories, as he is in himself, and for his mercies, as he is towards his people. And when the believer keeps in view the mercies of redemption by Jesus, and his personal interest in them, how will such contemplation heighten his song!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

The Biography of a Soul

Psa 106:12-14

I. They believed His words. I venture to say there is not a soul who cannot recall, at least once or twice, such hours of vivid deliverance, when God’s power thrust itself into your life and made clear your path before you. It may require perhaps a certain effort on your part to remember just at once such times of Divine interposition, but they are there none the less. They come in different ways.

( a ) Perhaps it was that day when some one dearer to you than life itself was lying on the borderland of death. You just prayed with all the passion of a soul that shrank from the anguish of bereavement, that God would hear you and give you back, even for a little while, the life that seemed to be slipping from your grasp. Then the miracle took place.

( b ) Or it may be that this Divine interposition in life comes through deliverance from some great temptation.

( c ) Or it may be that God reveals Himself in a human life in saving from some great personal peril.

II. Most of us who have experienced such deliverance have written the second chapter in that spiritual biography, the chapter of praise. I do not know anything more beautiful than he who has thus come out of such a deliverance writing in his deeds of love and charity his record of gratitude.

III. But then comes the other side of all this, the story of forgetfulness and indifference. They believed His words, then sang His praise, but they soon forgot Him. Literally, they made haste to forget Him. The vividness of their faith was obliterated by the suddenness of their indifference.

IV. Forgetfulness passed by a natural stage into apostasy. When the psalm of gratitude ceased, the discord of sin began. The soul must feed on something. It craved other food. Its passions demanded other sustenance. So inevitably sin creates an unnatural and unsatisfied appetite. It begins by making us forget God and it ends by making us crave for that which makes the very thought of God distasteful. So the tragic schism between the soul and its Maker is rendered complete.

D. S. Mackay, The Religion of the Threshold, p. 310.

Reference. CVI. 15. R. M. Benson, Redemption, p. 30.

Man’s Rejection of God

Psa 106:24

Whatever diversity of opinion upon the sacred significance of life may be represented in this congregation, there is at least one thing upon which all serious-minded souls will agree, and that is, that there is nothing more important in the moral order than man’s acceptance or rejection of God.

I. Causes of Man’s Rejection of God. In the Bible there are many causes for man’s rejection of God.

( a ) Dissatisfaction with the Invisible. The first of these seems to be the incapacity of man to rest satisfied with the invisible. He doubts the invisible. It does not seem to satisfy him, and he ever and anon looks about him in the world for some object upon which he can fasten the marvellously mixed emotions of his nature and at the same time satisfy the inquisitiveness of his reason. Hence it was that in early days when Moses, the man of God, was in the mount with the Father of us all, receiving from Him a revelation, the privileged people were dissatisfied with his absence and with that which the absence represented; they longed for the visible. They thought that the visible was the real.

( b ) Evil Associations. But this is not at all the only reason. We come down the stream of Hebrew history. We pass through the judicial period, through the monarchical period, and we come to the golden age of the Old Hebrew monarchy, to Solomon in his splendour, in all his Oriental magnificence. He has been warned of God against the peril of evil associates. He became associated with heathen women, and his heart strayed from God Who made him what he was. And thus we are enabled to see that evil associates, forbidden by God and known to men, will come between God and man and will produce the same result in the moral order that is produced by man’s impatience with a religion that has in its centre the invisible.

( c ) Thinking Scorn of Religion. But in our text you have not to do with either of these. Here the cause that leads to separation between man and God is in the field of fancy. It is in the realm of the imagination. ‘They thought scorn of that pleasant land.’ The children of Israel wondered why they had been brought up from Egypt. Their insurrection took the practical form of trying to stone Moses. And the cause of this was that not one of them knew anything about the land. They refused the evidence, and they were in a state of open hostility to God their Father. They thought scorn of the land, and the consequence of this ‘thinking scorn’ is that they ‘gave no credence’ to the word of Moses. The word of Moses was the Word of God, and therefore the rejection of the message of Moses was the rejection of the Word of God. They thought scorn; and then they appear to have lost the capacity even to believe rightly about Divine things.

II. An Everyday Experience. That spirit is not quite extinct. There is a large number of persons who first think scorn of religion and then become not only disobedient to God’s Word, but apparently they lose the power to grasp the weight of its increasing evidence. To bring this subject up to everyday life, we do not say that God gives us a land flowing with milk and honey, we do not adorn this land with all the fertility with which God was pleased to stimulate the spiritual life of the Israelitish nation. But we have our Canaan. What Canaan was to the Israelites Christ is to us, Christ in all the majesty of His Person, Christ in all the potentiality of His office, Christ in all the catholicity of His love, Christ in all His unchanging, undying sympathy with suffering humanity.

III. Factors in Coming to Christ. But in our invitations to men to come to our Canaan, that is, to Christ, there are three factors that must not be omitted:

( a ) A Sense of Sin. The first of these is sin. Let men be as optimistic as they may about the advancement of education, about the spread of order, sin cannot be excluded from the body politic nor from the individual nor from the race. It is as certain as that there is blood in the body, that penetrating and inter-penetrating the moral nature of man there is the awful reality that God calls sin. For that God has been pleased to provide a great remedy. It is pardon, and this pardon is given through Christ. Society cannot pardon sin. Society can punish. It is only Christ Who has the power to say ‘Go, and sin no more’.

( b ) Repentance. The second factor in our message is repentance. Man needs this if he desires to have perpetual affinity and association with God. A bad, unpardoned soul in heaven would make it hell. There must be affinity between those who dwell together, and the only way in which this affinity can be ours is announced to us by Him Who has made it absolutely certain, that is, Christ. He gives us His righteousness, and when we are in Christ God beholds us as in Him. We are one with His righteousness.

( c ) Power. And there is the third great factor that we may not be without. I need not only that my sins be forgiven, I want power to resist sin. I want freedom, and freedom consists in the power to master sin that will otherwise master me. Why do men commit sin at all? Because sin is stronger than man. Christ makes man stronger than his sin. Young men, carry away that sentence with you, love it, translate it into the moral rhetoric of your everyday life, and when you are tempted again, remember that Christ makes you stronger than your sin.

IV. What is our Response? What is our response to the appeal? Is there nobody here who thinks ‘scorn of the pleasant land,’ and then gives ‘no credence ‘to the Word of God Almighty? Is there no one who thinks scorn? Why, there are crowds of men who gather their ideas of religion not from their Bible, not from the character of people who love the Bible and God, but from some caustic publication or novel that seems to make light of truths that God holds dear, and of religion by which we are to live and without which we dare not die. You think scorn of the pleasant land and of those who think anything of it. No, you will say, that is hard, that is uncharitable we do not think scorn, but we will act scorn. God expects every soul baptized into the Church and who rejoices in the association with Christ, to work and to labour. He has purchased to Himself ‘a peculiar people, zealous of good works’. How many here are addicted to any form of moral work? Spiritual levity precedes spiritual unbelief, and spiritual unbelief means spiritual sterility. The man that is frivolous about religion will soon disbelieve it, and the man who disbelieves will not only not aid God’s work but will hinder it. All this is very serious and sorrowful. Now what are we to do? The first thing, I say, and especially to the young, is this: In all my reading I have never yet read of one experience, and that is that any soul who gave himself to Christ ever regretted having done so. You will never find a nobler religion than the one presented to you. Whoever discovered a better? Frivolity is such a peril to the English nation at the present time. Who would have his spirit tossed upon the torrent of the stream and in the end find himself without possibility of returning, without capacity to believe? There are dangers in the world of the imagination, dangers in the world of fancy, dangers which God has immortalized for our learning in these well-known words ‘They thought scorn of that pleasant land, and gave no credence unto His word’.

The Pleasant Land

Psa 106:24-25

This Psalm was written when Israel had a long history stretching far back into the past. The particular episode brought before us in these verses is the refusal of the children of Israel to advance and take possession of the Promised Land. There is one parallel which is frequently drawn between ourselves and the ancient Israelites. Canaan was to the Israelites what heaven is to us.

I. There is a Pleasant Land nearer to us than that which is divided from us by death. A Pleasant Land which we might possess now if we had the courage and made the necessary effort. Much that is meant to be ours now we push from us, and locate somewhere in the afterlife. The Christians of the Dispersion really knew something of the ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory’. We find Wesley testifying to what he had seen men, women, and children saved from sin, and filled with warm, holy feelings. Christian experience has been shared by many who had no genius of any kind.

II. Let us be real then, and ask ourselves what efforts were necessary to enter this Pleasant Land.

( a ) Inwardly we should have to overcome our sins, our sinful ways of thinking or speaking, our sloth, despondency from past failures, the deadening weight of routine, acquiescence in what we are.

( b ) Outwardly, too, we have our difficulties. Some may fear social coolness, ridicule heard or suspected. We have often heard exhortations to greater earnest. ness, and have approved. Has not our habitual sloth interposed between the approving judgment and the will to do? As Israel murmured ‘in the tents’ so we excuse our sloth by what we are and have been.

III. But besides our contempt of the Pleasant Land of Christian experience another reason for our failure is unbelief. Such unbelief is fashionable. When Christianity was young Christian joy and exultation were then real things. But in these later ages our religion is a sober thing, and it is well if we attain peace. All the spiritual experiences of the New Testament, then, are real, and are possible now. What is begun here is perfected there.

P. J. Maclagan, The Gospel View of Things, p. 23.

Their Inventions

Psa 106:29

How often does the word ‘inventions’ occur in the holy record? It seems quite a modern word, but in reality what is there that is modern? The whole text reads: ‘Thus’ as a thing done over and over again ‘Thus they provoked Him to anger with their inventions,’ their tricks, their small novelties, their empty and futile devices. We do not make any graven images now; still we may be credited with inventions, as we shall presently see. What are these inventions, under what name soever they may flourish amongst us? They are attempts to do without God, to put substitutes instead of the living Father, to displace the spiritual and ineffable by something that we can see and handle.

I. What are these inventions? They are attempts to supplement God. The Israelites did not wish to dethrone Jehovah. It would have struck them as a very curious suggestion if you had charged them with a desire to get rid of God; they would have replied that they had no such desire or intention, but they would endeavour to supplement the majesty of the Eternal; something that was nearer to their own hands they would like to be able to approach. It is so difficult to take in eternity, it was never fitted to the human nostril; and so difficult to take in infinity, it was never shaped and adapted to the human eye. So they would have something supplemental, something subsidiary, something of the nature of a deputized Jehovah. They, poor innocent creatures, did not want to unseat the King, they wanted to have some kinglings to whom they could talk in a way more or less familiar. These were part of the ‘inventions’ of old Israel.

II. What has been the opinion of God about all these inventions? That opinion is given in the text ‘They provoked Him to anger with their inventions: and the plague brake in upon them’. God has cleansing days, great ventilating shafts which He opens now and then in the cumbrous process of all this human evolution; so He calls in the plague, and says: ‘They are past entreaty, pray for them no more, let the plague go’. And then we wonder where the plague came from, and what we have done to provoke this uproar and upset of the ordinary commonplaces of life. There is always a moral reason even behind an earthquake.

III. Now ‘their inventions’ sometimes take curious forms and expressions as lots, coincidences, omens. Sometimes we have given way to these tricky and apparently innocent temptations. An omen! I heard a voice, I heard no words, but I heard a voice, and it seemed to be a calling, an inviting, seductive voice; something I am sure is going to happen, because the omen was so distinct and so delightful and impressive. ‘Man was made upright, but he sought out many inventions.’ We are led away from simplicity; we are led away from restful truths. We tempt God.

IV. What is God’s view of all such invention? We have that view in the text, and in Psa 99:8 we have ‘Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions’. He wrung their necks, and dashed them to the dust; He has swept out all these god-houses and invention-museums and ground them to powder, and He will do so again, and all your lots and omens and coincidences and shadows and table-rappings and table-turnings and all your miserable inventions, which are lies from the beginning to the end, because they spring out of a lie. The Apostle in Rom 1:30 says, ‘They are inventors of evil things’. Good things do not need in venting; evil things suggest themselves for incarnation and expression, and the evil things sometimes have falsehood enough in them to say, If you embody us, if you incarnate us, you will do a world of good by showing what evil really is if properly interpreted. You know the old fable in the writings of Erasmus in which the tempted man asks for a dark place, for a more hidden place, and when he gets to the place which he cannot get beyond he says to the woman-devil, Can God see us here? That one question was like a lightning flash that cut the darkness in pieces and made midnight brilliant as noonday. We cannot bury ourselves out of God’s sight; He is as familiar with the bottomless pit as with the immeasurable heights of heaven.

Then whence is the cleansing? There is only one answer to that inquiry. Only one power can cleanse the heart and bring us back to holiness, simplicity, and real sonship in the household of God. All this has to come out of us by blood, by the precious blood, by the redeeming, atoning, priestly blood of the Son of God.

Joseph Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. v. p. 136.

References. CVI. 45. L. E. Shelford, The Church of the People, p. 128. CVI. 48. J. Percival, Some Helps for School Life, p. 177. CVI. International Critical Commentary, vol. ii. p. 339. CVII. 9. W. G. Rutherford, The Key of Knowledge, p. 256. CVII. 14. F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. iii. p. 149. CVII. 17-20. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi. No. 1824. CVII. 19. E. A. Askew, Sermons Preached in Greystoke Church, p. 42. CVII. 21. J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi. pp. 312, 375. CVII. 23. S. Gregory, How to Steer a Ship, p. 91.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Spiritual Declension

Psa 106:12-14

We have in these three lines some of the greatest words in human history, and some of the most vivid experiences of human life. We seem to need no one to expound these words to us they are written upon our memory, and they are inwrought, so to speak, into the very substance of our consciousness. We do not need to go back a thousand years and more to find out whether these things are historically true. Every man who knows himself accepts them every one. We have all believed, praised, forgotten, and tempted. What is now our duty? If that question can be answered directly and solemnly and with due effect in the life, this will be as a birthtime, memorable through all the ages that are yet to dawn upon our life.

“Then believed they his words.” This takes us back to a point of time. When did they believe his words? He rebuked the Red Sea, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths as through a wilderness and he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. And the waters covered their enemies; there was not one of them left. And when they saw the dead Egyptians lying around them, all gone, from the oldest to the youngest, they believed God’s words. Any credit due to them? Not one whit. “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.”

This brings us into the region of personal providential deliverances, and we have all been in that hallowed region. That such deliverances do occur every man who has read his life with any attention, will instantly attest. Our whole life is a providential deliverance. So blind are we, so foolish, that we expect only to see God in the miracle that is occasional, rather than in the miracle that is constant. Let me lure you, or if need be, scourge you, from the foolish idea that a miracle is something occasional and exceptional. There are indeed critical moments when the flash is brightest, when the voice is clearest and most resonant, but if we could read our life aright we should find that to be saved from disaster, to have evil prevented, as well as cured, is to live under the miraculous providence of an Almighty Father. We should say, were the great sun to crack, and fall in hemispheres upon creation, that if it could be put together again it would be a miracle. It is a grander miracle to keep it where it is, as it is, from age to age, always giving, never losing, always illuminating, never a beam the poorer for the infinite affluence. See this aspect of your life and you will never have far to go for the miraculous and the sublime.

Still I challenge your attention to occasional interpositions of a very remarkable kind. You remember when the child was sick: in your silent forebodings you had buried the dear little life: you had never spoken about it. But contrary to all expectation and forecast, the life was redeemed from the grave, and set back in its place in the house. You remember that wolf with the long gleaming teeth that was pursuing you, and you were just about to lie down and pant out your last breath, and somehow the wolf was diverted from the pursuit, and you saw the enemy, savage and terrible, no more. You remember when you were within three paces of bankruptcy, and that a friend suddenly started up in your course and brought with him the key that opened the house of your prison. You remember just toppling over the precipice, just going, and you were saved, rather by a hand of wind than by a hand of flesh something between a thought and a thing undefinable, inexpressible but you were brought back and set on solid ground. What was the result? Religious faith. For the moment you were a religious man. If in that moment any one had suggested to you that there was no God, all the forces of your blood would have risen against him in antagonism and passionate protest. You would have said, “Tell that to the idle winds, preach that wicked gospel to the beasts of the forest, to the waves of the sea, but to me you must make another declaration, for I myself have seen with these eyes angels and ministers of light and redeemers yea, I have seen God.”

Would that we had died in some of these raptures of faith. We have had days in life when it had been well for us if God had opened a door in his blue heavens and taken us to himself. To die with this triumphant faith and with this great grace overflowing the heart would surely be to go to heaven. But what drops there are in life, what descents from high mountain scenes and breezes, into imprisonments and poisonous atmospheres, and graves out of which it seems to be impossible that any trumpet can awaken us, so deep, so black.

