Psalm 106

1 Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!

2 Who can utter the mighty deeds of the LORD, or declare all his praise?

The psalm begins where the last one left off, with a “hallelujah”, a command to worship YHWH. The reasons for worship are many, but three are stated in these two verses. He is good, his steadfast love is forever and his mighty deeds are beyond description and explanation. The goodness of God is something that we take for granted. In the ancient world, there were few, if any, gods that were good. They were inherently selfish and petty, like the men who created them. The first chapter of the Bible is filled with this word “good”. When he looked at what he had made, “God saw that it was good.” All the good things of this life have their origin in the goodness of God. Likewise, the love of God is forever. Much has been written about the love of God, but my favorite description comes from the song, “The Love of God”. “Could we with ink the ocean fill and were the sky of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky.” Knowing that there is a good and loving God at the center of the universe is fundamental to living a happy, meaningful life. If there is no one at the center then we are only atoms and molecules, and existence is ultimately meaningless. Or if the being at the center of the universe is petty and cruel, then there is no reason to hope for anything better, we will all eventually be crushed by evil. Finally, the psalmist declares that there is no one who can even begin to tell all that God has done. We cannot know everything and because our perspective is limited by time and space. So take all that you know about God and have experienced and multiply that by every person living and dead and you’d still come up short. God’s infinite nature defies understanding and compels us to worship Him. 

3 Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!

4 Remember me, O LORD, when you show favor to your people; help me when you save them, [Remember me, O LORD, with the favor you show to your people; help me with your salvation]

5 that I may look upon the prosperity of your chosen ones, that I may rejoice in the gladness of your nation, that I may glory with your inheritance.

Having meditated on the greatness of God, the psalmist revels in his goodness to the nation. There is a blessing that comes from “keeping justice” and “doing what is right”, both to the individual and to the nation. These words about justice were ahead of their time. The ancient world had much less justice than we do now. It was thought that the entire universe was hierarchical with gods and humans ranked in importance and value. But the Bible says that there is no God but YHWH and every human, male and female, young and old, black and white, are made in his image. That statement in Genesis was revolutionary, holding the seed and foundation of human rights today. It wasn’t immediately embodied by God’s people, but the fact remains that this understanding of the world is the only one that can bring about true human rights and justice. Doing what is right means living in the boundaries God has established, functioning according to our design. The psalmist wants to be included in the blessing that God supplies to the nation -- their prosperity, their gladness, and their legacy. There are three words for the people of God -- chosen ones, nation, inheritance. These suggest a belonging to God. We are his and we identify with him. There is much in the world today about identity and people choosing their identity or how they want to identify, and much of it is built on the shifting sands of self based on emotion. The psalmist offers a rock solid identity to everyone who will receive it -- become a citizen of the nation of God, be chosen by him, belong to him (with all the blessings and privileges that come with it).

6 Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.

7 Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.

These verses and the one following set forth the theme of the psalm. We have sinned and God has saved us. The psalmist uses repetition to emphasize the fact of our rebellion. We and our fathers have sinned, committed iniquity, and done wickedness. Each emphasizes a different aspect of our corruption. There is the moral aspect (missing our purpose, working against our design), there is the relational aspect (disrupting our relationship with God), and the personal aspect (experiencing the consequences of wrong actions). We acknowledge it all, declaring the ugly truth that it is on us. We have chosen this and we deserve the consequences. And we understand that this is nothing new. The psalmist notes that even after one of the most miraculous series of events in history -- the ten plagues on Egypt -- the Israelites are already to go back when they run into a dead end. They are backed up against the Red Sea with the Egyptian army pursuing them, when they decide it’s a good idea to surrender. How quickly they had forgotten that the most powerful force in the universe was leading them. Only weeks before they were celebrating their miraculous, unprecedented freedom from slavery, and now they want to return to it because they see what seems to be an insurmountable obstacle ahead of them. What sea is before you? What army is pursuing you? Remember God’s steadfast love and consider his miraculous deeds. He is the same God. He will make a way where there is no way, even a path through the sea. God didn’t take them around the sea. He didn’t wait for the sea to go away (that wasn’t going to happen). He took them through the sea. They had to walk through it with the potential of death all around them. At any minute the waters could be released and their lives ended. They had to trust. Will you trust God to take you through the sea? Trust that his steadfast love will preserve you against all things until you are safely through and your enemies are crushed behind you? Israel was not ready to do that, but God showed up anyway and opened the way for them if they would step into it. 

