Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today's Psalms share something in common with Psalm 133 from yesterday. They focus on the unity of the people of Israel. Both Psalms point to corporate unfaithfulness to God, corporate repentance, and corporate forgiveness. They both have aspects of lament and praise.
In Psalm 106, the psalmist recounts a lot of the sins of Israel's history and confesses to God that they have a pattern of being unfaithful to Him. It also points out how God responded in those situations. He hasn't given up on them, despite their cycle of rebellion and unbelief, because of His steadfast love. But then verse 8 says something about God's motives that might seem to contradict that. It says, "...He saved them for His name's sake, that He might make known His mighty power."
So which is it? Did he save them because of his steadfast love? Or did he save them for his name's sake? This is one of those times when most theologians would just answer, yes, these two things aren't in conflict. They may seem to be on the surface, but they aren't. This doesn't mean scripture contradicts itself, and it doesn't mean God is duplicitous. Both of these things can reside in the same space. Verse 23 says Moses stood in the breach before him to turn away his wrath from destroying them.
In that way, we see that Moses was a Christ type, bridging the gap between us and God, absorbing his wrath on our behalf so that we aren't destroyed. This is the gospel, and Moses gave the Israelites a picture of it long before Christ fulfilled it. Then they enter the promised land, but the pattern they've established doesn't change. They continued in idolatry, forgetting about their relationship with God, and God did what he promised to do. He raised up enemy nations to oppress them,
And this is possibly referring to the stories we read in the book of Judges. But God heard them when they cried out to him and saved them yet again. Verse 7 says, But when they forgot, he remembered. He kept the covenant even when they broke it.
Psalm 107 continues the theme of communal response. It lists four different kinds of people in their troubles, and all four stories share a common cycle. The problem, the cry for help, God's deliverance, and a call to praise. The first person in trouble is the lost person, wandering in the desert, hopeless and hungry. We see no indication that they've caused their own trouble. It just seems like life is happening to them.
But they cry to God for help, and He leads them out and satisfies their needs. The second person in trouble is the rebellious prisoner who is now being oppressed by other people. Their suffering is definitely the result of their own actions. We see it in the text. Nevertheless, when they cry out to God, He delivers them too. Person three is the sinful fool. This person falls into sin just because they don't seem to know better. They don't seek wisdom, and they pay for it dearly.
They even become physically ill because of it. But when they cry out to God, He hears them and heals them and restores them. And finally, there's the men in the ships. There are three prominent views on this part of the passage. The first is that these guys are just going about their business and they get caught in a storm. But in my opinion, it seems like we already have that scenario represented in the first person who gets lost in the desert.
The second view is that these are exiles held captive on these ships by a foreign king, which seems more likely. And the third view is that these are seafaring businessmen. Some commentators believe the biblical writers have a negative view of international trade, which means they would frown on the seafaring businessmen. Why would they look down on them? Possibly because their pursuit of trading with other nations suggests that God hasn't given them all they need for life in the Promised Land, or that they're just greedy. But who knows?
Regardless which view you hold, here's what we know. God sends a storm to wreck the ship. They cry out to God and are in deep sorrow over their situation, and He calms the storm. He's good at that. All these people cried to Him and He had mercy on them all, regardless of whether they arrived in their circumstances through oppression, evil, sorrow, or some combination of those. And the psalmist calls on all those people to thank the Lord for His unending love for them and for His work on their behalf.
My God shot today came from Psalm 106, 7. It says, Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works. They did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. The psalmist points out how vital it is to remember God's works and to remember God's love for us, and that is what will keep us abiding in Him and obeying Him.
He doesn't say, remember the laws. He says, remember that you are loved. Forgetting that God loves us leaves a space in our heart where sin and rebellion sneak in. That's why reading his word every day and looking for him in these pages every day has a way of reshaping our hearts and our lives. Will some of this reading feel repetitive? Yes. Will you see some of the same things about God from time to time? Sure. But do we all need to hear the gospel every day? No.
Absolutely. Because we see how quickly the human heart will wander from the God we love if we don't actively remember the gospel. He loves you despite you. And He's where the joy is.
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