39 And they were defiled with their works, and went a-whoring in their doings.
And I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk not in the statutes of your fathers, neither keep their ordinances, nor defile yourselves with their idols.
And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto demons, after whom they go a whoring. This shall be an everlasting statute unto them for their generations.
Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Do ye defile yourselves after the manner of your fathers? and do ye commit fornication after their abominations? And when ye offer your gifts, making your sons to pass through the fire, ye defile yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day; and shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? [As] I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I will not be inquired of by you.
Rejoice not, Israel, exultingly, as the peoples; for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast loved harlot's hire upon every corn-floor.
then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people. -- And the soul that turneth unto necromancers and unto soothsayers, to go a whoring after them, I will set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.
And the land is polluted under the inhabitants thereof; for they have violated the laws, changed the statute, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore doth the curse devour the earth, and they that dwell therein are held guilty; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are consumed, and few men are left.
They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? Would not that land be utterly polluted? But thou hast committed fornication with many lovers; yet return to me, saith Jehovah. Lift up thine eyes unto the heights and see, where hast thou not been lain with? In the ways hast thou sat for them, as an Arab in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy fornications and with thy wickedness.
And Jehovah said unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen what backsliding Israel hath done? She hath gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath committed fornication. And I said, After she hath done all these [things], she will return unto me; but she returned not. And her sister Judah, the treacherous, saw [it]. And I saw that when for all the causes wherein backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce, yet the treacherous Judah, her sister, feared not, but went and committed fornication also. And it came to pass through the lightness of her fornication that she polluted the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
But thou didst confide in thy beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy whoredoms on every one that passed by: his it was. And of thy garments thou didst take, and madest for thyself high places decked with divers colours, and didst play the harlot thereupon: [the like] hath not come to pass, and shall be no more. And thou didst take thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of males, and didst commit fornication with them. And thou tookest thine embroidered garments, and coveredst them; and thou didst set mine oil and mine incense before them. And my bread which I had given thee, the fine flour and the oil and the honey wherewith I fed thee, thou didst even set it before them for a sweet savour: thus it was, saith the Lord Jehovah. And thou didst take thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hadst borne unto me, and these didst thou sacrifice unto them, to be devoured. Were thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou didst slay my children and give them up in passing them over to them? And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, when thou wast weltering in thy blood. And it came to pass after all thy wickedness (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord Jehovah), that thou didst also build unto thee a place of debauchery, and didst make thee a high place in every street: thou didst build thy high place at every head of the way, and madest thy beauty to be abhorred, and thou didst open thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiply thy whoredom. And thou didst commit fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and didst multiply thy whoredom to provoke me to anger. And behold, I stretched out my hand over thee, and diminished thine appointed portion; and I gave thee over unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, who were confounded at thy lewd way. And thou didst commit fornication with the Assyrians, because thou wast insatiable; yea, thou didst commit fornication with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied. And thou didst multiply thy whoredom with the land of merchants, Chaldea, and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith. How weak is thy heart, saith the Lord Jehovah, seeing thou doest all these [things], the work of a whorish woman, under no restraint; in that thou buildest thy place of debauchery at the head of every way, and makest thy high place in every street! And thou hast not been as a harlot, in that thou scornest reward, O adulterous wife, that taketh strangers instead of her husband. They give rewards to all harlots; but thou gavest thy rewards to all thy lovers, and rewardedst them, that they might come unto thee on every side for thy whoredoms. And in thee is the contrary from [other] women, in thy whoredoms, in that none followeth thee to commit fornication; and whereas thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, so art thou contrary. Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of Jehovah. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because thy money hath been poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy fornications with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thine abominations, and because of the blood of thy children which thou didst give unto them; therefore, behold, I will gather all thy lovers with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all that thou hast loved, with all that thou hast hated, -- I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness. And I will judge thee with the judgments of women that commit adultery and shed blood; and I will give thee up to the blood of fury and jealousy; and I will give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thy place of debauchery, and shall break down thy high places; and they shall strip thee of thy garments, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare. And they shall bring up an assemblage against thee, and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their swords. And they shall burn thy houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women; and I will cause thee to cease from being a harlot, and thou also shalt give no more any reward. And I will appease my fury against thee, and my jealousy shall depart from thee; and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry. Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast raged against me in all these [things], behold, therefore, I also will recompense thy way upon [thy] head, saith the Lord Jehovah, and thou shalt not commit this lewdness besides all thine abominations. Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall speak in a proverb against thee, saying, As the mother, [so is] her daughter! Thou art the daughter of thy mother that loathed her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite. And thine elder sister is Samaria that dwelleth at thy left hand, she and her daughters; and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters. And thou hast not walked in their ways, nor done according to their abominations; but as though that were a very little, thou hast been more corrupt than they in all thy ways. [As] I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters! Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom: pride, fulness of bread, and careless ease was in her and in her daughters, but she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me, and I took them away when I saw [it]. And Samaria hath not sinned according to the half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters by all thine abominations which thou hast done. Thou also, who hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own confusion, because of thy sins in which thou hast acted more abominably than they: they are more righteous than thou. So be thou ashamed also, and bear thy confusion, in that thou hast justified thy sisters. And I will bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, and the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them; that thou mayest bear thy confusion, and mayest be confounded for all that thou hast done, in that thou comfortest them. And thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate; thou also and thy daughters, ye shall return to your former estate. Yea, Sodom thy sister was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day of thy pride, before thy wickedness was discovered, as at the time of the reproach of the daughters of Syria, and of all that are round about her, the daughters of the Philistines, who despise thee on every side. Thy lewdness and thine abominations, thou bearest them, saith Jehovah. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, who hast despised the oath, and broken the covenant. Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant. And thou shalt remember thy ways, and be confounded, when thou shalt receive thy sisters who are older than thou, together with those who are younger than thou; for I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by virtue of thy covenant. And I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou shalt know that I [am] Jehovah; that thou mayest remember, and be ashamed, and no more open thy mouth because of thy confusion, when I forgive thee all that thou hast done, saith the Lord Jehovah.
And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils which ye have committed.
And they committed whoredom in Egypt; they committed whoredom in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there were handled the teats of their virginity. And their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister; and they were mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names: Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah. And Oholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she lusted after her lovers, after the Assyrians [her] neighbours, clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them attractive young men, horsemen riding upon horses. And she bestowed her whoredoms upon them, all of them the choice of the children of Asshur; and with all after whom she lusted, with all their idols she defiled herself. Neither left she her whoredoms [brought] from Egypt; for in her youth they had lain with her, and had handled the breasts of her virginity, and poured their fornication upon her. Therefore I gave her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the children of Asshur, after whom she lusted. These discovered her nakedness, they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword; and she became a name among women; and they executed judgment upon her. And her sister Oholibah saw [this], and was more corrupt in her passion than she, and in her fornications more than the whoredoms of her sister. She lusted after the children of Asshur [her] neighbours, governors and rulers, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them attractive young men. And I saw that she was defiled: both took one way. And she increased her fornications; for she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them captains in appearance, [after] the likeness of the children of Babylon, of Chaldea, the land of their nativity. And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she lusted after them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea. And the children of Babylon came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their fornication; she too defiled herself with them, and her soul was alienated from them. And she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness; and my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister. Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she played the harlot in the land of Egypt; and she lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is [as] the flesh of asses, and whose issue is [as] the issue of horses. And thou didst look back to the lewdness of thy youth, in the handling of thy teats by the Egyptians, for the breasts of thy youth. Therefore, Oholibah, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy soul is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side. The children of Babylon, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, all the children of Asshur with them; all of them attractive young men, governors and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses. And they shall come against thee [with] armour, chariots and wheels, and with an assemblage of peoples; they shall set themselves against thee [with] target, and shield, and helmet round about; and I will put judgment before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments. And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall cut off thy nose and thine ears, and thy remnant shall fall by the sword; they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire. They shall also strip the of thy garments, and take away thy fair jewels. And I will make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom [brought] from the land of Egypt; and thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will give thee over into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy soul is alienated. And they shall deal with thee in hatred, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare; so that the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy fornications. These things shall be done unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the nations, because thou hast defiled thyself with their idols. Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; and I have given her cup into thy hand. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large; thou shalt be for a laughing-stock and a derision, [for] it containeth much. Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, the cup of thy sister Samaria; thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt gnaw the sherds thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts: for I have spoken [it], saith the Lord Jehovah. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because thou hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy fornications. And Jehovah said unto me, Son of man, wilt thou judge Oholah and Oholibah? yea, declare unto them their abominations. For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also passed over unto them their children, whom they bore unto me, to be devoured. Moreover this have they done unto me: in the same day have they defiled my sanctuary and profaned my sabbaths. For when they had slaughtered their children unto their idols, they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and behold, thus have they done in the midst of my house. And furthermore, they sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and behold, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thine eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments; and satest upon a stately bed, with a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hadst set mine incense and mine oil. And the voice of a multitude living carelessly was with her; and with people of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, and they put bracelets upon their hands, and a beautiful crown upon their heads. And I said of her that was old in adulteries, Will she now commit her fornications, even she. And they went in unto her, as they go in unto a whorish woman: so went they in unto Oholah and unto Oholibah the lewd women. And righteous men, they shall judge them with the judgment of adulteresses, and with the judgment of women that shed blood; for they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I will bring up an assemblage against them, and will give them to be driven hither and thither and spoiled. And the assemblage shall stone them with stones, and despatch them with their swords; they shall kill their sons and their daughters, and burn their houses with fire. And I will cause lewdness to cease out of the land, and all women shall receive instruction and shall not do according to your lewdness. And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols; and ye shall know that I [am] the Lord Jehovah.