8 Yet he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make known his mighty power.

9 He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry, and he led them through the deep as through a desert.

In the moment of their faithlessness, God steps in big time and does something utterly mind-blowing. The sea behind them opened up as winds blew through the night, a pillar of fire protecting them from the advancing Egyptians to the west. Then the moment of decision, walk through the depths of the sea or stay and surrender to the Egyptian army and return to slavery. In addition to being a true story, it is a metaphor for us today every time that we are facing a decision of faith. Will we follow God into the unknown or will we return to old habits and sins? Will we advance to the promised land through the wilderness with God or will we surrender to that which is familiar and comfortable even though it leaves us enslaved? God commanded the Red Sea to become dry and it did. He led them through the depths as through the wilderness. The word “depths” suggests that this wasn’t just a shallow arm of the Red Sea that happened to be dry that time of year. Of course that wouldn’t explain the drowning of the Egyptian army either. Inquisitive minds want to know how God did it. The text says a strong wind pushed the waters back. Others have suggested an earthquake that reshaped the land causing the water to drain to a lower spot (and then flowing back when the Egyptian army arrived). Perhaps it was a massive earthquake and tsunami that pulled the waters back for the Israelites and then they returned and drowned the Egyptians. I suppose that’s a question for heaven. The question for today is, do you trust God to lead you through the sea and through the wilderness? Is he a fair weather friend, or can he really be trusted with the biggest things in life, that is life and death? Can you trust him to lead you into the waters even if it is the death of you, because it just might be? We were all baptized into the sea. We were buried with Christ. If that baptism meant anything, it meant that you died to yourself and you now belong to God. You are his to command. 

10 So he saved them from the hand of the foe and redeemed them from the power of the enemy.

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

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

There’s no way to describe what happened in the exodus as anything but a miracle. There are no good natural explanations for a large group of people walking through a sea that moments later would drown an army. It was a complete and total victory and should have been enough to confirm to the Israelites that there was no going back. Even though Egypt was all they had ever known, and the way forward was unknown, this experience should have been enough to cement their commitment to YHWH. The summary statement in verse 12 says it all, “They believed his words and they sang his praise.” That should be enough for us as well. They realized in that moment that God could be trusted even when things seemed hopeless and a new life impossible. It’s then that God does his finest work, the kind of work that no one else can take credit for. No Israelite could claim that they saved themselves. There was no boasting in their military prowess or tactical mastery. They literally stood behind a pillar of fire and then walked east. They did nothing to save themselves except decide to move in the only direction that made sense. So it is with our salvation. There is literally nothing we can do to save ourselves. We just have to decide to walk in a new direction, following God’s lead. He saves us from our enemies completely. The victory is overwhelming and permanent. The Hebrew in verse 10 says that God saved them from the hand of “those who hated them.” Never forget that the devil and his employees hate you. Don’t believe their lies. Don’t listen to their songs. Don’t let them arouse your curiosity about life in Egypt. You know what it’s like and there is no reason to go back. It is slavery and death. Trust the word of God and sing his praise. When Israel emerged from the sea and saw the bodies of the Egyptian army washing up on shore, they wrote a new song and sang it enthusiastically. Every now and then, look back on where you’ve come from and sing a song of praise for the miraculous rescue you’ve experienced. 

13 But they soon forgot his works; they did not wait for his counsel.

14 But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness, and put God to the test in the desert;

15 he gave them what they asked, but sent a wasting disease among them.

