Psalms 106
Psalm 106 is the dark twin of Psalm 105. The two stand side by side and tell the same history from opposite angles. Psalm 105 recounts everything God did - the promise to Abraham, Joseph in Egypt, the plagues, the Exodus, the gift of the land - and never once mentions Israel's sin. Psalm 106 walks the very same ground and tells the story of what the people did: provoked Him at the sea, forgot His works, made a calf, despised the land, served idols, shed innocent blood. Where Psalm 105 is unbroken thanksgiving, Psalm 106 is unbroken confession. And yet - this is the wonder of it - both psalms open with the same call to praise, because the God of the second psalm is exactly as good as the God of the first. The history is shameful; the God who keeps saving through it is glorious.3
The psalm is built on a rhythm anyone who has tried to follow God will recognize. The people sin; they suffer the consequence; they cry out; God hears and saves; and before long they sin again. It happens at the Red Sea, in the wilderness, at Horeb, at Baal-peor, in the land. The refrain is never that the people finally learned their lesson. The refrain is God's response: Nevertheless he saved them for his name's sake (v. 8); Many times did he deliver them (v. 43); Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry: and he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies (vv. 44-45). The constant in the story is not human faithfulness but divine mercy - the one thing steady enough to hold a people who could not hold themselves.
It helps to know where this psalm sits. It is the last psalm of Book IV of the Psalter, and it ends with a great doxology - Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: and let all the people say, Amen (v. 48) - that closes the whole book on a note of praise. But its final petition, just before that doxology, has the ache of exile in it: Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the heathen (v. 47). A scattered people, far from home, look back over a long history of their own failure and God's mercy, and stake everything on the same mercy one more time. They do not plead their record; they have just spent forty-six verses demolishing it. They plead His name, His covenant, and His mercy that endureth for ever. That is the only ground a sinner has ever had to stand on - and the psalm proves it is ground enough.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Psalm 106:1-12 · Praise and the Red SeaNevertheless He Saved Them for His Name’s Sake
1Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. 2Who can utter the mighty acts of the LORD? who can shew forth all his praise? 3Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times. 4Remember me, O LORD, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; 5That I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance. 6We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly. 7Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea. 8Nevertheless he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known. 9He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness. 10And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. 11And the waters covered their enemies: there was not one of them left. 12Then believed they his words; they sang his praise.
The psalm opens the way it will close, with praise - Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever (v. 1) - and then makes a move that takes the breath away. Having declared God good, it turns at once and declares the people the opposite: We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly (v. 6). Notice three things in that confession. First, it is honest to the point of bluntness - three verbs piled up, sinned, committed iniquity, done wickedly, with no softening. Second, it is owned in the first person: not they sinned, but we have sinned. The one praying does not stand at a safe distance from the failures of the past; he climbs down into them and counts himself among the guilty. And third, it is communal and stretches across the generations - with our fathers. This is a people confessing a pattern older than themselves, a rebellion woven into the family line. To pray verse 6 is to give up every claim of being the exception, the better generation, the one who would have done differently. It is to take your place in a long line of the forgiven.
Psalm 106:13-23They Made a Calf in Horeb
13They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel: 14But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert. 15And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul. 16They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the LORD. 17The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram. 18And a fire was kindled in their company; the flame burned up the wicked. 19They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image. 20Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass. 21They forgat God their saviour, which had done great things in Egypt; 22Wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red sea. 23Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.
Verse 12 had ended on a high note - Then believed they his words; they sang his praise. Verse 13 shatters it in a single phrase: They soon forgat his works. The word soon is devastating. The song of the sea was barely cold; the water had hardly dried on the far bank. And already the memory was gone, and with it the trust: they waited not for his counsel. Forgetting, in this psalm, is not innocent forgetfulness. It is the engine of every rebellion that follows. Because they forgot what God had done, they lusted in the wilderness (v. 14), envied His chosen leaders (v. 16), and made an idol (v. 19). Memory and faith are bound together here, and so are forgetting and sin. The remarkable detail in verse 15 deserves a pause: he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul. Sometimes the judgment is not that God withholds what we demand, but that He grants it - and we discover, too late, that getting exactly what we craved has left us emptier than before. A wanting that has outrun God's counsel can be answered and still starve the soul.
At the center of this section stands the worst of the failures: They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass (vv. 19-20). The horror of it is captured in that word changed. They had been given the glory of the living God - the God who split the sea, who spoke from the fire of the mountain - and they traded Him for a metal animal, an ox that eateth grass. It is the oldest and stupidest exchange in the world: swapping the Creator for something far smaller, and then bowing to it. The psalm does not even argue against the idol; it simply describes it, and the description is the whole argument. What kind of creature trades the glory of God for the image of a grazing beast? And yet the apostle Paul, describing the human heart in general, reaches for this exact language - people who changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts (Rom. 1:23). The golden calf was not a one-time ancient blunder. It is the pattern of every idol since: trading the immeasurable for the manageable, the Glory for the grass-eater.
