Psalms 106

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, Or shew 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 prosperity of thy chosen, That I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation,

That I may glory with thine inheritance.

6. We have sinned with our fathers,

We have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly.

7. Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt;

They remembered not the multitude of thy mercies;

But were rebellious at the sea, even at the Red Sea.

8. Nevertheless he saved them for his name’s sake,

That he might make his mighty power to be known.

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

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

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

And redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.

11. And the waters covered their adversaries: There was not one of them left.

12. Then believed they his words; They sang his praise.

13. They soon forgat his works; They waited not for his counsel:

14. But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, And tempted God in the desert.

15. And he gave them their request; But sent leanness into their soul.

16. They envied Moses also in the camp, And Aaron the saint of the LORD.

17. The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, And covered the company of Abiram.

18. And a fire was kindled in their company; The flame burned up the wicked.

19. They made a calf in Horeb, And worshipped a molten image.

20. Thus they changed their glory For the likeness of an ox that eateth grass.

21. They forgat God their saviour, Which had done great things in Egypt;

22. Wondrous works in the land of Ham, And terrible things by the Red Sea.

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.

24. Yea, they despised the pleasant land, They believed not his word;

25. But murmured in their tents, And hearkened not unto the voice of the LORD.

26. Therefore he lifted up his hand unto them, That he would overthrow them in the wilderness:

27. And that he would overthrow their seed among the nations, And scatter them in the lands.

28. They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor, And ate the sacrifices of the dead.

29. Thus they provoked him to anger with their doings;

And the plague brake in upon them.

30. Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment:

And so the plague was stayed.

31. And that was counted unto him for right-cousness, Unto all generations for evermore. 32 They angered him also at the waters of Meribah, So that it went ill with Moses for their sakes : 33 Because they were rebellious against his spirit, And he spake unadvisedly with his lips. 34 They did not destroy the peoples, As the LORD commanded them; 35 But mingled themselves with the nations, And learned their works: 36 And they served their idols; Which became a snare unto them: 37 Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto demons, 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. 39 Thus were they defiled with their works, And went a whoring in their doings. 40 Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, And he abhorred his inheritance.

41. And he gave them into the hand of the nations; And they that hated them ruled over them. 42 Their enemies also oppressed them, And they were brought into subjection under their hand. 43 Many times did he deliver them; But they were rebellious in their counsel, And were brought low in their iniquity. 44 Nevertheless he regarded their distress, When he heard their cry: 45 And he remembered for them his covenant, And repented according to the multitude of his mercies. 46 He made them also to be pitied Of all those that carried them captives. 47 Save us, O LORD our God, And gather us from among the nations, To give thanks unto thy holy name, And to triumph in thy praise. 48 BLESSED BE THE LORD, THE GOD OF ISRAEL, FROM EVERLASTING EVEN TO EVERLASTING. AND LET ALL THE PEOPLE SAY, AMEN. PRAISE YE THE LORD.

THIS is the first of the sixteen Hallelujah Psalms. The others are 111, 113, 117, 135, 141-150. It is retrospective like the preceding, but, unlike it, is penitential. It must probably be assigned to the time of the exile. De Witt. The first of a series of Hallelujah Psalms-Psalms of which the word “hallelujah” is the inscription. 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 God’s mighty acts for His people were celebrated with joy; here His people’s sin 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 Israel’s 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 recognized as the righteous chastisement which the sin of the nation has provoked. This is the strain of such Psalms as the seventy-eighth, the one hundred and fifth, the one hundred and sixth. 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. There is no other poetry in the world of a popular and national kind so full of patriotic sentiment, and yet at the same time marked by so complete an abstinence from all those themes which are commonly found in poetry written for the people. There is not a single ode in honor of Moses or Aaron or Joshua or David; there is not one which sings the glory of the nation, except as that glory is given it of God. The history of the nation, whenever referred to, is referred to almost invariably for the purpose of rebuke and upbraiding, certainly not for the purpose of commendation or self-applause. The Psalm consists of an introduction (vs. 1-5). It then follows the history of Israel as a history of perpetual transgressions, first from Egypt through the wilderness (vs. 7-33), and then in the Holy Land (vs. 34-46), and concludes with prayer for deliverance from the present calamity-viz., the captivity in Babylon (v. 47). P.

I. We have here two arguments for praise, “for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever;” and these two arguments are themselves praises. This first verse is the text of all that which follows; we are now to see how from generation to generation the mercy of God endured to His chosen people. S.

1-5. The first verse 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 nation’s sin and ingratitude, as the rehearsal of God’s 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 (v. 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? P.

