Psalm 106

"we have done wrong and have acted wickedly"

Like Psalm 105, which we talked about last week, Psalm 106 is a narrative poem recounting the story of Israel. But the focus of Psalm 106 is upon the repeated unfaithfulness of God's people which necessitates a recurring grace. Psalm 106 is a litany of rebellion:

"They rebelled by the sea—the Red Sea."

"They were seized with craving in the wilderness
and tested God in the desert."

"At Horeb they made a calf
and worshiped the cast metal image."

"They despised the pleasant land
and did not believe his promise."

"They aligned themselves with Baal of Peor
and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods."

"They angered the Lord at the Waters of Meribah."

"They served their idols,
which became a snare to them."

"They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons."

Not good! As Psalm 106 baldly puts it, "We have done wrong and have acted wickedly."

And yet, Psalm 106 is a story of grace. Time and time again, God saves and rescues. 

The song was written in an exilic context. Oppressed and enslaved in Babylon, God's people look back over their history in the hope that God will, once again, save them:  

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

And God answers! We see that turn come in Isaiah 40: 

“Comfort, comfort my people,”
says your God.
“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and announce to her
that her time of hard service is over, her iniquity has been pardoned,
and she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.”

It's depressing to me how the Old Testament gets castigated as grim and legalistic, shadowed by a wrathful and punitive God in contrast to the loving Jesus we behold in the gospels. The heresy of Marcionism haunts many readers of Scripture, especially progressive readers who find the Old Testament so "problematic." 

But grace dawns in the Old Testament, not the New. Psalm 106 is a great illustration of this. The Lord is merciful, over and over again. And this exilic prayer, offered up in hope, is also answered, definitely so in Jesus. As Isaiah 40 continues:

A voice of one crying out:

Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness;
make a straight highway for our God in the desert.
Every valley will be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill will be leveled;
the uneven ground will become smooth
and the rough places, a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will appear,
and all humanity together will see it,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Jesus marks no disruption between the Old Testament and the New, but is, rather, the continuation and culmination of the grace of God we behold in the story of Israel.