But as in the text, so in our own experience, we have gone beyond mere faith, solid and solemn faith. We read in the text that they sang his praise. Music is the higher speech. There are times in our joy when we must sing shout, rave, the world calls it; there are times in our religious consciousness when the only words that seem to fitly express our swelling emotion are such as “Hallelujah praise the Lord: Hallelujah praise the Lord.” Ecstasy and folly supreme to those who are not in the same mood, but, to men of kindred experience, music, a challenge to the fellowship of worship, and a call as of a trumpet blast to confess and honour the All-giving and Ever-giving God.

Once, O wanderer, you sang a religious hymn: do not drop your head now, and seem to forget all about it. You perhaps once sang in church, maybe you have come back to take up the strain where you dropped it, and to confess yourself a fool for your silence, seeing that God’s goodness has never ceased to attend your life. You have never told your friends of today that once you were a religious man. We beg you to return, to take up the ancient hymn, and to sing God’s praise once more, after ten or twenty years’ silence. Will you? Your throat may be rusty for awhile; the voice will not yield very round and pleasant notes at first, but be steadfast, and the sweetness of the music will increase as you persevere.

Now the tone changes, the wind goes round to a bitter quarter “They soon forgat his works.” Literally, they hastened to forget, they made speed to cleanse their memory of every religious recollection, they took down the broom and swept the house of their memory, so that no relic of the old religious emotion and utterances was left in the dismantled and impoverished soul. How easy it is to forget favours. How possible it is to give so many favours to an ungrateful person as to cause that person to imagine he has a right to claim them as his due. The giving of favours where gratitude is not kept up proportionately with the gift is a heart-hardening process. The Lord thus hardened Pharaoh’s heart. If there had been fewer mercies and more scourges, Pharaoh’s heart would not have been hardened. But who expects to find a man praying to-morrow morning because the sun has risen upon his fields? We expect the sun to rise, and if he come with a cloud before his face we grumble and murmur. God has given us that sun so long and so punctually, that if he were withheld to-morrow morning we should complain bitterly because of the withholding of the usual light. The sun is a daily gift. Give us this day our daily bread, our daily light, our daily health, our daily life. At eventide God draws the black line around us and says, “The day is past and gone, and to-morrow is in eternity.”

Some men have wonderful absorbing powers. They take any number of favours and never remember one of them. If this be so, as between man and man, what wonder that the charge should heighten in solemnity and gravity in its religious applications? It is the miracle which astounds the Omniscient. There are some things for which even God cannot prepare himself. From all eternity the whole drama of this human life lay outspread before him in every detail, in every accent of expression and every flush of colour, and yet he himself has been afflicted with surprise. Does it not seem to be so in the hearing of such words as these, namely, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” We have carried our ingratitude so far as to surprise Omniscience and shock Almightiness.

“They soon forgat” Religious impression is most transitory. Beautiful as the morning dew while it lasts, it exhales, and we see no rainbow in the sky. It vanishes, it perishes, unless it be diligently seized and wisely deepened, yea, even cultured with all a husbandman’s patient care, until it blooms into flower or develops into fruit, and is fit for the Master’s plucking. What is forgotten so soon as religious impression? The first thing that we hear at the church door is a remark about the weather, and that remark will obliterate every hymn, anthem, and sacred reading; earnest prayer and high expostulation will go down in one inquiry about the fickle climate. Frail is the thread that binds us to heaven, mean and weak the threadlet that attaches us to the altar and the church a breath may break it, a little splutter of flame may crack it, and then our life may be lost.

Perhaps the catastrophe ended at forgetfulness? No; further reading gives denial to that happy hope. The reading is black, and proceeds thus: “They lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert.” They believed, they lusted, they sang, they tempted. It is such swift oscillation that we find in our own consciousness and experience of religious things. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe. You a believing man, and now every passion aflame? You a singing man, and now you are tempting and mocking God by hard words and evil questions, and setting him tasks which you suppose to be above his power or beyond his grace? O Lucifer, son of the morning, how art thou fallen from heaven! Take care. Beware of dogs, beware of the concision, beware of evil workers, beware of bad companions, beware of relationships that please for the moment and then embitter all remaining time.

If the ancient people of God believed and sang and then lusted, forgat and tempted God who are we that we. should of our own strength be more competent to reply to the challenges of the devil or to bear the burden of the world? Let us connect ourselves with the sum total of humanity; and read in the history of others what might have happened in our own career; and learn from the ruins of the ages that we, too, might have been thrown down in uttermost disorganisation and afflicted with incurable disease. Do not say that you are stronger than other men that have lived: humanity is one: history is lost upon us if we do not see in that which has occurred to others what may happen to ourselves. It is painful to think of the possibility of a believing man, a singing Christian, forgetting his God, so that when he hears the holy name he does not recognise it And more distressing the still graver thought of a preacher after having preached to others becoming a castaway falling from the pulpit into perdition, laying down God’s hymn and psalm to take up the devil’s ribald praise. How sad to think that lips that were opened in prayer to heaven should be opened in homage to the devil yet this same tragic thing is possible to every one of us. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.

The backslider may not fall all at once: he falls from his singing into forgetfulness nothing more serious. He falls into a negative state, he does not instantly lay down the hymn-book and begin to blaspheme God. There is an intermediate course. Thus in the ardour of his piety he attends the sanctuary twice every Sabbath. By-and-by he says he is afraid to go out in the evening. Mark the beginning of a possible declension. That statement is perfectly true in some cases, and therefore we have no wish whatever to mitigate its force or to dispute its religious application in those instances. In the ardour of his early piety he attended the week-day services. He thinks that perhaps he has been neglecting his duty to his family by doing so, and therefore he surrenders them. Mark the beginning. Once he loved his own pastor above all others: now he wanders, he cannot bear to hear any one man more than three times. Mark the beginning. Once he was not afraid to say to others, “Come with me, I am going to a high mountain top today: the outlook is beautiful, the breeze is healthy, the companionship is inspiring come with me and hear a man that in Christ’s name told me all things that ever I did: is not this an apostle of truth?” And now when challenged with having heard that same man, he says, “Well, I did drop in now and then: I do not mean to say that I have often been there, but at the same time I I ” What, you did drop in there? Did you not come with both feet and with your head and your heart and your whole love, and was it not the happiest hour of your life you spent there? O man, tell no lies: do not wriggle out of the condition.

Thus we go little by little astray. The gradient that goes down is not abrupt; it is hardly measurable by the finest instruments, but it is going down still. Beware the first evil, beware the cooling process. Religion is nothing if it is not passion. Christianity is not a creed of words, it is an inspiration of life, it is a sacrifice.

How is it going to be with us? We have forgotten God; let us pray to him to become the inspiration of our memory, that we may begin our counting where we left it off, and number all his mercies, until by their multitudinousness they confound and disable us. If we could remember any one instance of our life as we ought to remember it, the recollection of that instance would be a graphic, complete, final reply to every temptation to disbelieve and distrust our God. Now and again we do see our lives, we get a swift panoramic view of the wondrous past, and sometimes it so flashes upon our vision that we turn up the head glowing with a new life, and open our lips to offer a new psalm, a new anthem of gratitude to him who was our fathers’ God, and who has never allowed us to know the hunger that had no bread, the thirst that could find no water, the weariness that could find no rest.

Note

The Psalter in Hebrew is divided into five books, perhaps to make it uniform in this respect with the Pentateuch, or for some other reason of which we are ignorant, which end respectively with the 41st, the 72nd, the 89th, the 106th, and the 150th Psalms. Each of these Psalms ends with a doxology, or ascription of praise; the first three with the words Amen and Amen, the fourth with Amen, Hallelujah, and the last with Hallelujah only, as though praise unceasing were to form the occupation of the world of praise.

It is impossible not to observe that there is a certain principle or plan observed in the traditional arrangement of the Psalms, though it may not be very definite or very closely followed: for example, the first Psalm is clearly a kind of introduction to the whole book, and the last Psalms swell louder and louder the notes of praise, as though they were intended to be a fitting conclusion to a series of hymns and prayers which had so often been fraught with sorrow….

As long as the career of mortal man is what it is in life, chequered by trial, danger, and bereavement; as long as the human heart is what it is, full of want and sin, and ever liable to sorrow, so long will the Psalms of David find their echo there, and not fail of earnest and anxious readers. The songs of Horace or Anacreon will please for a while, and will please an educated many or few, as the case may be; but a time will come when these will lose their sweetness for even their greatest admirers, and there must always be many whom they will fail to touch; but with respect to the prayers and hymns of David there can be no such thing as old age. They are the voice of man as man, and they are the truest expression of what must ever be permanent and unchanging man’s relation to God.

Nor is it necessary to look far for a reason, because the Psalms deal more especially with those aspects of human life in which all men are reduced to a common level, imminent danger, heart-rending grief, and a passionate longing for divine assistance. It is self-evident that many of the Psalms are the natural, spontaneous outpouring of the joy or sorrow of the writer. In this respect they are simply unrivalled, and stand alone among all the poetry of all nations and languages. Professor Stanley Leathes, M.A.

Prayer

Almighty God, we bless thee for the testimony of thy saints in all ages. All the houses of history have said, His mercy endureth for ever. In thy mercy we live. It is not only mercy, it is tender mercy. Who can tell how tender is the mercy of God? Thou wilt not break the bruised reed, thou wilt not quench the smoking flax; thou gatherest the lambs in thine arms, thou carriest them in thy bosom; thy loved ones are as the apple of thine eye unto thee: who then shall speak worthily of the divine mercy, or sing worthily of the divine love by which we were created and have been redeemed and shall be sanctified and glorified? Herein is the mystery of love. Other love we have known, but who can know in all its fulness the love of God which passeth knowledge? Help us to believe that we must grow in grace, and grow in wisdom, and continually ascend in all holy strength and power until we do more clearly apprehend the immeasurableness of the love of God. Oh that thy redeemed ones might no longer be silent! May they bear testimony to the tenderness and fulness of the mercy of the Lord; then shall the worst hear and wonder and inquire; on the right hand and on the left shall a man arise to say, Come, all ye that fear God, and I will declare unto you what he hath done for my soul. May this be an age of witness-bearing, may there still be living confessors, souls that shall say, God is love. We commend one another to thy tender mercy: keep us as in the hollow of thine hand: when the enemy would come in as a flood, lift up thy Spirit as a standard against him, and may he be made to know that God is for us, therefore none can be successfully against us. Pity those who are in great distress; heal the misery of our hearts; send forth thy Word, a light, a sun, a gospel from heaven, and let men answer it with contrition, broken-heartedness, and hope in the Cross of Christ. Blessed Cross! all-saving Cross! before it we daily, constantly, bow as before the altar on which alone our hope is founded. The Lord be with us, mightily, gently, sometimes almost visibly, so that in our souls there may be no fear. Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

PSALMS

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS

According to my usual custom, when taking up the study of a book of the Bible I give at the beginning a list of books as helps to the study of that book. The following books I heartily commend on the Psalms:

1. Sampey’s Syllabus for Old Testament Study . This is especially good on the grouping and outlining of some selected psalms. There are also some valuable suggestions on other features of the book.

2. Kirkpatrick’g commentary, in “Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges,” is an excellent aid in the study of the Psalter.

3. Perowne’s Book of Psalms is a good, scholarly treatise on the Psalms. A special feature of this commentary is the author’s “New Translation” and his notes are very helpful.

4. Spurgeon’s Treasury of David. This is just what the title implies. It is a voluminous, devotional interpretation of the Psalms and helpful to those who have the time for such extensive study of the Psalter.

5. Hengstenburg on the Psalms. This is a fine, scholarly work by one of the greatest of the conservative German scholars.

6. Maclaren on the Psalms, in “The Expositor’s Bible,” is the work of the world’s safest, sanest, and best of all works that have ever been written on the Psalms.

7. Thirtle on the Titles of the Psalms. This is the best on the subject and well worth a careful study.

At this point some definitions are in order. The Hebrew word for psalm means praise. The word in English comes from psalmos , a song of lyrical character, or a song to be sung and accompanied with a lyre. The Psalter is a collection of sacred and inspired songs, composed at different times and by different authors.

The range of time in composition was more than 1,000 years, or from the time of Moses to the time of Ezra. The collection in its present form was arranged probably by Ezra in the fifth century, B.C.

The Jewish classification of Old Testament books was The Law, the Prophets, and the Holy Writings. The Psalms was given the first place in the last group.

They had several names, or titles, of the Psalms. In Hebrew they are called “The Book of Prayers,” or “The Book of Praises.” The Hebrew word thus used means praises. The title of the first two books is found in Psa 72:20 : “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.” The title of the whole collection of Psalms in the Septuagint is Biblos Psalman which means the “Book of Psalms.” The title in the Alexandrian Codex is Psalterion which is the name of a stringed instrument, and means “The Psalter.”

The derivation of our English words, “psalms,” “psalter,” and “psaltery,” respectively, is as follows:

1. “Psalms” comes from the Greek word, psalmoi, which is also from psallein , which means to play upon a stringed instrument. Therefore the Psalms are songs played upon stringed instruments, and the word here is used to apply to the whole collection.

2. “Psalter” is of the same origin and means the Book of Psalms and refers also to the whole collection.

3. “Psaltery” is from the word psalterion, which means “a harp,” an instrument, supposed to be in the shape of a triangle or like the delta of the Greek alphabet. See Psa 33:2 ; Psa 71:22 ; Psa 81:2 ; Psa 144:9 .

In our collection there are 150 psalms. In the Septuagint there is one extra. It is regarded as being outside the sacred collection and not inspired. The subject of this extra psalm is “David’s victory over Goliath.” The following is a copy of it: I was small among my brethren, And youngest in my father’s house, I used to feed my father’s sheep. My hands made a harp, My fingers fashioned a Psaltery. And who will declare unto my Lord? He is Lord, he it is who heareth. He it was who sent his angel And took me from my father’s sheep, And anointed me with the oil of his anointing. My brethren were goodly and tall, But the Lord took no pleasure in them. I went forth to meet the Philistine. And he cursed me by his idols But I drew the sword from beside him; I beheaded him and removed reproach from the children of Israel.

It will be noted that this psalm does not have the earmarks of an inspired production. There is not found in it the modesty so characteristic of David, but there is here an evident spirit of boasting and self-praise which is foreign to the Spirit of inspiration.

There is a difference in the numbering of the psalms in our version which follows the Hebrew, and the numbering in the Septuagint. Omitting the extra one in the Septuagint, there is no difference as to the total number. Both have 150 and the same subject matter, but they are not divided alike.

The following scheme shows the division according to our version and also the Septuagint: Psalms 1-8 in the Hebrew equal 1-8 in the Septuagint; 9-10 in the Hebrew combine into 9 in the Septuagint; 11-113 in the Hebrew equal 10-112 in the Septuagint; 114-115 in the Hebrew combine into 113 in the Septuagint; 116 in the Hebrew divides into 114-115 in the Septuagint; 117-146 in the Hebrew equal 116-145 in the Septuagint; 147 in the Hebrew divides into 146-147 in the Septuagint; 148-150 in the Hebrew equal 148-150 in the Septuagint.

The arrangement in the Vulgate is the same as the Septuagint. Also some of the older English versions have this arangement. Another difficulty in numbering perplexes an inexperienced student in turning from one version to another, viz: In the Hebrew often the title is verse I, and sometimes the title embraces verses 1-2.

The book divisions of the Psalter are five books, as follows:

Book I, Psalms 1-41 (41 chapters)

Book II, Psalms 42-72 (31 chapters)

Book III, Psalms 73-89 (17 chapters)

Book IV, Psalms 90-106 (17 chapters)

Book V, Psalms 107-150 (44 chapters)

They are marked by an introduction and a doxology. Psalm I forms an introduction to the whole book; Psa 150 is the doxology for the whole book. The introduction and doxology of each book are the first and last psalms of each division, respectively.

There were smaller collections before the final one, as follows:

Books I and II were by David; Book III, by Hezekiah, and Books IV and V, by Ezra.

Certain principles determined the arrangement of the several psalms in the present collection:

1. David is honored with first place, Book I and II, including Psalms 1-72.

2. They are grouped according to the use of the name of God:

(1) Psalms 1-41 are Jehovah psalms;

(2) Psalms 42-83 are Elohim-psalms;

(3) Psalms 84-150 are Jehovah psalms.

3. Book IV is introduced by the psalm of Moses, which is the first psalm written.

4. Some are arranged as companion psalms, for instance, sometimes two, sometimes three, and sometimes more. Examples: Psa 2 and 3; 22, 23, and 24; 113-118.

5. They were arranged for liturgical purposes, which furnished the psalms for special occasions, such as feasts, etc. We may be sure this arrangement was not accidental. An intelligent study of each case is convincing that it was determined upon rational grounds.

All the psalms have titles but thirty-three, as follows:

In Book I, Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 10 ; Psa 33 , (4 are without titles).

In Book II, Psa 43 ; Psa 71 , (2 are without titles).

In Book IV, Psa 91 ; Psa 93 ; Psa 94 ; Psa 95 ; Psa 96 ; Psa 97 ; Psa 104 ; Psa 105 ; Psa 106 , (9 are without titles).

