Daily Meditations

Psalm 106:33 They rebelled against the Spirit of God The Spirit of God is rarely mentioned in the Old Testament. God is Elohim or Adonai or the Lord (YAWEH), He has many other names but all of them describe a singular Being who is the Most High, in contrast to the many lesser gods of the pagan nations. God speaks, God acts, God chooses, God provides but, on every occasion, it is the mystical, divine Being who is in view. Of course, the people of Old Testament times knew that God was a spiritual Being, and they also knew that He sent spiritual representatives in human form, they knew that on occasions He appeared in clouds and glory to a select few, but the concept of the Spirit of God is not often mentioned. In the same way that Messiah remained mystical and distant, God as the Holy Spirit seemed to be an enigma clouded by anonymity! Maybe, this rebellion at Meribah is a warning to us as much as to the Israelites. The Psalm writer is led to explain that when we may behave and speak reb...

Psalm 106:32 By the waters of Meribah We saw, in Psalm 105, that there were two incidents when the Lord miraculously provided water from a rock. One of these took place shortly after the Israelites left Egypt, now 40 years later, they have arrived back at Kadesh Barnea and once again they are faced by the challenges of conquering the land. Once again, we find them moaning and groaning at their lot and, once again, the Lord provides water from a rock. 40 years earlier, as recorded in Exodus 17, Moses was ordered to strike the rock at Horeb. This time he is commanded by the Lord to speak to it, but instead, he strikes it. That was enough to prohibit Moses and Aaron from leading the people into the Promised Land! This second place of divine provision was called Meribah, the place of quarrelling. The account in Numbers 20 tells us exactly how Moses and Aaron were feeling at this point in their long, tedious journey. The people had been moaning and complaining and comparing the rigors of th...

Psalm 106:31 Credited to him as righteousness The phrase  “credited to him as righteousness”  is not an unfamiliar one in Scripture. In Genesis 15:6 we read,  “Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousnes s.” Abram is the father of all who believe, his example tells us that God graciously responds to faith by crediting righteousness to anyone who truly believes in Him. Phinehas’s zeal for the Lord and for godly justice was a credit to him, so much so that the Lord noted it and gave credit it to the man. He also conferred on him the blessing of the priesthood for all time, this was done by a covenant that could not be broken. Abraham also received covenant promises from the Lord God after his faith had been credited to him as righteousness. God’s covenants with other prominent men, like Noah and David, also followed on from His testimony to their righteousness.  This arrangement has continued. We take a step of faith and declare our allegiance to...

Psalm 106:30 Well done Phineas! As we saw in the previous verses, it was Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron the High Priest, who intervened and brought God’s wrath upon the couple who brazenly had a sexual liaison in an Israelite’s tent. The judgement of Phinehas was brutal, he rammed a spear through both bodies and brought instant death upon them. But his actions stemmed the wrath of God, the plague that had killed 24,000 Israelites ended and peace and normality returned to the Camp. The Lord said to Moses that  “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites.”  (Numbers 25:11) The Lord then vindicated Phinehas for his actions.  “Since he was as zealous for my honour among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will have a covenant of lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honour of his God and made atonement f...

Psalm 106:28-29 Baal of Peor The clock has been brought forward 40 years and the Israelites are once again camped close to the borders of Canaan. This time they are further north in an area called Shittim which was inhabited by the Moabites, today this is part of Jordan.  They camped on the east side of the River Jordan directly in line with the city of Jericho which was situated about 15 miles away inside the Promised Land. Peor is the name of a mountain peak (mentioned in Numbers 23:28) to which Balak, king of Moab, led Balaam, in his fourth and final attempt to induce Balaam to pronounce a curse upon the Israelites as they were passing through Balak's Land to the Promised Land. Whilst they were camped in this area, some of the Israelite men indulged themselves with Moabite women and were invited to attend the sacrificial rituals associated with the Moabite gods. “Worship” often involved sexual acts because the gods associated with Baal were fertility gods. The men shar...

Psalm 106:27 Scattered throughout the lands What was it that kept a whole generation of Israelites from entering the Promised Land? Why, these were the ones who had been delivered from Egypt and who had only recently experienced the mighty hand of God’s salvation and deliverance. Surely, they of all a people would be ready and willing to trust Him now that their goal was in sight. But no, the news about giants and fortified cities put them off progressing any further, they dug their heels in and refused to follow Moses and Aaron into Canaan. How did God view this? He saw their rebellion as disobedience, and He knew that their disobedience was rooted in a lack of faith in Him. They could not bring themselves to believe that their God would go with them and help them to overcome the pagan Canaanites. It grieved Him and angered Him and thus He made the declaration that a whole generation would miss out on the blessings of entering the land.  The land of promise is a place of rest but ...

