Psalm 106:36

And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

106:34-48 The conduct of the Israelites in Canaan, and God's dealings with them, show that the way of sin is down-hill; omissions make way for commissions: when they neglected to destroy the heathen, they learned their works. One sin led to many more, and brought the judgments of God on them. Their sin was, in part, their own punishment. Sinners often see themselves ruined by those who led them into evil. Satan, who is a tempter, will be a tormentor. At length, God showed pity to his people for his covenant's sake. The unchangeableness of God's merciful nature and love to his people, makes him change the course of justice into mercy; and no other change is meant by God's repentance. Our case is awful when the outward church is considered. When nations professing Christianity, are so guilty as we are, no wonder if the Lord brings them low for their sins. Unless there is general and deep repentance, there can be no prospect but of increasing calamities. The psalm concludes with prayer for completing the deliverance of God's people, and praise for the beginning and progress of it. May all the people of the earth, ere long, add their Amen.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And they served their idols - Judges 2:12-13, Judges 2:17, Judges 2:19; Judges 3:6-7.

Which were a snare unto them - Like the snares or toils by which birds and wild beasts are caught. That is, they were taken unawares; they were in danger when they did not perceive it; they fell when they thought themselves safe. The bird and the wild beast approach the snare, unconscious of danger; so the friend of God approaches the temptations which are spread out before him by the enemy of souls - and, ere he is aware, he is a captive, and has fallen. Nothing could better describe the way in which the people of God are led into sin than the arts by which birds are caught by the fowler, and wild beasts by the hunter.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

34-39. They not only failed to expel the heathen, as God

commanded—(Ex 23:32, 33), literally, "said (they should)," but conformed to their idolatries [Ps 106:36], and thus became spiritual adulterers (Ps 73:27).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Which idols were an occasion of their falling both into further and greater sins, as it follows, Psalm 106:37,38; and into utter ruin, as this phrase also notes, Exodus 23:33 Judges 2:12, &c.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they served their idols,.... Of gold and silver, wood and stone; the works of men's hands, senseless creatures; which are nothing in the world, and bring grief and sorrow to the worshippers of them, from whence they have their name here given them; see Psalm 16:4. They served "their" idols, the idols of the Canaanites, who were dispossessed of their land for their idolatries and other sins; and these Israelites were put in their place. They served those which they were ordered to destroy; they who knew the true God, whose servants they were, or ought to have been, and professed to be, and were so called; and yet served the idols of the nations driven out before them. Which were a snare unto them; either the Canaanites were, who were left in the land, with whom they mixed, and whose works they learned; these ensnared them, and drew them into idolatry, Joshua 23:13, or the idols they worshipped, which were the cause of many evils and calamities, Judges 2:3, or the act of serving and worshipping them, Exodus 23:33. They were by these means like a bird or beast in a snare, and brought into trouble and distress, out of which they could not extricate themselves.

Geneva Study Bible

And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

36. which were &c.] And they became a snare unto them, as they had been forewarned, Exodus 23:33, &c. P.B.V. which turned to their own decay = which proved their ruin.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 36. - And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them; or, which became a snare unto them. The idols worshipped were especially Baal and Ashtoreth - the nature-god and nature-goddess, sometimes identified with the sun and moon. These alone are mentioned in the time of the Judges. Afterwards, however, Chemosh, Molech, Remphan, the gods of Syria, and perhaps Ammon of Egypt, were added to the catalogue (1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 21:19; 2 Chronicles 28:23; Acts 7:43). Psalm 106:36

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The sins in Canaan: the failing to exterminate the idolatrous peoples and sharing in their idolatry. In Psalm 106:34 the poet appeals to the command, frequently enjoined upon them from Exodus 23:32. onwards, to extirpate the inhabitants of Canaan. Since they did not execute this command (vid., Judges 1:1), that which it was intended to prevent came to pass: the heathen became to them a snare (mowqeesh), Exodus 23:33; Exodus 34:12; Deuteronomy 7:16. They intermarried with them, and fell into the Canaanitish custom in which the abominations of heathenism culminate, viz., the human sacrifice, which Jahve abhorreth (Deuteronomy 12:31), and only the demons (שׁדים, Deuteronomy 32:17) delight in. Thus then the land was defiled by blood-guiltiness (חנף, Numbers 35:33, cf. Isaiah 24:5; Isaiah 26:21), and they themselves became unclean (Ezekiel 20:43) by the whoredom of idolatry. In Psalm 106:40-43 the poet (as in Nehemiah 9:26.) sketches the alternation of apostasy, captivity, redemption, and relapse which followed upon the possession of Canaan, and more especially that which characterized the period of the judges. God's "counsel" was to make Israel free and glorious, but they leaned upon themselves, following their own intentions (בּעצתם); wherefore they perished in their sins. The poet uses מכך (to sink down, fall away) instead of the נמק (to moulder, rot) of the primary passage, Leviticus 26:39, retained in Ezekiel 24:23; Ezekiel 33:10, which is no blunder (Hitzig), but a deliberate change.