1Hallelujah!
Acclaim the LORD, for He is good,
for His kindness is forever.
2Who can utter the LORD’s mighty acts,
can make heard all His praise?
3Happy those who keep justice,
who do righteousness at all times.
4Recall me, O LORD, when You favor Your people,
mark me for Your rescue,
5to see the good of Your chosen ones,
to rejoice in the joy of Your nation,
to revel with Your estate.
6We offended like our fathers,
we wronged, we did evil.
7Our fathers in Egypt
did not grasp Your wonders.
They did not call to mind Your many kindnesses
and rebelled by the sea, at the Sea of Reeds.
8Yet He rescued them for His name’s sake,
to make known His might.
9He blasted the Sea of Reeds, and it dried up,
and He led them through the deep as through wilderness.
10And He rescued them from the hand of the hostile
and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.
11And the waters covered their foes,
12And they trusted His words,
13Quickly they forgot His deeds,
they did not await His counsel.
14And they felt a sharp craving in the wilderness,
they put God to the test in the wasteland.
15And He gave them what they had asked,
16And they were jealous of Moses in the camp,
of Aaron, the LORD’s holy one.
17The earth opened and swallowed Dothan
and covered Abiram’s band.
18And fire burned through their band,
flame consumed the wicked.
19They made a calf at Horeb
and bowed to a molten image.
20And they exchanged their glory
for the image of a grass-eating bull.
21They forgot the God their rescuer,
Who did great things in Egypt,
fearsome deeds at the Sea of Reeds.
23And He would have wiped them out
were it not for Moses His chosen one—
he stood in the breach before Him
to turn back His wrath from destruction.
24And they despised the land of desires,
they did not trust His word.
25And they muttered in their tents,
they did not heed the voice of the LORD.
26And He raised His hand against them,
to make them fall in the wilderness,
27to disperse their seed among the nations,
to scatter them among the lands.
28And they clung to Baal Peor
and ate sacrifices to the dead.
29And they provoked Him through their acts,
and the scourge broke out among them.
30And Phineas stood and prayed,
and the scourge was held back
31and it was counted for him as merit,
generation to generation forever.
32And they caused fury over the waters of Meribah,
and it went badly for Moses because of them,
33for they rebelled against him,
and he pronounced rash things with his lips.
34They did not destroy the peoples
as the LORD had said to them.
35And they mingled with the nations
and learned their deeds.
36And they worshipped their idols,
which became a snare to them.
37And they sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to the demons.
38And they shed innocent blood,
the blood of their sons and their daughters
when they sacrificed to Canaan’s idols,
and the land was polluted with bloodguilt.
39And they were defiled through their deeds
and went whoring through their actions.
40And the LORD’s wrath blazed against His people,
41and gave them into the hand of nations,
their haters ruled over them.
42And their enemies oppressed them,
and they were subject to their power.
43Many times did He save them,
and they rebelled against His counsel
and were brought low through their misdeeds.
44And He saw when they were in straits,
when He heard their song of prayer.
45And He recalled for them His pact,
relented through his many kindnesses.
46And He granted them mercy
in the eyes of all their captors.
47Rescue us, LORD our God
and gather us from the nations
to acclaim Your holy name
and to glory in Your praise.
48Blessed is the LORD God of Israel forever and ever. And all the people say: Amen, hallelujah!
PSALM 106 NOTES
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2. Who can utter the LORD’s mighty acts. This invocation of God’s “mighty acts” (gevurot) in the second line of the poem signals its status as a historical psalm. Once again, the large historical picture leads to a relatively lengthy psalm; and once again, the rehearsal in poetry of familiar events recorded in the Torah produces a rather perfunctory order of poetry. It requires little commentary here, beyond identification of the episodes from the Torah alluded to and observations on a couple of places where the text looks doubtful. Some scholars have characterized this psalm as a companion piece to Psalm 105, perhaps even publicly chanted together with it. Although that remains a possibility, these two historical psalms may simply have been set in sequence in the collection by the editors because of the generic connection between them. In any case, they present antithetical views of the nation’s history. Psalm 105 is a celebration of God’s providential care of Israel, with no mention of the people’s transgressions. Psalm 106, beginning with verse 6, is an unrelenting account of Israel’s rebellious behavior, from the Exodus itself through the wilderness to its later collective life in its national territory. The notion of Israel’s betrayal of the covenant unleashing divine retribution may well be colored by Deuteronomy, and there are indications in the psalm of an exilic setting (see, for example, verse 46: “And He granted them mercy / in the eyes of all their captors”).
3. Happy those who keep justice. This platitude of the Wisdom psalms proves to have, as the psalm unfolds, a particular historical context. It will become clear that the nation as a whole has failed to keep justice and has suffered the consequences.
