Cromwell asked, "What is
history but God’s unfolding of Himself?" The psalmist would have readily
agreed because in the history of his people, he saw Jehovah unfolded as a God
of goodness, patience, and steadfast love.

Although we cannot name the
psalmist, we do know that he was a godly Jew who wrote while his people were in
captivity (verse 47). The Psalm is primarily a confession of national sin, but
it also intermingles accounts of God’s grace and goodness and contains elements
of praise and petition.

In his approach to God, the
psalmist begins with worship (verse 1); he enters the divine gates with
thanksgiving, and the sacred courts with praise. "Praise ye the
LORD," the translation of the Hebrew word "Hallelujah," is the
first and last note of the song. Ceaseless thanksgiving should arise to the
LORD, because He has been so good to every one of us. His mercy endures
forever—our continued survival is proof of that. If we received what we
deserve, we would be lost forever.

No human tongue will ever be able
to recount all the miraculous interventions of God on behalf of His people.
Eternity itself will not be long enough to praise Him adequately for all that
He is and all that He has done (verses 2,3).

Praise is followed by personal
petition (verses 4,5). Looking forward to the restoration of Israel and the glorious reign of the Messiah-King, the writer prays that he might share in
the blessedness of that day when God shows favor to His ransomed saints. He
longs to see Israel enjoying unbroken prosperity and rejoicing after its long
night of sorrow. He desires to share in the glory of God’s ancient earthly
people. His prayer is not dissimilar to that of the dying thief, "Lord,
remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom" (Luke 23:42).

The Psalm now turns to confession,
following much the same order as the Lord’s prayer of Matthew 6. Both begin
with worship, move on to petition ("Give us this day our daily
bread"), and then ask for forgiveness ("Forgive us our debts").
It is a mark of true spiritual maturity when a man confesses not only his own
sins but the sins of his people as well. How hard it is to say from the heart:
"We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done
wickedly" (verse 6). As we consider the sins of the Israelites, we must
not look down our spiritual noses at them. If anything, we are worse than they!
Let their backslidings remind us of our own and drive us to our knees in
repentance.

 1. Their ingratitude.
They did not fully appreciate the wonders God performed in Egypt to purchase their freedom (verse 7).

 2. Their forgetfulness.
Too quickly the memory of God’s innumerable mercies faded from their minds.

 

 3. Their rebellion.
When they came to the Red Sea, they complained that God had led them to die in
wilderness, and that it would have been better to have stayed in Egypt (Exod. 14:11,12).

But their sin did not quench the
Lord’s love. He found in their rebellion an opportunity to reveal Himself as
their Servant and Saviour. True to His name, He delivered them—and what a
gigantic exhibition of power it was! At the word of His rebuke, the waters of
the Red Sea parted, leaving a bone-dry causeway for the Jews to cross on. When
they were safely on the east side, free from the pursuing enemy, the waters
returned to their place, conveniently drowning the Egyptian hosts. When they
saw this marvelous converging of events, how could the Jews help believing Him
and singing His praise? (verses 8-12).

It was not long before another
cycle of sin began.

 4. Their short memory.
They soon forgot His miracles for them (verse 13).

 5. Their self-will.
They would not wait for His guidance.

 6. Their lust. They
abandoned self-control in their craving for food (verse 14; Num. 11:1-35).

 7. Their provocation.
They tested God.

This time, God gave them what they
wanted (namely, quail in superabundance), but sent a loathsome disease among
them (Num. 11:20). "He gave them their request, but sent leanness into
their soul" (verse 16). Their history teaches us to be careful to pray
always in the will of God because, as Matthew Henry said, "What is asked
in passion is often given in wrath."

 8. Their rejection of
God’s leadership. Dathan and Abiram, together with Korah and On, were
leaders of a rebellion against Moses and Aaron (verses 16-18; Num. 16:1-30).
They envied these two men of God. Also they wanted to intrude into the office
of the priesthood. In rebelling against God’s holy ones, that is, against men
who were set apart as God’s representatives, they were rebelling against God’s
rule. As a result, the earth opened up and swallowed the leaders and their families.
And fire burst forth to devour the 250 other men who offered incense to the
LORD (Num. 16:31-35).

 9. Their idolatry.
Before Moses had come down from Mount Sinai with the law of God, the people
made a golden calf and worshiped it (Exod. 32:4). They exchanged the glory of
God for the likeness of an ox that eats grass. Instead of acknowledging God as
their Saviour from Egypt, they gave all the honor to the lifeless calf. God
would have destroyed them in a moment if Moses had not interceded. Like a soldier
who covers a break in a wall with his body, so "Moses … stood before Him
in the breach to turn away [God’s] wrath" (verses 19-23).

 

10. Their faithlessness at
Kadesh Barnea (Num. 14:2,27,28). God had promised them the pleasant land, a
land that was ideal for location, climate, and resources. The promise contained
all that was necessary to enter and occupy the land. But they did not believe
His promise, and turned up their noses at the land. Instead of marching forward
in faith, they sulked in their tents. Therefore God raised His hand in an oath
to destroy that generation in the wilderness and to disperse their descendants
among the nations of the world (verses 24-27).