And one of the seven angels, which had the seven bowls, came and spoke with me, saying, Come here, I will shew thee the sentence of the great harlot who sits upon the many waters; with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication; and they that dwell on the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. And he carried me away in spirit to a desert; and I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and had ornaments of gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and the unclean things of her fornication; and upon her forehead a name written, Mystery, great Babylon, the mother of the harlots, and of the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. And I wondered, seeing her, with great wonder.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 106
Commentary on Psalms 106 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Israel's Unfaithfulness from Egypt Onwards, and God's Faithfulness Down to the Present Time
With this anonymous Psalm begins the series of the strictly Hallelujah-Psalms, i.e., those Psalms which have הללו־יה for their arsis-like beginning and for their inscription (Ps 106, 111-113, Psalms 117:1-2, 135, 146-150). The chronicler in his cento, 1 Chronicles 16:8., and in fact in 1 Chronicles 16:34-36, puts the first and last verses of this Psalm (Psalms 106:1, Psalms 106:47), together with the Beracha (Psalms 106:48) which closes the Fourth Book of the Psalms, into the mouth of David, from which it is to be inferred that this Psalm is no more Maccabaean than Psalms 96:1-13 and Ps 105 (which see), and that the Psalter was divided into five books which were marked off by the doxologies even in the time of the chronicler. The Beracha, Psalms 106:48, appears even at that period to have been read as an integral part of the Psalm, according to liturgical usage. The Hallelujah Psalms 106, like the Hodu Ps 105 and the Asaph Ps 78, recapitulates the history of the olden times of the Israelitish nation. But the purpose and mode of the recapitulation differ in each of these three Psalms. In Ps 78 it is didactic; in Ps 105 hymnic; and here in Psalms 106 penitential. It is a penitential Psalm, or Psalm of confession, a ודּוּי (from התודּה to confess, Leviticus 16:21). The oldest types of such liturgical prayers are the two formularies at the offering of the first-fruits, Deut. 26, and Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the Temple, 1 Kings 8. And to this kind of tephilla , the Vidduj , belong, beyond the range of the Psalter, the prayer of Daniel, Daniel 9:1 (vid., the way in which it is introduced in Daniel 9:4), and the prayer (Neh 9:5-38) which eight Levites uttered in the name of the people at the celebration of the fast-day on the twenty-fourth of Tishri. It is true Psalms 106 is distinguished from these prayers of confession in the prose style as being a Psalm; but it has three points in common with them and with the liturgical tephilla in general, viz., (1) the fondness for inflexional rhyming, i.e., for rhyming terminations of the same suffixes; (2) the heaping up of synonyms; and (3) the unfolding of the thoughts in a continuous line. These three peculiarities are found not only in the liturgical border, Psalms 106:1-6, Psalms 106:47, but also in the middle historical portion, which forms the bulk of the Psalm. The law of parallelism, is, it is true, still observed; but apart from these distichic wave-like ridges of the thoughts, it is all one direct, straight-line flow without technical division.