In Book V, Psa 107 ; III; 112; 113; 114; 115; 116; 117; 118; 119; 135; 136; 137; 146; 147; 148; 149; 150, (18 are without titles).

The Talmud calls these psalms that have no title, “Orphan Psalms.” The later Jews supply these titles by taking the nearest preceding author. The lack of titles in Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; and 10 may be accounted for as follows: Psa 1 is a general introduction to the whole collection and Psa 2 was, perhaps, a part of Psa 1 . Psalms 9-10 were formerly combined into one, therefore Psa 10 has the same title as Psa 9 .

QUESTIONS

1. What books are commended on the Psalms?

2. What is a psalm?

3. What is the Psalter?

4. What is the range of time in composition?

5. When and by whom was the collection in its present form arranged?

6. What the Jewish classification of Old Testament books, and what the position of the Psalter in this classification?

7. What is the Hebrew title of the Psalms?

8. Find the title of the first two books from the books themselves.

9. What is the title of the whole collection of psalms in the Septuagint?

10. What is the title in the Alexandrian Codex?

11. What is the derivation of our English word, “Psalms”, “Psalter”, and “Psaltery,” respectively?

12. How many psalms in our collection?

13. How many psalms in the Septuagint?

14. What about the extra one in the Septuagint?

15. What is the subject of this extra psalm?

16. How does it compare with the Canonical Psalms?

17. What is the difference in the numbering of the psalms in our version which follows the Hebrew, and the numbering in the Septuagint?

18. What is the arrangement in the Vulgate?

19. What other difficulty in numbering which perplexes an inexperienced student in turning from one version to another?

20. What are the book divisions of the Psalter and how are these divisions marked?

21. Were there smaller collections before the final one? If so, what were they?

22. What principles determined the arrangement of the several psalms in the present collection?

23. In what conclusion may we rest concerning this arrangement?

24. How many of the psalms have no titles?

25. What does the Talmud call these psalms that have no titles?

26. How do later Jews supply these titles?

27. How do you account for the lack of titles in Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 10 ?

XII

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS (CONTINUED)

The following is a list of the items of information gathered from the titles of the psalms:

1. The author: “A Psalm of David” (Psa 37 ).

2. The occasion: “When he fled from Absalom, his son” (Psa 3 ).

3. The nature, or character, of the poem:

(1) Maschil, meaning “instruction,” a didactic poem (Psa 42 ).

(2) Michtam, meaning “gold,” “A Golden Psalm”; this means excellence or mystery (Psa 16 ; 56-60).

4. The occasion of its use: “A Psalm of David for the dedication of the house” (Psa 30 ).

5. Its purpose: “A Psalm of David to bring remembrance” (Psa 38 ; Psa 70 ).

6. Direction for its use: “A Psalm of David for the chief musician” (Psa 4 ).

7. The kind of musical instrument:

(1) Neginoth, meaning to strike a chord, as on stringed instruments (Psa 4 ; Psa 61 ).

(2) Nehiloth, meaning to perforate, as a pipe or flute (Psa 5 ).

(3) Shoshannim, Lilies, which refers probably to cymbals (Psa 45 ; Psa 69 ).

8. A special choir:

(1) Sheminith, the “eighth,” or octave below, as a male choir (Psa 6 ; Psa 12 ).

(2) Alamoth, female choir (Psa 46 ).

(3) Muth-labben, music with virgin voice, to be sung by a choir of boys in the treble (Psa 9 ).

9. The keynote, or tune:

(1) Aijeleth-sharar, “Hind of the morning,” a song to the melody of which this is sung (Psa 22 ).

(2) Al-tashheth, “Destroy thou not,” the beginning of a song the tune of which is sung (Psa 57 ; Psa 58 ; Psa 59 ; Psa 75 ).

(3) Gittith, set to the tune of Gath, perhaps a tune which David brought from Gath (Psa 8 ; Psa 81 ; Psa 84 ).

(4) Jonath-elim-rehokim, “The dove of the distant terebinths,” the commencement of an ode to the air of which this song was to be sung (Psa 56 ).

(5) Leannoth, the name of a tune (Psa 88 ).

(6) Mahalath, an instrument (Psa 53 ); Leonnoth-Mahaloth, to chant to a tune called Mahaloth.

(7) Shiggaion, a song or a hymn.

(8) Shushan-Eduth, “Lily of testimony,” a tune (Psa 60 ). Note some examples: (1) “America,” “Shiloh,” “Auld Lang Syne.” These are the names of songs such as we are familiar with; (2) “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood,” are examples of sacred hymns.

10. The liturgical use, those noted for the feasts, e.g., the Hallels and Hallelujah Psalms (Psalms 146-150).

11. The destination, as “Song of Ascents” (Psalms 120-134)

12. The direction for the music, such as Selah, which means “Singers, pause”; Higgaion-Selah, to strike a symphony with selah, which means an instrumental interlude (Psa 9:16 ).

The longest and fullest title to any of the psalms is the title to Psa 60 . The items of information from this title are as follows: (1) the author; (2) the chief musician; (3) the historical occasion; (4) the use, or design; (5) the style of poetry; (6) the instrument or style of music.

The parts of these superscriptions which most concern us now are those indicating author, occasion, and date. As to the historic value or trustworthiness of these titles most modern scholars deny that they are a part of the Hebrew text, but the oldest Hebrew text of which we know anything had all of them. This is the text from which the Septuagint was translated. It is much more probable that the author affixed them than later writers. There is no internal evidence in any of the psalms that disproves the correctness of them, but much to confirm. The critics disagree among themselves altogether as to these titles. Hence their testimony cannot consistently be received. Nor can it ever be received until they have at least agreed upon a common ground of opposition.

David is the author of more than half the entire collection, the arrangement of which is as follows:

1. Seventy-three are ascribed to him in the superscriptions.

2. Some of these are but continuations of the preceding ones of a pair, trio, or larger group.

3. Some of the Korahite Psalms are manifestly Davidic.

4. Some not ascribed to him in the titles are attributed to him expressly by New Testament writers.

5. It is not possible to account for some parts of the Psalter without David. The history of his early life as found in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1and 2 Chronicles, not only shows his remarkable genius for patriotic and sacred songs and music, but also shows his cultivation of that gift in the schools of the prophets. Some of these psalms of the history appear in the Psalter itself. It is plain to all who read these that they are founded on experience, and the experience of no other Hebrew fits the case. These experiences are found in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles.

As to the attempt of the destructive critics to rob David of his glory in relation to the Psalter by assigning the Maccabean era as the date of composition, I have this to say:

1. This theory has no historical support whatever, and therefore is not to be accepted at all.

2. It has no support in tradition, which weakens the contention of the critics greatly.

3. It has no support from finding any one with the necessary experience for their basis.

4. They can give no reasonable account as to how the titles ever got there.

5. It is psychologically impossible for anyone to have written these 150 psalms in the Maccabean times.

6. Their position is expressly contrary to the testimony of Christ and the apostles. Some of the psalms which they ascribe to the Maccabean Age are attributed to David by Christ himself, who said that David wrote them in the Spirit.

The obvious aim of this criticism and the necessary result if it be Just, is a positive denial of the inspiration of both Testaments.

Other authors are named in the titles, as follows: (1) Asaph, to whom twelve psalms have been assigned: (2) Mosee, Psa 90 ; (3) Solomon, Psa 72 ; Psa 127 ; (4) Heman, Psa 80 ; (5) Ethem, Psa 89 ; (6) A number of the psalms are ascribed to the sons of Korah.

Not all the psalms ascribed to Asaph were composed by one person. History indicates that Asaph’s family presided over the song service for several generations. Some of them were composed by his descendants by the game name. The five general outlines of the whole collection are as follows:

I. By books

1. Psalms 1-41 (41)

2. Psalms 42-72 (31)

3. Psalms 73-89 (17)

4. Psalms 90-106 (17)

5. Psalms 107-150 (44)

II. According to date and authorship

1. The psalm of Moses (Psa 90 )

2. Psalms of David:

(1) The shepherd boy (Psa 8 ; Psa 19 ; Psa 29 ; Psa 23 ).

(2) David when persecuted by Saul (Psa 59 ; Psa 56 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 52 ; Psa 54 ; Psa 57 ; Psa 142 ).

(3) David the King (Psa 101 ; Psa 18 ; Psa 24 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 110 ; Psa 20 ; Psa 20 ; Psa 21 ; Psa 60 ; Psa 51 ; Psa 32 ; Psa 41 ; Psa 55 ; Psa 3:4 ; Psa 64 ; Psa 62 ; Psa 61 ; Psa 27 ).

3. The Asaph Psalms (Psa 50 ; Psa 73 ; Psa 83 ).

4. The Korahite Psalms (Psa 42 ; Psa 43 ; Psa 84 ).

5. The psalms of Solomon (Psa 72 ; Psa 127 ).

6. The psalms of the era of Hezekiah and Isaiah (Psa 46 ; Psa 47 ; Psa 48 )

7. The psalms of the Exile (Psa 74 ; Psa 79 ; Psa 137 ; Psa 102 )

8. The psalms of the Restoration (Psa 85 ; Psa 126 ; Psa 118 ; 146-150)

III. By groups

1. The Jehovistic and Elohistic Psalms:

(1) Psalms 1-41 are Jehovistic;

(2) Psalms 42-83 are Elohistic Psalms;

(3) Psalms 84-150 are Jehovistic.

2. The Penitential Psalms (Psa 6 ; Psa 32 ; Psa 38 ; Psa 51 ; Psa 102 ; Psa 130 ; Psa 143 )

3. The Pilgrim Psalms (Psalms 120-134)

4. The Alphabetical Psalms (Psa 9 ; Psa 10 ; Psa 25 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 37 ; 111:112; Psa 119 ; Psa 145 )

5. The Hallelujah Psalms (Psalms 11-113; 115-117; 146-150; to which may be added Psa 135 ) Psalms 113-118 are called “the Egyptian Hallel”

IV. Doctrines of the Psalms

1. The throne of grace and how to approach it by sacrifice, prayer, and praise.

2. The covenant, the basis of worship.

3. The paradoxical assertions of both innocence & guilt.

4. The pardon of sin and justification.

5. The Messiah.

6. The future life, pro and con.

7. The imprecations.

8. Other doctrines.

V. The New Testament use of the Psalms

1. Direct references and quotations in the New Testament.

2. The allusions to the psalms in the New Testament. Certain experiences of David’s life made very deep impressions on his heart, such as: (1) his peaceful early life; (2) his persecution by Saul; (3) his being crowned king of the people; (4) the bringing up of the ark; (5) his first great sin; (6) Absalom’s rebellion; (7) his second great sin; (8) the great promise made to him in 2Sa 7 ; (9) the feelings of his old age.

We may classify the Davidic Psalms according to these experiences following the order of time, thus:

1. His peaceful early life (Psa 8 ; Psa 19 ; Psa 29 ; Psa 23 )

2. His persecution by Saul (Psa 59 ; Psa 56 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 7 ; Psa 52 ; Psa 120 ; Psa 140 ; Psa 54 ; Psa 57 ; Psa 142 ; Psa 17 ; Psa 18 )

3. Making David King (Psa 27 ; Psa 133 ; Psa 101 )

4. Bringing up the ark (Psa 68 ; Psa 24 ; Psa 132 ; Psa 15 ; Psa 78 ; Psa 96 )

5. His first great sin (Psa 51 ; Psa 32 )

6. Absalom’s rebellion (Psa 41 ; Psa 6 ; Psa 55 ; Psa 109 ; Psa 38 ; Psa 39 ; Psa 3 ; Psa 4 ; Psa 63 ; Psa 42 ; Psa 43 ; Psa 5 ; Psa 62 ; Psa 61 ; Psa 27 )

7. His second great sin (Psa 69 ; Psa 71 ; Psa 102 ; Psa 103 )

8. The great promise made to him in 2Sa 7 (Psa 2 )

9. Feelings of old age (Psa 37 )

The great doctrines of the psalms may be noted as follows: (1) the being and attributes of God; (3) sin, both original and individual; (3) both covenants; (4) the doctrine of justification; (5) concerning the Messiah.

There is a striking analogy between the Pentateuch and the Psalms. The Pentateuch contains five books of law; the Psalms contain five books of heart responses to the law.

It is interesting to note the historic controversies concerning the singing of psalms. These were controversies about singing uninspired songs, in the Middle Ages. The church would not allow anything to be used but psalms.

The history in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles, and in Ezra and Nehemiah is very valuable toward a proper interpretation of the psalms. These books furnish the historical setting for a great many of the psalms which is very indispensable to their proper interpretation.

Professor James Robertson, in the Poetry and Religion of the Psalms constructs a broad and strong argument in favor of the Davidic Psalms, as follows:

1. The age of David furnished promising soil for the growth of poetry.

2. David’s qualifications for composing the psalms make it highly probable that David is the author of the psalms ascribed to him.

3. The arguments against the possibility of ascribing to David any of the hymns in the Hebrew Psalter rests upon assumptions that are thoroughly antibiblical.

The New Testament makes large use of the psalms and we learn much as to their importance in teaching. There are seventy direct quotations in the New Testament from this book, from which we learn that the Scriptures were used extensively in accord with 2Ti 3:16-17 . There are also eleven references to the psalms in the New Testament from which we learn that the New Testament writers were thoroughly imbued with the spirit and teaching of the psalms. Then there are eight allusions ‘to this book in the New Testament from which we gather that the Psalms was one of the divisions of the Old Testament and that they were used in the early church.

QUESTIONS

1. Give a list of the items of information gathered from the titles of the psalms.

2. What is the longest title to any of the psalms and what the items of this title?

3. What parts of these superscriptions most concern us now?

4. What is the historic value, or trustworthiness of these titles?

5. State the argument showing David’s relation to the psalms.

6. What have you to say of the attempt of the destructive critics to rob David of his glory in relation to the Psalter by assigning the Maccabean era as the date of composition?

7. What the obvious aim of this criticism and the necessary result, if it be just?

8. What other authors are named in the titles?

9. Were all the psalms ascribed to Asaph composed by one person?

10. Give the five general outlines of the whole collection, as follows: I. The outline by books II. The outline according to date and authorship III. The outline by groups IV. The outline of doctrines V. The outline by New Testament quotations or allusions.

11. What experiences of David’s life made very deep impressions on his heart?

12. Classify the Davidic Psalms according to these experiences following the order of time.

13. What the great doctrines of the psalms?

14. What analogy between the Pentateuch and the Psalms?

15. What historic controversies concerning the singing of psalms?

16. Of what value is the history in Samuel, 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles, and in Ezra and Nehemiah toward a proper interpretation of the psalms?

17. Give Professor James Robertson’s argument in favor of the Davidic authorship of the psalms.

18. What can you say of the New Testament use of the psalms and what do we learn as to their importance in teaching?

19. What can you say of the New Testament references to the psalms, and from the New Testament references what the impression on the New Testament writers?

20. What can you say of the allusions to the psalms in the New Testament?

XVII

THE MESSIAH IN THE PSALMS

A fine text for this chapter is as follows: “All things must be fulfilled which were written in the Psalms concerning me,” Luk 24:44 . I know of no better way to close my brief treatise on the Psalms than to discuss the subject of the Messiah as revealed in this book.

Attention has been called to the threefold division of the Old Testament cited by our Lord, namely, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luk 24:44 ), in all of which were the prophecies relating to himself that “must be fulfilled.” It has been shown just what Old Testament books belong to each of these several divisions. The division called the Psalms included many books, styled Holy Writings, and because the Psalms proper was the first book of the division it gave the name to the whole division.

The object of this discussion is to sketch the psalmist’s outline of the Messiah, or rather, to show how nearly a complete picture of our Lord is foredrawn in this one book. Let us understand however with Paul, that all prophecy is but in part (1Co 13:9 ), and that when we fill in on one canvas all the prophecies concerning the Messiah of all the Old Testament divisions, we are far from having a perfect portrait of our Lord. The present purpose is limited to three things:

1. What the book of the Psalms teaches concerning the Messiah.

2. That the New Testament shall authoritatively specify and expound this teaching.

3. That the many messianic predictions scattered over the book and the specifications thereof over the New Testament may be grouped into an orderly analysis, so that by the adjustment of the scattered parts we may have before us a picture of our Lord as foreseen by the psalmists.

In allowing the New Testament to authoritatively specify and expound the predictive features of the book, I am not unmindful of what the so-called “higher critics” urge against the New Testament quotations from the Old Testament and the use made of them. In this discussion, however, these objections are not considered, for sufficient reasons. There is not space for it. Even at the risk of being misjudged I must just now summarily pass all these objections, dismissing them with a single statement upon which the reader may place his own estimate of value. That statement is that in the days of my own infidelity, before this old method of criticism had its new name, I was quite familiar with the most and certainly the strongest of the objections now classified as higher criticism, and have since patiently re-examined them in their widely conflicting restatements under their modern name, and find my faith in the New Testament method of dealing with the Old Testament in no way shattered, but in every way confirmed. God is his own interpreter. The Old Testament as we now have it was in the hands of our Lord. I understand his apostle to declare, substantially, that “every one of these sacred scriptures is God-inspired and is profitable for teaching us what is right to believe and to do, for convincing us what is wrong in faith or practice, for rectifying the wrong when done, that we may be ready at every point, furnished completely, to do every good work, at the right time, in the right manner, and from the proper motive” (2Ti 3:16-17 ).

