What is the meaning of Psalm 106:34?

They

• The pronoun points specifically to Israel, the covenant people delivered from Egypt (Psalm 106:7).

• Earlier verses highlight their shared guilt—“We have sinned like our fathers” (Psalm 106:6). Israel as a nation, not merely isolated tribes, stands in view.

• Joshua’s generation had taken much of Canaan (Joshua 21:43-45), yet Judges 1:27-36 records tribes leaving pockets of pagans. Those later gaps become the focus here.

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did not destroy

• God’s command was unambiguous: “you must devote them to complete destruction” (Deuteronomy 7:2).

• Partial obedience is disobedience. Like Saul sparing Agag and the best sheep (1 Samuel 15:3, 9), Israel let culture, convenience, and fear override God’s word.

• The failure was gradual—forced labor sounded efficient (Judges 1:28), alliances looked harmless (Joshua 9:14-15), yet every compromise contradicted God’s clear directive.

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the peoples

• These are the entrenched Canaanite nations listed in Deuteronomy 7:1—Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

• Scripture stresses their persistent idolatry (Leviticus 18:24-25). God’s justice, not ethnic prejudice, lay behind the judgment (Genesis 15:16).

• Leaving them in the land meant leaving spiritual landmines; unsurprisingly, Psalm 106:35 laments, “Instead, they mingled with the nations and learned their works.”

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as the LORD had commanded them

• The LORD (YHWH) had spoken repeatedly—Numbers 33:52-55 warns of “barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides” if the nations remained.

• The command protected the purity of worship; Exodus 23:31-33 predicts that co-existence would lead Israel to “serve their gods.”

• Psalm 106 therefore casts the historical record in moral terms: divine command, human refusal, inevitable corruption (Psalm 106:36-39).

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summary

Psalm 106:34 exposes a critical turning point: the redeemed people chose compromise over obedience. Israel (“They”) balked at full devotion (“did not destroy”), underestimated the threat (“the peoples”), and set aside direct revelation (“as the LORD had commanded them”). The verse reminds us that selective obedience erodes covenant faithfulness and invites the very snares God’s commands are meant to spare us from.