11. Their sinful worship of the
Baal of Peor. The men of Israel not only committed fornication with the
daughters of Moab, they also joined in sacrificing to the dead and in other
pagan ceremonies involved in the worship of the Baal of Peor (Num. 25:3-8). God
was so infuriated that He sent a plague to slay the people by the thousands.
When Phinehas saw an Israelite taking a heathen woman to his tent, he slew both
of them with his spear. This stopped the plague, but only after 24,000 had
died. This act was a positive proof of his righteousness, and was rewarded by a
covenant of peace (verses 28-31). The LORD said, "Behold, I give unto him
My covenant of peace; and he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the
covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and
made an atonement for the children of Israel" (Num. 25:12,13).

12. The sin of Moses (Num.
20:2-13). At the waters  of Meribah (strife), the people were blatantly
unbelieving. They accused Moses of leading them into the wilderness to die of
thirst. Instead of speaking to the rock, as God said, Moses struck it twice
with his rod. He also spoke rashly against the people for their rebellion. As a
result God decreed that he would be denied the privilege of leading the people
of Israel into the land of promise (verses 32,33).

The new environment of Canaan did not changed the nature of the Israelites, as seen by:

13. Their failure to
exterminate the pagan inhabitants. The debased Canaanites were a gangrenous
limb of the human race. After bearing with them for hundreds of years, God
decided that the only solution was amputation, and committed the surgery to Israel. But they failed to obey Him (verse 34; Judg. 1:27-36).

14. Their intermingling with
the heathen. By fraternizing and intermarrying with the pagans, Israel corrupted its own religion and morals (verse 35).

15. Their idolatry. Soon
the Jews were worshiping idols instead of the true and living God (verse 36).

16. Their human sacrifices.
Particularly revolting to the Lord was the sacrifice of their sons and
daughters to appease the demons (2 Ki. 3:27; 21:6; Ezek. 16:20,21). Sons and
daughters of God’s chosen people were sacrificed to the filthy idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with murder (verses 37-39).

 

"Offended with His
people," writes Barnes, "the LORD treated them as if they were an
abomination to Him." He turned them over to the Gentiles—the
Mesopotamians, the Midianites, the Philistines, the Moabites, and others. These
ungodly nations lorded it over the Jews, oppressing them and persecuting them. In
spite of this treatment, the people persisted in their sin and rebellion
against Jehovah. But whenever they turned to Him in repentance, He looked down
on them in mercy. Mindful of His covenant, He turned from judgment to display
His steadfast love. Even during the darkest hours of their captivity, the Lord
caused them to be pitied by their captors—a touching example of mercy
triumphing over judgment (verses 40-46).

The psalmist prays for the
regathering of his people, scattered throughout the nations of the world. This
will result in great thanks ascending to God’s holy name; His people will make
it their glory to praise Him (verse 47). The prayer anticipates the petitions
of the remnant of Israel in the future time of the Tribulation, prior to the
inauguration of Christ’s glorious kingdom.

With this rapturous note we come
to the end of the Psalm:"Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting" (verse 48). But in coming to the end we must
resist the temptation to put this Psalm in a dispensational pigeon-hole,
limiting its message to the wicked nation of Israel and failing to see our own
history reflected in it. In 1 Corinthians 10:11 we distinctly read:"Now
all these things happened unto them for examples; and they are written for our
admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."

This Psalm warns us against ingratitude.
If Israel should have been grateful for redemption by power from Egypt, how much more grateful should we be for redemption by the blood of Christ from sin
and from Satan!

It warns us against forgetfulness.
How easily we forget the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus. How guilty we
are of "the curse of dry-eyed Christianity."

It warns us against complaining.
It becomes a way of life to complain about the weather, about our living
conditions, about minor inconveniences, and even about lumps in the gravy.

It warns us against self-will,
against putting our will above the will of God.

It warns us against criticizing
God’s leadership, whether governmental officials, elders in the assembly, or
parents in the home.

It warns us against idolatry—the
worship of money, home, cars, education, pleasure, or worldly success.

It warns us against disbelief
in the promises of God. This sin caused Israel to wander in the wilderness for
38 years and barred the guilty ones from entering the promised land.

It warns us against immorality.
The worship of the Baal of Peor involved gross sexual sin. God’s attitude
toward it is seen in the disaster which He visited upon the culprits.

It warns us against what might
seem to be "trivial" disobedience. Moses struck the rock
instead of speaking to it. That may not seem very serious to us, but no
disobedience is trivial.

 

It warns us against marrying
unbelievers. God is a God of separation. He hates to see the corruption of
His people through the formation of unequal yokes.

Finally, it warns us against the sacrifice
of our children. Too seldom do Christian parents hold the work of the Lord
before their children as a desirable way in which to spend their lives. Too
often our children are raised with the ambition to make a name for themselves
in business or the professions. We raise them for the world—and for hell.

(From  Believer’s Bible
Commentary, ©1992; used by permission of Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc.,
Nashville, TN.)

                            
* * *

FRAGMENT  So immensely are our lives below the mark as
nominal Christians that we have next to no idea of the distance at which we
walk from God, and when the soul is turned to seek Him only, we discover with
amazement how many false props we have had, and how often we have been leaning
on the love and approbation of others and not upon a Father’s love alone.

                                                  
G.V. Wigram

                            
* * *

FRAGMENT  Are you walking in the light of the
affections of that Lord Jesus who loved you and washed you from our sins in His
own blood? Is that name of Jesus causing a vibration in your heart as you
walk along the
wilderness?                                       
G.V. Wigram