This New Testament declares that David was a prophet (Act 2:30 ), that he spake by the Holy Spirit (Act 1:16 ), that when the book speaks the Holy Spirit speaks (Heb 3:7 ), and that all its predictive utterances, as sacred Scripture, “must be fulfilled” (Joh 13:18 ; Act 1:16 ). It is not claimed that David wrote all the psalms, but that all are inspired, and that as he was the chief author, the book goes by his name.

It would be a fine thing to make out two lists, as follows:

1. All of the 150 psalms in order from which the New Testament quotes with messianic application.

2. The New Testament quotations, book by book, i.e., Matthew so many, and then the other books in their order.

We would find in neither of these any order as to time, that is, Psa 1 which forecasts an incident in the coming Messiah’s life does not forecast the first incident of his life. And even the New Testament citations are not in exact order as to time and incident of his life. To get the messianic picture before us, therefore, we must put the scattered parts together in their due relation and order, and so construct our own analysis. That is the prime object of this discussion. It is not claimed that the analysis now presented is perfect. It is too much the result of hasty, offhand work by an exceedingly busy man. It will serve, however, as a temporary working model, which any one may subsequently improve. We come at once to the psalmist’s outline of the Messiah.

1. The necessity for a Saviour. This foreseen necessity is a background of the psalmists’ portrait of the Messiah. The necessity consists in (1) man’s sinfulness; (2) his sin; (3) his inability of wisdom and power to recover himself; (4) the insufficiency of legal, typical sacrifices in securing atonement.

The predicate of Paul’s great argument on justification by faith is the universal depravity and guilt of man. He is everywhere corrupt in nature; everywhere an actual transgressor; everywhere under condemnation. But the scriptural proofs of this depravity and sin the apostle draws mainly from the book of the Psalms. In one paragraph of the letter to the Romans (Rom 3:4-18 ), he cites and groups six passages from six divisions of the Psalms (Psa 5:9 ; Psa 10:7 ; Psa 14:1-3 ; Psa 36:1 ; Psa 51:4-6 ; Psa 140:3 ). These passages abundantly prove man’s sinfulness, or natural depravity, and his universal practice of sin.

The predicate also of the same apostle’s great argument for revelation and salvation by a Redeemer is man’s inability of wisdom and power to re-establish communion with God. In one of his letters to the Corinthians he thus commences his argument: “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? -For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preach-ing to save them that believe.” He closes this discussion with the broad proposition: “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God,” and proves it by a citation from Psa 94:11 : “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.”

In like manner our Lord himself pours scorn on human wisdom and strength by twice citing Psa 8 : “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Mat 11:25-26 ). “And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children that were crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, and said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” (Mat 21:15-16 ).

But the necessity for a Saviour as foreseen by the psalmist did not stop at man’s depravity, sin, and helplessness. The Jews were trusting in the sacrifices of their law offered on the smoking altar. The inherent weakness of these offerings, their lack of intrinsic merit, their ultimate abolition, their complete fulfilment and supercession by a glorious antitype were foreseen and foreshown in this wonderful prophetic book: I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; And thy burnt offerings are continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, Nor he-goat out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, And the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all of the birds of the mountains; And the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee; For the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats? Psa 50:8-13 .

Yet again it speaks in that more striking passage cited in the letter to the Hebrews: “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshipers, once purged should have no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, But a body didst thou prepare for me; In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure: Then said I, Lo, I am come (In the roll of the book it is written of me) To do thy will, O God. Saying above, Sacrifice and offering and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldst not, neither hadst pleasure therein, (the which are offered according to the law), then hath he said, Lo, I am come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second” (Heb 10:1-9 ).

This keen foresight of the temporary character and intrinsic worthlessness of animal sacrifices anticipated similar utterances by the later prophets (Isa 1:10-17 ; Jer 6:20 ; Jer 7:21-23 ; Hos 6:6 ; Amo 5:21 ; Mic 6:6-8 ). Indeed, I may as well state in passing that when the apostle declares, “It is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins,” he lays down a broad principle, just as applicable to baptism and the Lord’s Supper. With reverence I state the principle: Not even God himself by mere appointment can vest in any ordinance, itself lacking intrinsic merit, the power to take away sin. There can be, therefore, in the nature of the case, no sacramental salvation. This would destroy the justice of God in order to exalt his mercy. Clearly the psalmist foresaw that “truth and mercy must meet together” before “righteousness and peace could kiss each other” (Psa 85:10 ). Thus we find as the dark background of the psalmists’ luminous portrait of the Messiah, the necessity for a Saviour.

2. The nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation to be wrought by the coming Messiah. In no other prophetic book are the nature, fullness, and blessedness of salvation so clearly seen and so vividly portrayed. Besides others not now enumerated, certainly the psalmists clearly forecast four great elements of salvation:

(1) An atoning sacrifice of intrinsic merit offered once for all (Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:4-10 ).

(2) Regeneration itself consisting of cleansing, renewal, and justification. We hear his impassioned statement of the necessity of regeneration: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts,” followed by his earnest prayer: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me,” and his equally fervent petition: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psa 51 ). And we hear him again as Paul describes the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputes righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, And whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin Psa 32:1 ; Rom 4:6-8 .

(3) Introduction into the heavenly rest (Psa 95:7-11 ; Heb 3:7-19 ; Heb 4:1-11 ). Here is the antitypical Joshua leading spiritual Israel across the Jordan of death into the heavenly Canaan, the eternal rest that remaineth for the people of God. Here we find creation’s original sabbath eclipsed by redemption’s greater sabbath when the Redeemer “entered his rest, ceasing from his own works as God did from his.”

(4) The recovery of all the universal dominion lost by the first Adam and the securement of all possible dominion which the first Adam never attained (Psa 8:5-6 ; Eph 1:20-22 ; Heb 2:7-9 ; 1Co 15:24-28 ).

What vast extent then and what blessedness in the salvation foreseen by the psalmists, and to be wrought by the Messiah. Atoning sacrifice of intrinsic merit; regeneration by the Holy Spirit; heavenly rest as an eternal inheritance; and universal dominion shared with Christ!

3. The wondrous person of the Messiah in his dual nature, divine and human.

(1) His divinity,

(a) as God: “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever” (Psa 45:6 and Heb 1:8 ) ;

(b) as creator of the heavens and earth, immutable and eternal: Of old didst thou lay the foundation of the earth; And the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, And thy years shall have no end Psa 102:25-27 quoted with slight changes in Heb 1:10-12 .

(c) As owner of the earth: The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; The world, and they that dwell therein, Psa 24:1 quoted in 1Co 10:26 .

(d) As the Son of God: “Thou art my Son; This day have I begotten thee” Psa 2:7 ; Heb 1:5 .

(e) As David’s Lord: The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool, Psa 110:1 ; Mat 22:41-46 .

(f) As the object of angelic worship: “And let all the angels of God worship him” Psa 97:7 ; Heb 1:6 .

(g) As the Bread of life: And he rained down manna upon them to eat, And gave them food from heaven Psa 78:24 ; interpreted in Joh 6:31-58 . These are but samples which ascribe deity to the Messiah of the psalmists.

(2) His humanity, (a) As the Son of man, or Son of Adam: Psa 8:4-6 , cited in 1Co 15:24-28 ; Eph 1:20-22 ; Heb 2:7-9 . Compare Luke’s genealogy, Luk 3:23-38 . This is the ideal man, or Second Adam, who regains Paradise Lost, who recovers race dominion, in whose image all his spiritual lineage is begotten. 1Co 15:45-49 . (b) As the Son of David: Psa 18:50 ; Psa 89:4 ; Psa 89:29 ; Psa 89:36 ; Psa 132:11 , cited in Luk 1:32 ; Act 13:22-23 ; Rom 1:3 ; 2Ti 2:8 . Perhaps a better statement of the psalmists’ vision of the wonderful person of the Messiah would be: He saw the uncreated Son, the second person of the trinity, in counsel and compact with the Father, arranging in eternity for the salvation of men: Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:5-7 . Then he saw this Holy One stoop to be the Son of man: Psa 8:4-6 ; Heb 2:7-9 . Then he was the son of David, and then he saw him rise again to be the Son of God: Psa 2:7 ; Rom 1:3-4 .

4. His offices.

(1) As the one atoning sacrifice (Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:5-7 ).

(2) As the great Prophet, or Preacher (Psa 40:9-10 ; Psa 22:22 ; Heb 2:12 ). Even the method of his teaching by parable was foreseen (Psa 78:2 ; Mat 13:35 ). Equally also the grace, wisdom, and power of his teaching. When the psalmist declares that “Grace is poured into thy lips” (Psa 45:2 ), we need not be startled when we read that all the doctors in the Temple who heard him when only a boy “were astonished at his understanding and answers” (Luk 2:47 ); nor that his home people at Nazareth “all bear him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth” (Luk 4:22 ); nor that those of his own country were astonished, and said, “Whence hath this man this wisdom?” (Mat 13:54 ); nor that the Jews in the Temple marveled, saying, “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?” (Joh 7:15 ) ; nor that the stern officers of the law found their justification in failure to arrest him in the declaration, “Never man spake like this man” (Joh 7:46 ).

(3) As the king (Psa 2:6 ; Psa 24:7-10 ; Psa 45:1-17 ; Psa 110:1 ; Mat 22:42-46 ; Act 2:33-36 ; 1Co 15:25 ; Eph 1:20 ; Heb 1:13 ).

(4) As the priest (Psa 110:4 ; Heb 5:5-10 ; Heb 7:1-21 ; Heb 10:12-14 ).

(5) As the final judge. The very sentence of expulsion pronounced upon the finally impenitent by the great judge (Mat 25:41 ) is borrowed from the psalmist’s prophetic words (Psa 6:8 ).

5. Incidents of life. The psalmists not only foresaw the necessity for a Saviour; the nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation; the wonderful human-divine person of the Saviour; the offices to be filled by him in the work of salvation, but also many thrilling details of his work in life, death, resurrection, and exaltation. It is not assumed to cite all these details, but some of the most important are enumerated in order, thus:

(1) The visit, adoration, and gifts of the Magi recorded in Mat 2 are but partial fulfilment of Psa 72:9-10 .

(2) The scripture employed by Satan in the temptation of our Lord (Luk 4:10-11 ) was cited from Psa 91:11-12 and its pertinency not denied.

(3) In accounting for his intense earnestness and the apparently extreme measures adopted by our Lord in his first purification of the Temple (Joh 2:17 ), he cites the messianic zeal predicted in Psa 69:9 .

(4) Alienation from his own family was one of the saddest trials of our Lord’s earthly life. They are slow to understand his mission and to enter into sympathy with him. His self-abnegation and exhaustive toil were regarded by them as evidences of mental aberration, and it seems at one time they were ready to resort to forcible restraint of his freedom) virtually what in our time would be called arrest under a writ of lunacy. While at the last his half-brothers became distinguished preachers of his gospel, for a long while they do not believe on him. And the evidence forces us to the conclusion that his own mother shared with her other sons, in kind though not in degree, the misunderstanding of the supremacy of his mission over family relations. The New Testament record speaks for itself:

Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them. How is it that ye sought me? Knew ye not that I must be in my Father’s house? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them Luk 2:48-51 (R.V.).

And when the wine failed, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. And Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. Joh 2:3-5 (R.V.).

And there come his mother and his brethren; and standing without; they sent unto him, calling him. And a multitude was sitting about him; and they say unto him. Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answereth them, and saith, Who is my mother and my brethren? And looking round on them that sat round about him, he saith, Behold, my mother and my brethren) For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother Mar 3:31-35 (R.V.).

Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand. His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may behold thy works which thou doest. For no man doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou doest these things, manifest thyself to the world. For even his brethren did not believe on him. Jesus therefore saith unto them, My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that its works are evil. Go ye up unto the feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; because my time is not fulfilled. Joh 7:2-9 (R.V.).

These citations from the Revised Version tell their own story. But all that sad story is foreshown in the prophetic psalms. For example: I am become a stranger unto my brethren, And an alien unto my mother’s children. Psa 69:8 .

(5) The triumphal entry into Jerusalem was welcomed by a joyous people shouting a benediction from Psa 118:26 : “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mat 21:9 ); and the Lord’s lamentation over Jerusalem predicts continued desolation and banishment from his sight until the Jews are ready to repeat that benediction (Mat 23:39 ).

(6) The children’s hosanna in the Temple after its second purgation is declared by our Lord to be a fulfilment of that perfect praise forecast in Psa 8:2 .

(7) The final rejection of our Lord by his own people was also clear in the psalmist’s vision (Psa 118:22 ; Mat 21:42-44 ).

(8) Gethsemane’s baptism of suffering, with its strong crying and tears and prayers was as clear to the psalmist’s prophetic vision as to the evangelist and apostle after it became history (Psa 69:1-4 ; Psa 69:13-20 ; and Mat 26:36-44 ; Heb 5:7 ).

(9) In life-size also before the psalmist was the betrayer of Christ and his doom (Psa 41:9 ; Psa 69:25 ; Psa 109:6-8 ; Joh 13:18 ; Act 1:20 ).

(10) The rage of the people, Jew and Gentile, and the conspiracy of Pilate and Herod are clearly outlined (Psa 2:1-3 ; Act 4:25-27 ).

(11) All the farce of his trial the false accusation, his own marvelous silence; and the inhuman maltreatment to which he was subjected, is foreshown in the prophecy as dramatically as in the history (Mat 26:57-68 ; Mat 27:26-31 ; Psa 27:12 ; Psa 35:15-16 ; Psa 38:3 ; Psa 69:19 ).

The circumstances of his death, many and clear, are distinctly foreseen. He died in the prime of life (Psa 89:45 ; Psa 102:23-24 ). He died by crucifixion (Psa 22:14-17 ; Luk 23 ; 33; Joh 19:23-37 ; Joh 20:27 ). But yet not a bone of his body was broken (Psa 34:20 ; Joh 19:36 ).

The persecution, hatred without a cause, the mockery and insults, are all vividly and dramatically foretold (Psa 22:6-13 ; Psa 35:7 ; Psa 35:12 ; Psa 35:15 ; Psa 35:21 ; Psa 109:25 ).

The parting of his garments and the gambling for his vesture (Psa 22:18 ; Mat 27:35 ).

His intense thirst and the gall and vinegar offered for his drink (Psa 69:21 ; Mat 27:34 ).

In the psalms, too, we hear his prayers for his enemies so remarkably fulfilled in fact (Psa 109:4 ; Luk 23:34 ).

His spiritual death was also before the eye of the psalmist, and the very words which expressed it the psalmist heard. Separation from the Father is spiritual death. The sinner’s substitute must die the sinner’s death, death physical, i.e., separation of soul from body; death spiritual, i.e., separation of the soul from God. The latter is the real death and must precede the former. This death the substitute died when he cried out: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me.” (Psa 22:1 ; Mat 27:46 ).

Emerging from the darkness of that death, which was the hour of the prince of darkness, the psalmist heard him commend his spirit to the Father (Psa_31:35; Luk 23:46 ) showing that while he died the spiritual death, his soul was not permanently abandoned unto hell (Psa 16:8-10 ; Act 2:25 ) so that while he “tasted death” for every man it was not permanent death (Heb 2:9 ).

With equal clearness the psalmist foresaw his resurrection, his triumph over death and hell, his glorious ascension into heaven, and his exaltation at the right hand of God as King of kings and Lord of lords, as a high Driest forever, as invested with universal sovereignty (Psa 16:8-11 ; Psa 24:7-10 ; Psa 68:18 ; Psa 2:6 ; Psa 111:1-4 ; Psa 8:4-6 ; Act 2:25-36 ; Eph 1:19-23 ; Eph 4:8-10 ).

We see, therefore, brethren, when the scattered parts are put together and adjusted, how nearly complete a portrait of our Lord is put upon the prophetic canvas by this inspired limner, the sweet singer of Israel.

QUESTIONS

1. What is a good text for this chapter?

2. What is the threefold division of the Old Testament as cited by our Lord?

3. What is the last division called and why?

4. What is the object of the discussion in this chapter?

5. To what three things is the purpose limited?

6. What especially qualifies the author to meet the objections of the higher critics to allowing the New Testament usage of the Old Testament to determine its meaning and application?

7. What is the author’s conviction relative to the Scriptures?

8. What is the New Testament testimony on the question of inspiration?

9. What is the author’s suggested plan of approach to the study of the Messiah in the Psalms?

10. What the background of the Psalmist’s portrait of the Messiah and of what does it consist?

11. Give the substance of Paul’s discussion of man’s sinfulness.

12. What is the teaching of Jesus on this point?

13. What is the teaching relative to sacrifices?

14. What the nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation to be wrought by the coming Messiah and what the four great elements of it as forecast by the psalmist?

