What is the meaning of Psalm 106:20?

They exchanged

- The verse recalls Israel’s conscious decision at Sinai to swap the living God for something of their own making (Exodus 32:1–6).

- Scripture treats this as a willful act, not an accident—“though they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God” (Romans 1:21–23).

- Jeremiah 2:11 laments a similar trade: “Has a nation ever exchanged its gods…? yet My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols.”

- The wording underscores accountability: they chose to let go of what was infinitely valuable.

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their Glory

- “Their Glory” points to the Lord Himself, the One who had just led them out of Egypt with power and presence (Deuteronomy 4:7; Psalm 3:3).

- God was the nation’s honor, protector, and boast; to exchange Him is to forfeit identity and blessing (Psalm 62:7).

- This part of the verse reminds us that God’s people possess no greater treasure than the Lord’s own glory dwelling among them (Exodus 29:45–46).

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for the image

- The contrast is stark: the eternal Glory traded for a man-made replica. Idolatry always substitutes “the real” with “the image” (Exodus 20:4; Isaiah 42:8).

- Images are lifeless, powerless, and unable to save—exactly what Psalm 115:4–8 warns against.

- Romans 1:23 repeats the charge: they “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”

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of a grass-eating ox

- The “grass-eating ox” evokes the golden calf (Exodus 32:4; Deuteronomy 9:21). An animal that depends on grass became the object of Israel’s worship—ironic and tragic.

- 1 Kings 12:28 shows the pattern continued when Jeroboam installed calf idols in Dan and Bethel.

- The phrase drives home how absurd the trade was: exchanging the Creator for a creature that itself needs daily provision.

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summary

- Israel’s sin was deliberate: they knowingly swapped their covenant God for an idol.

- By abandoning “their Glory,” they surrendered security, identity, and blessing.

- Idolatry always reduces the infinite to the finite, the living to the lifeless.

- The “grass-eating ox” highlights the emptiness of trusting anything created instead of the Creator.

- Psalm 106:20 warns every generation: treasure the Glory of God above all substitutes, for nothing else can satisfy or save.