A pattern in this psalm is clearly emerging. God does something great to benefit the people and they respond enthusiastically. But they soon forget and go back to their old ways so God punishes them and they return. It is the cycle that is perhaps most clearly seen in their history as recorded in the book of Judges. Of course in that book it was often over a matter of years. Here in the wilderness it is a matter of weeks and months. The people go from “believing his word and singing his praises” to “forgetting his works and not waiting for his counsel” in very short order. A good portion of the life of faith is simply remembering (or choosing not to forget). It is keeping God and his deeds in the forefront of your mind and allowing them to animate you every day, believing his word and singing his praises. But the people had a lustful craving in the wilderness. This seems to be their desire for meat, growing tired of the same old miraculous manna every morning. So God responds by giving them so much meat they can’t take it. I imagine they began by ravenously consuming it, but then it soured in their stomachs. Perhaps there was something wrong with it and they got some type of food poisoning. We can only speculate on the nature of the disease because there were many that were common in those days. The key is that the people understood that this was punishment from God. Their actions and God’s punishment were clearly linked. Romans 1 reveals the same type of actions from God. When people want something other than God, He gives it to them, good and hard. He has granted humanity the freedom to choose gods other than himself. When we do this, the consequences are always negative, and they are meant to turn us back to him. In what ways do I express my dissatisfaction with God’s will for my life? Do I forget his works and impatiently refuse to wait for his counsel? We are particularly vulnerable to this temptation when we are in the wilderness, when our desires are focused on what we do not have rather than what we do have. The lesson is clear: God is enough. Find your satisfaction in him. Believe his word and sing his praise. 

16 When men in the camp were jealous of Moses and Aaron, the holy one of the LORD,

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

18 Fire also broke out in their company; the flame burned up the wicked.

Another crisis in the wilderness had to do with leadership. There were men who were jealous of Moses and Aaron. They had been successful in leadership and others envied their power and influence. Dathan and the company of Abiram rose up against them to undermine their authority and divide the nation. God answered them quickly by causing the earth to open up and swallow them. This freak earthquake was perfectly timed and located to do the job. Fire broke out among them as well, whether from lightning or natural causes, again, the timing and location made it clear that God was judging them. Earthquakes and fire were seen as signs of divine presence and judgment, and both of these phenomena leave us humbled and feeling powerless even today. The ground is about as sure a thing as you can imagine, so when it shakes and opens up under our feet, it is unsettling. Likewise, there’s nothing you can do in the case of fire other than to get away from it (unless you’ve got the right resources to fight it of course). This event shows us the high value that God placed on submission to authority and leadership. Moses and Aaron weren’t perfect, that’s well documented, but there were God’s chosen leaders, Aaron even identified as “the holy one of the LORD”, the saint, the high priest. Until God chooses someone else, the people were to obey these men as God’s spokesmen. Submitting to human authority can be hard because sometimes we think we know better and can do better than our leaders. To that I would say, walk a mile in their shoes. Leadership can look easy from the outside, but even the minor leadership positions that I have been in have reminded me that it’s lonely at the top, and it would sure be a lot easier to be a critic in the crowd than the leader on the stage. As a leader, this portion of the psalm reminds me that God has called me to a position of leadership, and he will stand by me. Even though I’m less than perfect, he desires unity in the body of Christ, and he is working with us to preserve it. 

19 They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a metal image.

20 They exchanged the glory of God [Hebrew exchanged their glory] for the image of an ox that eats grass.

It feels like the psalmist is mocking his ancestors by stating simple facts. When we look back at history it’s easy to see how foolish our predecessors were and to assume that had we been in their sandals we would have behaved differently. The Israelites had witnessed YHWH unleash devastating plagues on Egypt on their behalf. They had seen the judgment and wrath of God up close, watching the suffering of the Egyptians and saying, “Thank God it’s not me.” They had seen the Red Sea open up before them and they had watched their enemies perish to a man. They woke up every morning to food on the ground and water poured out of rocks, meat fell from the sky. So they did the next logical thing: they made a calf out of molten metal and they worshiped it. Instead of worshiping Their Glory, they worshiped a stupid, grass-eating ox. We’re engaged in chronological snobbery when we assume that we would never do such a thing. We’re better than that, wiser, more spiritual. And yet human nature does not change. I’ve had moments of deep and profound worship and a short time later found myself indulging in the most stupid of sins. I’ve felt conviction stronger than ever while reading the word and within hours I’m back to worshiping a dumb ox. Why are we so willing to replace Our Glory with lesser things? We choose the things at hand that bring us momentary pleasure when lasting truth and value are offered to us. Keep the glory of God before you so that you are not tempted by the reflections of his glory on earth. The calf and the ox are made by God and they are marvelous creatures, but they are not worthy of our worship. Idolatry is when we take something that is good and make it into something that is ultimate. Anything can become an idol. We ridicule the stupid Israelites for worshiping the image of a cow, but we do the same thing when we elevate good things to a place of ultimate devotion. 