15. What is the teaching of the psalms relative to the wondrous person of the Messiah? Discuss.

16. What are the offices of the Messiah according to psalms? Discuss each.

17. Cite the more important events of the Messiah’s life according to the vision of the psalmist.

18. What the circumstances of the Messiah’s death and resurrection as foreseen by the psalmist?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Psa 106:1 Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for [he is] good: for his mercy [endureth] for ever.

Ver. 1. Praise ye the Lord ] Though scattered among the heathen, and in a sorrowful condition, Psa 106:47 . In prosperity praise the Lord, saith Austin, and it shall increase upon thee. In adversity praise him, and it shall be better with thee.

O give thanks unto the Lord, &c. ] This verse was, say some, the foot or tenor of the song in many sacred hymns.

For his mercy endureth for ever ] Even to those also that have sinned against his goodness.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

“Praise ye Jah.” “Blessed [be] Jehovah God of Israel from the everlasting and into the everlasting! And let all the people say, Amen Hallelujah (Praise ye Jah).” This confesses the evil works of Israel in ungrateful forgetfulness, rebellion, and idolatry. Yet Jehovah’s ear is open to their repentant cry, as His hand to deliver; hence their prayer to “Jehovah our God,” “Save us,” and “gather us from among the Gentiles” to give thanks to His holy name and to triumph in His praise, as will surely be at the end of this age.

In Psa 105 only divine goodness appears to Israel, and His judgments on their enemies, ending in Hallelujah. In Psa 106 , which begins and ends with Hallelujah, we have only Israel’s evil ways confessed but divine mercy on their cry; as the ground for salvation and deliverance from among the Gentiles to triumph in Jehovah’s praise. Psa 103 had the last title.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 106:1-3

1Praise the Lord!

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;

For His lovingkindness is everlasting.

2Who can speak of the mighty deeds of the Lord,

Or can show forth all His praise?

3How blessed are those who keep justice,

Who practice righteousness at all times!

Psa 106:1-3 This first strophe has two themes.

1. description of YHWH

a. He is good (BDB 373 II, cf. 2Ch 5:13; 2Ch 7:3; Psa 25:8; Psa 86:5; Psa 100:5; Psa 107:1; Psa 118:1; Psa 118:29; Psa 145:9)

b. His lovingkindness (see Special Topic: Lovingkindness [hesed]) and Special Topic: Forever [‘olam] )

2. description of His true followers

a. they speak of His mighty deeds

b. they praise Him

c. they keep justice (see Special Topic: Judge, Justice, and Judgment)

d. they (see LXX, Peshitta, Vulgate, MT, he) practice righteousness (see SPECIAL TOPIC: RIGHTEOUSNESS )

This description is crucial because what follows is repeated historical allusion to Israel’s faithlessness.

Psa 106:1 The Psalm begins and ends with commands to praise.

1. praise – BDB 237, KB 248, Piel imperative, Psa 106:1; cf. Psa 107:1; Psa 118:1; Psa 118:29; Psa 136:1

2. give thanks (lit. praise) – BDB 392, KB 389, Hiphil imperative, Psa 106:1, cf. 1Ch 16:41

3. praise – same as #1, Psa 106:48

Faithful followers praise Him by how they speak of Him and how they live like Him! Blessed is the person who obeys the Lord (cf. Psalms 1).

Psa 106:2 mighty deeds This refers to YHWH’s acts of deliverance and provision. This theme is continued from Psalms 105 (see full note on the seven occurrences in Psalms 105 at Psa 105:1-7 notes).

1. mighty deeds, Psa 106:2 – BDB 150, cf. Deu 3:24; Psa 20:6; Psa 71:16; Psa 145:4; Psa 145:12; Psa 150:2; Isa 63:15

2. wonders, Psa 106:7 – BDB 810 (see note at Psa 105:1-7)

3. works, Psa 106:13 – BDB 795, cf. Jos 24:31; Psa 33:4; Psa 93:5

4. great things, Psa 106:21 – BDB 152, i.e., esp. in Egypt, cf. Deu 10:21; here; but also of YHWH’s other acts in Job 5:9; Job 9:10; Job 37:5; Psa 71:19; Psa 126:2

5. wonders, Psa 106:22 – same as #2

6. wonders (lit. terrible things ), Psa 106:22 – BDB 431, KB 432, Niphal participle, cf. Deu 10:21; 2Sa 7:23; 1Ch 17:21; Psa 66:3; Psa 145:6; Isa 64:3

Psa 106:3 at all times This is a crucial aspect to discipleship. Godly living is a full-time task! Now, remember this is an OT setting. It reflects the two ways of Deu 30:15; Deu 30:19; Psalms 1. The quote at Gal 3:10-12 illustrates the performance-based OT covenant. Even though NT believers are not under the OT (cf. Acts 15), once we know God in Christ, we live for Him at all times. We do this, not to be accepted but because we are/have been accepted! The goal of biblical faith is not heaven someday, but Christlikeness every day (cf. Rom 8:28-29; 2Co 3:18; 2Co 7:1; Gal 4:19; Eph 1:4; Eph 2:10; Eph 4:13; 1Th 3:13; 1Th 4:3; 1Th 4:7; 1Th 5:23; 1Pe 1:15)!

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Praise ye THE LORD. Hebrew = Hallelu-jah.

THE LORD. Hebrew Jah. App-4.

the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.

mercy = lovingkindness, or grace.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Psa 106:1-48 :

Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Who can utter the mighty acts of the LORD? Who can show forth all his praise? Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times. Remember me, O LORD, with the favor that you bear unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; That I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance ( Psa 106:1-5 ).

Now, in Psa 105:1-45 he rehearses their history with the emphasis upon God. God promising the land, God bringing them into the land. Psa 106:1-48 is another rehearsal of their history, but it’s an emphasis now upon them, the people. And what a vast difference when you look at history with the emphasis upon God and you look at history with the emphasis upon man. You look at history with the emphasis upon God and you see the faithfulness of God in history. You look at history with the emphasis upon man and you see the unfaithfulness of man. And so as he looks now at history with the emphasis upon man, he confesses:

We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly ( Psa 106:6 ).

Just like our fathers, we are guilty. We have sinned. We’ve committed iniquity. We’ve done wickedly.

Our fathers understood not your wonders in Egypt ( Psa 106:7 );

He referred to these wonders, the plagues in the last chapter, but the Israelites did not understand them.

they remembered not the multitude of your mercies; but they provoked him at the Red Sea ( Psa 106:7 ).

God brought them out of their bondage, but they didn’t get but a day’s journey away when they were murmuring and saying, “Why did you bring us out here? To kill us out here? Weren’t there enough graves back there? Why did you bring us out here?” They began to murmur and complain against God two days out. And they never stopped.

Nevertheless he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known. He rebuked the Red Sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness. And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. And the waters covered their enemies: and there was not one of them left. But then they believed his words; and they sang his praise. But they soon forgot his works; and they waited not for his counsel: But they lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and they tempted God in the desert. And he gave them their request; but sent leanness to their soul ( Psa 106:8-15 ).

Their request was for the satisfying of their fleshly desires. God gave them their request. He satisfied their fleshly desires, but as a consequence, it brought a leanness to their spirit. So oftentimes this is true where we get our eyes upon the material things where we begin to live a very materialistic existence. This may be something that we’re really desiring and longing after, the things in the material realm. And God may give us those things that we are longing for. But unfortunately, so often it brings with it a leanness to my own soul. I suffer spiritually as the result of it. How hard it is for those who trust in riches to even enter into the kingdom of heaven, for they that will be rich fall into divers temptations which drown men’s souls in perdition.

And so the children of Israel, God gave them their request. Sometimes that can be the very worst thing that can happen to us spiritually, for God to answer our prayers. He gave them their request, but gave them leanness into their soul.

They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the LORD. The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram. And a fire was kindled in their company; the flame burned up the wicked. They made a calf in Horeb, and they worshipped a molten image. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass. They forgot God their saviour, which had done great things in Egypt; Wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red Sea [or awesome things by the Red Sea]. Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them. Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word: But murmured in their tents, and hearkened not to the voice of Jehovah. Therefore he lifted up his hand against them, to overthrow them in the wilderness: To overthrow their seed also among the nations, and to scatter them in the lands. They joined themselves also to Baal-peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead. Thus they provoked him to anger with their inventions: and the plague broke in upon them. Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment: so that the plague was stopped. And that was counted unto him for righteousness to all generations for evermore. They angered him also at the waters of Meribah, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes ( Psa 106:16-32 ):

Here’s an interesting insight. The reason why Moses couldn’t go into the Promise Land was for their sakes. That God might teach them the importance of obedience to God. Obedience to God is surely one of the most important things in life for each of us. What does God require of me? Obedience. Moses was disobedient to God in the eyes of the people. God said to Moses, “Go out and speak to the rock and it’ll give forth water.” Moses took his staff and he hit the rock. “Must I hit this rock and give you water?” And thus, he failed to represent God, and for the people’s sake God didn’t let him go into the land.

You see, their history was oral history for many years. They learned their history from the stories that were told by the mothers to the children. Stories of their past, the story of God’s work in their midst. From the time a child was first cradled in its mother’s arms, the mother would whisper in the child’s ear, “The Lord is God. The Lord is God.” And very early they would begin to rehearse the stories of God’s work in their history to their children. And they would pass down by oral tradition the stories of God’s deliverance, God’s power, God’s work. And as they would tell the story of the bondage in Egypt, after the death of Joseph and the Pharaoh who arose and knew not Joseph and how that their fathers were placed under cruel subjugation by the Pharaoh. How that he had ordered all the baby boys to be slain. And the terrible cruel bondage, the slavery. But then God raised up a leader, even Moses, who was a man of God and God spoke unto Moses. And God sent Moses down to Egypt, and through Moses brought the plagues upon the Egyptians. And they would tell their children the exciting story of how a man in tune with God was able to bring their fathers out of the bondage of Egypt. And Moses was the hero, the man of God, the man that God used. But then their voices would become hushed, as they would say to their children, “But Moses could not go into the Promise Land because he disobeyed God.” And that importance of obedience to God above everything else was just burned into the mind of the children as Moses the example of a man of God highly honored and favored. A man like no other man with whom God did speak in such a direct way, and yet, this man Moses, as close as his relationship was with God, he was held back from the greatest ambition of his life. He could not go into the land because he disobeyed God. And for the sake of the people, Moses was not able to go into the land.

Because they provoked his spirit ( Psa 106:33 ),

The people had provoked Moses’ spirit.

so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips. They did not destroy the nations, though they were commanded to do so. But they mingled with the heathen, and they learned their ways. And they began to serve their idols: which were a snare to them. Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils ( Psa 106:33-37 ),

They followed the practice of the Baal worshippers, who would sacrifice their little babies in these little arms of their gods. Baal… you see the little iron and stone gods and their arms are outstretched with the hands in an upward position. You can see them in the museums over there, the little gods that have been uncovered by the archeologists. And what they would do is place these little gods in the fire until the metal, the iron would turn glowing red hot and then they would take their babies and place them in the glowing hot arms of this idol of Baal sacrificing their babies. And as the babies would scream in pain and all, they would dance and scream so that they couldn’t hear the screams of their children. Practices of the heathen. This is why God drove the people out of the land. This is why God commanded them to destroy the people, because their practices were so corrupt. But they disobeyed God and exactly what God knew would happen did happen. They began to follow after these pagan, licentious, horrible, evil practices of worship.

They shed innocent blood, even the blood of their own sons and their own daughters, who they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood ( Psa 106:38 ).

Now the interesting thing is that God here declares that they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils. In other words, behind the idol worship was Satan worship. And this is true; behind idol worship is Satan worship. Paul said, “They that do sacrifice things unto idols do sacrifice them unto devils” ( 1Co 10:20 ). It is common belief that many of these idols are actually inhabited by demon spirits. Even as a demon is embodied in human bodies sometimes, demons often will seek embodiment within an idol that is worshipped by people. And thus, prayers and all to the idol can be answered by demon activity. There is power; there are things that can be done in a supernatural realm by the demonic forces that are inhabiting these idols. And behind the false worship is the worship of Satan. That is why it is so totally inconsistent to say, “Well, all religions really lead people to God. And how can you say that Christianity is the only real way to God, because these people are very religious, they’re very sincere. Look at the way they are worshipping their idols.” The scriptures said they’re worshipping devils. And Satan is really the choreographer behind all of the religious systems of the world, apart from Christianity.

And so the people were defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions. Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people, inasmuch that he abhorred his own inheritance. And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they that hated them ruled over them. Their enemies also oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their hand. Many times did he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity. Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry: and he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies. He made them also to be pitied of all of those that carried them captives. Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the heathen, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise. Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: and let all the people say, Amen. Praise ye the LORD ( Psa 106:39-48 ).

Now, again the Amen, the doxology brings us to the end of the fourth book of the psalms. And beginning with Psa 107:1-43 we enter now into the fifth book of the psalms. And so entering in now to a new, the fifth and the final book of the psalms, which goes from here to Psa 150:1-6 .

I think at this point we’ll cut it off for this evening, and next week we’ll pick up with Psa 107:1-43 . Because these are relatively long psalms through here, but the next ten psalms are quite short. So we’ll go from Psa 107:1-43 through 116 for next week, and then we’ll go 117 through 119. That will be plenty for the following week. Psa 119:1-176 in itself would be a lot, but 117 and 118 are short, relatively short psalms.

Shall we stand.

May the Lord help us not to forget His greatness, His mercy, His love, His wisdom, His power. May we walk in the consciousness of His presence. May we become more attune to His works and to His love. May God be with you and may God bless you and may God strengthen you through this week. In Jesus’ name. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

This Psalm relates the story of Gods mercy to Israel, of the peoples provocation of Jehovah, and of his great patience with them. It commences with an exhortation to praise the Lord.

Psa 106:1. Praise ye the LORD.

Or, Hallelujah. I cannot help remarking here that this is one of the most sacred words in the whole Bible, and it ought always to be pronounced with the utmost reverence. I sometimes feel my blood chill when I hear of hallelujah lasses and hallelujah bonnets. If those who use such expressions rightly understood the meaning of the word, they would not thus take the name of the Lord in vain?

Psa 106:1. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

As long as you and I are sinners, this will be one of the sweetest notes in our song of thanksgiving unto Jehovah: His mercy endureth for ever.

Psa 106:2. Who can utter the mighty acts of the LORD? who can shew forth all his praise?

Neither the angels nor the perfect spirits who day without night circle his throne rejoicing can show forth all Jehovahs praise.

Psa 106:3. Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times.

There is great comfort in walking near to God; the way of peace, the way of blessing, is the way of righteousness; but, alas I my brethren, we do not always keep in that way as we should. The psalmist himself felt that he did not, therefore he prayed,

Psa 106:4. Remember me, O LORD, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation;

He felt that he needed Gods grace in all its saving power.

Psa 106:5. That I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance.

He longs to get in among the people of God. He wants to share the favor which God bestows upon them, the free grace which he manifests to them. He wants to be included in their election, to rejoice in their gladness, and to glory in their inheritance.

Psa 106:6-7. We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly. Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt;

Very great wonders were wrought there when Gods time came to set his people free from their cruel bondage. There was a marvellous display of power on Gods part; yet the psalmist had to say, Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt;-

Psa 106:7. They remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea.

They had hardly started out of Egypt before they provoked Jehovah. They had only just caught sight of the rolling waters of the Red sea, when they began to murmur against God and against his servant, Moses.

Psa 106:8. Nevertheless he saved them for his names sake,

Oh, is not that a grand word? Well might Jehovah say, Not for your sakes do I this, O house of Israel. He saved them for his own sake,

Psa 106:8. That he might make his mighty power to be known.

Free grace finds in itself, not in us, its own motive, and discovers its own reason for acting on our behalf. Gods reason for mercy is found in his mercy.

Psa 106:9-13. He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness. And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. And the waters covered their enemies: there was not one of them left. Then believed they his words; they sang his praise. They soon forgot his works; they waited not for his counsel:

Ah, me! Even the divided sea is soon forgotten; enemies walled up by water speedily pass from remembrance: They soon forgot his works; they waited not for his counsel:

Psa 106:14-15. But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert. And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.

I do not know of anything more dreadful than that, to be fattened without, and to be starved within; to have everything that heart could wish for, and yet not to have the best thing that the heart ought to wish for. May God save us from that appearance of prosperity which is only a veiled desolation!

Psa 106:16. They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the LORD.

These two men had done everything for the children of Israel; they had been the instruments in the hand of God of innumerable blessings to them; yet they envied Moses and Aaron.

Psa 106:17-18. The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram. And a fire was kindled in their company; the flame burned up the wicked.

Jehovahs mercy did not melt the peoples hard hearts, so perhaps the fear of his judgment would. God tried both methods with them, as he has done with us, for sometimes he has been very gracious to us, and at other times he has chastened us very sorely. He has tried the kiss and he has tried the blow. Yet what happened in the case of Israel?

