Psalm 106
In this, the last psalm of the Fourth Book, we reach the end of what might be called the historic portion of the Psalms.
In the First Book (Psalms 1-41), after a number of psalms which are a sort of introduction to the whole, the godly remnant of Judah is revealed in Jerusalem or nearby, and free to go there to worship.
The Second Book (Psalms 42-72), shows them driven out by the Antichrist and his Gentile and Jewish friends, and in exile waiting for the Messiah’s coming to deliver them, and to set up His throne at Jerusalem.
In the Third Book, which commences with Psalm 73, the view is of the nation of Israel as a whole, redeemed, and not just the believers among the Jews.
The Fourth Book, beginning with Psalm 90, has brought in the Messiah’s reigning. Psalms, at the closing of both the Second and Third Books, indicate the Messiah’s coming to the help of those who wait for Him, but He will not immediately take the throne.
All of this, it will be understood, is yet in the future; the Psalms were written for a time to come, when the children of Israel, brought back to the land of their forefathers, will become a nation again under the protection of the— to be— revived Roman empire. When that time arrives, what the Scriptures call the Church of God will have been taken from the earth at the coming of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15: 51, 52: 1 Thessalonians. 4:16, 17), to be with Him in heavenly glory. This event Christians are assured is very near.
The keynote of Psalm 106, it is plain, is the “loving kindness,” or mercy of God to a sinful and wayward people. The psalm takes up the history of Israel in this light, and views them from Egypt to Canaan and thereafter, until He turns away ungodliness from them and makes them again His people.
An important verse, showing what God has allowed to self-seeking saints of our own times, and not only to Israelites, is the fifteenth:
“And He gave them their request”—they were seeking worldly things— “but sent leanness into their soul.” Is not this the cause of much of the low state of soul met with among Christians? Let us bare of making an object of anything short of Christ in our lives.
It will be noticed that in this psalm, the rejection of the Messiah is not mentioned: the reason is, no doubt, that in this Fourth Book as in the Third, the twelve tribes of Israel are seen, —the long lost ten tribes united with the two tribes of Judah or the Jews. The latter only were guilty of the crowning sin of putting their Messiah, our Lord Jesus, to death, as well as the Gentiles (Matthew 27:2222Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. (Matthew 27:22)).
ML 09/06/1931