Psalms 106: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm begins with praise and a prayer to be remembered with God's favor, then confesses that the people have sinned as their ancestors did. Most of it retells Israel's history of failure: rebelling at the Red Sea, craving food in the desert, envying Moses and Aaron, making the calf at Horeb, refusing the promised land, joining Baal of Peor, and later mixing with the nations of Canaan and sacrificing their children to idols. Alongside that record it tells how God saved them for his own name's sake, punished them by handing them over to enemies, then heard their cry, remembered his covenant, and made their captors pity them. It closes with a request to be gathered back from the nations and a blessing on the LORD.

Claim by Claim

1. 106:1
   • The LORD is to be praised.
   • The hearers are told to give thanks to the LORD.
   • The LORD is good.
   • The LORD's steadfast love endures forever.
2. 106:2
   • No one can recount the mighty acts of the LORD.
   • No one can proclaim all of the LORD's praise.
3. 106:3
   • Those who keep justice are blessed.
   • The one who does righteousness at all times is blessed.
4. 106:4
   • The speaker asks the LORD to remember him with the favor the LORD shows his people.
   • The speaker asks the LORD to visit him with the LORD's salvation.
5. 106:5
   • The speaker asks this so that he may see the good given to the LORD's chosen ones.
   • The speaker asks this so that he may rejoice in the gladness of the LORD's nation.
   • The speaker asks this so that he may glory together with the LORD's inheritance.
6. 106:6
   • We have sinned along with our fathers.
   • We have committed iniquity.
   • We have acted wickedly.
7. 106:7
   • Our fathers in Egypt did not understand the LORD's wonders.
   • Our fathers did not remember the abundance of the LORD's acts of steadfast love.
   • Our fathers rebelled at the sea, at the Red Sea.
8. 106:8
   • The LORD saved them for the sake of his own name.
   • The LORD saved them in order to make his might known.
9. 106:9
   • The LORD rebuked the Red Sea.
   • The Red Sea dried up.
   • The LORD led them through the deeps as through a wilderness.
10. 106:10
    • The LORD saved them from the hand of the one who hated them.
    • The LORD redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.
11. 106:11
    • The waters covered their adversaries.
    • Not one of the adversaries was left.
12. 106:12
    • Then they believed the LORD's words.
    • They sang his praise.
13. 106:13
    • They quickly forgot the LORD's works.
    • They did not wait for his counsel.
14. 106:14
    • They craved intensely in the wilderness.
    • They tested God in the desert.
15. 106:15
    • The LORD gave them what they asked for.
    • The LORD sent wasting into them.
16. 106:16
    • They were jealous of Moses in the camp.
    • They were jealous of Aaron, the holy one of the LORD.
17. 106:17
    • The earth opened.
    • The earth swallowed Dathan.
    • The earth covered the company of Abiram.
18. 106:18
    • A fire burned among their company.
    • A flame consumed the wicked.
19. 106:19
    • They made a calf at Horeb.
    • They bowed down to a molten image.
20. 106:20
    • They exchanged their glory for the image of an ox that eats grass.
21. 106:21
    • They forgot God their savior.
    • God had done great things in Egypt.
22. 106:22
    • God had done wondrous works in the land of Ham.
    • God had done awesome deeds at the Red Sea.
23. 106:23
    • The LORD said he would destroy them.
    • Moses was the LORD's chosen one.
    • Moses stood before the LORD in the breach.
    • Moses stood there to turn back the LORD's wrath from destroying them.
    • If Moses had not done this, the LORD would have destroyed them.
24. 106:24
    • They despised the desirable land.
    • They did not believe the LORD's word.
25. 106:25
    • They grumbled in their tents.
    • They did not listen to the voice of the LORD.
26. 106:26
    • The LORD raised his hand against them in an oath.
    • The oath was to make them fall in the wilderness.
27. 106:27
    • The oath was also to make their offspring fall among the nations.
    • The oath was to scatter them throughout the lands.
28. 106:28
    • They attached themselves to Baal of Peor.
    • They ate sacrifices offered to the dead.
29. 106:29
    • They provoked the LORD to anger by their deeds.
    • A plague broke out among them.
30. 106:30
    • Phinehas stood up.
    • Phinehas intervened and executed judgment.
    • The plague was stopped.
31. 106:31
    • It was counted to Phinehas as righteousness.
    • It was counted to him from generation to generation, forever.
32. 106:32
    • They angered the LORD at the waters of Meribah.
    • It went badly for Moses on account of them.
33. 106:33
    • They rebelled against his spirit, which may mean the LORD's spirit or Moses' own spirit.
    • Moses spoke rashly with his lips.
34. 106:34
    • They did not destroy the peoples.
    • The LORD had commanded them concerning those peoples.
35. 106:35
    • They mixed with the nations.
    • They learned the deeds of those nations.
36. 106:36
    • They served the idols of those nations.
    • The idols became a snare to them.
37. 106:37
    • They sacrificed their sons to demons.
    • They sacrificed their daughters to demons.
38. 106:38
    • They shed innocent blood.
    • The blood was the blood of their sons and daughters.
    • They sacrificed their sons and daughters to the idols of Canaan.
    • The land was polluted with blood.
39. 106:39
    • They became unclean through their deeds.
    • They prostituted themselves by their actions.
40. 106:40
    • The LORD's anger burned against his people.
    • The LORD abhorred his own inheritance.
41. 106:41
    • The LORD gave them into the hand of the nations.
    • Those who hated them ruled over them.
42. 106:42
    • Their enemies oppressed them.
    • They were subdued under the hand of their enemies.
43. 106:43
    • Many times the LORD delivered them.
    • They were rebellious in their counsel.
    • They were brought low in their iniquity.
44. 106:44
    • The LORD saw their distress.
    • The LORD heard their cry.
45. 106:45
    • The LORD remembered his covenant for their sake.
    • The LORD relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
46. 106:46
    • The LORD caused them to be objects of compassion before all their captors.
47. 106:47
    • The speaker asks the LORD their God to save them.
    • The speaker asks the LORD to gather them from among the nations.
    • The purpose is to give thanks to the LORD's holy name.
    • The purpose is to glory in the LORD's praise.
48. 106:48
    • Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.
    • All the people say Amen, which may be a statement that they said it or a call for them to say it.
    • The LORD is to be praised.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

106:1

"Praise the LORD" translates the single Hebrew word *hallelujah*, a plural command meaning "you all, praise Yah" (Yah being the short form of God's personal name. That name is what LORD in small capital letters stands for throughout: the Hebrew has the name (YHWH), not the ordinary word for "lord" or "master." "Faithful love" renders *hesed*, the loyalty owed within a binding relationship), not warm feeling but committed, dependable treatment of someone you are bound to.

106:3

Blessed means truly happy and well off.

106:5

"The people who belong to you" translates a word meaning an inheritance or allotted share of land. Israel is pictured as the portion God received as his own permanent holding, the way each family received its own field.

106:6

"Our fathers" means the people in their family who lived long ago. Sin means doing wrong and turning away from God.

106:7

The Red Sea is Hebrew *yam suph*, literally "sea of reeds." Which body of water is meant is disputed; the traditional identification is an arm of the Red Sea, but the Hebrew name itself suggests reedy marsh water. Verses 7–12 retell the escape from Egypt described in Exodus 14.

106:8

"For his name's sake" means for the sake of his reputation. In the Bible a name stands for who someone really is.

106:10

The KJV word "redeemed" means bought back. It was the ordinary word for paying money to set a slave or prisoner free.

106:14

The craving is the episode in Numbers 11, where the people demanded meat instead of the manna they had been given. "Put God to the test" means to push him to prove himself by producing what they wanted, a challenge, not a sincere question.

106:15

The King James "sent leanness into their soul" translates a phrase meaning a wasting away of the person's very life or appetite. In Numbers 11 God sends the quail they demanded, and a plague along with it.

106:16

Aaron was Moses' older brother and Israel's first priest. "The man set apart for the LORD" translates "holy one," meaning someone designated for God's exclusive service, a job description, not a comment on his character. The jealousy is the rebellion of Numbers 16, which challenged Moses' and Aaron's right to lead and to handle sacred things.

106:17

Dathan and Abiram were leaders of that rebellion. In Numbers 16 the ground splits open and they, their households and their belongings drop into it.

106:18

In the same account, fire kills the 250 men who had presumed to burn incense, a priestly act, as a test of who was authorized to approach God.

106:19

Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai, the mountain where Israel received the commandments. The calf is the gold image of Exodus 32, made while Moses was on the mountain. A "molten image" is one cast from metal melted and poured into a mold.

106:20

"Their glory" means God himself, described by the splendor that belonged to him. Ancient Jewish scribal tradition records that the line originally read "his glory" and was altered out of reverence. Bull and calf images were standard equipment in the religions around Israel, often as pedestals or symbols for a god; the psalm's sting is in "that eats grass", the substitute is livestock.