Psa 106:19-22. They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass. They forgot God their Saviour, which had done great things in Egypt; wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red sea.

What was to become of such a people, provoking him again and again?

Psa 106:23. Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.

How often has our blessed Mediator, who is far greater than Moses, stood before the Lord in the breach! How often has the great Husbandman said, concerning the fruitless tree, Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And then that Divine Dresser of the vineyard has pleaded, Let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it. And here we are, still spared, and still blessed, through the intercession of Gods chosen Mediator.

Psa 106:24. Yea, they despised the pleasant land,

They said that the Canaan towards which they were traveling was not worth the trouble of getting to it: They despised the pleasant land,

Psa 106:24-28. They believed not his word: but murmured in their tents, and hearkened not unto the voice of the LORD. Therefore he lifted up his hand against them, to overthrow them in the wilderness: to overthrow their seed also among the nations, and to scatter them in the lands. They joined themselves also unto Baalpeor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead.

They began to study necromancy and spiritualism, and to join in the abominations of the worship of Baal.

Psa 106:29. Thus they provoked him to anger with their inventions: and the plague brake in upon them.

Now notice how something always happened to spare them from the destruction which they deserved.

Psa 106:30-31. Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment: and so the plague was stayed. And that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore.

Yet still they went on sinning against the Most High.

Psa 106:32-33. They angered him also at the waters of strife, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes: because they provoked his spirit, so that he spoke unadvisedly with his lips.

Does it not seem remarkable that Moses, the true servant of God, was not spared from punishment when it was but a word that he spoke unadvisedly, yet still the mercy of God was continued to that provoking generation? Ah! that is always the way with our jealous God; those whom he loves best will be sure to feel his chastising rod, whatever happens to others. At last, the Israelites reached Canaan, they entered into the land that flowed with milk and honey; did that change their character? No; not in the least.

Psa 106:34-38. They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the LORD commanded them: but were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works. And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.

Just think how low they had sunk; Gods own people had come down to this, that they actually offered their own children in sacrifice to Moloch.

Psa 106:39-43. Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions. Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance. And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they that hated them ruled over them. Their enemies also oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their hand. Many times did he deliver them;

You would not have expected to find such a sentence as that here; yet there it stands. Notwithstanding all that these people did, many times did he deliver them;

Psa 106:43-45. But they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity. Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry: and he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.

Was there ever so strange a story as this, a story of provocation continued almost beyond belief, and yet of mercy which would not be overcome, of persevering love that would not turn aside?

Psa 106:46-48. He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives. Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the heathen, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise. Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: and let all the people say, Amen. Praise ye the LORD.

So the Psalm ends upon its key-note, Hallehjah, Praise ye Jehovah.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Psa 106:1-5

THE REBELLIOUSNESS OF ISRAEL AND GOD’S MERCIES

This, the last psalm of Book IV, is the third of the psalms which McCaw classified as “historica” It is also the first of the ten psalms which Rawlinson classified as, “The Hallelujah Psalms. The others are: Psalms 111; Psalms 112; Psalms 113; Psalms 115; Psalms 116; Psalms 117; Psalms 118; Psalms 119; and Psalms 150, making ten in all. All of these, except Psalms 111 and Psalms 112, both begin and end with “Hallelujah,” or “Praise the Lord,” as it is rendered in our version. Psalms 111 and Psalms 112 begin with “Hallelujah,” but do not end with it. This information is received from Rawlinson, but the American Standard Version (which we are following) differs somewhat from it. As we have mentioned earlier, such classifications are of limited value.

Psalms 106 begins with an introduction (Psa 106:1-5), and follows with a recital of Israel’s long history of sin and rebellion against God, stressing God’s constant mercies and deliverances (Psa 106:6-46) and concluding with an expression of prayer and praise similar to the introduction.

Regarding the date and the occasion, there is no dependable information whatever. Even the opinion of several scholars that the time of the exile in Babylon was the occasion is uncertain; because, as McCaw noted, “Psa 106:47 does not require the Babylonian captivity as its setting. There could have been no occasion from Israel’s entering Canaan onward when some Israelites were not held in alien slavery and when the nation as a whole was not acutely conscious of surrounding paganism.

In this connection, Rhodes reminds us that, “There was a dispersion of Israel as early as the eighth century, following the fall of the Northern Israel.

There is also the question of which is earlier, 1Chronicles, which has some of these same lines, or this psalm. We do not believe that this question has been satisfactorily resolved.

This psalm resembles Psalms 105 in that both cover an extensive period of Israel’s history; but there is a totally different emphasis. In Psalms 105, Israel’s victories are in focus; but in this psalm, it is their sins and the constant mercies and deliverance of the Lord that are stressed.

Before viewing the text itself, there are the following lines from Maclaren which extol the unique marvel of the psalm.

“The history of God’s past is a record of continuous mercies; and mankind’s record is one of continuous sin … Surely never but in Israel has patriotism chosen a nation’s sins for the theme of song, or in celebrating its victories has written but one name on all of its trophies, the name of Jehovah.

Miller also observed that, “It is of singular interest that Israel’s sins are enumerated in a praise hymn. God’s repeated “passing over” of the sins of Israel (Rom 3:25) appears to have left an impression upon racial Israel that “no matter what they did,” they would forever enjoy their status as God’s chosen people.

It is also somewhat distressing to read the comments of a number of writers who seem to believe that despite the consummate wickedness of Israel leading eventually to their rejecting God Himself in the person of His Only Begotten Son, and their official renunciation of God Himself as their king, in the official cry of the nation’s leaders that, “We have no king but Caesar” – that in spite of all this, racial Israel is still “the People of God.” Have such writers never heard of the “Israel of God,” which is now the fellowship “in Christ?” See Gal 6:16.

Psa 106:1-5

INTRODUCTION

“Praise ye Jehovah.

Oh give thanks unto Jehovah; for he is good;

For his lovingkindness endureth forever.

Who can utter the mighty acts of Jehovah,

Or show forth all his praise?

Blessed are they that keep justice,

And he that doeth righteousness at all times.

Remember me, O Jehovah, with the favor that thou bearest unto thy people;

O visit me with thy salvation,

That I may see the prosperity of thy chosen,

That I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation,

That I may glory with thine inheritance.”

“Praise ye Jehovah” (Psa 106:1). For these words, the Hebrew text (the Masoretic) has “Hallelujah,” according to the marginal reading; and from this it takes its place in the classification of “Hallelujah Psalms.”

“Who can utter all the mighty acts of Jehovah … or all his praise” (Psa 106:2)? The infinity of God’s mighty deeds and also that of the praises due to God are beyond all the abilities of men, either to declare them or to voice sufficient praises of them.

“Blessed are they that keep justice … and do righteousness at all times” (Psa 106:3). These words would appear to identify the psalmist as one of the “true sons of Abraham,” an Israelite indeed, as distinguished from the majority of the wicked nation (Luk 19:9; Joh 1:47). See also Joh 8:39-44.

“Remember me with thy favor … with thy salvation” (Psa 106:4). The psalmist here injects his own prayer for God’s favor and salvation, when is accomplished the deliverance which he envisions as coming to the people as a whole (Psa 106:5).

CONFESSION OF ISRAEL’S SINS

Israel, at this time was suffering the penalty of God’s anger for their wickedness, whether in the distress following the fall of Samaria (722 B.C.), or that of the Babylonian captivity centuries later, or whether from some other disaster cannot now be certainly determined. However, the psalmist here undertakes a confession of the sins of the whole nation. In this, the psalm is one of the Penitentials.

E.M. Zerr

Psa 106:1. There is nothing new in this verse in addition to the oft-repeated call for praise to God. However, we can never be reminded too many times that the Lord is worthy to be praised. Let us note also that David’s call for praise was not a mere expression of sentiment without some practical motive for it. In this verse the reason given is the mercy of the Lord that endureth for ever.

Psa 106:2. We are sure David means that no one can fully utter or describe the mighty acts of the Lord. It is practically the same idea in the second clause.

Psa 106:3. This means that they are blessed who show their good judgment by always doing that which is according to the Lord’s law of righteousness.

Psa 106:4. The Psalmist did not ask for any “favoritism” from the Lord. He wished only the same favors that the people of the nation received.

Psa 106:5. See the good of thy chosen meant he asked to see the good things being bestowed upon God’s chosen people. It is virtually the same thought that was expressed in the preceding verse and the comments offered at that place.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The previous psalm called the people to talk of the marvellous works of Jehovah. This one calls to praise, and the reason is that His mercy endureth for ever. This fact is then illustrated by a declaration of how the people of God have persistently sinned against Him, and how He has patiently borne with them, restoring them constantly to Himself.

The first section (vv. Psa 106:1-31) deals with the history of the people from Egypt, and in the wilderness. The description of what happened immediately after the crossing of the Red Sea is graphic:

Then believed they His words; They sang His praise.

They soon forgot His works;

They waited not for His counsel.

That is the explanation of all the story. In the hour of deliverance faith aided by sight is strong, and it is easy to sing. But directly strain and stress return, the past of Gods might is forgotten, and His counsel is not sought. And so the story runs on through Dathan and Abiram, by way of Horeb and to Baal Peor. Over against all the unutterable folly of the people, the faithfulness and matchless patience of Jehovah is seen.

Continuing the same sad story, the psalmist then turned to the unfaithfulness of the people in the land (vv. Psa 106:32-48). This he begins by referring to Moses exclusion. This reference seems to be a remarkable recognition of the strength of the man. The fair deduction from the setting of the story seems to be that if he had entered with them, some of the things might have been different.

The story of their failure in the land is tragic, but there is evident a recognition on the part of the singer of a poetic justice in their calamity. Moses was excluded because of his failure to represent God to His people, but that failure was provoked by their sin; and they, passing into the land without him, were from the beginning in greater or less degree corrupted. Their initial sin was that of disobedience, either on the ground of pity, or for purpose of compromise. The result was that they descended to all the abominations of which the peoples were guilty. Very beautiful is the revelation of God which occurs in the statement. He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives. While their persistent and terrible sin made His wrath burn and His judgement inevitable, yet the love of His heart never ceased toward the people of His choice.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Unfailing Loving-Kindness

Psa 106:1-15

Who can utter? That is an unanswered question. Not even the leader of the heavenly choir can answer it. But what blessedness it brings to the heart of one who begins to recite the goodness and loving-kindness of God! When prayer goes heavily, begin to praise.

The theme of this psalm is Gods redeeming grace. It contains a gruesome catalogue of sin. We have sinned we have committed iniquity our fathers understood not they remembered not but provoked they soon forgat they waited not but lusted exceedingly and tempted God. But side by side were the divine love and mercy: Nevertheless He saved them for His names sake, Psa 106:8. God is bound to keep His Covenant, even to the childrens children. He must act worthily of Himself. Truth is another spelling of troth. When God has pledged His troth, as He did to Abraham, and has also to us, He cannot fail.

Notice the pathetic prayer of Psa 106:4. Though we are more or less implicated in the sins of those around us, we, as Christians, may claim special favor and help, in order to be placed in a stronger position when we come to intercede for others.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Psa 106:15

It is an awful circumstance, and yet it is true, that our mercies may be our curses; that our desire may prove our ruin. The man, you will say, who has obtained the object of his desire, whether through prayer or toil, ought to be happy. He sows, and reaps abundantly; he casts his nets into the sea, and brings them up full of fish; all his bargains end in gain: he might have in his possession the philosopher’s stone, which turns all it touches into gold. But there is a dark set-off against all this. When you come to look down through the man’s circumstances into himself, you find what the psalmist here terms leanness; and by leanness he means waste, emaciation, loss of strength and beauty. What is this leanness? How shall we discover its presence in ourselves or others?

I. By its trust in outward things. You hardly need to be told that one of the dangers which always beset us is that of placing our confidence in things that are in our sight and within the reach of our hand. And the more these things multiply around us, the greater our danger becomes. Grace is needed by every man, but great grace is needed by the man who gets his request. The eclipsing power of success is fearful.

II. Another symptom of spiritual leanness, and one of the results of having our request, is self-pleasing. We do not live in a heroic age. Like men under the influence of a Southern climate, our stamina is becoming deteriorated. We covet rest rather than labour, enjoyment rather than self-sacrifice for our own real good or that of others. It is no calumny to say that pleasure is the god of our times, and that men are shrinking more and more from everything which involves self-oblivion and self-sacrifice. But this spirit defeats itself. Pleasure sought for its own sake is difficult to find, more difficult still to retain, and becomes more coy and unattainable the more the pursuit of it becomes the aim and the business of life.

III. Loss of sympathy with all that helps to build up the spiritual life. There is no life save that of God Himself which possesses a self-perpetuating power; and though the life which is begotten in us by faith is the highest on earth, even that is not immortal if it be denied the food which has been provided for it. Our text speaks to us as with the voice of a trumpet, and rings out the great and impressive truth that we cannot be too guarded in our petitions or in our desires for merely temporal things. Beyond necessaries all else should be sought in very humble and willing subordination to the will of God. For who of us knows what beyond these is good for us?

E. Mellor, In the Footsteps of Heroes, p. 106.

The principle of the text applies:-

I. To the man who starts life with an idea that to be rich is the highest result of labour.

II. To all who would escape from painful duty in order that they may indulge love of ease and quiet.

III. To men who make all their arrangements with a view to the comfort of their physical tastes exclusively.

IV. The judgment of God falls on the highest nature; it falls on the soul. The man on whom God’s disapprobation rests withers at his very root. His mental power declines; his moral nature shrivels; he goes down in the volume and quality of his being.

V. The great lesson from this text is to say from the heart, with trembling yet earnest love, “Not our will, but Thine, be done.” The school in which this great lesson can be learned is called the Cross.

Parker, City Temple, 1870, p. 147.

Psa 106:19

I. The mixture of infirmity and strength, of earnest aim and second motive, among the people of God, is, and must ever be, a matter of anxious question; and it is for that, among many other things, that the people of God cry out for the great Resurrection, and look with love to His appearing. The very grace and virtue with which a man strives is paled by vice directly its contradictory, and the very point which seems to be a man’s strong point becomes his weak one. In a general view Aaron appears before us as the first high-priest, the elaborator with Moses of the great ceremonial of the early Church. Yet Aaron could worship an idol; and with the mind which had been inspired to celebrate the sacred worship, and with the hand which had been aiding in its construction, he could devise and work the golden calf.

II. The conflicts of Aaron with Moses are very remarkable. There is a mixture of respect and jealousy in the conduct of the high-priest which excites our surprise. We find Aaron and Miriam conspiring against the authority of Moses, and that from a manifest feeling of jealousy. With a heaven-sent commission to respect the elevated position of Moses, Aaron nevertheless in the most singular way opposed the authority and assailed the office of the lawgiver.

III. These contradictions are not uncommon among the people of God; but the singular circumstance is that it is not simply the inconsistency which we are struck with, but the actual contradiction given to the leading virtue by the contrary vice appearing in the same character. There is more than one way of accounting for this. (1) The presence of a leading tendency to good throws many men off their guard with respect to some virtue; and unfenced on the side of the correlative vice, they the more easily fall. (2) The fact of official position and responsibility is the real cause of our high expectations and estimate of the character. (3) When the mind is steadily and almost exclusively directed to one great object, there is always a tendency to err on the side of neglect of duty in respect of that very object. Few objects of human contemplation or study will bear such close investigation as to appear the more true and certain by deeper investigation. We live on a surface. The ripple reflects light and brilliance, and the belt of waters below moves in a dull and sullen mass. A deeper insight disappoints. So it is that the man whose vocation is clear and definite will err in indefiniteness in that very vocation, and inconsistency will constantly run in a parallel line with the fulfilment of the daily vocation.

E. Monro, Practical Sermons, vol. i., p. 519.

Psa 106:24

I. Without the promised land, what was the life of Moses? What was the life of the people? In reading the Scripture account, the general impression is of a very weary, hard-worked life for Moses; much disappointment, vexation, and trouble; hard work and little thanks for it. And it is true. His martyrdom when he lost his throne, his forty years of daily self-abasement in the wilderness, did end for him in this fierce, patient penalty of leading a mean people on the way to greatness, with all the present pain and nothing to compensate for the pain, saving only the feeling within of stronger life day by day for himself, clearer sight of God, a calmer heart, a greater self-mastery, with the sweetness of such liberty in his soul; and, next, the certainty of working with God, which made all the labour, all the suffering, the joy of the champion for the King he loved; and, lastly, the promised land, the blessing of Abraham coming true, the sweet conviction of victory and peace.

II. The promised land first and the Messiah, the King, who was to reign over them in the promised land-these two thoughts were the daily joy and hope of every Israelite who was not a traitor. And the bitter accusation of treason brought against them by the psalmist was, “Yea, they thought scorn of that pleasant land.” The Israelite in the wilderness looked on the promised land with exactly the same present feeling that a man now looks forward to success in his profession. There was to be no change whatever in them, only change in their circumstances. We shall never live life truly till we have got our going home into the same practical, true groove that they had.

