Psalms 106

This psalm retells Israel’s history from the Red Sea to the exile as a long confession of sin. Against the people’s repeated rebellion, it sets God’s patient mercy, his readiness to hear a cry, and his faithfulness to his covenant. It ends with a prayer for rescue and a call to bless the LORD.

Psalms 106:1

The psalm opens with praise before it turns to confession. God’s goodness and his loving devotion are the ground for everything that follows. His faithful love does not run out, even when his people fail again and again.

BSA: loving devotion (“kindness, mercy”): God’s covenant love is steady and gracious, not earned by the people.

Hebrew: חֶסֶד (chesed, H2617) — “covenant loyalty, faithful love.” It describes love that keeps its promise even when the other side fails, which is exactly what this psalm shows.

See also: Psalm 136:1.

Psalms 106:2

No one can tell the whole story of what God has done or give him all the praise he deserves. The question humbles us. It also prepares for the long history ahead, where Israel forgot what they could not fully tell.

BSA: fully (“completely, or utterly”): God’s praise can never be fully exhausted by any one person.

Psalms 106:3

The psalmist pauses to say what a life pleasing to God looks like. The blessed person does right consistently, not only now and then. The rest of the psalm shows how far Israel fell short of this.

BSA: Blessed (“happy, fortunate”): True happiness comes from living God’s way.

Psalms 106:4-5

The writer asks to be included in God’s favor to his people. He longs to see their good, share their joy, and praise God with them. He does not ask to stand apart from the nation, but to be counted among them.

BSA: visit (“to oversee, reckon with”): The psalmist asks God to step in personally and care for him. inheritance (“heritage, possession”): God’s people are his own treasured possession.

Psalms 106:6

Here the confession begins. The speaker joins his own sin to that of earlier generations. This is not blaming the past. It is admitting that the same heart of rebellion runs through every age, including his own.

BSA: done wrong (“committed iniquity, twisted from the right path”): Sin is pictured as bending away from what is straight and right.

See also: Daniel 9:5.

Psalms 106:7

Even in Egypt, with miracles all around them, the people did not take in what God was doing. They forgot his kindness. At the edge of the sea, with Pharaoh’s army behind them, they complained instead of trusting.

BSA: grasp (“understand, comprehend”): They saw the wonders but did not take their meaning to heart.

See also: Exodus 14:10-12.

Psalms 106:8

God saved them anyway. He did it for the sake of his own name, meaning his character and reputation. Rescue rests on who God is, not on how deserving his people are.

BSA: name (“reputation, character”): God acts to show what he is truly like.

Psalms 106:9

God spoke sharply to the sea, and it dried up like land. The people walked through the deep as if crossing open desert. Nature obeys its Maker at a word.

BSA: rebuked (“sternly reproved”): The sea is treated like a subject that must obey its king.

See also: Exodus 14:21-22.

Psalms 106:10-11

God freed them from the power of the Egyptians who hated them. The same waters that opened for Israel closed over their pursuers, and none survived. The rescue was complete.

BSA: redeemed (“bought back, freed from bondage”): God paid the cost to bring his people out of slavery.

Hebrew: גָּאַל (gaʾal, H1350) — “to redeem, to act as a kinsman-rescuer.” The word pictures a close relative who steps in to free a family member, so God acts as Israel’s family protector.

See also: Exodus 14:28.

Psalms 106:12

When they saw the sea close over Egypt, the people believed and sang. Their faith was real, but it rested on what they had just seen. The next verse shows how quickly such praise can fade.

See also: Exodus 15:1.

Psalms 106:13

Their praise did not last. They forgot what God had done and would not wait for his plan to unfold. Impatience is often forgetfulness: we stop trusting what God has already shown us.

BSA: soon (“quickly, in a hurry”): The song of the sea was hardly over before they forgot.

Psalms 106:14-15

The people gave in to a hungry craving and put God to the test. He gave them what they demanded, but it came with a sickness that wasted them. Getting our own way against God’s will can cost us dearly.

BSA: wasting disease (“leanness, thinness, weakness”): Their souls shrank even as their appetites were fed.

See also: Numbers 11:31-34.

Psalms 106:16-18

Jealousy turned against God’s chosen leaders. Dathan and Abiram, with Korah’s group, challenged Moses and Aaron. God judged the rebels, and the earth swallowed them while fire consumed their followers. Opposing God’s appointed servants was in fact opposing God.

BSA: holy (“set apart, sacred”): Aaron was set apart by God for his office, so envy of him was a challenge to God’s own choice.

See also: Numbers 16:31-35.

Psalms 106:19-20

At Horeb, the mountain where God had just spoken to them, they made a golden bull calf. They swapped the glorious God for a statue of an animal that eats grass. The psalm treats it as a tragic and almost absurd exchange.

BSA: exchanged (“traded, replaced”): They gave up something priceless for something worthless. Glory (“honor, splendor, divine majesty”): God himself is their true glory, and they traded him away.

Hebrew: כָּבוֹד (kavod, H3519) — “glory, weight, honor.” The word carries the idea of something weighty and worthy. A grass-eating ox is the opposite.

See also: Exodus 32:4; Romans 1:23.

Psalms 106:21-22

They forgot the God who had saved them. The wonders in Egypt, called here the land of Ham, and the awesome deeds at the Red Sea were all in the recent past. The sin is not lack of evidence but lack of remembering.

