For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Psalm 106:1-5

1 Praise the Lord.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures for ever.

2 Who can proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord
    or fully declare his praise?
3 Blessed are those who act justly,
    who always do what is right.

4 Remember me, Lord, when you show favour to your people,
    come to my aid when you save them,
5 that I may enjoy the prosperity of your chosen ones,
    that I may share in the joy of your nation
    and join your inheritance in giving praise.

A. Find Out:

1. What are we to do and why? v.1
2. What seems an almost impossible task? v.2
3. Who are blessed? v.3
4. When does he ask the Lord to remember him? v.4a
5. When does he ask the Lord to come to his aid? v.4b
6. For what three results? v.5

B. Think:

1. What are we told about the Lord in these verses?
2. What is implied about the psalmist’s present state?
3. What does he know IS possible with the Lord?

C. Comment:

  This psalm is mostly about the failures of Israel in their long relationship with the Lord, but there is no real hint of that in these five opening verses. It opens with a call to give thanks to God (v.1) and, as always in the psalms, gives a reason for that. Here it is simply because His love goes on for ever. We perhaps take that for granted, but it is repeated again and again in Scripture. It means His love will never cease; it is always there and it is there for us!

  But love is always expressive, and it is expressed in God’s mighty acts (v.2) and (implied) they are so many you couldn’t proclaim them all and couldn’t do justice to your praise of Him. But knowledge of His mighty acts makes him realise that this calls for the response of a righteous life (v.3) because (again implied) if you have seen what God has done you will know that there are expectations in God’s heart of us.

  This causes him to make a request of the Lord to be included when the Lord blesses His people (v.4). Having thought of God’s mighty acts he realises they are all about God coming to the aid of His people and he wants to be included when God next does that. Why? He knows that when God comes to His people and they rightly relate to Him, blessings follow, blessings of prosperity, and blessings of joy. These are part of the inheritance that releases praise, and he wants that of God.

D. Application:

1. God is always reaching out in love to us and looks for response.
2. Surrendered hearts receive the blessing of God.

Passage: Psalm 106:6-15

6 We have sinned, even as our ancestors did;
    we have done wrong and acted wickedly.
7 When our ancestors were in Egypt,
    they gave no thought to your miracles;
they did not remember your many kindnesses,
    and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea.
8 Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,
    to make his mighty power known.
9 He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up;
    he led them through the depths as through a desert.
10 He saved them from the hand of the foe;
    from the hand of the enemy he redeemed them.
11 The waters covered their adversaries;
    not one of them survived.
12 Then they believed his promises
    and sang his praise.

13 But they soon forgot what he had done
    and did not wait for his plan to unfold.
14 In the desert they gave in to their craving;
    in the wilderness they put God to the test.
15 So he gave them what they asked for,
    but sent a wasting disease among them.

A. Find Out:

1. What does the psalmist acknowledge? v.6
2. What example of this does he give? v.7
3. Yet what did God do? v.8-11
4. How did they respond but what did they soon do? v.12,13
5. How did they do this, this time? v.14
6. So how did God respond? v.15

B. Think:

1. What sins of Israel are revealed here?
2. Yet what did God do for them?

C. Comment:

  The psalmist now embarks on a list of examples of how Israel had sinned against God. He starts from right back in Egypt where, after God had done amazing miracles of deliverance (v.7), when they got to the Red Sea they grumbled to Moses (see Ex 14:11) and didn’t believe God was for them. Nevertheless, God took them through and saved them (v.8-10) and they praised Him when they saw His miraculous deliverance yet again (v.11).

  However very soon, once they were travelling across the desert, they grumbled (v.13,14) for food and water (see Ex 16 & 17). It wasn’t that there was a need, but it was the way they responded to the need and grumbled against God and against Moses. Nevertheless, God did provide both food and water for them. However, this time, He brought the discipline of a disease upon them. The point about a disease is that it appears slowly, and you have plenty of time to repent of your sins and cry out to God. This young nation had been in a training season with God but were very slow to learn that He was there, He was there with them, and He was there for them. They were being taught to enter into a relationship with the Lord whereby they spoke to their heavenly Father, not in grumbling tones, but in the tones of a child to its Father. Unfortunately, they were very slow to learn this.

D. Application:

1. The object of God saving us is to draw us into a living relationship with Him which involves loving two-way communication.
2. Never grumble against God; simply ask if you have questions!

Passage: Psalm 106:16-27

16 In the camp they grew envious of Moses
    and of Aaron, who was consecrated to the Lord.
17 The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan;
    it buried the company of Abiram.
18 Fire blazed among their followers;
    a flame consumed the wicked.
19 At Horeb they made a calf
    and worshipped an idol cast from metal.
20 They exchanged their glorious God
    for an image of a bull, which eats grass.
21 They forgot the God who saved them,
    who had done great things in Egypt,
22 miracles in the land of Ham
    and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.
23 So he said he would destroy them –
    had not Moses, his chosen one,
stood in the breach before him
    to keep his wrath from destroying them.

24 Then they despised the pleasant land;
    they did not believe his promise.
25 They grumbled in their tents
    and did not obey the Lord.
26 So he swore to them with uplifted hand
    that he would make them fall in the wilderness,
27 make their descendants fall among the nations
    and scatter them throughout the lands.

A. Find Out:

1. What was the next sin of Israel? v.16
2. What happened to them? v.17,18
3. What was the next thing they did wrong? v.19-22
4. What happened? v.23
5. What was the next thing? v.24,25
6. What happened? v.26,27

B. Think:

1. What were the three sins in this passage?
2. What happened in each case?

C. Comment:

  Trying to understand Israel, we must assume that the passing of time with the passing of distance must have contributed to the foolish inability of this people to realise what is happening and who is leading them in this new venture in life.