4. Recall me, O LORD, when You favor Your people. It will emerge that the psalmist in exile is specifically awaiting the moment when God will again favor His people and bring them back to their land. That consummation is in all likelihood what is implied in the general language of verse 5.
7. rebelled by the sea. In Exodus 14:11, the fearful people at the shore of the Sea of Reeds complain to Moses, “Was it for lack of graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the wilderness?”
8. Yet He rescued them. As elsewhere, the oscillation between second person and third person is common in biblical usage.
9. He blasted the Sea of Reeds. This image may be poetic license: in the account in Exodus, the sea parts when Moses raises his staff.
11. not one of them remained. This clause is a quotation of Exodus 14:28.
12. they sang His praise. The poet obviously has in mind the Song of the Sea, Exodus 15.
14. felt a sharp craving. The literal sense is “craved a craving.” The line refers to the story told in Numbers 11, where this same phrase is used.
15. sent food down their throats. The Masoretic Text reads razon, “thinness” (or “famine”), which can be justified only by exegetical contortion. This translation follows the Septuagint and the Syriac, which read instead mazon, “food.” The reference is to the quail sent to the Hebrews by God, which Moses says they will eat “till it comes out of your noses and becomes a loathsome thing to you” (Numbers 11:20).
16. And they were jealous of Moses. The incident in view is the double rebellion against Moses reported in Numbers 16.
19. They made a calf at Horeb. The poet clearly does not feel obliged to follow the order of events as they occur in the text of the Torah. He now backtracks to the episode of the Golden Calf, Exodus 32.
20. their glory. This term in context refers to God.
for the image of a grass-eating bull. This mocking characterization of the idol worshipped by Israel is much in the spirit of the polemic against idolatry in Deutero-Isaiah. The term translated as “bull,” shor, can equally mean “ox,” but the cultic context argues for the sense of bull because images of bulls were objects of worship.
21–22. did great things in Egypt, / wonders in the land of Ham, /fearsome deeds at the Sea of Reeds. The perfunctory character of the poetry is especially evident in the stringing together of formulaic phrases here.
23. he stood in the breach. Moses’s intercession on behalf of Israel is reported in Exodus 32:11–14.
24. the land of desires. The Hebrew has “desire” in the singular, but in English that might have an erotic connotation. The despising of the promised land refers to the incident of the ten fainthearted spies sent to scout out the land in Numbers 13.
26. to make them fall in the wilderness. This phrase is an approximate quotation of Numbers 14:29.
27. to disperse their seed among the nations. The Masoretic Text reads, “to make their seed fall” (lehapil), which looks suspiciously like an inadvertent scribal repetition of lehapil near the end of the previous verse. This translation reads, with the Septuagint, lehafits, “to disperse,” a difference of just one consonant.
28. Baal Peor. This episode of orgiastic idolatry is recounted in Numbers 25, where the zealous priest Phineas (verse 30) slaughters the cultic traitors, an act not mentioned here.
32. the waters of Meribah. This incident of rebellion moves back to Exodus 17, with a matching episode in Numbers 20.
and it went badly for Moses because of them. It was because of Moses’s actions in the second episode of bringing water from the rock that he was condemned never to enter the promised land.
33. and he pronounced rash things with his lips. The Hebrew merely says, “he pronounced with his lips,” but the most reasonable way to make sense of this cryptic clause is to assume that a rash utterance is implied. This line may reflect an interpretive inference from what is succinctly stated in the story in Numbers 20: the rash things would be Moses’s words to the people. “Shall we bring forth water for you from this rock?” (Numbers 20:10), implying that it is Moses and Aaron rather than God who will make the water flow from the rock.
34. They did not destroy the peoples. This idea has a strong Deuteronomistic tinge: Israel was enjoined to wipe out the idolatrous peoples of the land; instead, it mingled with them and adopted their idolatrous practices.
37. they sacrificed their sons. Child sacrifice is strategically invoked as the paradigmatic abomination of the Canaanite idolators.
40. His estate. This is an epithet not for the land but for God’s people. Compare verse 5.
44. He saw when they were in straits, /when He heard their song of prayer. The scenario of the poem is rebellion and betrayal of the covenant followed by defeat and exile, which then lead to contrition and a sincere turning to God, Who is then moved to relent.
46. granted them mercy /in the eyes of all their captors. “In the eyes of” is literally “before.” This could be a reference to the Persian emperor Cyrus, who authorized the return of the Babylonian exiles to Zion, although that identification is not entirely certain.
47. Rescue us . . . / gather us from the nations. The language used here clearly has in view a return from exile. The purpose of the return, as the next line of verse indicates, is again to be able to celebrate God’s greatness (an echo of the opening lines of the poem) in the place He has chosen.
48. Blessed is the LORD. This verse is not part of the psalm proper but is rather a doxology that marks the conclusion of the fourth book of Psalms.