E. Thring, Uppingham Sermons, vol. ii., p. 424.

References: Psa 106:24.-H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Waterside Mission Sermons, 2nd series, p. 193. Psa 106:44, Psa 106:45.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii., No. 1886.

Psa 106:48

I. “Amen” is a word of which all the associations are, or ought to be, interesting. (1) With this word did our Lord Jesus Christ Himself introduce most of His most impressive revelations. By this term, expressing certainty, faithfulness, unchangeable truth, He embodied in daily utterance that which on one occasion at least He expanded into a doctrine-“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen”-with a positiveness of intuition and insight belonging to Him, and to Him only, who is at once He that came down from heaven and the Son of man who is in heaven. (2) In this word does St. Paul gather up the whole sum of the revelations of Christ and say, “All the promises of God in Him are Yea, and in Him Amen.” (3) By this same word does the beloved disciple St. John actually designate the very person of his Master: “These things saith the Amen,” etc.

II. The force and significance of the word must vary: (1) with the place in which it occurs in our services; (2) according to the mind of the worshipper by whom it is used.

III. The conditions of joining rightly in this particular part of our service are the same with those which we know to be the conditions of public worship in general. You must be desirous of meeting God. You must be desirous of finding God. You must come with that desire and stay with that desire.

C. J. Vaughan, Memorials of Harrow Sundays, p. 150.

References: Psa 106:48.-J. Percival, Some Helps for School Life, p. 177. Psa 107:4-7.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xx., p. 86.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

– Title As part of the preceding Psalm is found in 1Chr. 16, so the first and two last verses of this are found in the same place; and it is highly probable this was composed upon the same occasion as the former, to which it seems to be a continuation;

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

God’s discipline of the people for their evil.

The last psalm of the book, as already said, gives us the history of the people from another side, -their ways with God, which entailed upon them the long discipline which is even yet upon them. This discipline, with all its sorrow, is of course still His love; and shows Him Master over the evil, and in grace towards them. This psalm is their confession of their sin, and their final appeal to this grace of His, for the salvation now at hand. It begins and closes with the heart-utterance of His praise.

1. The first section praises Him as the source of all good, in a loving-kindness which endures forever. His deeds are past expression; and all of them are His praise. Happy, then; are they who keep judgment and do righteousness at all times: these are His people, the heirs of His favor, with whom the psalmist desires to be remembered; and visited by His salvation to that end. This is Israel, His chosen nation and inheritance, whose prosperity as promised by His word is before the eye of faith.

2. But as the psalmist looks he realizes what has so long kept this favored people out of their destined blessing; and he owns with them their sins, present and past, their fathers’ and their own; going back to the history of the wilderness, as a complete sample of all their history since. Fresh from the manifold mercies of their wondrous deliverance, they were rebellious in their unbelief of His power and grace, from the Red Sea itself, where they would have gone back into that hard Egyptian servitude in sheer distrust of Him who yet saved them for His Name’s sake, to make His power known. He led them through the depths of the sea, as if it were the dry ground of the wilderness. He redeemed them with His right hand from the enemy; and their enemies were swept away before the returning waters: not one of them was left. Then they believed His word, and sang His praise.

3. (a) But they soon forgot all this; and the third section shows how in the wilderness itself, their manners forced the blessed God their Saviour to sanctify Himself in judgment upon them. Slipping away from Him once more, their hearts lusted for their own will; and tempted the Mighty One in doubt of His ability to save. His very answer, which displayed His might for them, brought but leanness into their souls. So it is with the soul away from God: the satisfaction of the thirst, as with salt water, but increases it.

(b) The open rebellion follows the veiled one. They envy their God-given leaders, and throw off the authority of Moses and the priestly office of Aaron; Jehovah’s sanctified one. The more open rebellion calls forth the severer judgment: the earth swallows up Dathan and Abiram; and the fire of God consumes those who insolently venture in their own right to draw near to Him.

(c) Next, not in historical, but in moral order, their image-worship in Horeb assaults God Himself, whose glory they profane to the mere likeness of a beast -an ox that eateth grass! forgetting all His wondrous deeds in that very Egypt, where He had prostrated the false gods to which now they equaled Him. Here Moses, intercession alone had saved them from the penalty of that covenant which in their self-righteousness they had made with Him.

(d) Now comes the failure for which all that generation perished in the wilderness, mere wanderers in a desert-land. And with this punishment the psalmist connects the after-wanderings of the nation; after Canaan had been possessed; but when they had no more faith to retain the possession than now to acquire it.

(e) Next we have their joining themselves to Baal-peor, and Phinehas, atonement by judgment (see Num 25:1-18 notes) to the government of God; an act which God marks for all succeeding time, with His emphatic approval. Let us note it as very needful to keep in mind, in days so lax as these as to divine holiness. Phinehas is no less a priest in the intercessory place, when he uses the sword of judgment.

(f) Lastly, the sin of the people affects even the leader himself; and Moses fails to enter the land of promise. The intercessor for others finds himself no availing intercession. The discipline of God takes account of all alike. Moses, swan-like, sings his song and dies. But the song abides and is still a song, to be sung yet upon the sea of glass, with the song of the Lamb (Rev 15:2-3).

4. The wilderness-history is over, and we have now the story of the failure in the land. It is in principle ever the same, taking its shape only according to the command which tests them, -here the cleansing of the inheritance of the Lord from all that which had defiled it. The nations of Canaan were under the ban for their iniquity and Jehovah had entrusted the execution of this to their hands. Instead of this they left them in it and mingled themselves with them; with the sure result which had been predicted, that they learned their works. Their gods became a snare to them, and the unnatural deeds connected with their demon-worship became the shame and pollution of Israel. The innocent blood of their sons and daughters stained their altars and defiled their lands. Their deeds corrupted them ever more deeply.

5. Jehovah’s ways with them were in necessary recompense. His anger was kindled against them, and He abhorred the inheritance they had polluted. Thus they were given over to their enemies and bowed down under their hand. Frequently as they were delivered, so frequently did they afresh provoke Him with their evil, and were again brought low.

But in their distress He could not but show His pity still; and His covenant of promise was a necessary limit to their chastisement. Amid all their wanderings and in their captivity He still caused mercy to be shown them by those who were His instruments to chasten them.

6. Looking back, then; over this history of constant failure, they could yet trace the love throughout, that had acted towards them. He could not openly display it as He would; but the one cause of this was unrepented evil. Now then in their confession of their sin He could return; and if He could, He would. They cry to Him for this: that He would save and gather them from the nations, that they might give thanks unto His holy Name, and triumph in His praise!

7. And the praise bursts forth. Jehovah is claimed confidently as Israel’s God, and from everlasting to everlasting He is to be praised. Let all the people say, Amen! Hallelujah!

Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

Psa 106:1-3. Praise ye the Lord, &c. He deserves our praises, notwithstanding all our sufferings, which are not to be imputed to him, for he is gracious and merciful, but only to our own sins. Who can show forth all his praise? That is, his praiseworthy actions: who is sufficient for a work which demands the tongues and harps of angels? Blessed are they that keep judgment That observe and practise what is just and right toward God and men; termed, doing righteousness, in the next clause; at all times Constantly, in adversity, as well as in prosperity. Or, the meaning may be, They are blessed at all times, even in the day of their calamity; and therefore (as his words may imply) our calamities ought not to hinder us from this great and necessary duty of praising God. This verse may be considered as containing an answer to the inquiry made in the preceding, and signifying that they show forth Gods praise in the best manner who keep his judgments, and do righteousness at all times.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

This also is a Psalm of David, and is cited in 1 Chronicles 16., although the first and the two last verses only are there given. The subject is similar to that of the preseding psalm; and it was probably one of those psalms which the Jews adapted and sung on their return from Babylon.

Psa 106:4-5. Remember me. Nearly all the Versions employ the plural pronoun in these verses. Remember usvisit usthat we may see, &c.

Psa 106:20. Thus they changed their glory. An apostles explanation is, they changed the glory of God into a lie. Rom 1:23.

Psa 106:28. They ate the sacrifices of the dead. metim, dead men; for Baal, Bel, or Belus was once a man, and reigned in Babylon. Minutius Octavius, in his apology, says, You banish us to distant islands, and there some of your gods were born, and others buried.

REFLECTIONS.

The remarks in the preseding psalm are applicable here. The Israelites are taught wisdom from the errors of their fathers. They waited not for the Lords counsel. Most of our miseries arise from an impetuous indulgence of passion.

He punished their sin, by sending leanness upon them; he lifted up his hand against them, and sentenced them to die in the desert. Revolt is quickly followed with the rod.

We have the folly of sin: they changed the glory of God to the similitude of a calf that eateth grass. They ate the sacrifices of the dead. Prideaux thinks that idolatry began by worshipping the mediators of the covenant, as Adam, Noah, &c. But Le Clerc, in his critical remarks upon Prideaux, thinks it arose from worshipping the angels who appeared to those patriarchs or mediators; and that Tsabi, a son of Seth, introduced the worship of images. Epiphanius however says as the text, that they worshipped dead men. All these opinions seem to come near the truth. Happy are we in adoring the one Mediator, Jesus Christ, Maker and Lord of all. We see also on a broad scale, that every new generation of the Hebrews discovered its sin by new outbreakings of crime, folly, and revolt. We should therefore train up our children in the faith and fear of the Lord, who relents and saves the contrite.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

CVI. Israels Sin.

Psa 106:1-5. Introduction. Praise to Yahweh for His power and greatness. The writers desire to share in Israels joy.

Psa 106:3. he that doeth: read they that do.

Psa 106:5. read throughout we for I.

Psa 106:6-43. Israels constant relapse into sin.

Psa 106:7 c. Read, They were rebellious against the Most High at the Red Sea (Exo 14:10).

Psa 106:15 b. leanness: read loathing.

Psa 106:18 b. There was no need of fire, if the rebels had already been swallowed up by the earthquake. The Psalmist, however, is not responsible for this confusion. He had before him the two inconsistent accounts welded together in Num 16:31-35.

Psa 106:19 f. seems to imply that the Israelites forsook Yahweh for another God. They had no intention of doing so. That it was an image of Yahweh which they made appears plainly from Exo 32:5.

Psa 106:22. Ham: see Psa 105:23*.

Psa 106:26. taken from Eze 20:23.lifted up his hand: i.e. took a solemn oath.

Psa 106:28. the dead: contrasted with the living God.

Psa 106:33. What the fault of Moses was is left uncertain in Num 20:3 ff.*, which may have been mutilated in the interests of edification.

Psa 106:37. demons: i.e. false gods. The Psalmist oscillates between the belief that the false gods were lifeless blocks or malignant spirits.

Psa 106:44-47. Still Yahweh forgave His people. A prayer for restoration of the Diaspora (the Dispersion) from the many lands into which the Jews had wandered.

Psa 106:48 is no part of Psalms 106. It is a doxology which separates Book IV from Book V. The writer in 1Ch 16:36 mistook it for part of the Ps. But the words Praise ye the Lord, are rightly placed by LXX at beginning of Psalms 107, because all the superscriptions over the first three books end with Amen. [The injunction to the people, however, differentiates this doxology from the others, which like Laus Deo, express the scribes thankfulness that his task is completed. It may, therefore, be a part of Psalms 106. If so it would seem to the editor who was responsible for the division into five books a good, ready-made mark of division.A. S. P.]

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

PSALM 106

The unfailing goodness, and enduring mercy, of the Lord to His earthly people, in spite of their failure.

The psalm prophetically looks on to the time when Israel’s long captivity among the nations is reaching its close, and God is about to regather the nation under the reign of Christ. In that day the godly will recognize that all the blessing of the nation depends on the enduring mercy of the Lord. In the light of the goodness and mercy of the Lord the psalmist confesses the sin of God’s people: (v. 6), owning every stage of their failure (vv. 7-46), and finally appeals to God to save and regather the nation for His own praise (vv. 47-48).

(vv. 1-5) The introductory verses present the theme of the psalm – the goodness and mercy of the Lord which endures for ever, and is beyond the power of man to express or praise.

Blessed then to be of the number who are morally suited to Jehovah, by keeping judgment and doing righteousness at all times. The psalmist desires to be remembered, and saved from present distresses, to see the good, and enter into the gladness of God’s people in the day when they enter upon God’s inheritance.

(v. 6) In the light of this mercy this representative of the godly remnant identifies himself with the nation in the confession of the sin, iniquity, and wickedness that has marked it throughout its course from the time of the fathers.

(vv. 7-12) After this general confession of sin, the history of Israel’s failure is traced in detail from the bondage in Egypt to the captivity in Babylon. In the outset of the nation’s history they neither understood God’s wonders against the Egyptians, nor His mercies to themselves. At the Red Sea they rebelled and would have turned back to Egypt and its bondage. Nevertheless God led them through the depths, saved them, redeemed them, and judged their enemies. Then they believed and sang His praise.

(v. 13) Faced with the difficulties of the wilderness, they soon forgot his works; they waited not for his counsel. Forgetting God’s ability to save, they neglected to seek counsel from God.

(vv. 14-15) Neglecting God’s counsel they were delivered to do their own will which, while it gave a brief gratification to their lust, sent leanness into their soul.

(vv. 16-18) Having neglected to seek counsel of God they envied and ignored the servants of God, only to bring upon themselves the chastening of the Lord.

(vv. 19-23) From dishonouring the servants of God they proceed to the yet greater sin of assailing the honour of God, Himself, by setting up a false god – a sin that would have brought swift destruction upon them but for the intercession of Moses.

(vv. 24-27) Indifference to the honour of God leads them to despise the land of God. This unbelief led to their overthrow in the wilderness. This again leads to their seed being lost among the nations and scattered in other lands.

(vv. 28-31) Mingling with the nations they failed to maintain holiness. They were defiled by their associations, bringing upon them the swift judgment of the Lord, that was only stayed by the firm action of one man whose act God has stamped for approval for all time.

(vv. 32-33) Further, the sin of the people, leads to the failure of the leader of the people. Provoked by the perversity of the people, Moses spake unadvisedly with his lips, and has to suffer for his hastiness.

(vv. 34-39) Having traced Israel’s failure in the wilderness, the psalmist further confesses their sins in the land. There they mingled with the nations of the world. In result the nations did not learn the ways of God, but God’s people fell into the ways of the world. Having learned their ways, Israel followed their evil practices; with the result that their children suffered, and innocent blood was shed.

(vv. 40-43) For all these sins the chastening hand of the Lord came upon His people. Thus the land became desolate, and God’s people passed into captivity. They came into subjection, and under the oppression of the Gentiles, and were brought low for their iniquity.

(vv. 44-46) Nevertheless, in judgment God remembered mercy. He regarded the affliction of His people when he heard their cry. He remembered His covenant to Abraham. He showed mercy to His people, and caused those who had taken them captive to show pity.

(vv. 47-48) Having thus confessed the sins of the people, the psalmist appeals to Jehovah to save His people and gather them from the heathen, and make them a praising people. Anticipating the answer to his prayer, all the people are summoned to praise the Lord God who is blessed from everlasting to everlasting.

Fuente: Smith’s Writings on 24 Books of the Bible

106:1 Praise {a} ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for [he is] good: for his mercy [endureth] for ever.

(a) The prophet exhorts the people to praise God for his past benefits, that by this their minds may be strengthened against all present troubles and despair.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Psalms 106

This psalm recalls Israel’s unfaithfulness to God, whereas Psalms 105 stressed God’s faithfulness to the nation. Even though God’s people proved unfaithful to Him, He remained faithful to them because of His covenant promises (cf. 1Ch 16:34-36; Nehemiah 9; Isa 63:7 to Isa 64:12; Daniel 9; 2Ti 2:13).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

1. Introductory call to praise 106:1-5

The writer, whomever he may have been, urged his audience to praise the Lord by thanking Him for His goodness, loyal love, and powerful works. God promised to bless those who are consistently just and righteous. Therefore the psalmist asked God to bless him with prosperity, joy, and glory.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Psa 106:1-48

THE history of Gods past is a record of continuous mercies, the history of mans, one of as continuous sin. The memory of the former quickened the psalmist into his sunny song of thankfulness in the previous psalm. That of the latter moves him to the confessions in this one. They are complements of each other, and are connected not only as being both retrospective, but by the identity of their beginnings and the difference of their points of view. The parts of the early history dealt with in the one are lightly touched or altogether omitted in the other. The keynote of Psa 105:1-45 is, “Remember His mighty deeds,” that of Psa 106:1-48 is, “They forgot His mighty deeds.”

Surely never but in Israel has patriotism chosen a nations sins for the themes of song, or, in celebrating its victories, written but one name, the name of Jehovah, on its trophies. But in the Psalter we have several instances of such hymns of national confession; and, in other books, there are the formulary at the presentation of the first fruits {, Solomons prayer at the dedication of the Temple, {1Ki 8:1-66} Nehemiahs prayer, {Neh 9:1-38} and Daniels. {Dan 9:1-27}

An exilic date is implied by the prayer of Psa 106:47, for the gathering of the people from among the nations. The occurrence of Psa 106:1 and Psa 106:47-48 in the compilation in 1Ch 16:1-43 shows that this psalm, which marks the close of the Fourth Book, was in existence prior to the date of 1 Chronicles.

