Psalms 106:13 - Meaning and Application

This verse gives a short summary of Israel’s rebellions in the wilderness, and of God’s anger against those sins. The apostle also uses this history to warn Christians (1 Corinthians 10:5 and following), because these things were written to teach us not to sin as they did, so we do not suffer as they did.

The first cause of their sin was that they ignored God’s works and God’s word, as Psalm 106:13 says. They soon forgot what he had done for them, and the good he showed them left no lasting mark on their hearts. People really do forget God’s mercies when they do not use them well or try to repay his goodness with thankful obedience.

The psalm says they “made haste,” and that can be taken in two ways. They were quick to forget, and they were also quick to complain. They expected to reach Canaan very soon, and when that did not happen, they doubted whether they would ever get there. Because they would not wait on God, every delay felt unbearable, and every obstacle seemed too great. But the believer does not rush ahead in unbelief, as Isaiah says, “He who believes will not be in a hurry” (Isaiah 28:16).

They also forgot God’s works, which were clear signs of his wisdom, power, and goodness. It is as if they denied what they had seen with their own eyes. This is said again later, where they forgot God their Savior, meaning they forgot that he had saved them. When people forget God’s works, they are really forgetting God himself, because he makes himself known through what he does.

What they forgot was not something distant or unclear. It was what God had done for them in Egypt, in the land of Ham, and at the Red Sea, things they had only recently seen and talked about. These were great works, wondrous works, and terrible works, in the sense that they inspired awe in Israel and fear in their enemies. Yet even miracles can fade from memory when people do not take them to heart.

They also paid no attention to what God had said to them, and they would not trust his promise. They did not wait for his counsel. Even though Moses spoke for God, they made decisions without seeking him and formed demands without asking him. They wanted Canaan right away, and they had no patience for God’s timing. Psalm 106 later explains this by saying they did not believe his word and did not listen to the Lord’s voice, even though he gave them counsel through Moses, Aaron, Caleb, and Joshua (Numbers 14:6-7). Those who will not wait for God’s counsel often end up ruled by their own desires and plans.

The psalm then names several of their sins, along with signs of God’s anger. First, they demanded meat, even though they were already getting bread from heaven. They were in the wilderness, where God was providing for them miraculously, and still nothing satisfied them but flesh to eat. They were also very near Canaan, yet they would not wait for the better food they would find there. They had their own flocks and herds, but they refused to use them. Instead, they wanted God to give them meat the same way he gave them bread, or they would not trust him at all.

Their desire was not just a simple wish, but a greedy craving. Even a lawful desire becomes sinful when it grows wild and selfish. That is why the New Testament can call this lusting after evil things (1 Corinthians 10:6), even though the quails themselves were a gift from God and a good thing in themselves (Psalm 105:40). They also tempted God in the desert, where they had already seen enough of his power and kindness to trust him. They questioned whether he could, and would, satisfy them.

God’s response was severe. He gave them what they asked for, but he gave it in anger and with a curse. He sent leanness into their souls, meaning inner trouble, guilt, fear, and deep dissatisfaction. Their bodies were fed, but their hearts were emptied. The plague that struck them while the meat was still in their mouths also showed this judgment clearly (Numbers 11:33). What a person asks for in a sinful mood is often given in anger.

Many people can live richly and still have a lean soul. Their bodies may be full, but they have no love for God, no gratitude, and no appetite for the bread of life. Such people forget themselves completely, feeding the body while starving the soul. God gives earthly blessings in love only when he also gives grace to use them for his glory, and then the soul finds its true satisfaction (Isaiah 55:2).

They also challenged the government God had set over them, both in the nation and in worship. They envied Moses his authority in the camp, where he led the people and served as judge. They envied Aaron his office as the holy one of the Lord, set apart as high priest. Korah wanted the priesthood for himself, while Dathan and Abiram, as princes from the tribe of Reuben, claimed the right to lead as if birth order alone gave them that place. Those who envy the honors God has given others are working toward their own ruin.

God’s judgment on that rebellion was enough to make anyone tremble. Those who rose against civil authority were punished when the earth opened and swallowed them, as if they were unfit to stand on God’s ground because they would not submit to his rule. Those who tried to seize priestly authority, the things that belonged to God, were struck by fire from the Lord and consumed. The ones who tried to act as priests became the sacrifice themselves under divine justice.

The flame burned up the wicked. Though they competed with Aaron, the Lord’s holy servant, for holiness (Numbers 16:3, Numbers 16:5), God judged them wicked and destroyed them. In time, he will destroy the man of sin, that wicked one, even with all his proud claims to holiness.

They also made and worshiped the golden calf at Horeb, the very place where the law was given and where God had plainly said not to make or bow to any carved image. They did both, they made a calf and worshiped it (Psalm 106:19). In doing this, they openly defied the two great lights God has given to guide human life.

First, they defied human reason. They exchanged their glory, their God, or at least his visible display, which had always been in a cloud, for the image of Apis, an Egyptian idol. That was a silly and shameful choice, because they worshiped an ox that eats grass, one of the lowest forms of life (Psalm 106:20). Idolaters make fools of themselves. They dishonor God by picturing him as an animal, and they dishonor themselves by worshiping what they made.