Psalm 106:26 The "Rest" of dependency and faith The Israelites’ rebellion and lack of faith in the Lord was their downfall. They were camped so close to the Land of Promise, God had delivered them from Pharaoh and the Egyptians, brought them through the wilderness, and provided for their every need. All that was required was simple trust, anything was possible with this God, but the Israelites simply did not believe, and their God was both heartbroken and furious,  “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them?”  The Lord threatens to strike them all down and Moses pleads for leniency, not least for the sake of God’s name and His reputation amongst the surrounding nations. The Lord’s response is damning! “No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see the land i promised on oath to their ancestors ….. in this wilderness your bodies will fall – every one of you twenty...

Psalm 106:24-25 They did not believe His promise The Promised Land has been reached! The people are camping on the southern edge of the land, somewhere near the Dead Sea in what was called the Desert of Paran. A few miles to the north lies the ultimate destination, the goal of their travelling, the place that has been promised by the Lord.  Moses picked twelve good men and true, all of them leaders of the people, and he sent them to explore the land of Canaan. When these spies returned their report was mixed; Canaan flowed with milk and honey and they brought back a branch with grapes and some pomegranate and figs to prove their point. However, the people living in Canaan were powerful, some were even giants, and the cities were fortified and very large. Two men, Caleb and Joshua, said that it was possible to take the land but the other ten were terrified,  “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are. All the people we saw there are of great size …. We seemed ...

Psalm 106:23 Dare to reason? One of the most extraordinary features of the relationship that Moses had with the Lord God, is that he was able to bargain with Him! By that I mean that Moses had the effrontery to confront the Lord and plead with Him to change His mind! What this reveals to us is that God is not an authoritarian, head-in-the-sand, I will do it my way kind of Being. He is the God who responds. Our God can change His mind and He will listen to rational arguments, and He is open to different ideas! This is far different from the view of God that most of us have been brought up to believe in. The thing is, dare we interact with Him in this way? Are we shocked that Moses got God to change His mind because that is what this verse is telling us. It refers to the conversation between Moses and the Lord after the incident with the Golden Calf. The Lord had had enough of His “stiff-necked people.” He told Moses to,  “Leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and tha...

Psalm 106:21-22 Don't forget The point has been made before; we humans have a proclivity to forget. Life is full, days come and go, a week seems like a month and a month like a year. Memories of childhood and youth fade and grow misty with time. We are so engaged with the here and now that large chunks of our lives pass by unremembered, that is if we ever stop and try to remember! How easy it is to forget, to be unable to recall past experiences and important moments that revolutionised our lives. People too come and go, and we forget their names and the friendships we shared. That holiday that was so vivid and memorable for weeks after it ended, is now just a passing dream, something that happened years ago and left a pleasant feeling.  The real tragedy is that we can so easily forget what the Lord God has done for us. The Israelites actually forgot that He delivered them from Egypt, that He worked miracles in that country and saved His people from wretched slavery. They forgot th...

Psalm 106:19-20 Events at Horeb Horeb means “desert or desolation” and it is a mountain situated in the south-east corner of the Sinai Peninsula, or what the Scriptures call, “the far side of the desert.” I think that its significance is that it is as far away from the Promised Land as the Israelites would ever be! Today, the area is in Egyptian hands, and it is bordered by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez to the south and west, by the Mediterranean Sea to the north and by Israel and the Gaza strip to the east. Many scholars have debated the significance of Mount Horeb, and many believe that this mountain and Mount Sinai are one and the same, they are certainly located in the same area. The landscape is desert-like, broken only by rocky outcrops and rugged mountains, it has never been highly populated and could not have been the most comfortable place for the Israelites to have stayed.  It was here, in this wild and desolate landscape that Moses was called up Mount Sinai and where ...

Psalm 106:17-18 Rebellion has consequences! Following on from the previous verse - the next morning the men all assemble before the Lord at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. Korah is there with the 250 elders of Israel, all of them have their censers with their hot coals and incense ready to burn before the Lord. Aaron is told that he too must participate in this ritual. The glory of the Lord appeared before them all and He commanded Moses and Aaron to separate themselves from the rabble. But these two men pleaded with the Lord to spare the protestors who had merely followed one man who was the ringleader. You will remember that the Levites were camped close to the Tent of Meeting and acted as a form of protection around it; the assembly are commanded by the Lord to move away from the tents of Dathan, Abiram and Korah and their families and not to touch any of their possessions. Then Moses made a spine-chilling announcement,  “If these men die a natural death and suffer the fate...