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 (Psalms 33:11). The lxx appropriately renders טּוב by χρηστός , 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 Psalms 106:2 (like Psalms 40:6), is inexhaustible. גּבוּרות are the manifestations of His all-conquering power which makes everything subservient to His redemptive purposes (Psalms 20:7); and תּהלּה 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 Psalms 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 Psalms 106:4, that God would grant him a share in the experiences of the whole nation which is the object of these manifestations. עמּך beside בּרצון is a genitive of the object: with the pleasure which Thou turnest towards Thy people, i.e., when Thou again (cf. Psalms 106:47) showest Thyself gracious unto them. On פּקד cf. Psalms 8:5; Psalms 80:15, and on ראה ב , Jeremiah 29:32; a similar Beth is that beside לשׂמח (at, on account of, not: in connection with), Psalms 21:2; Psalms 122:1. God's “inheritance” is His people; the name for them is varied four times, and thereby גּוי is also exceptionally brought into use, as in Zephaniah 2:9.
The key-note of the vidduj , which is a settled expression since 1 Kings 8:47 (Daniel 9:5, cf. Bar. 2:12), makes itself heard here in Psalms 106:6; Israel is bearing at this time the punishment of its sins, by which it has made itself like its forefathers. In this needy and helpless condition the poet, who all along speaks as a member of the assembly, takes the way of the confession of sin, which leads to the forgiveness of sin and to the removal of the punishment of sin. רשׁע , 1 Kings 8:47, signifies to be, and the Hiph . to prove one's self to be, a רשׁע . עם in Psalms 106:6 is equivalent to aeque ac , as in Ecclesiastes 2:16; Job 9:26. With Psalms 106:7 the retrospect begins. The fathers contended with Moses and Aaron in Egypt (Exodus 5:21), and gave no heed to the prospect of redemption (Exodus 6:9). The miraculous judgments which Moses executed (Exodus 3:20) had no more effect in bringing them to a right state of mind, and the abundant tokens of loving-kindness (Isaiah 63:7) amidst which God redeemed them made so little impression on their memories that they began to despair and to murmur even at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:11.). With על , Psalms 106:7 , alternates בּ (as in Ezekiel 10:15, בּנהר ); cf. the alternation of prepositions in Joel 3:8 . When they behaved thus, Jahve might have left their redemption unaccomplished, but out of unmerited mercy He nevertheless redeemed them. Psalms 106:8-11 are closely dependent upon Ex. 14. Psalms 106:11 is a transposition (cf. Psalms 34:21; Isaiah 34:16) from Exodus 14:28. On the other hand, Psalms 106:9 is taken out of Isaiah 63:13 (cf. Wisd. 19:9); Isa. 63:7-64:12 is a prayer for redemption which has a similar ground-colouring. The sea through which they passed is called, as in the Tôra, ים־סוּף , which seems, according to Exodus 2:3; Isaiah 19:3, to signify the sea of reed or sedge, although the sedge does not grow in the Red Sea itself, but only on the marshy places of the coast; but it can also signify the sea of sea-weed, mare algosum , after the Egyptian sippe , wool and sea-weed (just as Arab. ṣûf also signifies both these). The word is certainly Egyptian, whether it is to be referred back to the Egyptian word sippe (sea-weed) or seebe (sedge), and is therefore used after the manner of a proper name; so that the inference drawn by Knobel on Exodus 8:18 from the absence of the article, that סוּף is the name of a town on the northern point of the gulf, is groundless. The miracle at the sea of sedge or sea-weed - as Psalms 106:12 says - also was not without effect. Exodus 14:31 tells us that they believed on Jahve and Moses His servant, and the song which they sang follows in Ex. 15. But they then only too quickly added sins of ingratitude.