21 They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt,

22 wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

They forgot God their Savior even though he had done great, wondrous, and awesome things. There aren’t enough superlatives for what God had done for his people and yet they still managed to forget. In reality of course they remembered, they recalled those events, but they were so far removed from their present situation, that it was as if they had never happened, as if it were a lifetime ago and had no relevance to the present. Before I go all judgmental on them, I can remember plenty of times where I’ve forgotten the wonderful things that God has done for me and acted as if I had not been saved. My cravings in the moment were stronger than the memory of his salvation in the past. The psalmist repeats a similar phrase three times for emphasis, as if to draw those events to the forefront of their thinking: God has done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, awesome deeds by the Red Sea. These were not abstractions (God is great, God is good). No, God had actually done things that they had personally witnessed. They had front row seats to miracles and yet they still forgot when the time of temptation came. Much of living a faithful life has to do with remembering. If you want a good marriage, there are things you need to remember every day -- your vows, your wedding, your courtship, and shared experiences. Recalling them and bringing them to the forefront of your mind can reinvigorate your marriage. The same is true of friendship. Friendships will wither if you forget. They require regular investments, recalling shared experiences and keeping them alive in your heart. This is one of the things that gathered worship does for us. We collectively are reminded of what God has done and the past is brought into the present. It is reactivated in our imagination and it can then animate us for today. We marvel at how quickly Israel went from walking through the depths of the sea with God to worshiping a metal object they had fashioned, and yet we are guilty of the same unfaithfulness. Remember your salvation, recall the mighty deeds that God has done on your behalf. Bring those to your attention each day, and your appetites will be satisfied by the good things of God. 

23 Therefore he said he would destroy them— had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.

This verse succinctly summarizes the events of Exodus 32. Moses is told that the people have made a golden calf and the LORD is so angry that he threatens to destroy them all and start again with Moses. Because God had made promises to Abraham, I presume this was a test of Moses, to see how he would react to this opportunity for power. Think of what he is being offered at a time when he already has the most power of anyone in the nation. He has just led his people out of Egypt, a powerhouse of the ancient world. He hasn’t had a failure in months. He’s riding high and now God offers him everything. He turns it down and instead reasons that the LORD shouldn’t destroy his people because it would make Him look bad. After all, what kind of God brings his people out of Egypt only to kill them in the desert? The fact that Moses is ultimately concerned with God’s reputation here is evidence that he passed the test. Unlike the people, Moses had elevated God to the ultimate place in his heart so that his greatest desire was for the glory of God. Moses prayed on behalf of a stubborn, stupid group of people who must have been fraying his nerves as well. This is a very Christ-like thing that Moses is doing here, standing in the gap between God and judgment. The difference is that Jesus not only stood in the gap but he received the judgment. Are there ways that I can stand in the gap for my stupid and stubborn people? I live in a nation that worships golden calves, partying it up while destroying themselves and one another. Is God testing me to see what I will do, to see if I love them? The reality is that I’m more likely to cast judgment on them myself than to do something to help them. That starts with prayer, standing in the gap in prayer, just like Abraham for Sodom and Gomorrah (there are hints of that conversation here). And it continues with actively persuading others to give up worshiping idols and instead turn to the living God. 

24 Then they despised the pleasant land, having no faith in his promise.

25 They murmured in their tents, and did not obey the voice of the LORD.

Just as the Israelites get moving again, making their way to the promised land things go sideways again. Rather than march right into the land, they sent twelve spies ahead to determine the best invasion path. This made total sense from a military perspective but it turned into a communications nightmare. It was all a matter of perspective because every spy saw the same thing -- prosperity, cities, and everything God had promised. But ten of the spies saw the big cities as obstacles and the people as giants while they were like grasshoppers. Nevermind that YHWH had just defeated the most powerful nation in the world at the time through a series of plagues. God was ready to bring judgment on the Canaanites as well and Israel was to be his instrument. But the majority of the people had a crisis of faith at that moment and murmured in their tents, whispering their fears to one another until they had convinced themselves that moving forward wasn’t worth the risk. Their fear overcame their faith in the word of God in that moment and they would all suffer for it. It’s easy to chide them for their lack of faith, looking back from the perspective of history. They chose poorly. But we do the same things today. We choose sameness over the adventure of following God in daring acts of faith. Whether that is offering Him our time, our money, our futures -- we hesitate because we see the potential downside instead of the one massive upside -- it’s always right to obey God. This situation came down to a fundamental question of obedience. Will we obey God even when we don’t have all the answers and we don’t know how things will turn out specifically? All we know is that God says “go”, and that should be enough. If we don’t go, we’re no different than the grumbling Israelites lingering for forty years in the wilderness. 

