Psalm 106:27

To overthrow their seed also among the nations, and to scatter them in the lands.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(27) Overthrow.—This verse is evidently copied from Ezekiel 20:23, but the psalmist has either intentionally or accidentally changed the prophet’s verb “scatter” into “overthrow,” just used in Psalm 106:26. The error, if an error, is as old as the LXX. version.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

106:13-33 Those that will not wait for God's counsel, shall justly be given up to their own hearts' lusts, to walk in their own counsels. An undue desire, even for lawful things, becomes sinful. God showed his displeasure for this. He filled them with uneasiness of mind, terror of conscience, and self-reproach. Many that fare deliciously every day, and whose bodies are healthful, have leanness in their souls: no love to God, no thankfulness, no appetite for the Bread of life, and then the soul must be lean. Those wretchedly forget themselves, that feast their bodies and starve their souls. Even the true believer will see abundant cause to say, It is of the Lord's mercies that I am not consumed. Often have we set up idols in our hearts, cleaved to some forbidden object; so that if a greater than Moses had not stood to turn away the anger of the Lord, we should have been destroyed. If God dealt severely with Moses for unadvised words, what do those deserve who speak many proud and wicked words? It is just in God to remove those relations that are blessings to us, when we are peevish and provoking to them, and grieve their spirits.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

To overthrow their seed also among the nations - Margin, as in Hebrew, "to make them fall;" to wit, among the surrounding people. The reference here is to the posterity of those who complained and fell in the wilderness. The result of their rebellion and complaining would not terminate with them. It would extend to their posterity, and the rebellion of the fathers would be remembered in distant generations. The overthrow of the nation, and its captivity in Babylon was thus one of the remote consequences of their rebellion in the wilderness.

And to scatter them in the lands - In foreign lands - as at Babylon. If this psalm was written at the time of the Babylonian captivity, this allusion would be most appropriate. It would remind the nation that its captivity there had its origin in the ancient and long-continued disposition of the people to revolt from God.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

27. To overthrow—literally, "To make them fall"; alluding to the words (Nu 14:39).

among … nations … lands—The "wilderness" was not more destructive to the fathers (Ps 106:26) than residence among the heathen ("nations") shall be to the children. Le 26:33, 38 is here, before the Psalmist's mind, the determination against the "seed" when rebellious, being not expressed in Nu 14:31-33, but implied in the determination against the fathers.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

To overthrow their seed; he sware also (though not at the same time) that he would punish their sins, not only in their persons, but also in their posterity. See Exodus 20:5 32:34 Leviticus 26:33. Others refer this to the same oath and history, Numbers 14, because God intended at first to destroy both parents and children, even the whole nation, Psalm 106:12,15, though afterwards upon Moses’s intercession he limited the judgment to that generation. But that destruction threatened was by the pestilence, Psalm 106:12, not, as here, by captivity and banishment. Besides, God said that, Psalm 106:11, but he did not swear it, but the oath came afterward, Psalm 106:21.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

To overthrow their seed also among the nations,.... Their posterity was not overthrown in the wilderness; they were spared to possess the land their fathers despised. This respects later times, as does what follows:

and to scatter them in the lands; which Kimchi explains by the discomfiture of them by the Amalekites and Canaanites, when they presumed, contrary to the will of God, to go up to the top of the hill; and by Arad's taking some of them prisoner, afterwards, Numbers 14:45. But this was not done, nor to be done, in the wilderness: but the meaning is, that God lifted up his hand in the wilderness, and sware there, as Ezekiel says, Ezekiel 20:23, that he would scatter them and disperse them among the Heathen; that is, at one time or another; which he did in part at the Babylonish captivity, and completely by the Romans: which is now their case, and is a standing proof of this prophecy, and an accomplishment of the oath of God.

Geneva Study Bible

To overthrow their seed also among the nations, and to scatter them in the lands.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27. And that he would scatter their seed among the nations,

And disperse them in the lands.

Almost verbatim as Ezekiel 20:23, from which the text must be corrected here. The Heb. words for make to fall and scatter are very similar (הפיץ … הפיל), and the former was accidentally repeated from Psalm 106:26. The allusion to the warnings of banishment from the land in Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 28:64 is suggested by the mention of the exclusion of the faithless Israelites from the land in Psalm 106:26.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - To overthrow their seed also among the nations. Like Ezekiel (Ezekiel 20:23), the writer regards the Babylonish captivity as in part a punishment for the sins committed in the wilderness. And to scatter them in the lands (comp. Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 28:64). The Israelites were punished, not merely by being carried into captivity, but by being completely broken up as a nation, and "scattered" widely over Western Asia - some in Gozan and on the Khabonr (2 Kings 17:6), some in Haran (1 Chronicles 5:26), some in "the cities of the Modes" (2 Kings 18:11; Tobit 1:14 Tobit 3:7), others in Babylonia (2 Kings 24:14-16; 2 Chronicles 36:20; Ezekiel 1:1-3, etc.). The "scattering" has in later times increased ever more and more. Psalm 106:27

