Psalm 106 Part 1

The opening hallelujah is the dark counterpart of its predecessor’s final hallelujah. Here a shadow is cast by human self-will in its long struggle against the light. The keynote of Ps105 was; ‘Remember His mighty deeds,’ that of Ps106 is; ‘They forgot His mighty deeds.’ It is a testimony to God’s great faithfulness to an often rebellious and ungrateful Israel. Israel’s history is here written with the view of showing human sin, just as the preceding Psalm was composed to magnify divine goodness. It is a national confession, a hymn written at the time of the Babylonian captivity.  This long psalm will describe God’s ‘lovingkindness’ to a disobedient Israel. God’s extraordinary longsuffering emerges as the real theme of this psalm. 
The pattern of the psalm is sin, judgment, and deliverance, in Egypt, the wilderness, and the land. The psalm begins and ends with prayer, with v6 being the confession. As you read the psalm go over the tragic list in an act of self-judgment, for if we judge ourselves, we shall not be condemned with the ‘wicked’. Consider also how God has been patient with you. 

Egypt (v7) was a world under satan’s ruler and Israel was under its dominion.  This is the world today! Egypt was a place of many gods but denied the existence of the one true God. The Passover and The Red Sea were deliverance and redemption by blood and by power.  
The prayer of v4-5 is a moving spiritual petition before the throne of grace for healing. It is as if the patient were too sick to go to the doctor and pleads with Him to come to him and visit with His salvation. Using the pronoun ‘we’ in vs6-7, the singer has identified the present situation with the past. He identified his present generation with Israel of old, connected in their sin, and wicked deeds. His purpose is to draw out the dark record of sin in order to bring national repentance.

The Israelites responded to God’s great deliverance with ingratitude and rebellion! Despite all that (‘nevertheless’ v8), God answered with rescue, but not only for Israel’s sake. He saved them so that He might make His mighty power known.