BSA: Savior (“Rescuer, Deliverer”): God’s very title is Rescuer, which makes forgetting him all the worse.

Psalms 106:23

God said he would destroy them, but Moses stood in the gap like a defender at a broken city wall. His prayer held back God’s anger. Moses points toward the greater Intercessor who stands between sinners and judgment.

BSA: breach (“a gap, a break in the relationship”): Moses placed himself in the break between a holy God and a sinful people.

Hebrew: פֶּרֶץ (perets, H6556) — “a breach, a break in a wall.” It is the picture of a wall broken open where an enemy can pour in. Moses stands in that opening himself.

See also: Exodus 32:11-14; Ezekiel 22:30.

Psalms 106:24-25

At the edge of the promised land, the people despised it. They did not trust God’s word that he would give it to them. They complained inside their tents and would not listen to him.

BSA: despised (“rejected with contempt”): They treated God’s gift as worthless.

See also: Numbers 14:1-4.

Psalms 106:26-27

God raised his hand in a solemn oath. That generation would fall in the wilderness. The psalm adds that their children would one day be scattered among the nations. This looks ahead to the exile.

BSA: raised His hand (“lifted up, to swear an oath”): This was the gesture of a solemn vow.

See also: Numbers 14:28-33; Leviticus 26:33.

Psalms 106:28

At Peor, Israel joined in the worship of the Moabite god Baal and ate sacrifices offered to dead idols. The word yoked shows how closely they tied themselves to false worship. It was a betrayal of their covenant with the LORD.

BSA: yoked (“joined, coupled”): They harnessed themselves to Baal like animals tied to a plow.

See also: Numbers 25:1-3.

Psalms 106:29-31

A plague broke out among them. Phinehas acted with zeal for God’s honor, and the plague was stopped. God counted it to him as righteousness, a lasting honor for his family. Others stood by, but he stood up.

BSA: credited (“reckoned, counted”): God put it on Phinehas’s account as righteous.

See also: Numbers 25:7-13; Genesis 15:6.

Psalms 106:32-33

At Meribah the people’s complaints again angered the LORD. They also pushed Moses so hard that he spoke rashly. This explains why Moses was kept from entering the land. Even the best leader can be worn down by a rebellious people.

BSA: rashly (“without thinking, unadvisedly”): Under pressure, Moses spoke in haste instead of trust.

See also: Numbers 20:10-12.

Psalms 106:34-36

In the land, Israel did not drive out the peoples as God commanded. They mixed with them, took on their ways, and served their idols. What looked like a small compromise became a trap that held them fast.

BSA: snare (“trap, source of destruction”): The idols caught them like a trap that does not let go.

See also: Judges 2:1-3.

Psalms 106:37-39

The slide ended in horror. They offered their own children to idols, which the psalm calls demons. The land was polluted with innocent blood. Their idolatry is described as spiritual adultery against the God who had married them to himself by covenant.

BSA: prostituted (“committed spiritual adultery, went a whoring”): Idolatry was unfaithfulness in a marriage relationship with God.

See also: Deuteronomy 32:17; Leviticus 18:21.

Psalms 106:40-42

God’s anger burned, and he gave his people into the power of the nations. Those who hated them ruled over them. The punishment fit the sin: they had joined the nations, and now the nations ruled them.

BSA: abhorred (“detested, loathed utterly”): God was deeply grieved by what his own people had become.

See also: Judges 2:14.

Psalms 106:43

The pattern repeated through the time of the judges. God rescued them again and again. Each time they went back to rebellion and sank lower. The verse shows how patient God is and how deep our tendency to wander can be.

BSA: rebellion (“resistance, disobedience”): They stubbornly resisted God’s way.

See also: Judges 2:16-19.

Psalms 106:44-45

Yet God heard their cry. He saw their distress and remembered his covenant, and out of his great loving devotion he relented. His mercy rests on his own promise, not on their record. This is the hope of the whole psalm.

BSA: remembered (“kept in mind, thought about”): God does not forget his promise even when his people forget him. relented (“repented, was sorry”): God’s mind turned from judgment toward mercy as his people turned to him.

Hebrew: וַיִּנָּחֶם (vayyinnachem, H5162) — “he relented, he was moved to compassion.” The word carries real feeling. God is moved by his people’s cry and softens toward them.

See also: Exodus 2:24.

Psalms 106:46

God even moved the hearts of their captors to show them kindness. He can work on those who hold his people prisoner. His mercy reaches into places where no hope seems left.

BSA: compassion (“mercy, feeling sorry for”): God stirred pity in the hearts of their enemies.

See also: Ezra 1:1; Nehemiah 1:11.

Psalms 106:47

Now the prayer is stated openly. The people, scattered among the nations, ask to be saved and gathered home. The purpose is not comfort alone but that they may give thanks to God’s holy name and glory in his praise.

BSA: gather (“collect, assemble”): God is asked to bring his scattered people back together.

See also: Deuteronomy 30:3.

Psalms 106:48

The psalm closes with a doxology that ends the fourth book of the Psalms. God is blessed from everlasting to everlasting, and all the people are asked to say Amen. After a long record of failure, the last word is praise.

BSA: Amen (“so be it, truly”): It is the people’s agreement that all this is true and their wish that it be so.

See also: 1 Chronicles 16:36.