The first of the principal sins on the other side of the Red Sea was the unthankful, impatient, unbelieving murmuring about their meat and drink, Psalms 106:13-15. For what Psalms 106:13 places foremost was the root of the whole evil, that, falling away from faith in God's promise, they forgot the works of God which had been wrought in confirmation of it, and did not wait for the carrying out of His counsel. The poet has before his eye the murmuring for water on the third day after the miraculous deliverance (Exodus 15:22-24) and in Rephidim (Exodus 17:2). Then the murmuring for flesh in the first and second years of the exodus which was followed by the sending of the quails (Ex. 16 and Num. 11), together with the wrathful judgment by which the murmuring for the second time was punished ( Kibrôth ha - Ta'avah , Numbers 11:33-35). This dispensation of wrath the poet calls רזון (lxx, Vulgate, and Syriac erroneously πλησμονήν , perhaps מזון , nourishment), inasmuch as he interprets Numbers 11:33-35 of a wasting disease, which swept away the people in consequence of eating inordinately of the flesh, and in the expression (cf. Psalms 78:31) he closely follows Isaiah 10:16. The “counsel” of God for which they would not wait, is His plan with respect to the time and manner of the help. חכּה , root Arab. ḥk , a weaker power of Arab. ḥq , whence also Arab. ḥkl , p. 111, ḥkm , p. 49 note 1, signifies prop. to make firm, e.g., a knot (cf. on Psalms 33:20), and starting from this (without the intervention of the metaphor moras nectere , as Schultens thinks) is transferred to a firm bent of mind, and the tension of long expectation. The epigrammatic expression ויּתאוּוּ תאוה (plural of ויתאו , Isaiah 45:12, for which codices, as also in Proverbs 23:3, Proverbs 23:6; Proverbs 24:1, the Complutensian, Venetian 1521, Elias Levita, and Baer have ויתאו without the tonic lengthening) is taken from Numbers 11:4.
The second principal sin was the insurrection against their superiors, Psalms 106:16-18. The poet has Numbers 16:1 in his eye. The rebellious ones were swallowed up by the earth, and their two hundred and fifty noble, non-Levite partisans consumed by fire. The fact that the poet does not mention Korah among those who were swallowed up is in perfect harmony with Numbers 16:25., Deuteronomy 11:6; cf. however Numbers 26:10. The elliptical תפתּה in Psalms 106:17 is explained from Numbers 16:32; Numbers 26:10.
The third principal sin was the worship of the calf, Psalms 106:19-23. The poet here glances back at Ex. 32, but not without at the same time having Deuteronomy 9:8-12 in his mind; for the expression “in Horeb” is Deuteronomic, e.g., Deuteronomy 4:15; Deuteronomy 5:2, and frequently. Psalms 106:20 is also based upon the Book of Deuteronomy: they exchanged their glory, i.e., the God who was their distinction before all peoples according to Deuteronomy 4:6-8; Deuteronomy 10:21 (cf. also Jeremiah 2:11), for the likeness ( תּבנית ) of a plough-ox (for this is pre-eminently called שׁוּר , in the dialects תּור ), contrary to the prohibition in Deuteronomy 4:17. On Psalms 106:21 cf. the warning in Deuteronomy 6:12. “Land of Cham” = Egypt, as in Psalms 78:51; Psalms 105:23, Psalms 105:27. With ויאמר in Psalms 106:23 the expression becomes again Deuteronomic: Deuteronomy 9:25, cf. Exodus 32:10. God made and also expressed the resolve to destroy Israel. Then Moses stepped into the gap (before the gap), i.e., as it were covered the breach, inasmuch as he placed himself in it and exposed his own life; cf. on the fact, besides Ex. 32, also Deuteronomy 9:18., Psalms 10:10, and on the expression, Ezekiel 22:30 and also Jeremiah 18:20.
The fact to which the poet refers in Psalms 106:24, viz., the rebellion in consequence of the report of the spies, which he brings forward as the fourth principal sin, is narrated in Num 13, Num 14. The appellation ארץ חמדּה is also found in Jeremiah 3:19; Zechariah 7:14. As to the rest, the expression is altogether Pentateuchal. “They despised the land,” after Numbers 14:31; “they murmured in their tents,” after Deuteronomy 1:27; “to lift up the land” = to swear, after Exodus 6:8; Deuteronomy 32:40; the threat להפּיל , to make them fall down, fall away, after Numbers 14:29, Numbers 14:32. The threat of exile is founded upon the two great threatening chapters, Lev 26; Deuteronomy 28:1; cf. more particularly Leviticus 26:33 (together with the echoes in Ezekiel 5:12; Ezekiel 12:14, etc.), Deuteronomy 28:64 (together with the echoes in Jeremiah 9:15; Ezekiel 22:15, etc.). Ezekiel 20:23 stands in a not accidental relationship to Psalms 106:26.; and according to that passage, וּלהפיל is an error of the copyist for וּלהפיץ (Hitzig).