26 Therefore he raised his hand and swore to them that he would make them fall in the wilderness,

27 and would make their offspring fall among the nations, scattering them among the lands.

The phrase “swore to them” is not in the Hebrew text, but it is added to clarify what is meant by the raising of God’s hand. This symbolic action indicated the taking of an oath. Just as he had promised Abraham that his descendants would outnumber the stars of the sky, now he is promising those descendants that he would cause them to fall (die) in the wilderness and that their descendants would fall (die) among the nations. It as common for the victors in battle to carry away captives as slaves. Losing a battle could mean a lifetime of slavery in a foreign land with no hope of return. Some in Israel also intermarried with foreigners, adopting their pagan worldview. Of course the marriage itself was not the problem, but it was the almost inevitable syncretization of faith that came as a result that would undermine the unity and community of God’s people. God swearing an oath against his people seems like a pretty drastic step, but it must be understood in context. God’s big picture objective here is to prepare a people for the messiah. He has his eye on saving the whole world and on events that will take place 1400 years later. In order to get there, he must prepare a community through the trials of the wilderness. They must be fired like silver to remove the dross. We will all walk through the wilderness and the opportunity to compromise our faith will be presented and will be enticing. Some will not survive that test (I’m thinking of names and faces right now, and it is heart-breaking). Just because God swore an oath doesn’t mean that his heart wasn’t breaking either. As Jesus foresaw the judgment on Jerusalem in his day, he wept and longed to gather the people like a mother hen gathers her chicks, but he could not. God would much rather have had his people enter the land triumphantly than watch them fall in the desert over the next forty years. But he had a greater plan that had to be accomplished. This is a hard teaching, particularly today in our culture where freedom is thought to mean the right to do whatever I want without consequence. God has established boundaries and he, like a good parent, enforces them as painful as that may be. When he promises to do something, he does it. He means what he says, so heed his words. 

28 Then they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices offered to the dead;

29 they provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them.

While wandering in the wilderness Israel did have some interaction with other nations. In this case, the account in Numbers 25 tells us that the men were having ritual intercourse with the women of Moab in the worship of the fertility god Baal. There were many “baals” as the name simply meant “lord”. In this case Baal of Peor is the god of the city of Peor. Deities were regional, exercising limited power over an area. Ritual intercourse was a common way of worshiping these fertility gods, although it’s not clear what the Israelite men wished to accomplish since they weren’t farming or ranching. The psalmist uses the phrase “yoke themselves” as a euphemism for intercourse, but what they were doing was obviously disruptive to healthy family life. Bringing others into the marriage bed is always a bad idea (Hebrews 13:4), and in this case a plague broke out and 24,000 people died. One of the things that the people learned in the wilderness is that God’s law was for their good. Many see the law as restrictive because it forbids certain actions (like having intercourse outside of the covenant of marriage). But because the consequences of those actions are so negative, God forbids it to protect us. The kind of sexual “freedom” that was practiced here (sex without relationship) was degrading to both participants, reducing them to mere animals, not glorious image bearers of God. For those men who were married it disrupted their family life in ways that harmed future generations, destabilizing the family and setting up their children for failure as well. In the west we have yoked ourselves to Baal of Peor for some time now and generational patterns of dysfunction have been established. Marriage is in decline and pornography is pervasive. God’s anger is provoked because of his great love. The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. God’s anger is aroused because he sees the pain that these actions cause to the people he loves. 

