God’s Blessings in Spite of Israel’s Unfaithfulness
And they served their idols, the many cases of wholesale idolatry during the time of the judges and later being included here; which were a snare unto them, Ex. 23, 33. V. 37. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, by letting them pass through the fire of Hinnom or actually offering them to Moloch, the abomination of the Moabites, Lev. 17, 7, v. 38. and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood, Num. 35, 33. 34.
V. 39. Thus were they defiled with their own works, through the spiritual adultery of their idolatrous practices, Ex. 20, 43, and went a whoring with their own inventions, with the doings dictated by their rejection of the true God.
V. 40. Therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against His people, whom He had chosen for His own, insomuch that He abhorred His own inheritance, looking upon them with aversion and loathing. V. 41. And He gave them into the hand of the heathen, as stated throughout the Book of Judges and later; and they that hated them ruled over them. V. 42. Their enemies also oppressed them, not only by exacting tribute, but also by sending marauding parties into Canaan whenever it suited their fancy, and the were brought into subjection under their hand, in the great humiliation of being servants to the despised heathen.
V. 43. Many times did He deliver them; but they provoked Him with their counsel, being self-willed and rebellious, and were brought low for their iniquity, the same circle of apostasy, servitude, deliverance, and relapse being found time and again during the four hundred years following the conquest of Canaan.
V. 44. Nevertheless He regarded their allocation when He heard their cry, the reference here probably being to the time of Samuel and the century following; v. 45. and He remembered for them His covenant, Lev. 26, 41. 42, and repented, turning to them in sympathy, according to the multitude of His mercies, out of free grace and mercy, and not because of any merit or worthiness in them. V. 46. He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives, as in the case of Jehoiachin, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.
In firm reliance upon this mercy of Jehovah the psalmist concludes with an appeal and a doxology. V. 47. Save us, O Lord, our God, and gather us from among the heathen, these words apparently pointing to the exile as the probable time when this psalm was written, to give thanks unto Thy holy name and to triumph in Thy praise, their boast being not of themselves, but of the wonderful attributes and works of Jehovah.
V. 48. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting, throughout all eternity, and let all the people, especially all believers, all members of the Church of God, say, Amen, in joyful, believing assent. Praise ye the Lord! This hallelujah will be the chief content of the hymns in heaven, the song of the saved. while eternal ages run.