When we come to the last section of this psalm, after the historical review of Israel's unfaithfulness to God, we are told of God’s response to the people’s sin (vv. 40-46). It was twofold. First, there was judgment. Judgment we expect. We are told that God was angry with his people and therefore "handed them over to the nations” so that "their foes ruled over them" and "their enemies oppressed them” (vv. 40–42). This was the actual history of the people once they entered the Promised Land. They sinned by compromising with the values of the nations around them.
In today's study we continue our look at rebellion, the sin identified with the people's exodus from Egypt, and the root sin that lies at the heart of the other sins of Israel. The psalmist catalogues six sins associated with Israel's years of wandering in the wilderness, and then follows them with one more from the years in Canaan. We looked at the first three yesterday and continue with the rest today.
Rebellion, the sin identified with the people's exodus from Egypt, is a root sin that lies at the heart of the other sins of Israel. Still each sin is worth remembering separately, which is what the psalmist does at this point. He remembers six sins associated with Israel's years of wandering in the wilderness, and then follows them with one more from the years in Canaan. We will look at the first three sins of Israel in today's study.
If verse 1 strikes the keynote of the psalm as far as God is concerned, crying, "Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever,” verse 6 strikes the keynote as far as the people are concerned. It has to do with Israel's sin and is a confession of it: “We have sinned, even as our fathers did; we have done wrong and acted wickedly.”
When I end a sermon, I like to end on a strong note, with a bang rather than a whimper, and generally I like to end a book or a lecture or anything else in the same way. I would expect this as we come to the end of the fourth book of the Psalter, but it is not what we find. True, the psalm is not exactly a whimper. But it is hardly a bang either. For the most part it is a long litany of the sins of Israel for which God chastised them again and again. In fact, if verse 47 is an accurate clue to when the psalm was written—“Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from the nations”—the people seem to be in exile, and the final "Amen” ("Let all the people say, 'Amen!’,” v. 48) is a recognition, in part at least, that God was right in having judged them as he did.