  They are still in the desert when some of the leaders started challenging Moses and Aaron (v.16), not realising that they were challenging God’s leadership. For this they died in a most spectacular mini earthquake (v.17,18). You might have thought that this act of judgement was so obvious that they would have learned by now, but it gets worse. They have amazing revelation of God at Mount Sinai (Horeb) but as soon as Moses delays coming down the mountain they create a golden calf for visible worship (v.19). There was, in fact, death following but it was very limited because of Moses’ plea for mercy (v.23). Still they didn’t learn and when, after the next lot of travelling, they arrive at the border of the Promised Land and they send in scouts, they decide they can’t take the Land (v.24,25). This time the whole generation of those over twenty are consigned to die in the desert before the nation will be allowed to go in (v.26,27).

In each case there is a responsibility to believe (and there is plenty of evidence to help them) and when they refuse to believe there are consequences.

D. Application:

1. God always gives us plenty of evidence to help us believe.
2. If we refuse to believe Him there are consequences to that.

Passage: Psalm 106:28-39

28 They yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor
    and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods;
29 they aroused the Lord’s anger by their wicked deeds,
    and a plague broke out among them.
30 But Phinehas stood up and intervened,
    and the plague was checked.
31 This was credited to him as righteousness
    for endless generations to come.
32 By the waters of Meribah they angered the Lord,
    and trouble came to Moses because of them;
33 for they rebelled against the Spirit of God,
    and rash words came from Moses’ lips.

34 They did not destroy the peoples
    as the Lord had commanded them,
35 but they mingled with the nations
    and adopted their customs.
36 They worshipped their idols,
    which became a snare to them.
37 They sacrificed their sons
    and their daughters to false gods.
38 They shed innocent blood,
    the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,
    and the land was desecrated by their blood.
39 They defiled themselves by what they did;
    by their deeds they prostituted themselves.

A. Find Out:

1. What is the next sin recorded? v.28,29a
2. How was it dealt with? v.29b-31
3. What further sin had what consequence? v.32,33
4. How also had they failed? v.34
5. With what consequence? v.35-39

B. Think:

1. Why was the sin of Baal so bad? See Num 25:1-3
2. Why do you think Moses’ sin was so bad? See Num 20:9-12
3. Why was the sin of v.34 so bad?

C. Comment:

  You have to remember what God was doing with this people to understand the awfulness of what we have read today. The Lord took Israel and sought (by the covenant at Sinai – Ex 19:5,6) to enter into a relationship with them whereby they would be a unique people on the earth who would reveal the Lord to the rest of the world (see Study 9). Thus, He gave them Laws by which to live, which would mean Israel would live in accordance with the way God had designed mankind and as a result He would bless them. Solomon’s reign and the nation’s affluence was the peak of that.

  Thus turning to idol worship with the Moabites (v.28), and eventually mixed with the people of the land (v.35) who they had failed to clear out (v.34), meant that they ended up worshipping their gods as well and following their practices (v.36-39). This was tantamount to totally rejecting God and utterly failing to be the light to the rest of the world that they were supposed to be.

  So frustrating had been this people, that even mild-mannered Moses had snapped on one occasion (Num 20:9-12). This meant that he failed to properly represent God, for which the Lord cut short his future leadership and he was not allowed to enter the land. His example would remain in the minds of subsequent leaders! The chequered history of Israel, therefore, was to act as a warning to future generations.

D. Application:

1. We are Christians because we have a relationship with God.
2. That relationship relies on Jesus & we are to reveal Him.

Passage: Psalm 106:40-48   

40 Therefore the Lord was angry with his people
    and abhorred his inheritance.
41 He gave them into the hands of the nations,
    and their foes ruled over them.
42 Their enemies oppressed them
    and subjected them to their power.
43 Many times he delivered them,
    but they were bent on rebellion
    and they wasted away in their sin.
44 Yet he took note of their distress
    when he heard their cry;
45 for their sake he remembered his covenant
    and out of his great love he relented.
46 He caused all who held them captive
    to show them mercy.

47 Save us, Lord our God,
    and gather us from the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name
    and glory in your praise.

48 Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
    from everlasting to everlasting.

Let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

Praise the Lord.

A. Find Out:

1. What did the Lord do about these sins? v.40-42
2. Yet what did Israel do? v.43
3. What had the Lord done? v.44-46
4. What does the psalmist ask of the Lord? v.47
5. How does he conclude? v.48

B. Think:

1. What form of discipline had the Lord used?
2. But what had kept happening?
3. What seems to have been the outcome?

C. Comment:

  The cycle that is referred to here, is seen again and again in the Old Testament, perhaps most clearly in the book of judges, though it did keep on happening throughout the life of Israel up to the Exile. Indeed v.47 speaks about God gathering His people from the nations which would suggest that this is being written at the time of the Exile when Israel were taken from the Land.

  The cycle starts with Israel turning away from the Lord, and this psalm has been all about that. When that happened the Lord didn’t just sit back and give up on Israel; He took remedial action in that He did step back and remove His hand of protection from them so that the surrounding nations rose up and attacked them (v.42). When they eventually cried out to the Lord, He redeemed them from their enemies, and in fact this happened time and again (v.43) because it seemed that almost every generation forgot what the previous ones had learnt and fell away.

  However, again and again when they cried out, the Lord did come to their aid (v.44,45) and He gave them favour in the eyes of their oppressors (v.46). The psalmist’s conclusion is to cry to the Lord to save them and bring them back from their places of captivity in the nations (v.47), but in the meantime he will continue to praise the Lord, for He is still the God of Israel.

D. Application:

1. God disciplines those He loves. His intent is to get us to return.
2. As soon as we turn He is there for us.