Psalms 106:19
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At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped a molten image.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
We must give glory to God by making confession, not only of his goodness but our own badness, which serve as foils to each other. Our badness makes his goodness appear the more illustrious, as his goodness makes our badness the more heinous and scandalous. The foregoing psalm was a history of God's goodness to Israel; this is a history of their rebellions and provocations, and yet it begins and ends with Hallelujah; for even sorrow for sin must not put us out of tune for praising God. Some think it was penned at the time of the captivity in Babylon and the dispersion of the Jewish nation thereupon, because of that prayer in the close (Psa 106:47). I rather think it was penned by David at the same time with the foregoing psalm, because we find the first verse and the last two verses in that psalm which David delivered to Asaph, at the bringing up of the ark to the place he had prepared for it (Ch1 16:34-36), "Gather us from among the heathen;" for we may suppose that in Saul's time there was a great dispersion of pious Israelites, when David was forced to wander. In this psalm we have, I. The preface to the narrative, speaking honour to God (Psa 106:1, Psa 106:2), comfort to the saints (Psa 106:3), and the desire of the faithful towards God's favour (Psa 106:4, Psa 106:5). II. The narrative itself of the sins of Israel, aggravated by the great things God did for them, an account of which is intermixed. Their provocations at the Red Sea (Psa 106:6-12), lusting (Psa 106:13-15), mutinying (Psa 106:16-18), worshipping the golden calf (Psa 106:19-23), murmuring (Psa 106:24-27), joining themselves to Baal-peor (Psa 106:28-31), quarrelling with Moses (Psa 106:32, Psa 106:33), incorporating themselves with the nations of Canaan (Psa 106:34-39). To this is added an account how Go…
Open source ↗106:19-23 they bowed before an image: The people forgot their Savior and committed the sin of idolatry (see Exod 32:1-6).
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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And the LORD sent a plague on the people because of what they had done with the calf that Aaron had made.
Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written: “The people sat down to eat and to drink, and got up to indulge in revelry.”
And I took that sinful thing, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust, and I cast it into the stream that came down from the mountain.
At Horeb you provoked the LORD, and He was angry enough to destroy you.
Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and when they committed terrible blasphemies,
At that time they made a calf and offered a sacrifice to the idol, rejoicing in the works of their hands.