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Psalms

About this book
Psalm 106

1 Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, and his loyal love endures. 2 Who can adequately recount the Lord’s mighty acts or relate all his praiseworthy deeds? 3 How blessed are those who promote justice and do what is right all the time.⁠ 4 Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people. Pay attention to me, when you deliver, 5 so I may see the prosperity of your chosen ones, rejoice along with your nation, and boast along with the people who belong to you. 6 We have sinned like our ancestors; we have done wrong, we have done evil.⁠ 7 Our ancestors in Egypt failed to appreciate your miraculous deeds. They failed to remember your many acts of loyal love, and they rebelled at the sea, by the Red Sea. 8 Yet he delivered them for the sake of his reputation that he might reveal his power.⁠ 9 He shouted at the Red Sea and it dried up;⁠ he led them through the deep water as if it were a desert.⁠ 10 He delivered them from the power of the one who hated them and rescued them from the power of the enemy. 11 The water covered their enemies; not even one of them survived. 12 They believed his promises; they sang praises to him. 13 They quickly forgot what he had done; they did not wait for his instructions. 14 In the wilderness they had an insatiable craving for meat; they challenged God in the wastelands. 15 He granted their request, then struck them with a disease. 16 In the camp they resented Moses and Aaron the Lord’s holy priest. 17 The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan; it engulfed the group led by Abiram. 18 Fire burned their group; the flames scorched the wicked. 19 They made an image of a calf at Horeb and worshiped a metal idol.⁠ 20 They traded their majestic God for the image of an ox that eats grass.⁠ 21 They rejected the God who delivered them, the one who performed great deeds in Egypt, 22 amazing feats in the land of Ham, mighty acts by the Red Sea. 23 He threatened to destroy them, but Moses, his chosen one, interceded with him and turned back his destructive anger. 24 They rejected the fruitful land; they did not believe his promise. 25 They grumbled in their tents; they did not obey the Lord. 26 So he made a solemn vow that he would make them die in the wilderness, 27 make their descendants die among the nations, and scatter them among foreign lands. 28 They worshiped Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices offered to the dead.⁠ 29 They made the Lord angry by their actions, and a plague broke out among them. 30 Phinehas took a stand and intervened, and the plague subsided. 31 This was credited to Phinehas as a righteous act⁠ for all generations to come.⁠ 32 They made him angry by the waters of Meribah, and Moses suffered because of them, 33 for they aroused his temper, and he spoke rashly. 34 They did not destroy the nations, as the Lord had commanded them to do. 35 They mixed in with the nations and learned their ways. 36 They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them. 37 They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons. 38 They shed innocent blood—the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. The land was polluted by bloodshed. 39 They were defiled by their deeds and unfaithful in their actions. 40 So the Lord was angry with his people and despised the people who belonged to him. 41 He handed them over to the nations, and those who hated them ruled over them. 42 Their enemies oppressed them; they were subject to their authority. 43 Many times he delivered them, but they had a rebellious attitude and degraded themselves by their sin. 44 Yet he took notice of their distress, when he heard their cry for help. 45 He remembered his covenant with them and relented because of his great loyal love. 46 He caused all their conquerors to have pity on them. 47 Deliver us, O Lord, our God. Gather us from among the nations. Then we will give thanks to your holy name, and boast about your praiseworthy deeds. 48 The Lord God of Israel deserves praise, in the future and forevermore. Let all the people say, “We agree! Praise the Lord!”⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Ezekiel 20:9 and Psalm 106:8

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Ezekiel and Psalm 106 show God acting within the same honor system that shapes human behavior. God rescues Israel to keep the divine name from being disrespected by other nations, which reflects a world where even God guards his dignity and avoids shame.

Passages

Ezekiel 20:9

Hebrew Bible
7 I said to them, “Each of you must get rid of the detestable idols you keep before you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.” 8 But they rebelled against me and refused to listen to me; no one got rid of their detestable idols, nor did they abandon the idols of Egypt. Then I decided to pour out my rage on them and fully vent my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. 9 I acted for the sake of my reputation, so that I would not be profaned before the nations among whom they lived, before whom I revealed myself by bringing them out of the land of Egypt. 10 “‘So I brought them out of the land of Egypt and led them to the wilderness. 11 I gave them my statutes and revealed my regulations to them. The one who carries them out will live by them!
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ezekiel

Psalm 106:8

Hebrew Bible
6 We have sinned like our ancestors; we have done wrong, we have done evil. 7 Our ancestors in Egypt failed to appreciate your miraculous deeds. They failed to remember your many acts of loyal love, and they rebelled at the sea, by the Red Sea. 8 Yet he delivered them for the sake of his reputation that he might reveal his power. 9 He shouted at the Red Sea and it dried up; he led them through the deep water as if it were a desert. 10 He delivered them from the power of the one who hated them and rescued them from the power of the enemy.
600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

References

"... The final illustrative text I will consider is Psalm 106:7–8. This text is an excellent example of how various motive statement themes can be woven together for great effect. Psalm 106:7 details the sins of Israel beginning in Egypt. These sins include: the failure to consider YHWH’s wonderful acts, a lack of remembrance of his abundant חסד ('lovingkindness), and rebellion. The center point of the three, the failure to remember YHWH’s abundant חסד is extremely poignant from a motive perspective. Roughly 5% of the passages in our study contain זכר ('to remember'). The uses include YHWH’s remembrance of the covenant (Exodus 6:5; Deuteronomy 9:27; Jeremiah 14:21; Psalm 105:42), of his fatherly relationship with Israel (Jeremiah 31:20), of Jeremiah’s faithful service (Jeremiah 18:20), YHWH’s not remembering sin (Isaiah 43:25; Psalm 25:7; 79:8), and the appeal to YHWH to remember mercy and חסד (Psalm 25:6–7). If we expand our search to include the use of חסד without remembering we find its positive use in motive statements in Deuteronomy 7:12; 1 Kings 3:6; Jeremiah 9:23; 31:3; Hosea 6:6; Micah 7:18; Psalm 6:5; 25:6–7; 44:27; 69:17; 103:11; 106:7; 109:21; 143:12; and Lamentations 3:32 ... YHWH would act for the sake of his name in order that his power might be “acknowledged, a key motif in the exodus story and in Ezekiel (Exodus 14:4, 18; Ezekiel 20:26, 38, 42, 44) and an aim for the deliverance the psalm longs for.” ..."
Michael Thigpen, Divine Motive in the Hebrew Bible: A Comprehensive Survey and Analysis (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2015), 65–66.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Ezekiel 20:9 and Psalm 106:8

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