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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.

8 And saved them The prophet here teaches what any one could easily learn from the preceding sentence, that the Israelites were saved, not on account of their deserving to be so, but because God had a regard to his own glory. That obstacle being removed, God went on to accomplish that deliverance which he had commenced, in order that his holy name might not become a reproach among the heathen. Besides, we must not overlook the antithesis between the name of God and the merits of men, because God, out of a regard to his own glory, can find in us no cause wherefore he should be moved to save us. The inestimable kindness of God, which, for the sake of a people so perverse, altered the usual order of nature, is more illustriously displayed by the account which is afterwards given of the means by which they were preserved. When he says that the sea was rebuked, he extols the power of God, at whose command and will the sea was dried up — the waters receded, so that a free passage was opened up between the opposite heaps of waters. With the design of magnifying the miracle, he employs a similitude, which, in all likelihood, was drawn from Isaiah; for in the sixty-third chapter and thirteenth verse, he says, “Thou hast made thy people to walk through the deeps, as an horse in the wilderness, that he might not stumble.” When the people walked through the sea as upon a dry plain, the prophet informs us that this was done solely by the astonishing power of God. It is quite possible, that in the desert in which the people wandered, there was many an abyss, the path rugged, and many a hill and dale and ragged rock. But it cannot be doubted that the prophet extols the power of God in the passage through the sea, and enhances it by this consideration, that the path through that deep sea was smooth. Besides, he gives greater strength to the miracle in saying that their enemies were drowned; because, when the sea afforded a free passage to the children of Israel, and covered and engulfed the Egyptians, so that not one of them escaped alive, whence proceeded this instantaneous difference, but from this, that God made a distinction between the one people and the other?