30 Then Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stayed.

31 And that was counted to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever.

The account in Numbers 25 makes it clear that there was a link between their behavior and a consequential plague. We don’t know the nature of the plague, but we do know that the Israelites had just witnessed a plague breaking out in Egypt and killing all the firstborn, and before this plague was over, 24,000 people would be dead. Because the sin was sexual in nature, it may have been a sexually transmitted disease, however, those types of diseases usually don’t result in rapid death. The leadership was held responsible for the idolatry and sexual sin of the people and as they are being punished for this (public execution), Phinehas (Aaron’s grandson) observes a blatant violation of the law, an Israelite man and a Midianite women having intercourse. He picks up a spear and impales them both together. At this point the plague ended. The text notes that both the man and the woman who were killed were in leadership. There are many lessons to learn, and this is probably why the event makes it into the psalm. First, at some level, leadership is responsible for the behavior of those who are following them. Leaders should set an irreproachable example, and they should provide clear and persuasive teaching for those in their care. My guess is that leadership was involved in this incident (that’s why they were punished). And we shouldn’t be surprised since Aaron himself had engaged in idolatry while Moses was up on the mountain. Second, no one sins in isolation. The sin of a few had a dramatic impact on the entire community. Sin has generational effects in families and in nations. Finally, the event speaks to the jealous love of God. The fuller account in Numbers 25 notes that the zeal of Phinehas was an expression of the jealousy of God for his people. God’s jealousy doesn’t come out of insecurity (as human jealousy does), rather it comes out of love. He is jealous for us. He wants our best, and the best thing for us is Him. We don’t need to go around with spears impaling adulterers and fornicators, but we do need to take this sin seriously. Technology and the advent of free and abundant porn has enabled everyone to yoke themselves to Baal of Peor in privacy. But just because it is “private”, “victimless”, and “consensual”, doesn’t mean that it is without consequence. The moral law doesn’t bend according to our wishes and rationalizations. It is deadly morally, spiritually and relationally. Jesus said if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, and if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. Drastic measures indeed, meant to demonstrate the seriousness of the breach of covenant. Don’t be deceived, sexual sin is a spear to the belly. Like Phinehas, call it what it is to yourself and to your community. 

32 They angered him at the waters of Meribah, and it went ill with Moses on their account,

33 for they made his spirit bitter, [they rebelled against God's Spirit] and he spoke rashly with his lips.

This is one of the few references to Moses in the Psalms despite him being such a major figure in the Bible, and unfortunately it highlights one of his failings. He was frustrated with the Israelites’ lack of faith, having seen all that God had done for them in Egypt and in the wilderness. How could they possibly doubt? And yet they did, and this angered Moses. Whether he struck the rock in anger or in pride, he had been told only to speak to the rock. It seems like a minor distinction, but Moses was punished by not being allowed to enter the promised land, in a sense suffering the same fate as those who disbelieved following the report of the spies. Moses is known to be the “most humble man” who ever lived, but he is punished for his pride. That seems to be the central issue here -- he didn’t do exactly as God had commanded, and this disobedience came out of pride. He did it his way and not God’s way. Earlier of course Moses had done a very Jesus-like thing and interceded for the people for the sake of God’s reputation, but now he places his own reputation above God’s. Because God wanted to show himself holy, Moses was punished for this infraction. This does demonstrate the holiness of God, and reminds us that no matter how good we might think we are, we are not holy. We have moments where we do things rashly. We say and do things that we regret. Moses wasn’t immediately struck dead or anything, he just didn’t get to enjoy the ultimate goal of the last forty years of his life. There’s also a lesson here for leaders. Don’t become bitter because of the stubbornness of the people you are leading. They are just people like you, and they are going to disappoint. Don’t lash out in anger, but trust the Lord to judge and transform hearts. 

34 They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them,

35 but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did.

Verse 34 raises one of the issues that modern people struggle with. How could YHWH command genocide? Putting the situation in those terms makes God no different than Hitler. The Bible justifies the extermination of the Canaanites on the basis of justice. These cultures were self-destructing, killing their own children out of selfishness. Polygamy was common as was the worship of gods through ritual intercourse, a behavior that was destructive to the family. God, who created and loves life, whose plan was to save the world through families, had had enough of it. He also wanted to teach his people to hate the same things that he did. Yes, there are things that God hates. It is a necessary corollary to the fact that God loves. If you love someone, you will hate the things that harm them. Parents hate anything and anyone that would harm their children. A husband hates the adulterer who would come between him and his wife because he loves her so. God’s jealous love for his people was for their good, and the best thing for them was to have a relationship with their creator. God’s desire was to remove those things that might hinder that relationship, and those things happened to be people and a corrupted world view. Killing the men, women and children of Canaan still seems like an awful thing though. No one ever said being an instrument of God’s justice was easy. During WW2, allied bombers killed thousands of innocent civilians in an attempt to end the war and avoid even greater human suffering. Every day thousands of Jews were being snuffed out in the gas chambers and if firebombing German cities could end the holocaust one day sooner, isn’t it justified. If dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki could avoid the complete devastation of Japan and untold loss of life on both sides of the conflict, isn’t it justified? That may be something of the calculation that is being made here. YHWH needed the Jewish people to create a culture where the messiah could come and save the world. Teaching his people the meaning of holiness was key to that. And while this was God’s plan, the people of Israel didn’t go along with it completely. They didn’t completely destroy these pagan societies. Instead they intermarried with them to disastrous effect, corrupting themselves and their families for generations. 