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The fact to which the poet refers in Psalm 106:24, viz., the rebellion in consequence of the report of the spies, which he brings forward as the fourth principal sin, is narrated in Numbers 13, Numbers 14. The appellation ארץ חמדּה is also found in Jeremiah 3:19; Zechariah 7:14. As to the rest, the expression is altogether Pentateuchal. "They despised the land," after Numbers 14:31; "they murmured in their tents," after Deuteronomy 1:27; "to lift up the land" equals to swear, after Exodus 6:8; Deuteronomy 32:40; the threat להפּיל, to make them fall down, fall away, after Numbers 14:29, Numbers 14:32. The threat of exile is founded upon the two great threatening chapters, Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28:1; cf. more particularly Leviticus 26:33 (together with the echoes in Ezekiel 5:12; Ezekiel 12:14, etc.), Deuteronomy 28:64 (together with the echoes in Jeremiah 9:15; Ezekiel 22:15, etc.). Ezekiel 20:23 stands in a not accidental relationship to Psalm 106:26.; and according to that passage, וּלהפיל is an error of the copyist for וּלהפיץ (Hitzig).

Now follows in Psalm 106:28-31 the fifth of the principal sins, viz., the taking part in the Moabitish worship of Baal. The verb נצמד (to be bound or chained), taken from Numbers 25:3, Numbers 25:5, points to the prostitution with which Baal Per, this Moabitish Priapus, was worshipped. The sacrificial feastings in which, according to Numbers 25:2, they took part, are called eating the sacrifices of the dead, because the idols are dead beings (nekroi', Wisd. 13:10-18) as opposed to God, the living One. The catena on Revelation 2:14 correctly interprets: τὰ τοῖς εἰδώλοις τελεσθέντα κρέα.

(Note: In the second section of Aboda zara, on the words of the Mishna: "The flesh which is intended to be offered first of all to idols is allowed, but that which comes out of the temple is forbidden, because it is like sacrifices of the dead," it is observed, fol. 32b: "Whence, said R. Jehuda ben Bethra, do I know that that which is offered to idols (תקרובת לעבדה זרה) pollutes like a dead body? From Psalm 106:28. As the dead body pollutes everything that is under the same roof with it, so also does everything that is offered to idols." The Apostle Paul declares the objectivity of this pollution to be vain, cf. more particularly 1 Corinthians 10:28.)

The object of "they made angry" is omitted; the author is fond of this, cf. Psalm 106:7 and Psalm 106:32. The expression in Psalm 106:29 is like Exodus 19:24. The verb עמד is chosen with reference to Numbers 17:13. The result is expressed in Psalm 106:30 after Numbers 25:8, Numbers 25:18., Numbers 17:13. With פּלּל, to adjust, to judge adjustingly (lxx, Vulgate, correctly according to the sense, ἐξιλάσατο), the poet associates the thought of the satisfaction due to divine right, which Phinehas executed with the javelin. This act of zeal for Jahve, which compensated for Israel's unfaithfulness, was accounted unto him for righteousness, by his being rewarded for it with the priesthood unto everlasting ages, Numbers 25:10-13. This accounting of a work for righteousness is only apparently contradictory to Genesis 15:5.: it was indeed an act which sprang from a constancy in faith, and one which obtained for him the acceptation of a righteous man for the sake of this upon which it was based, by proving him to be such.

In Psalm 106:32, Psalm 106:33 follows the sixth of the principal sins, viz., the insurrection against Moses and Aaron at the waters of strife in the fortieth year, in connection with which Moses forfeited the entrance with them into the Land of Promise (Numbers 20:11., Deuteronomy 1:37; Deuteronomy 32:51), since he suffered himself to be carried away by the persevering obstinacy of the people against the Spirit of God (המרה mostly providing the future for מרה, as in Psalm 106:7, Psalm 106:43, Psalm 78:17, Psalm 78:40, Psalm 78:56, of obstinacy against God; on את־רוּחו cf. Isaiah 63:10) into uttering the words addressed to the people, Numbers 20:10, in which, as the smiting of the rock which was twice repeated shows, is expressed impatience together with a tinge of unbelief. The poet distinguishes, as does the narrative in Numbers 20, between the obstinacy of the people and the transgression of Moses, which is there designated, according to that which lay at the root of it, as unbelief. The retrospective reference to Numbers 27:14 needs adjustment accordingly.