Psalm 106

Psalm 106
A Confession of Israel's Sins

1-3 At the beginning: Praise and give thanks to the LORD for his goodness, his steadfast love, his mighty doings, for happy are those who are just and righteous.
4-5 Remember me, O LORD, that I may still be alive when you deliver your people, when they prosper, when they are glad, that I may glory in your heritage. Question: did the psalmist see this prosperity, or did it only happen when Christ fulfilled the promise in his death and resurrection?
6-12 The beginning of the confession: We and our ancestors have sinned: They rebelled against you in Egypt, at the Red Sea, yet you saved them from their Egyptian enemies. It's interesting that the psalmist includes himself with his disobedient ancestors, though he couldn't have been in Egypt at the time.
13-15 But they soon forgot, putting God to the test in the wilderness, and he sent a wasting disease.
16-18 They were jealous of Moses and Aaron, and the earth swallowed Dathan; fire burned the wicked.
19-23 They worshiped a golden calf, forgot God their Savior, and he would have destroyed them if Moses had not defended them.
24-27 When they got to the promised land, they had no faith in God's promise, so he made them wander around in the wilderness until their deaths.
28-31 They began worshiping Baal, and God punished them with a plague, until Phinehas [the priest] interceded (which has been reckoned to him for righteousness). See Numbers 25:6-15.
32-33 They angered God at the waters of Meribah, resulting in Moses's rash words.
34-39 They did not destroy the [Canaanite] people as God had commanded and began to serve false gods, even sacrificing their children to "the demons."
40-46 God became angry and gave them over to the other nations, and they were oppressed, although many times he heard their distress and delivered them, for their sake remembering his covenant with them.
47-48 At the end, a prayer and praise: "Save us, O LORD our God...let all the people say, 'Amen.' Praise the LORD!"

After reading this, I am reminded of Romans 9, which I recently read (and outlined in this blog), in particular verse 22, where Paul writes, "What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction?" When I read the Romans passage, I decided he was talking about the Jews as his "objects of wrath," and this psalm seems to confirm that decision. Because of their disobedience, he had reason to destroy them from the face of the earth, but for the sake of the promise he made to Abraham to save ALL nations, he repeatedly punished them, but saved them from destruction.