36 They served their idols, which became a snare to them.

37 They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons;

38 they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.

The Canaanites and other ancient peoples practiced ritual human sacrifice. This was done in order to gain the favor of the gods. Without artificial birth control, I assume that fertile men and women had large families (there are many large families mentioned in the Bible). Infant mortality was high and because children provided cheap labor once they were of a certain age, there was an economic benefit to having them. In order to gain even greater wealth and fertility, many believed that they would benefit from killing one of their children as an offering to the fertility gods and goddesses. It was a deeply perverted system that must have wrecked the relationship between parent and child and brought untold heartache all around -- for nothing. We instantly see this as evil today, and yet in the west we freely practice abortion which is human sacrifice without the overt religious aspect. However, in recent years, as the science is now undeniable that a new human being exists from the movement of conception, many in favor of abortion rights insist that terminating pregnancies for the sake of the mother is a good thing. Abortions are now celebrated as liberating, freeing the mother to pursue the life that she wants. It’s absolutely heart-breaking in the same way that the human sacrifice of pagan cultures was divisive and destructive to human well-being, for mothers, fathers, and children. The reality is that these three verses could be said about America and the west in general for the last 50 years that abortion has been legal. We can hope that the tide will turn, but given human nature, it's not likely. How it must grieve the heart of God and how it should grieve ours. What are you doing to bring it to an end? There is something to be done on many levels -- personal and political. 

39 Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds.

40 Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people, and he abhorred his heritage;

One of the major metaphors for the relationship between YHWH and his people is that of husband and wife. It is a covenant relationship that requires fidelity on all parties. Here, Israel is the unfaithful wife, committing adultery and fornication with another god so to speak. She is worshiping the Baals and sacrificing her own children. She has united in marriage to those who do not share the same understanding of reality, setting up conflict and loss of faith for her and future generations. This is why God’s wrath was kindled. Having received all the blessings of marriage to YHWH, Israel spurned him for lesser things. He didn’t break his covenant but he did discipline them in hopes that they would return. In what ways have I played the harlot, violated my covenant vows and sought a relationship with the world? I may not be killing babies, but there are many ways that I have been unfaithful to the promises I have made to God. I wonder the extent of God’s anger toward me? We enjoy speaking of his love and fidelity, but what about ours? Has God been that upset by my infidelity that he is seething and burning against me, ready to cut me off? The image that I always have is that he is patiently waiting to forgive me as soon as I ask, like an abused spouse, always coming back, like Hosea did with Gomer. Live today to please the LORD, keep your covenant, may your heart be devoted to him and your actions to his ways. 

41 he gave them into the hand of the nations, so that those who hated them ruled over them.

42 Their enemies oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their power.

These verses reference the time of the judges. Other nations frequently made incursions into Israelite land and subdued them. Israel was ruled by her enemies, people who hated her time and again. They were back to the position they were in while in Egypt many times, subject to the laws and whims of gentiles who cared for them only to the extent that they could profit from them. Perhaps some of the Jews wondered why this was so. What about the promises to Abraham? What about the covenant at Sinai? Had God forgotten them? In a series of historical cycles recorded in the book of Judges, the Jewish people experienced independence, then they sinned and were overtaken by a foreign nation. They cried out for a deliverer and God raised one up in the form of a judge, usually a military leader who threw off the yoke of oppression for a season. Israel had no king in those days and eventually they cried out for one like the other nations, assuming their problems were political and not spiritual. Thus they sought a political solution. That rings true today as well. We assume that our problems are political and thus demand a political solution. However, our real problems are spiritual and will only be alleviated with spiritual solutions. The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. That is a summary of the period of the judges, a period that I believe most resembles our current cultural moment. In those days Israel had no king and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Expressive individualism rules the day and we don’t even realize the extent to which we are oppressed by such a world view. It promises freedom but our passions have become our fetters. God hasn’t given us into the hands of nations, but he has allowed us to live outside of his will, pursuing our own version of reality to create some time of utopia that (because of human nature) always winds up being a dystopia.

