Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

106. Psalm 106

¹ Praise the LORD. Hebrew Hallelu Yah; also in verse 48

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.

    ² Who can proclaim the mighty acts of the LORD
   or fully declare his praise?
³ Blessed are those who act justly,
   who always do what is right.

    ⁴ Remember me, LORD, when you show favor to your people,
   come to my aid when you save them,
⁵ that I may enjoy the prosperity of your chosen ones,
   that I may share in the joy of your nation
   and join your inheritance in giving praise.

    ⁶ We have sinned, even as our ancestors did;
   we have done wrong and acted wickedly.
⁷ When our ancestors were in Egypt,
   they gave no thought to your miracles;
they did not remember your many kindnesses,
   and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea. Or the Sea of Reeds; also in verses 9 and 22
⁸ Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,
   to make his mighty power known.
⁹ He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up;
   he led them through the depths as through a desert.
¹⁰ He saved them from the hand of the foe;
   from the hand of the enemy he redeemed them.
¹¹ The waters covered their adversaries;
   not one of them survived.
¹² Then they believed his promises
   and sang his praise.

    ¹³ But they soon forgot what he had done
   and did not wait for his plan to unfold.
¹⁴ In the desert they gave in to their craving;
   in the wilderness they put God to the test.
¹⁵ So he gave them what they asked for,
   but sent a wasting disease among them.

    ¹⁶ In the camp they grew envious of Moses
   and of Aaron, who was consecrated to the LORD.
¹⁷ The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan;
   it buried the company of Abiram.
¹⁸ Fire blazed among their followers;
   a flame consumed the wicked.
¹⁹ At Horeb they made a calf
   and worshiped an idol cast from metal.
²⁰ They exchanged their glorious God
   for an image of a bull, which eats grass.
²¹ They forgot the God who saved them,
   who had done great things in Egypt,
²² miracles in the land of Ham
   and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.
²³ So he said he would destroy them—
   had not Moses, his chosen one,
stood in the breach before him
   to keep his wrath from destroying them.

    ²⁴ Then they despised the pleasant land;
   they did not believe his promise.
²⁵ They grumbled in their tents
   and did not obey the LORD.
²⁶ So he swore to them with uplifted hand
   that he would make them fall in the wilderness,
²⁷ make their descendants fall among the nations
   and scatter them throughout the lands.

    ²⁸ They yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor
   and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods;
²⁹ they aroused the LORD’s anger by their wicked deeds,
   and a plague broke out among them.
³⁰ But Phinehas stood up and intervened,
   and the plague was checked.
³¹ This was credited to him as righteousness
   for endless generations to come.
³² By the waters of Meribah they angered the LORD,
   and trouble came to Moses because of them;
³³ for they rebelled against the Spirit of God,
   and rash words came from Moses’ lips. Or against his spirit, / and rash words came from his lips

    ³⁴ They did not destroy the peoples
   as the LORD had commanded them,
³⁵ but they mingled with the nations
   and adopted their customs.
³⁶ They worshiped their idols,
   which became a snare to them.
³⁷ They sacrificed their sons
   and their daughters to false gods.
³⁸ They shed innocent blood,
   the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,
   and the land was desecrated by their blood.
³⁹ They defiled themselves by what they did;
   by their deeds they prostituted themselves.

    ⁴⁰ Therefore the LORD was angry with his people
   and abhorred his inheritance.
⁴¹ He gave them into the hands of the nations,
   and their foes ruled over them.
⁴² Their enemies oppressed them
   and subjected them to their power.
⁴³ Many times he delivered them,
   but they were bent on rebellion
   and they wasted away in their sin.
⁴⁴ Yet he took note of their distress
   when he heard their cry;
⁴⁵ for their sake he remembered his covenant
   and out of his great love he relented.
⁴⁶ He caused all who held them captive
   to show them mercy.

    ⁴⁷ Save us, LORD our God,
   and gather us from the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name
   and glory in your praise.

⁴⁸ Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.

Let all the people say, “Amen!”