Psalm 106:24-31Counted Unto Him for Righteousness
24Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word: 25But murmured in their tents, and hearkened not unto the voice of the LORD. 26Therefore he lifted up his hand against them, to overthrow them in the wilderness: 27To overthrow their seed also among the nations, and to scatter them in the lands. 28They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead. 29Thus they provoked him to anger with their inventions: and the plague brake in upon them. 30Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment: and so the plague was stayed. 31And that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore.
The failures keep coming, and verse 24 names one that is easy to pass over but cuts deep: Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word. The pleasant land was the very thing God had promised, the goal of the whole exodus - and they despised it. Why? The verse tells us in the next breath: they believed not his word. Their contempt for the gift was, at root, unbelief toward the Giver. When the spies came back from Canaan with a report of giants, the people decided God could not be trusted to do what He had said, and so the good land looked to them like a death-trap rather than a gift (Num. 14). Unbelief always distorts the size of things - it shrinks God and magnifies the obstacle until the promise itself seems foolish to want. And the consequence is exactly fitted to the sin: because they would not enter the land, he lifted up his hand against them, to overthrow them in the wilderness (v. 26), and warned of a scattering among the nations (v. 27) - a line that will return with terrible force at the end of the psalm, when the scattering has actually come and the people cry to be gathered home.
Verse 31 is worth lingering over, because it lifts a single moment into something permanent: Phinehas's deed was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore. To be counted righteous is the language of a ledger - something credited, reckoned, set down on the right side of the account. The same verb stands at the heart of Abraham's story in Genesis 15:6, where his trust in God's promise was counted to him for righteousness. The Hebrew Scriptures, then, already knew of a righteousness that is reckoned to a person, not merely earned by a flawless life - a right standing with God that is granted and credited. The psalm sets this counted righteousness against everything around it: a whole catalogue of sin, a people who could point to nothing in themselves, and yet a God who counts and credits and sets things on the right side of the account. It is a quiet shaft of light in a dark chapter. In a psalm whose whole burden is that the people had no righteousness of their own to plead, the word counted hints at the only kind of righteousness a sinner ever has - one received from God, reckoned to the account by His mercy.
Psalm 106:32-39They Were Mingled Among the Heathen
32They angered him also at the waters of strife, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes: 33Because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips. 34They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the LORD commanded them: 35But were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works. 36And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them. 37Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, 38And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood. 39Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions.
The catalogue presses on to the waters of strife - Meribah - where the people's grumbling drew even Moses into sin: They angered him also at the waters of strife, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes: because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips (vv. 32-33). This is a sobering note in the psalm. Moses, the great intercessor who had stood in the breach (v. 23), here falls himself - and the psalm is careful to trace why. It was not that Moses was wicked at heart; it was that the people's relentless provoking wore him down until he spake unadvisedly. The phrase for their sakes does not excuse Moses, but it does locate the corrosive pressure: a constant atmosphere of complaint and rebellion can pull even a faithful servant out of step. There is a quiet warning here about the company we keep and the climate we live in. We are more shaped by the steady provoking around us than we like to think, and even the strongest can be worn into a sin that, in a clearer moment, they would never have chosen. The intercessor needed an Intercessor too.
Once in the land, the failure changes shape. Earlier the people had rebelled against God directly; now they simply blur into the world around them: They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the LORD commanded them: but were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works (vv. 34-35). The progression in those two verses is the anatomy of every slow drift. First, an incomplete obedience - they did not do fully what God had said. Then, mingling - an easy, unremarkable blending in. Then, learned their works - the practices of the surrounding culture quietly became their own. And the end of the road is horrifying: they served their idols (v. 36), and eventually sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils (v. 37), until the land was polluted with blood (v. 38). No one in verse 34 intended to arrive at verse 38. That is precisely the point. The catastrophe did not come by a single dramatic choice but by a thousand small accommodations - a failure to draw a line, then a mingling, then a learning, then a serving. What begins as merely fitting in can end somewhere a person would once have found unthinkable.
Psalm 106:40-46He Remembered for Them His Covenant
40Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance. 41And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they that hated them ruled over them. 42Their enemies also oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their hand. 43Many times did he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity. 44Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry: 45And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies. 46He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives.
Now the psalm names the consequence it has been building toward. Because of the long history of sin, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against his people (v. 40), and He gave them into the hand of the heathen (v. 41) - the scattering threatened back in verse 27 has come. And then, in verses 43 to 45, the entire rhythm of the psalm is compressed into three verses. Verse 43 states the cycle outright: Many times did he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity. Read that slowly - many times. Not once, not twice; a wearying, repeating loop of deliverance and relapse. By every human measure the relationship should have collapsed long before. A patience like this has no parallel in ordinary life; we forgive a few times and then we are done. But the cycle in this psalm does not end where human patience ends, because it is not held up by human patience at all. The hinge is the next word, the same word that anchored the Red Sea: Nevertheless (v. 44). The people's side of the story is exhausted relapse. God's side is an inexhaustible nevertheless.
Psalm 106:47-48Save Us, and Gather Us
47Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the heathen, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise. 48Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: and let all the people say, Amen. Praise ye the LORD.
