Psalm 106:42

Their enemies also oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their hand.

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

Their enemies also oppressed them - Septuagint, "Afflicted them," They invaded their country; they destroyed their vintages; they laid desolate their land; they made them captives.

And they were brought into subjection - Hebrew, made to bow.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

40-43. Those nations first seduced and then oppressed them (compare Jud 1:34; 2:14; 3:30). Their apostasies ungratefully repaid God's many mercies till He finally abandoned them to punishment (Le 26:39).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Their enemies also oppressed them,.... By taxes, and taking the increase of their fields and sustenance, which often obliged them to cry for a deliverer, who upon this was sent to them; see Judges 2:9.

And they were brought into subjection under their hand; or were humbled under their hand, as the Targum; they were not only made to submit to their enemies, but they were humbled before the Lord; brought to a sense of their sins, and acknowledgment of them, when the Lord appeared for their deliverance, as follows.

Geneva Study Bible

Their enemies also oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their hand.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 42. - Their enemies also oppressed them (see Judges 4:3; Judges 10:8; 1 Samuel 9:16; etc.). And they were brought into subjection under their hand. (For pictures of the "subjection," see Judges 4:6-11; 1 Samuel 13:19, 20.) Psalm 106:42

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.