Psalm 106:16a Questioning God's leaders Chapter 16 of Numbers tells us exactly what happened to those who conspired against God’s chosen leaders – Moses and Aaron. Moses gathered the dissenters together and advised them that the Lord will show who belongs to Him and who is holy by  “causing them to come near Him!”  Korah and his followers are to prepare themselves by taking censers (incense burners) and burning coals, and the following day they will all gather together and offer incense to the Lord, and He will show whom He has chosen to lead His people. Moses also lectured the men before him, “ Isn’t it enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community and brought you near Himself to do the work of the Lord’s tabernacle and to stand before the community and minister to them ?” Moses accuses these men of trying to take the priesthood away from Aaron and informs them that their rebellion is not against him but against the Lord....

Psalm 106:16 Jealous for power Here we go! All of you who have had positions of leadership in churches will be familiar with this one! Let’s just remind ourselves of the story, shall we? It’s found in Numbers 16.  Moses, of course, had been appointed by the Lord to lead the Israelites on the exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land. His brother, Aaron, had also been appointed by God to be the High Priest in the community, and to take responsibility for the religious rites and ceremonies that the Lord had instituted. The Levites were the tribe selected to fill the other priestly roles and to carry out the religious duties that the Law demanded. This included the construction and care of the Tabernacle and its daily services and sacrifices. The Levites were responsible for overseeing the endless rules that governed behaviour and daily life as well as organising the special Feast days and the annual calendar of events. It was an interminable ritual of rules and regulations that had...

  Psalm 106:15  They got what they asked for! We sometimes advise people to, “Be careful what you wish for!” As we know, it was not just water that became the source of the travelling Israelites’ complaints against Moses and the Lord, they also grumbled and wailed about the daily supply of Manna. Numbers 11 sets out the story in detail, in verse 4-5 we read,  “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost – also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” Moses took the criticism and moaning personally and appealed to the Lord,  “What have I done to displease You that You put the burden of all these people on me? ” It was this incident that prompted the Lord to send in quail from the sea; the account reads like it was almost a petulant act on His part! The quail landed amongst the people up to 3 feet deep all around them, as far as a day’s walk in any directio...

Psalm 106:14 They put God to the test We’re back to Exodus again; much of the lamenting that goes on in this Psalm has its roots in Exodus and the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt and their journey to the Promised Land.  For a while, after the Red Sea triumph, the people were content to do the Lord’s bidding, to follow His commands and to obey their leaders. For a while, the strategy worked, the Lord God went before them in the cloud and the pillar of fire. And, for a while, their dietary needs were met until, under the guidance of the Lord, they camped at Rephidim. They were in South Sinai, a pretty bleak area, hot, rugged, inhospitable, and not far from the terrain where Moses had tended his father-in-law’s flocks some time before. It is thought that Rephidim was in a wadi, a valley or ravine that is dry except in the rainy season. I believe that there was much anticipation that the wadi would provide the people with water but when they arrived and set up camp, it was dry...

Psalm 106:13 Do not forget We need to remember that Israel’s relationship with the Lord God was based on His laws and their obedience. It was possible for them to live lives that were highly blessed, that incorporated the provision of God in every tiny detail of their national and individual existence. God was prepared to give them everything they needed, He would provide food and water for them and their flocks. He would guide them on their journey. He would protect them from their enemies. He would inspire and direct their leaders. He would keep them from the heat of the sun and the terrors of the desert night. He would take them to the land that He had promised, in double quick time. There was no reason why they could not be in situ in just a few months. Everything they could possibly need was His to provide and He was willing to sacrifice anything to see them gratefully settled in Canaan.  There was just one snag, it all depended upon their obedience and faithfulness. God insis...

Psalm 106:11-12 They believed His promises and  sang His praise "And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in Him and in Moses His servant.”  That’s found in Exodus 14:31. In many Bibles the following chapter of Exodus is called “The Song of Moses and Miriam.” However, the opening verse of Exodus 15 says,  “Then Moses and  the Israelites  sang this song to the Lord.”  Maybe Moses and his sister wrote this beautiful hymn of praise but the whole of the Israelite camp sang it! As our verses today tell us,  “Then they believed His promises and sang His praise. ”  The song in Exodus 15 is well worth a read, it covers all the events of the deliverance through the Red Sea but at all times gives credit to the Lord for His undeniable role in the salvation of His people. We are reminded that  “Both horse and rider He has hurled into the sea.”  It is the...

