The sins in Canaan: the failing to exterminate the idolatrous peoples and sharing in their idolatry. In Psalm 106:34 the poet appeals to the command, frequently enjoined upon them from Exodus 23:32. onwards, to extirpate the inhabitants of Canaan. Since they did not execute this command (vid., Judges 1:1), that which it was intended to prevent came to pass: the heathen became to them a snare (mowqeesh), Exodus 23:33; Exodus 34:12; Deuteronomy 7:16. They intermarried with them, and fell into the Canaanitish custom in which the abominations of heathenism culminate, viz., the human sacrifice, which Jahve abhorreth (Deuteronomy 12:31), and only the demons (שׁדים, Deuteronomy 32:17) delight in. Thus then the land was defiled by blood-guiltiness (חנף, Numbers 35:33, cf. Isaiah 24:5; Isaiah 26:21), and they themselves became unclean (Ezekiel 20:43) by the whoredom of idolatry. In Psalm 106:40-43 the poet (as in Nehemiah 9:26.) sketches the alternation of apostasy, captivity, redemption, and relapse which followed upon the possession of Canaan, and more especially that which characterized the period of the judges. God's "counsel" was to make Israel free and glorious, but they leaned upon themselves, following their own intentions (בּעצתם); wherefore they perished in their sins. The poet uses מכך (to sink down, fall away) instead of the נמק (to moulder, rot) of the primary passage, Leviticus 26:39, retained in Ezekiel 24:23; Ezekiel 33:10, which is no blunder (Hitzig), but a deliberate change.

Psalm 106:43 Parallel Commentaries

many

Judges 2:16-18 Nevertheless the LORD raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them...

1 Samuel 12:9-11 And when they forgot the LORD their God, he sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the host of Hazor...

with their

Psalm 106:29 Thus they provoked him to anger with their inventions: and the plague broke in on them.

Psalm 1:1 Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners...

Psalm 81:12 So I gave them up to their own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels.

brought low. or, impoverished, or weakened

Judges 5:8 They chose new gods; then was war in the gates: was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?

Judges 6:5 For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude...

1 Samuel 13:19 Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears: