Psalms 106:34 - Meaning and Application

Here, the story ends with Israel in Canaan, and their conduct there matched their conduct in the wilderness. God dealt with them in both justice and mercy. They were very quick to provoke him, and the miracles and mercies that settled them in Canaan left no deeper mark on them than the wonders that brought them out of Egypt.

Notice the steps of their falling away. First, they spared the nations that God had sentenced to destruction (Psalm 106:34). After they received the good land God had promised, they showed no zeal against the wicked people the Lord had told them to drive out. They may have called it pity, but God’s mercy is already more than enough, and no one needs to be kinder than he is in his commands.

Then, after sparing them, they likely told themselves they would still keep a safe distance from them. But sin always slides downhill. One neglect opens the door to another. When they failed to destroy the heathen, they soon mixed with them, made alliances with them, and grew close to them. In time, they learned their ways (Psalm 106:35). Corruption spreads faster than holiness when the two are brought together.

At first, they may have thought only some of the other nations’ customs were harmless, even entertaining. But little by little, they learned their worship too (Psalm 106:36). They served their idols in the same way those nations did, and those idols became a trap to them. One sin led to many more, and it brought God’s judgments on them. They could feel those judgments, yet they did not know how to escape their own ruin.

Then came something far worse. After joining in the lighter parts of idolatry, they likely never imagined they would commit the cruel act of sacrificing their own children to false gods. Yet that is where they ended up (Psalm 106:37, 38). Satan was honored by the blood and slaughter of those who worshiped him. They offered their sons and daughters, pieces of themselves, to demons, and added murder, the most unnatural murder, to idolatry. It is shocking to think about.

They shed innocent blood, and the blood was as innocent as could be, the blood of their own children. This shows the power of the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, and it shows his hatred too. The beginning of idolatry and superstition, like the beginning of quarrels, is like opening a floodgate. Once people step onto that path, there is no evil they can be sure they will avoid, for God justly gives them over to a corrupt mind (Romans 1:28).

Their sin was also part of their punishment. By it, they wronged their country, because the land was polluted with blood (Psalm 106:38). That pleasant land, that holy land, was made unfit for the kind signs of God’s favor and presence that were meant to honor it. They also wronged their own consciences. They went after their own sinful inventions and defiled themselves with their own works, making themselves hateful in the sight of the holy God, and likely in their own eyes as well (Psalm 106:39).

So God brought judgment on them, and what else should we expect? His name is Jealous, and he is a jealous God. He became angry with them (Psalm 106:40). The wrath of God, like a consuming fire, was kindled against his people, because their sin was more insulting and ungrateful than the sin of the heathen who had never known him. He even said he hated his own inheritance, the people he once delighted in. The change was not in him, but in them.

This is one of the worst things about sin, it makes us hateful to God. And the closer people are to him in outward religion, the more hateful they become if they rebel against him, like a dunghill at our door. Then their enemies attacked them, and since their defense was gone, they became easy prey (Psalm 106:41, 42). God gave them into the hands of the heathen. Their punishment fit their sin. They had mixed with the heathen and learned their works, and from them they had willingly taken the infection of sin. So God justly used those same people as the instruments of their correction.

Sinners often end up ruined by the very people through whom they let themselves become corrupted. Satan, who tempts, will also torment. The heathen hated them. People who turn away from God lose his love and gain none from Satan. When those who hated them ruled over them, and they were brought under their power, it is no surprise that they oppressed them and ruled harshly over them. In this way, God made them feel the difference between serving him and serving the kings of the surrounding lands (2 Chronicles 12:8).

Even when God gave them some relief, they kept sinning, and so their troubles continued (Psalm 106:43). This points to the time of the Judges, when God often raised up deliverers and rescued them, yet they fell back into idolatry and offended God with their own counsel, their sinful inventions. So he handed them over to another oppressor, and in the end they were brought very low because of their sin. Those who dishonor themselves by sin, and will not humble themselves by repentance, are rightly brought low by God’s judgments.

At last they cried out to God, and he returned to them in favor (Psalm 106:44-46). They were disciplined for their sins, but not destroyed, struck down, but not cast off. God showed himself in mercy. He looked on their trouble, noticed their distress, and heard their cry with tender compassion (Exodus 3:7). He also overlooked their rebellion. Though he had every reason to say he would destroy them, he relented according to the riches of his mercy and reversed the sentence.

He also showed himself as a God of truth. He remembered his covenant for their sake and kept every word he had spoken. However sinful they were, he would not break with them, because he would not break his own promise. He also showed himself as a God of power, with every heart in his hand and able to turn it wherever he pleases. He even caused their captors, who had hated them and ruled them harshly, to pity them.

He did more than hold back the rest of their enemies’ anger so it would not wipe them out. He also put compassion into hearts that were hard as stone and made those enemies soften. That was more than any human skill could ever do, even with the strongest speech.

We should take note of this: God can turn lions into lambs. When a person’s ways please the Lord, God can even make that person’s enemies feel pity and live at peace with him. When God takes pity, others will too. A peaceful God brings peace to everything around him.

The psalm ends with prayer and praise. First comes a prayer for the full rescue of God’s people. Even after the Lord brought his people back from captivity, there was still reason to pray, “Lord, bring us back from captivity” (Psalm 126:1, Psalm 126:4). So here the prayer is, “Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations” (Psalm 106:47).

We can assume that many who had been forced into foreign lands in the days of the judges, like Naomi, had not yet returned when David began to reign (Ruth 1:1). Saul’s rule had given them little hope. So it was fitting to pray that the Lord would gather the scattered Israelites from among the nations, so they could give thanks to his holy name.

They needed not only a reason to give thanks, but also a heart ready to thank him. They also needed a place to do it, namely the courts of the Lord’s house, from which they had been shut out. Then they could rejoice in his praise, even over those who had mocked them and challenged them to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land.

The psalm then closes with praise for the beginning and growth of this deliverance (Psalm 106:48): “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.” He is a blessed God from eternity and will be blessed to eternity, so all who worship him should praise him in the same way.

Let the priests say this first, and then let all the people answer, “Amen, Hallelujah,” showing their glad agreement with the prayers, praises, and confessions being offered. According to this order, or direction, we read that when this psalm, or at least its closing verses, was sung, all the people said Amen and praised the Lord by saying Hallelujah. These two words fit well in gathered worship, because they show that the people join with their ministers in prayer and praise. They say Amen to the prayers, and Hallelujah to the praises.