Paul explains this as changing the glory of the immortal God (Romans 1:23). Second, they defied divine revelation, which God had given them both in his words and in his mighty works. His wondrous deeds had shown clearly that the Lord Jehovah is the only true and living God, and that he alone should be worshiped (Psalm 106:21, Psalm 106:22).

For this sin, God declared that he would cut them off as a people, just as they had, in effect, cut him off from being their God. He spoke of destroying them (Psalm 106:23). He would have done it, if Moses, his chosen servant, had not stood in the breach (Psalm 106:23). Moses stepped in at the right time and pleaded with God about the ruin he was about to bring, and by this he turned away God’s anger.

Here we see God’s mercy, and how quickly his anger can be turned aside, even from a provoking people. We also see the power of prayer, and the honor God gives to his chosen servants in heaven. Moses is also a picture of Christ, God’s chosen one, the one in whom his soul delights, who stood in the breach to turn away wrath from a sinful world and still lives to make intercession.

They also believed the evil report of the spies about Canaan, even though it went against God’s promise (Psalm 106:24). They despised the pleasant land. Canaan was a good and fruitful land (Deuteronomy 8:7), but they treated it as if it were not worth the risk, even with God himself leading them. So they wanted to choose a captain and go back to Egypt. They did not believe God’s word. Instead, they grumbled in their tents and wrongly accused God of bringing them there so the Canaanites could destroy them (Numbers 14:2, Numbers 14:3).

When they were reminded of God’s power and promise, they refused to listen and even tried to stone those who spoke to them (Numbers 14:10). The heavenly Canaan is also a pleasant land. God has left us a promise of entering it, but many despise it. They neglect or refuse the offer, preferring the wealth and pleasures of this world, and they resent the trouble and danger of this life that lead to that better country. This also greatly displeases God.

So he lifted up his hand against them in threat to destroy them in the wilderness. He even swore in his wrath that they would not enter his rest (Psalm 95:11; Numbers 14:28). He also threatened that their children would be overthrown and scattered (Psalm 106:26, Psalm 106:27), and that the whole nation would be dispersed and lose its inheritance. But Moses won mercy for their children, so they could enter Canaan. Those who despise God’s gifts, especially the pleasant land, lose those gifts and will be shut out forever from the truly pleasant land.

They also committed a great sin in the matter of Peor, and this was the sin of the new generation, when they were almost in Canaan (Psalm 106:28). They joined themselves to Baal-peor, a Moabite idol, and were trapped in both idolatry and adultery, bodily and spiritual unfaithfulness, like a marriage betrayal against God (Numbers 25:1-3). Those who often ate from the altar of the living God now ate sacrifices offered to the dead, meaning the idols of Moab, or to false gods connected with the dead. In this way they provoked God by their own inventions, showing contempt for him, his commands, and his warnings (Psalm 106:29).

The guilt of Peor was so serious that, long afterward, it was said they were not cleansed from it (Joshua 22:17). God showed his anger in two ways. He sent a plague that quickly swept away 24,000 shameless sinners. He also stirred up Phinehas, a priestly leader, to use his office as a magistrate and stop the spread of the sin. Phinehas stood up in zeal for the Lord of hosts and carried out judgment on Zimri and Cozbi, leading sinners. He enforced God’s law, and that act pleased God so much that the plague stopped (Psalm 106:30).

By this and other acts of public justice on that occasion (Numbers 25:4, Numbers 25:5), the guilt stopped being national, and the wider judgment was lifted. When the proper officers did their duty, God left the matter to them and no longer continued the plague. National justice helps prevent national judgments. Because Phinehas showed such zeal, a special honor was given to him. What he did was counted to him for righteousness in all later generations (Psalm 106:31), and his family received the priesthood as its lasting share.

It is the honor of God’s people to be zealous against sin. They kept on murmuring until the very end of their wandering, for in the fortieth year they angered God at the waters of strife (Psalm 106:32), the event described in Numbers 20:3-5.

What made this sin worse was that it went badly for Moses because of them. Moses was the meekest man on earth, but their constant complaining was so irritating that it upset him. By then he was very old and less guarded, so he spoke without thinking, as Psalm 106:33 says, and he did not speak as he should have in that moment. In anger he said, “Listen now, you rebels. Must we bring water out of this rock for you?”

This was Moses’s weakness, and Scripture records it to warn us. When we are under pressure, we should keep a tight hold on our words, as Psalm 39:1-3 says, and watch our spirit so it does not keep hold of bitterness. When a person is provoked, even one with much wisdom and grace finds it hard not to speak rashly. But the blame also falls on the people, because they provoked his spirit in the same way they angered God himself.

We must answer not only for our own angry words, but also for the trouble we stir up in others, especially in people who would otherwise be gentle and calm. God showed his displeasure with their sin by keeping Moses and Aaron out of Canaan because of what happened there. In this way, God showed how much he hates hot temper and careless speech, even in his closest servants. If he dealt so severely with Moses for one careless word, what do those deserve who have spoken many proud and wicked words?

God also took away from them the blessing of Moses’s leadership just when they needed it most. So Moses’s death was more of a punishment to them than to him. It is right for God to remove from us people who bless us, when we are peevish toward them and hurt their spirit.