The psalm ends in two movements, and both are perfectly placed. First the petition: Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the heathen, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise (v. 47). After forty-six verses of confessed failure, the prayer is not reward us or even forgive us but simply save us - and notice the goal of the rescue. They do not ask to be gathered home merely for comfort or safety, but to give thanks unto thy holy name. The end of salvation is praise; they want to be rescued so that they can worship. Then comes the doxology: Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: and let all the people say, Amen. Praise ye the LORD (v. 48). This verse is not really part of the psalm alone; it is the great seal that closes the entire fourth book of the Psalter, lifting the eyes from one nation's failure to God's praise from everlasting to everlasting. And it ends with a summons: let all the people say, Amen. The honest confession of a whole history of sin does not finally collapse into despair. It rises into a congregation's Amen and one more Praise ye the LORD - the same call the psalm opened with, sung now by people who have looked their failure full in the face and found God's mercy larger than all of it.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Psalm 106 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for chesed (vv. 1, 45, “mercy”), for zakar (v. 45, “remembered” his covenant), and for the dense web of allusions to Exodus and Numbers that the psalm assumes its readers already know.
- Psalm 106 ↔ Exodus · Numbers · Romans · LukeIntertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Psalm 106 to the rest of Scripture - the golden calf and Moses in the breach (Exod. 32), Phinehas at Baal-peor (Num. 25), the salvation for his name's sake that Paul presses in Romans 5:8, and the gathering of the scattered that John 11:52 reads as Christ's own work.
- Psalm 106 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Psalm 106 - the relationship to Psalm 105, the meaning of standing “in the breach” in verse 23, and the force of the verb behind “repented” in verse 45 when its subject is God.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Nevertheless He Saved Them for His Name’s Sake
- Romans 5:8God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.The principle of verse 8 - salvation for the unworthy, grounded in God’s character rather than ours - pressed to its furthest point.
- Exodus 14:30-31Thus the LORD saved Israel that day... and the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD.The Red Sea deliverance of verses 8-12, told from the side of what God did.
- Ezekiel 36:22I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name’s sake.The same logic as verse 8 - God acting for His name’s sake, not the worth of the saved.
- Psalm 107:1O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.Verse 1 repeated to open the next book of the Psalter - the refrain of enduring mercy.
They Made a Calf in Horeb
- Exodus 32:11-14And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.Moses standing in the breach at Horeb (v. 23) - the intercession that turned away wrath.
- 1 Timothy 2:5There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.The office of the one in the breach (v. 23) carried to its fullness in a single Mediator.
- Romans 1:23Changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man... and fourfooted beasts.The exchange of verse 20 - trading the glory of God for a grazing beast - named as the pattern of all idolatry.
- Hebrews 7:25He ever liveth to make intercession for them.The intercession of verse 23 made unending - a Mediator whose standing in the gap does not end.
Counted Unto Him for Righteousness
- Numbers 25:10-13Phinehas... hath turned my wrath away... and he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement.The deed of verses 30-31 - the one who stood up and stayed the plague.
- Genesis 15:6And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.The same “counted for righteousness” of verse 31 - righteousness reckoned, not merely earned.
- Romans 4:3Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.The reckoning of verse 31 taken up by the New Testament to describe how a person is set right with God.
- Numbers 14:1-4Would God that we had died in this wilderness!... let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.The despising of the pleasant land in verse 24 - unbelief recoiling from God’s promised gift.
They Were Mingled Among the Heathen
- Numbers 20:10-12Hear now, ye rebels... And the LORD spake unto Moses... ye believed me not.The waters of strife (vv. 32-33) - where even Moses was worn into a sin by the people’s provoking.
- Judges 2:11-13And the children of Israel... served Baalim... and followed other gods.The mingling and idolatry of verses 35-36 worked out across the book of Judges.
- Romans 12:2Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.The opposite of being “mingled among the heathen” (v. 35) - the call not to blend into the surrounding pattern.
- 2 Corinthians 6:14-17Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.The danger of mingling in verse 35 answered by the call to a distinct belonging.
He Remembered for Them His Covenant
- Luke 1:72-73To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant.The covenant God “remembered” in verse 45, named at the dawn of the gospel as kept in Christ.
- Exodus 2:24And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham.The same divine remembering as verse 45 - God calling His promise to mind and acting on it.
- Lamentations 3:22It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.The “multitude of his mercies” of verse 45 - the only reason a sinful people is not destroyed.
- Nehemiah 9:26-28Yet... they rebelled against thee... and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours.The cycle of verses 43-45 confessed again - repeated rebellion met by repeated mercy.
Save Us, and Gather Us
- John 11:51-52That Jesus should die for that nation... that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.The gathering of the scattered that verse 47 prays for, named as the purpose of the cross.
- Matthew 23:37How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings.The same longing to gather the scattered (v. 47), now voiced by Christ over Jerusalem.
- Deuteronomy 30:3-4Then the LORD thy God... will return and gather thee from all the nations.The promise behind the prayer of verse 47 - God gathering His scattered people home.
- Psalm 41:13Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.The doxology of verse 48 - the same seal that closes another book of the Psalter in praise.