106:22

"The land of Ham" is Egypt. In the table of nations in Genesis 10, Egypt is descended from Noah's son Ham, so "Ham" works here as a poetic name for the country.

106:23

"Stood in the gap" is a military picture: when a city wall is breached, someone has to plant himself in the hole and hold off what is coming through. The scene is Exodus 32, where Moses argues God out of destroying the people.

106:24

"The good land" is Canaan, the territory promised to Israel's ancestors. The refusal is Numbers 13–14: scouts report the land is unconquerable, and the people decline to enter it.

106:26

Raising the hand is the physical gesture that accompanied swearing an oath, the way a raised right hand does in a courtroom today. The oath is that this generation will die in the desert rather than enter the land.

106:27

Scattering among the nations is exile, being deported and dispersed among foreign peoples, the standard ancient consequence of military defeat and the situation the psalm's closing prayer assumes.

106:28

Baal of Peor was the local god worshiped at Mount Peor in Moab; "Baal" means "lord" or "owner" and was applied to many local deities. The episode is Numbers 25. The Hebrew for "joined themselves" suggests being yoked or harnessed to something. "Sacrifices offered to gods that are dead and lifeless" is genuinely ambiguous in Hebrew: it can mean offerings made to lifeless idols, or food offered to the spirits of dead ancestors, a rite practiced in the region and forbidden to Israel.

106:29

"Plague" here means a sudden lethal outbreak understood as a direct blow from God, not an ordinary illness.

106:30

Phinehas was Aaron's grandson, a priest. In Numbers 25 he ends the outbreak by killing an Israelite man and a Midianite woman caught together in the act that provoked it. "Stepped in to carry out justice" translates a verb meaning to intervene and settle a matter, often used of arbitrating a dispute.

106:31

"Credited to him" is an accounting term: the act was entered in his account as righteousness. The same phrase is used of Abraham's trust in Genesis 15:6. In Numbers 25 the reward is a permanent priesthood for his descendants, which is what "for all generations" points to.

106:32

"The waters of strife" translates the place name Meribah, which means "quarrelling." At Numbers 20 the people demand water; Moses strikes the rock instead of speaking to it as instructed, and is told he will not lead Israel into the promised land. That is what "things went badly for Moses" refers to.

106:33

Whose spirit was rebelled against is unsettled in the Hebrew: it may be God's spirit that the people defied, or Moses' own temper that they pushed past its limit. Both readings have been held since antiquity, and the line is left open here.

106:34

The reference is to the command in Deuteronomy that Israel destroy the existing populations of Canaan rather than make treaties with them. The psalm's charge is that Israel disobeyed by leaving them in place.

106:35

In the KJV, "heathen" simply means the nations around Israel, the peoples who worshiped other gods.

106:36

An idol is a carved or cast image of a god, treated as the place where that god could be approached. A "snare" is a hunter's trap, bait that catches the animal that goes for it.

106:37

"Demons" translates *shedim*, a rare Hebrew word borrowed from Akkadian, where it named protective spirits. Here it labels the gods to whom the sacrifices were made as something other than gods. Child sacrifice is attested in the region and is repeatedly condemned in Israel's law.

106:38

"The land was made filthy" reflects the ancient idea that spilled innocent blood contaminates the ground itself until it is dealt with, the land, not just the killer, is affected.

106:39

Israel's relationship with God is regularly described as a marriage, so worship of other gods is described as adultery or prostitution. The King James "went a whoring" is that metaphor; it is not a charge of sexual misconduct as such, though rites involving sex were part of some of the cults in question.

106:40

"The people who were his own" is again the inheritance image of verse 5: God is disgusted with the very portion he had taken as his own.

106:41

Being handed over to foreign rule is the pattern of the book of Judges and, later, of the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests.

106:45

The King James "repented" does not mean God was sorry for wrongdoing. The Hebrew verb means to change course or relent, to hold back a punishment that had been announced. "Covenant" is a formal, binding agreement, sworn and permanent, of the kind ancient kings made with peoples and with each other.

106:46

Ancient conquerors deported defeated populations. The line asks the reader to picture Israelites living under foreign masters whose treatment of them was unexpectedly humane.

106:47

This request places the psalm's singers among people already scattered abroad, praying to be brought home, the situation of the Babylonian exile and after.

106:48

This verse is not part of the psalm proper. It is the closing blessing that marks the end of the fourth of the five collections the book of Psalms is divided into; each collection ends with a similar formula. "Amen" is a Hebrew word meaning roughly "it is reliable" or "let it stand," spoken by a congregation to endorse what has just been said.