Now follows in Psalms 106:28-31 the fifth of the principal sins, viz., the taking part in the Moabitish worship of Baal. The verb נצמד (to be bound or chained), taken from Numbers 25:3, Numbers 25:5, points to the prostitution with which Baal Peôr, this Moabitish Priapus, was worshipped. The sacrificial feastings in which, according to Numbers 25:2, they took part, are called eating the sacrifices of the dead, because the idols are dead beings (nekroi', Wisd. 13:10-18) as opposed to God, the living One. The catena on Revelation 2:14 correctly interprets: τὰ τοῖς εἰδώλοις τελεσθέντα κρέα .
(Note: In the second section of Aboda zara , on the words of the Mishna: “The flesh which is intended to be offered first of all to idols is allowed, but that which comes out of the temple is forbidden, because it is like sacrifices of the dead,” it is observed, fol. 32 b : “Whence, said R. Jehuda ben Bethêra, do I know that that which is offered to idols ( תקרובת לעבדה זרה ) pollutes like a dead body? From Psalms 106:28. As the dead body pollutes everything that is under the same roof with it, so also does everything that is offered to idols.” The Apostle Paul declares the objectivity of this pollution to be vain, cf. more particularly 1 Corinthians 10:28.)
The object of “they made angry” is omitted; the author is fond of this, cf. Psalms 106:7 and Psalms 106:32. The expression in Psalms 106:29 is like Exodus 19:24. The verb עמד is chosen with reference to Numbers 17:13. The result is expressed in Psalms 106:30 after Numbers 25:8, Numbers 25:18., Numbers 17:13. With פּלּל , to adjust, to judge adjustingly (lxx, Vulgate, correctly according to the sense, ἐξιλάσατο ), the poet associates the thought of the satisfaction due to divine right, which Phinehas executed with the javelin. This act of zeal for Jahve, which compensated for Israel's unfaithfulness, was accounted unto him for righteousness, by his being rewarded for it with the priesthood unto everlasting ages, Numbers 25:10-13. This accounting of a work for righteousness is only apparently contradictory to Genesis 15:5.: it was indeed an act which sprang from a constancy in faith, and one which obtained for him the acceptation of a righteous man for the sake of this upon which it was based, by proving him to be such.
In Psalms 106:32, Psalms 106:33 follows the sixth of the principal sins, viz., the insurrection against Moses and Aaron at the waters of strife in the fortieth year, in connection with which Moses forfeited the entrance with them into the Land of Promise (Numbers 20:11., Deuteronomy 1:37; Deuteronomy 32:51), since he suffered himself to be carried away by the persevering obstinacy of the people against the Spirit of God ( המרה mostly providing the future for מרה , as in Psalms 106:7, Psalms 106:43, Psalms 78:17, Psalms 78:40, Psalms 78:56, of obstinacy against God; on את־רוּחו cf. Isaiah 63:10) into uttering the words addressed to the people, Numbers 20:10, in which, as the smiting of the rock which was twice repeated shows, is expressed impatience together with a tinge of unbelief. The poet distinguishes, as does the narrative in Num. 20, between the obstinacy of the people and the transgression of Moses, which is there designated, according to that which lay at the root of it, as unbelief. The retrospective reference to Numbers 27:14 needs adjustment accordingly.
The sins in Canaan: the failing to exterminate the idolatrous peoples and sharing in their idolatry. In Psalms 106:34 the poet appeals to the command, frequently enjoined upon them from Exodus 23:32. onwards, to extirpate the inhabitants of Canaan. Since they did not execute this command (vid., Judges 1:1), that which it was intended to prevent came to pass: the heathen became to them a snare (mowqeesh), Exodus 23:33; Exodus 34:12; Deuteronomy 7:16. They intermarried with them, and fell into the Canaanitish custom in which the abominations of heathenism culminate, viz., the human sacrifice, which Jahve abhorreth (Deuteronomy 12:31), and only the demons ( שׁדים , Deuteronomy 32:17) delight in. Thus then the land was defiled by blood-guiltiness ( חנף , Numbers 35:33, cf. Isaiah 24:5; Isaiah 26:21), and they themselves became unclean (Ezekiel 20:43) by the whoredom of idolatry. In Psalms 106:40-43 the poet (as in Nehemiah 9:26.) sketches the alternation of apostasy, captivity, redemption, and relapse which followed upon the possession of Canaan, and more especially that which characterized the period of the judges. God's “counsel” was to make Israel free and glorious, but they leaned upon themselves, following their own intentions ( בּעצתם ); wherefore they perished in their sins. The poet uses מכך (to sink down, fall away) instead of the נמק (to moulder, rot) of the primary passage, Leviticus 26:39, retained in Ezekiel 24:23; Ezekiel 33:10, which is no blunder (Hitzig), but a deliberate change.
