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Psalm 106:28-35
New Catholic Bible
Psalm 106:28-35
New Catholic Bible
28 [a]They joined in worshiping Baal of Peor
and ate food sacrificed to lifeless gods.
29 They provoked the Lord to anger by their evil deeds,
and a plague broke out among them.
30 Then Phinehas stood up and executed judgment,
and the plague came to an end.
31 This was credited to him as righteousness[b]
for all the generations to come.
32 [c]At the waters of Meribah[d] they angered the Lord,
and Moses endured difficulties because of them.
33 For they rebelled against the Spirit of God,
and rash words issued from Moses’ lips.[e]
34 [f]They did not exterminate the peoples
as the Lord had commanded them to do.
35 Rather, they mingled with the nations
and adopted their practices.
Footnotes
- Psalm 106:28 The psalmist recalls the people’s apostasy and rebellion in worshiping Baal of Peor (see Num 25:1-10).
- Psalm 106:31 Credited to him as righteousness: reminiscent of Abraham’s justification and that of the new People of God (see Gen 15:6; Rom 4:3, 23-25).
- Psalm 106:32 The psalmist relives the people’s quarreling with the Lord at Meribah, which led Moses to sin (see Num 20:1-13).
- Psalm 106:32 Meribah: see note on Ps 95:8. The Lord: literally, “him.” Moses endured difficulties: he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land because of his rash words (see Num 20:12). Deuteronomy 1:37 indicates that Moses was not allowed to do so because of the people’s sin, not his own.
- Psalm 106:33 Spirit of God . . . Moses’ lips: literally, “his Spirit . . . his lips.” The Old Testament indicates that the Spirit of God was present and at work in the wilderness (see Ex 31:3; Num 11:17; 24:2; Neh 9:20; Isa 63:10-14).
- Psalm 106:34 The psalmist indicts the mingling of the people with the pagan nations and their evil practices (such as idolatry, infant sacrifices, and injustice of all kinds) from the time of the Judges to the Babylonian Exile.