Praise the LORD.

6 We have sinned with our fathers It is quite plain from these words, that although the prophet may have spoken in the person of one man, he yet dictates a form of prayer for the common use of the whole Church, seeing that he now identifies himself with the whole body. And from this to the end of the psalm, he gleans from ancient histories that their fathers had always been of a malign and perverse spirit, of corrupt practice, rebellious, ungrateful and perfidious towards God; and confesses that their descendants were not better; and having made this confession, ²⁴²²⁴² “Ils vienent a demander pardon de leurs pechez.” — Fr. they come and ask the remission of their sins. And as we are unable to obtain the pardon of our sins until we have first confessed ourselves to be guilty of sin, and as our hardness of heart shuts out the grace of God from us, the prophet, therefore, with great propriety, humbly acknowledges the guilt of the people in this their severe and sore chastisement, and that God might justly inflict upon them a yet harder punishment. On another account it was advantageous for the Jews to have their sins set before them; because, if God punish us severely, we at once suppose that his promises have failed. But when, on the contrary, we are reminded that we are receiving the reward due to us for our transgressions, then if we thoroughly repent, those promises in which God appears as pacified towards us will come to our aid. Besides, by the three expressions which he employs in reference to their transgressions, he points out their enormity, that (as is usually the case) their hearts might not be slightly affected, but deeply wounded with sorrow. For we know how men are fettered by their vices, and how ready to let themselves alone, until compelled to examine themselves in good earnest; nay, what is more, when God calls them to judgment, they make a kind of verbal confession of their iniquities, while, at the same time, hypocrisy blinds their minds. When, therefore, the prophet says, that the people acted iniquitously in sinning, and had become ungodly and wicked, he employs no useless or unnecessary accumulation of words. Let any of us examine ourselves, and we will easily find that we have equal need to be constrained to make an ingenuous confession of our sins; for though we dare not say that we have no sin, yet there is not one of us but is disposed to find a cloak and subterfuge for his sin.

In a very similar manner, Daniel, in the ninth chapter of his prophecies, acknowledges the guilt of his own iniquities and those of the people; and it may be that the author of this psalm followed his example. From both let us learn, that the only way of pleasing God is to institute a rigid course of self-examination. Let it also be carefully observed, that the holy prophets, who never departed from the fear and worship of God, uniformly confessed their own guilt in common with the people; and this they did, not out of feigned humility, but because they were aware that they themselves were tainted with manifold corruptions, for when iniquity abounds, it is almost impossible for even the best of men to keep themselves from being infected by its baneful effects. Not comparing themselves with others, but sisting themselves before God’s tribunal, they at once perceive the impossibility of making their escape.

At that time impiety had attained to such a degree of enormity among the Jews, that it is not astonishing if even the best and most upright men were carried away, as if by the violence of a tempest. How very abominable, then, is the pride of those who hardly imagine that they offend in the least possible way; nay, who even, like certain fanatics of the day, conceive that they have attained to a state of sinless perfection! It must be borne in mind, however, that Daniel, who carefully kept himself under the fear of God, and whom the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, declares to be one of the most upright of men, did not with reigned lips acknowledge his own transgressions, and those of the people, when he confessed them, under a deep sense of their grievously and dreadfully abhorrent character in the eyes of God. True, indeed, he was not overwhelmed in the same torrent of iniquity with others; but he knew that he had contracted a very large amount of guilt. Besides, the prophet does not bring forward their fathers for the purpose of palliating his own delinquency, (as many at the present day set at nought all reproof, shielding themselves with this, namely, that they have been so taught by their fathers, and that, therefore, their bad education, and not they, is at fault,) but rather to show that he and those of his own nation were obnoxious to severe punishment, because even from the very first, and as if co-existent with their early infancy, they never ceased to provoke the displeasure of God against themselves more and more by their fresh transgressions. It is in this manner that he involves the fathers with the children in many of the grounds of condemnation. ²⁴³²⁴³ “En beaucoup d’articles de condemnation.” — Fr.