43 Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes and were brought low through their iniquity.

44 Nevertheless, he looked upon their distress, when he heard their cry.

These verses form a succinct summary of the history of Israel. Their story is filled with dramatic rescues from invading nations as well as tragic losses when they were humbled. It is also the story of each of us who call ourselves believers. Many times God has delivered us from trouble of our own making. When we were rebellious in our counsel and schemes, and we when we were brought low in the disruption of our relationship with God, He looked upon our distress and heard our cry. That one word, “nevertheless”, says it all. We didn’t deserve rescue. Any reasonable person would look at what we had done and determine that we deserved the consequences. As I reflect on my own rebellion and deliberate actions to live outside of the will of God, there’s no excuse. There’s no rational reason to reject the pure love and goodness of God, and yet that is what I have done time and again. I’ve ignored our history and instead focused on my present and what I want. Then I look to justify it, and pre-plan my repentance. Nevertheless, when God saw me wallowing in my filth, he had compassion on me for some reason. He saw my distress and heard my cry. 

45 For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love.

46 He caused them to be pitied by all those who held them captive.

While God had every reason to be angry and give up on his people, for their sake he remembered his covenant. Of course, “remember” in the Bible means action. He brought the covenant to the forefront of his mind and changed their course. He relented and caused them to be pitied by all those who held them captive. This is probably a reference to the Babylonians and Persians where most of the Jews prospered enough to stay in those foreign lands. But God moved the heart of the Persian king to allow the Jews to return to their ancestral land and rebuild their cities and their temple. This was unprecedented in the ancient world, and there’s not a clear political reason for doing so. Perhaps it was the witness of Daniel and others like him that the Persian king came to believe in YHWH, at least enough to want YHWH’s people to prosper. Of course, all of this was the working out of God’s plan. While the captivity was punishment for covenant disobedience, it was also a purifying and character-forming wilderness experience, like the wilderness journey after Sinai. God is often playing the long game, working in ways that are beyond our understanding and our personal timeline. This requires trust on our part, faith that God can redeem all things out of the abundance of his steadfast love. The covenant goes both ways. We must remember the covenant as well. It expresses both rights and responsibilities. Remembering it means living according to it, keeping the promises we’ve made to God and one another. 

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

48 Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, “Amen!”Praise the LORD!

The first word of verse 47 is a familiar one to readers of the New Testament: “Hosanna!” (Save us) YHWH our God. It is the same word the crowds were chanting when Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives and into the city of Jerusalem. Salvation was coming, but not as they expected. It’s safe to say that those first century Jews were looking for the kind of salvation the psalmist had in mind, a rescue mission gathering scattered people from their captivity into a secure homeland. This sets up Book 5 quite nicely as the theme of Book 5 is “Hallelujah, YHWH saves!” The word hallelujah was just introduced to us for the first time in Psalm 104, and it will occur a total of 22 times in the remainder of the Psalter. Whatever complaints and struggles the psalmist was having, they will ultimately be answered with God’s salvation, and God’s salvation will come in the form of a person, Jesus. One of the results of this will be the praise that is promised here, “that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory/triumph in your praise.” The result of God’s salvation is the worship of God, an increased magnification of his greatness. This is because salvation is the work of  God. He gets the credit for it, we don’t. We don’t contribute to it in any way except to say “yes” to it. There’s no room for boasting of our goodness, moral strength, or self-discipline. It is all the work of God, lest anyone should claim otherwise. Book 4 concludes with a doxology in verse 48, much more robust that the one at the end of Book 3. It is a summons to praise YHWH forever, without beginning or end. It is a foretaste of our timeless future. We’ll all say, “Amen!” (that’s right!) and “Hallelujah” (praise YHWH).