3. Blessed are they that keep judgment. That are of right principles and upright practices; this is real and substantial praising of God. Thanks-doing is the proof of thanksgiving; and the good life of the thankful is the life of thankfulness. Those that say God-a-thank only and no more are not only contumelious, but injurious. Trapp.

7. Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Thy wondrous works, they did not remember the abundance of Thy mercies, and rebelled upon the sea, at the Red Sea. The general confession in v. 6 is now followed by a more detailed acknowledgment, beginning with the exodus from Egypt. The wondrous works of God, the things done wonderfully by Him for the deliverance of His people, the great body of them did not understand. Even those who referred them to their true source and author did not fully appreciate the end for which they were performed, or enter into the majestic plan in executing which they were permitted to be God’s coworkers. The truth of this charge is abundantly established by the narrow, grovelling, selfish views and feelings so repeatedly betrayed by the generation which came out of Egypt, showing clearly that they did not practically understand God’s dealings with them. A.

12,13. The manifestation of the Almighty on their behalf in dividing the sea, in making a dry path, and overwhelming their enemies in destruction, seemed to arouse their religious natures into enthusiasm. But how soon did this gust of religious faith and feeling pass away! D. Thomas.

13-33. This is an abridgment of the history of Israel’s provocations in the wilderness, and of the wrath of God against them for those provocations; and this abridgment is abridged by the apostle with application to us Christians (1 Cor. 10: 5, etc.), for these things were written for our admonition, that we sin not like them, lest we suffer like them. H.

15. He gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul. It is an awful circumstance, and yet it is true, that our mercies may be our curses. 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. Another symptom of spiritual leanness, and one of the results of having our request, is self-pleasing. 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. More than this, there follows a 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? Mellor.

16. And they were envious at Moses in the camp, at Aaron, the holy one of Jehovah. This is another of their wilderness sins (Num. 16). Aaron is not called the saint of the Lord in reference to his personal holiness, which does not seem to have been eminent, but his holy (or consecrated) one, in reference to his sacerdotal dignity. A.

The saint. The word saint, from sanctus, means nothing but an holy person; and an holy person, in the Scripture account, is a believer, and no other. The Word of God knows no such distinctions as virtuous and vicious men, moral and immoral; but ranks the whole world into two classes—namely, believers and unbelievers; children of light and children of darkness; sinners and saints; those that are after the flesh and those that are after the Spirit. The one accepted in Christ Jesus; the other having the wrath of God abiding on them. Hill.

24. They despised the pleasant land, not absolutely in itself, for it was “the glory of all lands,” abounding with things for the support and delight of man; but considering its distance, a wilderness waste and wild interposing, and the enemies to be encountered, they did not think it worthy of undergoing such hazards and difficulties. The land of Canaan was a type of heaven, both with respect to its pleasantness and the manner of the Israelites obtaining it; their title to it was derived from the rich bounty of God, therefore it is called the “land of promise;” but it was to be possessed by conquest. Thus the celestial Canaan is the pure gift of God; but the actual enjoyment of it is obtained by victorious resistance against the enemies of our salvation. And carnal men despise this pleasant land, the promise being inseparably joined with precepts of duty and obedience, from which they are averse. But he that chooses sincerely is joyful and vigorous in the use of means for acquiring his most desired good. Bates.

The pleasant land was a type of heaven, the good land afar off; the better country, the land of promise and rest; in which is fulness of provisions and where there will be no hunger and thirst; where flows the river of the water of life, and stands the tree of life bearing all manner of fruits; where there is fulness of joy and pleasures forevermore; the most delightful company of Father, Son, and Spirit, angels and glorified saints, and nothing to disturb their peace and pleasure neither from within nor from without. And yet this pleasant land may be said to be despised by such who do not care to go through any difficulty to it; to perform the duties of religion; to bear reproach for God’s sake; to go through tribulation; to walk in the narrow and afflicted way which leads unto it; and by all such who do not care to part with their sinful lusts and pleasures, but prefer them and the things of this world to the heavenly state. Gill.

25. But murmured.** Murmuring! As we proceed with the narrative we are constantly meeting it. They lift up their eyes, and as the Egyptians pursue, the people murmur. They come to a fountain, the water is bitter, and once more they murmur. Then no bread; murmurings redoubled. Moses is no longer in the mount; murmurs. He takes too much upon him; more murmurs. When shall we reach that promised land?—murmurs extraordinary, loud murmurs. We are close to the land, but its inhabitants are giants, and their towns walled up to heaven; and the last breath of the last survivors of that querulous race goes forth in a hurricane of reproach and remonstrance—a perfect storm of murmurs. Hamilton.