Psalm 106:9-10 He rebuked, He led, He saved, He redeemed them It was not a time for a debate! The advancing masses of the Egyptian army could be seen in the distance. To turn around and face them would be akin to suicide! But the Israelites faced an even greater challenge as they looked ahead, for the Sea of Reeds (Red Sea) also confronted them and there were no boats or ships, no bridges and therefore no prospect of crossing the waters. They were trapped and they took it out on their leader! I love the words of the Lord to Moses,  “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.” Exodus 14:15.  In the next few hours, the Lord would show those terrified Israelites that He was very much in control of the situation and that nothing was too difficult for Him. He would send a strong east wind and divide the Sea and the people would cross through on dry land with a wall of water on their right and on their left. The Egyptians would be conned into following them! The a...

Psalm 106:7b-8 For His Name's sake The triumphant march of the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt turned into a terrifying anti-climax. They had eagerly packed up their possessions, untied their flocks and herds and set off in cheerful processions, carrying the wealth of the Egyptians in their bags. It was only when their route led them to the shores of the Red Sea that the people recognised their dilemma and the mortal danger that they were in. As they looked back across the flat desert land behind them, they could see the dust cloud of the Egyptian charioteers and the marching army that was in pursuit. The accusations levelled at Moses for leading them into this apparently inevitable catastrophe were bitter and angry: - ·        Was it because there were no graves for us in Egypt that you have brought us here to die? ·        What have you done by bringing us out to this place of death? ·        We told ...

Psalm 106:7a They gave no thought to Your miracles We are now embarking on a very frustrating journey; the miraculous provision of the Lord God, as set out in Psalm 105, is now going to be contrasted with the ingratitude and rebellion of the Israelites who consistently kicked against Him and His laws. They chose to worship foreign gods on innumerable occasions and for almost every blessing on God’s part, they responded with an act of corporate treachery and rejection. We have to understand, of course, that they could only love and serve Him through human obedience and effort, there was no inner Holy Spirit to guide, protect and reassure them.  The Psalm suggests, in this verse, that even the miraculous signs in Egypt were ignored and discounted by the Hebrew slaves. Indeed, when Moses first reported to them that the Lord God was to be their God, that He would redeem them, free them from the slavery of Egypt and bring them to the land that He had promised to their ancestors,  “...

Psalm 106:6 We have sinned This verse begins a depressing analysis of the history of Israel and the Jews. It begins in Egypt, and it ends, forty verses later, with their captivities under different nations. Throughout all of this the Lord God remains faithful and true to His promises whilst His people consistently rebel and violate His laws. The most disquieting factor is that the people were so quick to praise the Lord and to affirm their trust in Him, but they were just as quick to turn their backs on Him and go after other gods. When David brought the Ark of the Covenant up to Jerusalem for the first time, it was as if they had reached the pinnacle of their faith and trust in God Almighty. They sang together, “ Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever. … Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.”   1 Chronicles 16:34-36. The problem was that those words were soon forgotten, the love of the Lord was spurned, His everl...

Psalm 106:5 Prosperity, joy and praise Here are three consequences of being remembered and saved by the Lord when He comes to our aid! Firstly, we are able to enjoy “ the prosperity of Your chosen ones”.  The Psalm writer is, of course, thinking about the prosperity of Israel as a nation. There has never been a time in history when God’s blessing of that nation has not manifested itself in prosperity in their fields, in their businesses and in population growth. In fact, this is what is promised in Deuteronomy 28:1-14. These blessings could have been Israel’s portion throughout their history if they had only obeyed the Lord their God and kept His commandments.  Many peoples across the world take great pride in their identity, they love their nation and the traditions, customs and identity that it gives them. Over the centuries, the Jews have been pilloried, persecuted and killed for their identity, their pilgrimage has been one of pain and sorrow and isolation. However, when t...

Psalm 106:4 Remember me, Lord It seems that the writer of the Psalm is begging to be included in the blessings that he believes the Lord is going to pour out upon the people or the nation of Israel. We can almost hear him saying to himself, “but I act justly, I always seek to do right so, in that case Lord, I am qualified to be included when You show favour to Your people and when You bring salvation to them.” That there should be an element of doubt about this, in the writer’s mind, is puzzling. Perhaps he is simply asking to be included in every good thing that the Lord God brings upon His people, or perhaps his past includes something that may exclude Him from God’s favour? The wonderful promise to you and I is that we are included. We do not have to earn our salvation or the favour of the Lord. His blessings are all ours through Christ Jesus; the sins and mistakes of the past have been forgiven, we are new creations, the old has passed away. We are redeemed, set free from the chord...