Psalm 106

Psalms 106:1-3

for he is good: Praise ye the Lord opens the psalm as the same word, Hallelujah in the Hebrew, that first entered the Psalter at 104:35, and give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever states the note the recital is about to test against Israel's own record. Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord asks a question the psalm answers only in part, a full account of every mercy being more than any one recital can hold. Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times sets the standard before the confession that follows, the psalm naming what was owed before it names what was done instead.

Psalms 106:4-5

Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people breaks from the corporate recital into a single voice, the psalmist asking to be counted inside the mercy the rest of the psalm is about to show Israel forfeiting again and again. That I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation makes the request personal without making it private, the singer's own joy tied to the whole people's welfare rather than sought apart from it.

Psalms 106:6-12

We have sinned with our fathers opens the confession proper, the psalmist joining his own generation to the wilderness generation rather than standing apart from it, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly stacking three verbs the way Psalm 105 stacked verbs of praise. Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt, they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies, but provoked him at the sea names the first failure at the very edge of deliverance, complaint rising before the water had even closed over Pharaoh's army. He saved them for his name's sake rather than for any merit in them, rebuking the sea and leading them through the depths as through the wilderness, and the waters covered their enemies so completely that there was not one of them left, the psalm crediting the rescue entirely to God's own reputation.

Psalms 106:13-15

They soon forgat his works, they waited not for his counsel marks how quickly the praise of verse 12 collapsed into fresh complaint, the interval between belief and forgetting compressed into a single verse. Lusted exceedingly in the wilderness names Numbers 11's craving for meat, and he gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul reads the granted request itself as a judgment, the psalm's own account of a prayer answered to a person's harm.

Psalms 106:16-18

They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the Lord names Korah's rebellion of Numbers 16 without naming Korah, the psalm choosing to describe the sin, envy of God's appointed leaders, rather than catalogue the rebels. The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram, and the fire that burned up the wicked, name the two separate judgments Numbers 16 records, the ground taking some and fire taking others.

Psalms 106:19-23

They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image is named plainly as worship even though Exodus records Aaron calling the feast a feast to the Lord, the psalm refusing the softer word. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass reads as the psalm's own comment on the exchange, the glory that had appeared at Sinai traded for an animal that eats what it stands on. Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath is credited as the reason the nation was not destroyed on the spot, the psalm crediting intercession rather than repentance for the outcome.

Psalms 106:24-27

they despised the pleasant land: They despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word names the spies' report of Numbers 13 and 14 as unbelief rather than caution, the land itself called pleasant even by the generation that refused to enter it. 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, reaches past the wilderness generation's own death to name the later exile as the same sentence extended, one refusal answered across centuries.

Psalms 106:28-31

They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead names Numbers 25's apostasy at Peor, the sacrifices of the dead read either as offerings to a lifeless idol or as funeral rites for the dead god, both readings held by the commentators without a verdict between them. Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment, and so the plague was stayed credits one man's action with ending a plague already in progress, and that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore echoes the very language used of Abraham's faith in Genesis 15:6, applied here to an act rather than a belief.

Psalms 106:32-33

They angered him also at the waters of strife, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes names Meribah of Numbers 20, where the people's own provocation is named as the cause of Moses' failure, because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips. The verse lays the responsibility on the nation even though Numbers 20 records the words as Moses' own, the psalm reading his sin as one the people's rebellion had backed him into.

Psalms 106:34-39

They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the Lord commanded them names the unfinished conquest of Judges 1 as disobedience rather than mere incompletion, and were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works traces the path from compromise to full adoption of Canaanite religion. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood is stated as the endpoint of that mingling, child sacrifice named without softening as the practice Deuteronomy 12:31 and 18:10 had already forbidden by name. The land was polluted with blood closes the unit with the same word Numbers 35:33 uses for bloodguilt on the land itself, the sin read as defiling ground and not conscience alone.

Psalms 106:40-46

The wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance, and gave them into the hand of the heathen states the exile's cause plainly, abhorred a word this psalm does not soften. Many times did he deliver them, but they provoked him with their own counsel compresses the whole period of the judges into a single verse, deliverance and relapse repeated rather than narrated scene by scene. 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 turns the recital on mercy rather than on any change in the people themselves, and he made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives closes the unit with even their captors moved.

Psalms 106:47-48

Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the heathen turns the recital into present prayer, the psalm's own last request naming exile as a condition still in force when it was written or sung, the reason most commentators place this psalm's final form near or in the Babylonian captivity. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting, and let all the people say, Amen seals Book IV of the Psalter, matching the doxologies at 41:13, 72:18-19, and 89:52, and the psalm's own closing Praise ye the Lord repeats the Hallelujah that opened it at verse 1.