No trace of strophical arrangement is discernible. But, after an introduction in some measure like that in Psa 105:1-45, the psalmist plunges into his theme, and draws out the long, sad story of Israels faithlessness. He recounts seven instances during the wilderness sojourn (Psa 106:7-33), and then passes to those occurring in the Land (Psa 106:34-39), with which he connects the alternations of punishment and relenting on Gods part and the obstinacy of transgression on Israels, even down to the moment in which he speaks (Psa 106:40-46). The whole closes with a prayer for restoration to the Land (Psa 106:47); to which is appended the doxology (Psa 106:48), the mark of the end of Book 4, and not a part of the psalm. The psalmist preludes his confession and contemplation of his peoples sins by a glad remembrance of Gods goodness and enduring lovingkindness and by a prayer for himself. Some commentators regard these introductory verses as incongruous with the tone of the psalm, and as mere liturgical commonplace, which has been tacked on without mush heed to fitness. But surely the thought of Gods unspeakable goodness most appropriately precedes the psalmists confession, for nothing so melts a heart in penitence as the remembrance of Gods love, and nothing so heightens the evil of sin as the consideration of the patient goodness which it has long flouted. The blessing pronounced in Psa 106:3 on those who righteousness and keep the law is not less natural, before a psalm which sets forth in melancholy detail the converse truth of the misery that dogs breaking the law.

In Psa 106:4-5 the psalmist interjects a prayer for himself, the abruptness of which strongly reminds us of similar jets of personal supplication in Nehemiah. The determination to make the “I” of the Psalter the nation perversely insists on that personification here, in spite of the clear distinction thrice drawn in Psa 106:5 between the psalmist and his people. The “salvation” in which he desires to share is the deliverance from exile for which he prays in the closing verse of the psalm. There is something very pathetic in this momentary thought of self. It breathes wistful yearning, absolute confidence in the unrealised deliverance, lowly humility which bases its claim with God on that of the nation. Such a prayer stands in the closest relation to the theme of the psalm, which draws out the dark record of national sin, in order to lead to that national repentance which, as all the history shows, is the necessary condition of “the prosperity of Thy chosen ones.” Precisely because the hope of restoration is strong, the delineation of sin is unsparing. With Psa 106:6 the theme of the psalm is given forth, in language which recalls Solomons and Daniels similar confessions. {1Ki 8:47; Dan 9:5} The accumulation of synonyms for sin witnesses at once to the gravity and manifoldness of the offences, and to the earnestness and comprehensiveness of the acknowledgment. The remarkable expression “We have sinned with our fathers” is not to be weakened to mean merely that the present generation had sinned like their ancestors, but gives expression to the profound sense of national solidarity, which speaks in many other places of Scripture, and rests on very deep facts in the life of nations and their individual members. The enumeration of ancestral sin begins with the murmurings of the faint-hearted fugitives by the Red Sea. In Psa 105:1-45 the wonders in Egypt were dilated on and the events at the Red Sea unmentioned. Here the signs in Egypt are barely referred to and treated as past at the point where the psalm begins, while the incidents by the Red Sea fill a large space in the song. Clearly, the two psalms supplement each other. The reason given for Israels rebellion in Psa 106:1-48 is its forgetfulness of Gods mighty deeds (Psa 106:7 a, b), while in Psa 105:1-45 the remembrance of these is urgently enjoined. Thus, again, the connection of thought in the pair of psalms is evident. Every man has experiences enough of Gods goodness stored away in the chambers of his memory to cure him of distrust, if he would only look at them. But they lie unnoticed, and so fear has sway over him. No small part of the discipline needed for vigorous hope lies in vigorous exercise of remembrance. The drying up of the Red Sea is here poetically represented, with omission of Moses outstretched rod and the strong east wind, as the immediate consequence of Gods omnipotent rebuke. Psa 106:9 b is from Isa 63:13, and picturesquely describes the march through that terrible gorge of heaped-up waters as being easy and safe, as if it had been across some wide-stretching plain, with springy turf to tread on The triumphant description of the completeness of the enemies destruction in Psa 106:11 b is Exo 14:28, and “they believed on His words” is in part quoted Exo 14:31, while Miriams song is referred to in Psa 106:12 b.

The next instance of departure is the lusting for food (Psa 106:13-15). Again the evil is traced to forgetfulness of Gods doings, to which in Psa 106:13 b is added impatient disinclination to wait the unfolding of His counsel or plan. These evils cropped up with strange celerity. The memory of benefits was transient, as if they had been written on the blown sands of the desert. “They hasted, they forgot His works.” Of how many of us that has to be said! We remember pain and sorrow longer than joy and pleasure. It is always difficult to bridle desires and be still until God discloses His purposes. We are all apt to try to force His hand open, and to impose our wishes on Him, rather than to let His will mould us. So, on forgetfulness and impatience there followed then, as there follow still, eager longings after material good, and a tempting of God. “They lusted a lust is from Num 11:4. “Tempted God” is found in reference to the same incident in the other psalm of historical retrospect. {Psa 78:18} He is “tempted” when unbelief demands proofs of His power, instead of waiting patiently for Him. In Num 11:33, Jehovah is said to have smitten the people “with a very great plague.” The psalm specifies more, particularly the nature of the stroke by calling it “wasting sickness,” which invaded the life of the sinners. The words are true in a deeper sense, though not so meant. For whoever sets his hot desires in self-willed fashion on material good, and succeeds in securing their gratification, gains with the satiety of his lower sense the loss of a shrivelled spiritual nature. Full-fed flesh makes starved souls. The third instance is the revolt headed by Korah, Dathan, and Abiram against the exclusive Aaronic priesthood (Psa 106:16-18). It was rebellion against God, for He had set apart Aaron as His own, and therefore the unusual title of “the holy one of Jehovah” is here given to the high priest. The expression recalls the fierce protest of the mutineers, addressed to Moses and Aaron, “Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy”; {Num 16:3} and also Moses answer, “Jehovah will show who is holy.” Envy often masquerades as the champion of the rights of the community, when it only wishes to grasp these for itself. These aristocratic democrats cared nothing for the prerogatives of the nation, though they talked about them. They wanted to pull down Aaron, not to lift up Israel. Their end is described with stern brevity, in language coloured by the narrative in Numbers, from which the phrases “opened” (i.e., her mouth) and “covered” are drawn. Korah is not mentioned here, in which the psalm follows Num 16:1-50 and Deu 11:6, whereas Num 26:10 includes Korah in the destruction. The difficulty does not seem to have received any satisfactory solution. But Cheyne is too peremptory when he undertakes to divine the reason for the omission of Korah here and in Deu 11:6, “because he was a Levite and his name was dear to temple poets.” Such clairvoyance as to motives is beyond ordinary vision. In Psa 106:18 the fate of the two hundred and fifty “princes of Israel” who took part in the revolt is recorded as in Num 16:35.

The worship of the calf is the fourth instance (Psa 106:19-23) in the narrative of which the psalmist follows Exo 32:1-35, but seems also to have Deu 9:8-12 floating in his mind, as appears from the use of the name “Horeb,” which is rare in Exodus and frequent in Deuteronomy. Psa 106:20 is apparently modelled on Jer 2:11 : “My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.” Compare also Pauls “changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness, ” etc. {Rom 1:23} “His glory” is read instead “their glory by Noldeke, Graetz, and Cheyne, following an old Jewish authority. The LXX, in Codd. Alex. and Sin. (second hand), has this reading, and Paul seems to follow it in the passage just quoted. It yields a worthy meaning, but the existing text is quite appropriate. It scarcely means that God was the source of Israels glory or their boast, for the word is not found in that sense. It is much rather the name for the collective attributes of the revealed Godhead, and is here substantially equivalent to “their God,” that lustrous Light which, in a special manner, belonged to the people of revelation, on whom its first and brightest beams shone. The strange perverseness which turned away from such a radiance of glory to bow down before an idol is strikingly set forth by the figure of bartering it for an image and that of an ox that ate grass. The one true Substance given away for a shadow! The lofty Being whose light filled space surrendered: and for what? A brute that had to feed, and that on herbage! Men usually make a profit, or think they do, on their barter: but what do they gain by exchanging God for anything? Yet we keep making the same mistake of parting with Substance for shadows. And the reason which moved Israel is still operative. As before, the psalmist traces their mad apostasy to forgetfulness of Gods deeds. The list of these is now increased by the addition of those at the Red Sea. With every step new links were added to the chain that should have bound the recipients of so many mercies to God. Therefore each new act of departure was of a darker hue of guilt, and drew on the apostates severer punishment, which also, rightly understood, was greater mercy.

“He said that He would annihilate them” is quoted from Deu 9:25. Moses intercession for the people is here most vividly represented under the figure of a champion, who rushes into the breach by which the enemy is about to pour into some beleaguered town, and with his own body closes the gap and arrests the assault. {cf. Eze 22:30}

The fifth instance is the refusal to go up to the land, which followed on the report of the spies (Psa 106:24-27). These verses are full of reminiscences of the Pentateuch and other parts of Scripture. “The delightsome, land” (lit. “land of desire) is found in Jer 3:19 and Zec 7:14. “They despised” is from Num 14:31. “They murmured in their tents” is Deu 1:27 (the only other place in which the word for murmuring occurs in this form). Lifting up the hand is used, as here, not in the usual sense of threatening to strike, but in that of swearing, in Exo 6:8, and the oath itself is given in Num 14:28 sqq., while the expression “lifted up My hand” occurs in that context, in reference to Gods original oath to the patriarch. The threat of exile (Psa 106:27) does not occur in Numbers, but is found as the punishment of apostasy Lev 26:33 and Deu 28:64. The verse, however, is found almost exactly in Eze 20:23, with the exception that there “scatter” stands in a instead of make to fall. The difference in the Hebrew is only in the final letter of the words, and the reading in Ezekiel should probably be adopted here. So the LXX and other ancient authorities and many of the moderns.

The sixth instance is” the participation in the abominable Moabitish worship of “Baal-Peor,” recorded in Num 25:1-18. The peculiar phrase “yoked themselves to” is taken from that chapter, and seems to refer to “the mystic, quasi-physical union supposed to exist between a god and his worshippers, and to be kept up by sacrificial meals” (Cheyne). These are called sacrifices of the dead, inasmuch as idols are dead in contrast with the living God. The judicial retribution inflicted according to Divine command by the judges of Israel slaying “everyone his man” is here called a “plague,” as in the foundation passage, Num 25:9. The word (lit. “a stroke,” i.e., from God) is usually applied to punitive sickness; but God smites when He bids men smite. Both the narrative in Numbers and the psalm bring out vividly the picture of the indignant Phinehas springing to his feet from the midst of the passive crowd. He “rose up,” says the former; he “stood up,” says the latter. And his deed is described in the psalm in relation to its solemn judicial character, without particularising its details. The psalmist would partially veil both the sin and the horror of its punishment. Phinehas javelin was a minister of Gods justice, and the death of the two culprits satisfied that justice and stayed the plague. The word rendered “did judgment” has that meaning only, and such renderings as mediated or appeased give the effect of the deed and not the description of it contained in the word. “It was reckoned to him for righteousness” as Abrahams faith was {Gen 15:6} It was indeed an act which had its origin “In the faithfulness that had its root in faith, and which, for the sake of this its ultimate ground, gained him the acceptation of a righteous man, inasmuch as it proved him to be such” (Delitzsch, Eng. Trans.). He showed himself a true son of Abraham in the midst of these degenerate descendants, and it was the same impulse of faith which drove his spear, and which filled the patriarchs heart when he gazed into the silent sky and saw in its numberless lights the promise of his seed. Phinehas reward was the permanence of the priesthood in his family. The seventh instance is the rebellion at the waters of Meribah (Strife), in the fortieth year. {Num 20:2-13} The chronological order is here set aside, for the events recorded in Psa 106:28-31 followed those dealt with in Psa 106:32-33. The reason is probably that here Moses himself is hurried into sin, through the peoples faithlessness, and so a climax is reached. The leader, long tried, fell at last, and was shut out from entering the land. That was in some aspects the masterpiece and triumph of the nations sin. “It fared ill with Moses on their account,” as in Deu 1:37; Deu 3:26, “Jehovah was angry with me for your sakes.” “His Spirit,” in Psa 106:33, is best taken as meaning the Spirit of God. The peoples sin is repeatedly specified in the psalm as being rebellion against God. and the absence of a more distinct definition of the person referred to is like the expression in Psa 106:32, where “indignation” is that of God, though His name is not mentioned. Isa 63:10 is a parallel to this clause, as other parts of the same chapter are to other parts of the psalm. The question which has been often raised, as to what was Moses sin, is solved in Psa 106:33 b, which makes his passionate words, wherein he lost his temper and arrogated to himself the power of fetching water from the rock, the head and front of his offending. The psalmist has finished his melancholy catalogue of sins in the wilderness with this picture of the great leader dragged down by the prevailing tone, and he next turns to the sins done in the land.

Two flagrant instances are given-disobedience to the command to exterminate the inhabitants, and the adoption of their bloody worship. The conquest of Canaan was partial; and, as often is the case, the conquerors were conquered and the invaders caught the manners of the invaded. Intermarriage poured a large infusion of alien blood into Israel; and the Canaanitish strain is perceptible today in the fellahin of the Holy Land. The proclivity to idolatry, which was natural in that stage of the worlds history, and was intensified by universal example, became more irresistible, when reinforced by kinship and neighbourhood, and the result foretold was realised-the idols “became a snare”. {Jdg 2:1-3} The poet dwells with special abhorrence on the hideous practice of human sacrifices, which exercised so strong and horrible a fascination over the inhabitants of Canaan. The word in Psa 106:37 demons is found only here and in Deu 32:17. The above rendering is that of the LXX. Its literal meaning seems to be “lords.” It is thus a synonym for “Baalim.” The epithet “Shaddai” exclusively applied to Jehovah may be compared.

In Psa 106:40-46 the whole history of Israel is summed up as alternating periods of sin, punishment, deliverance, recurring in constantly repeated cycles, in which the mystery of human obstinacy is set over against that of Divine long suffering, and one knows not whether to wonder most at the incurable levity which learned nothing from experience, or the inexhaustible long suffering which wearied not in giving wasted gifts. Chastisement and mercies were equally in vain. The outcome of Gods many deliverances was, “they rebelled in their counsel”-i.e., went on their own stiff-necked way, instead of waiting for and following Gods merciful plan, which would have made them secure and blessed. The end of such obstinacy of disobedience can only be, “they were brought low through their iniquity.” The psalmist appears to “be quoting Lev 26:39, “they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity”; but he intentionally slightly alters the word, substituting one of nearly the same sound, but with the meaning of being brought low instead of fading away. To follow ones own will is to secure humiliation and degradation. Sin weakens the true strength and darkens the true glory, of men.

In Psa 106:44-46 the singer rises from these sad and stern thoughts to recreate his spirit with the contemplation of the patient lovingkindness of God. It persists through all mans sin and Gods anger. The multitude of its manifestations far outnumbers that of our sins. His eye looks on Israels distress with pity, and every sorrow on which He looks He desires to remove. Calamities melt away beneath His gaze, like damp stains in sunlight. His merciful “look” swiftly follows the afflicted mans cry. No voice acknowledges sin and calls for help in vain. The covenant forgotten by men is none the less remembered by Him. The numberless number of His lovingkindnesses, greater than that of all mens sins, secures forgiveness after the most repeated transgressions. The law and measure of His “repenting” lie in the endless depths of His own heart. As the psalmist had sung at the beginning, that lovingkindness endures forever; therefore none of Israels many sins went unchastised, and no chastisement outlasted their repentance. Solomon had prayed that God would “give them compassion before those who carried them captive”; {1Ki 8:50} and thus has it been, as the psalmist joyfully sees. He may have written when the Babylonian captivity was near an end, and such instances as those of Daniel or Nehemiah may have been in his mind. In any case, it is beautifully significant that a psalm, which tells the doleful story of centuries of faithlessness, should end with Gods faithfulness to His promises, His inexhaustible forgiveness, and the multitude of His lovingkindnesses. Such will be the last result of the worlds history no less than of Israels.

The psalm closes with the prayer in Psa 106:47, which shows that it was written in exile. It corresponds in part with the closing words of Psa 105:1-45. Just as there the purpose of Gods mercies to Israel was said to be that they might be thereby moved to keep His statutes, so here the psalmist hopes and vows that the issue of his peoples restoration will be thankfulness to Gods holy name, and triumphant pealing forth from ransomed lips of His high praises.

Psa 106:48 is the concluding doxology of the Fourth Book. Some commentators suppose it an integral part of the psalm, but it is more probably an editorial addition.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

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