The poet's range of vision here widens from the time of the judges to the history of the whole of the succeeding age down to the present; for the whole history of Israel has essentially the same fundamental character, viz., that Israel's unfaithfulness does not annul God's faithfulness. That verifies itself even now. That which Solomon in 1 Kings 8:50 prays for on behalf of his people when they may be betrayed into the hands of the enemy, has been fulfilled in the case of the dispersion of Israel in all countries (Psalms 107:3), Babylonia, Egypt, etc.: God has turned the hearts of their oppressors towards them. On ראה ב , to regard compassionately, cf. Genesis 29:32; 1 Samuel 1:11. בּצּר לחם belong together, as in Psalms 107:6, and frequently. רנּה is a cry of lamentation, as in 1 Kings 8:28 in Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the Temple. From this source comes Psalms 106:6, and also from this source Psalms 106:46, cf. 1 Kings 8:50 together with Nehemiah 1:11. In ויּנּחם the drawing back of the tone does not take place, as in Genesis 24:67. חסדו beside כּרב is not pointed by the Kerî חסדּו , as in Psalms 5:8; Psalms 69:14, but as in Lamentations 3:32, according to Psalms 106:7, Isaiah 63:7, חסדו : in accordance with the fulness (riches) of His manifold mercy or loving-kindness. The expression in Psalms 106:46 is like Genesis 43:14. Although the condition of the poet's fellow-countrymen in the dispersion may have been tolerable in itself, yet this involuntary scattering of the members of the nation is always a state of punishment. The poet prays in Psalms 106:47 that God may be pleased to put an end to this.
He has now reached the goal, to which his whole Psalm struggles forth, by the way of self-accusation and the praise of the faithfulness of God. השׁתּבּח (found only here) is the reflexive of the Piel , to account happy, Ecclesiastes 4:2, therefore: in order that we may esteem ourselves happy to be able to praise Thee. In this reflexive (and also passive) sense השׁתבח is customary in Aramaic and post-biblical Hebrew.
The closing doxology of the Fourth Book. The chronicler has ואמרוּ before Psalms 106:47 (which with him differs only very slightly), an indispensable rivet, so to speak, in the fitting together of Psalms 106:1 (Psalms 107:1) and Psalms 106:47. The means this historian, who joins passages together like mosaic-work, calls to his aid are palpable enough. He has also taken over. Psalms 106:48 by transforming and let all the people say Amen, Hallelujah! in accordance with his style (cf. 1 Chronicles 25:3; 2 Chronicles 5:13, and frequently, Ezra 3:11), into an historical clause: ויּאמרוּ כל־העם אמן והלּל ליהוה . Hitzig, by regarding the echoes of the Psalms in the chronicler as the originals of the corresponding Psalms in the Psalter, and consequently 1 Chronicles 16:36 as the original of the Beracha placed after our Psalm, reverses the true relation; vid., with reference to this point, Riehm in the Theolog. Literat. Blatt , 1866, No. 30, and Köhler in the Luther. Zeitschrift , 1867, S. 297ff. The priority of Ps 106 is clear from the fact that Psalms 106:1 gives a liturgical key-note that was in use even in Jeremiah's time (Psalms 33:11), and that Psalms 106:47 reverts to the tephilla-style of the introit, Psalms 106:4. And the priority of Psalms 106:48 as a concluding formula of the Fourth Book is clear from the fact that is has been fashioned, like that of the Second Book (Psalms 72:18.), under the influence of the foregoing Psalm. The Hallelujah is an echo of the Hallelujah-Psalm, just as there the Jahve Elohim is an echo of the Elohim-Psalm. And “let all the people say Amen” is the same closing thought as in Psalms 106:6 of Ps, which is made into the closing doxology of the whole Psalter. Ἀμὴν ἀλληλούΐα together (Revelation 19:4) is a laudatory confirmation.