27. And to make their seed fall in the nations, and to scatter them in the lands. As the appointed punishment of the older generation was to die in the wilderness, so that of their descendants was to die in dispersion and captivity among the Gentiles. (See Lev. 26: 33, 38, and compare Deut. 28: 32, 36, 64, 68.) The recollection of this threatening must have been peculiarly affecting to the Jews in Babylon.

31. And it was reckoned to him for righteousness, to generation and generation, even to eternity. What is here meant is evidently not a justifying act by which Phinehas was saved, but a praiseworthy act for which he, a justified or righteous man already, received the Divine commendation and a perpetual memorial of his faithfulness. The particular reward promised (Num. 26: 13), that of a perpetual priesthood, is not here mentioned, but was familiar to the mind of every Hebrew reader. A.—This act of zeal for Jehovah was counted unto him for righteousness, inasmuch as he was rewarded for it with the perpetual priesthood. It was indeed an act that had its origin in the faithfulness that had its root in faith, and which for the sake of this its ultimate ground gained for him the acceptance of a righteous man, inasmuch as it proved him to be such. D.—The same thing is said of the faith of Abraham (Gen. 15: 6); a striking instance of the fearlessness of expression which is to be found in the Scriptures, as compared with the dogmatic forms of modern controversial theology. P.

34-38. The miracles and mercies which settled them in Canaan made no more deep and durable impressions upon them than those that fetched them out of Egypt, for by that time they were well warm in Canaan; they corrupted themselves and forsook God. They spared the nations which God had doomed to destruction. 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.” “They served their idols” in the same manner and with the same rites that they served them; and that sin drew on many more and brought the judgments of God upon them, which they themselves could not but be sensible of, and yet knew not how to recover themselves. “They sacrificed their sons and daughters,” pieces of themselves “to devils;” and added murder, the most unnatural murder, to their idolatry; one cannot think of it without horror; they “shed innocent blood,” the most innocent, for it was infant blood; nay, it was the “blood of their sons and their daughters.” See the power of the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, and see his malice. The beginning of idolatry and superstition, like that of strife, is as the letting forth of water, and there is no villainy which they that venture upon it can be sure they shall stop short of, for God justly “gives them up to a reprobate mind.” H.

39. And they were polluted by their own doings, and went a whoring by their own crimes. They defiled not only the land of promise, but themselves. The figure of spiritual adultery is often used to signify the violation by the chosen people of their covenant with God, which is constantly described as a conjugal relation. This is not stated as an additional offence, but as an aggravating circumstance attending the iniquities already mentioned. A.

44. The Psalmist turns now to the other side of God’s dealings with His people. It was not all anger. If they forgot His covenant, He remembered it. Even in the land of their captivity He softened the hearts of their captors. P.

At length they cried unto God, and God returned in favor to them (vs. 44–46). They were chastened for their sins but not destroyed, cast down but not cast off; God appeared for them; looked upon their grievances, regarded their affliction, beheld when distress was upon them, remembered for them His covenant, and made good every word that He had spoken; and, therefore, bad as they were, He would not break with them, because He would not break His own promise. He made them to be pitied even of those that carried them captives, and had ruled them with rigor. He not only restrained the remainder of their enemies’ wrath that it should not utterly consume them, but He infused compassion even into their stony hearts, and made them relent. God can change lions into lambs, and when a man’s ways please the Lord will make even his enemies to pity him and be at peace with him. When God pities, men shall. A God at peace with us makes everything else at peace. H.

47. The moral force of the whole Psalm culminates in this closing prayer. We have sinned with our fathers; we have been a sinning nation all along the ages of our national history; let us repent deeply and most humbly before the God of our national covenant, and beseech Him to gather us to our fatherland again, to give thanks to His name and to triumph in His praise. C.

48. Blessed (be) Jehovah, God of Israel, from eternity even to eternity. And all the people says Amen. Hallelujah! Some interpreters regard the Psalm as closing with the preceding verse, and the one before us as a doxology added to mark the conclusion of the Fourth Book. But here, as in Psalm 72: 19, it is far more probable that this doxology was the occasion of the Psalm’s being reckoned as the last of a book, notwithstanding its intimate connection with the one that follows. This probability is strengthened, in the case before us, by the addition of the words, and all the people says Amen, which would be unmeaning, unless the doxology formed part of the Psalm itself. A.

Amen. The literal signification, “So be it,” is known to all; yet few consider the deep meaning, the great solemnity, and the abundant consolation treasured up in this word, which has formed for centuries the conclusion of the prayers and praises of God’s people. A word which is frequently used without due thoughtfulness and unaccompanied with the feeling which it is intended to call forth, loses its power from this very familiarity, and though constantly on our lips, lies bedridden in the dormitory of our soul. But it is a great word this word “Amen;” and Luther has truly said, “As your Amen is, so has been your prayer.” A. Saphir.