Commentary on Psalms Volume 3 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
them to expel the ancient inhabitants, in order that he might render it the peculiar scene where he was to be worshipped. The Israelites then were doubly wicked, who, by not only defiling the land with their idolatry, but also by cruelly butchering their children, robbed God of his due, and in a manner frustrated his designs.
39 And they were polluted with their own works He now concludes by stating generally, that the Jews, in adopting the abominable practices of the heathen, were become wholly filthy; because in all the devices of men there is nothing else than impurity. He denominates as the works of men all the false worship which they devise without the Divine sanction; as if he should say, that the holiness, which is truly connected with the worship of God, comes from his word, and that all human inventions and admixtures in religion are profane, and tend to corrupt the service of God. Doubtless it was the intention of the Israelites to serve God, but the Holy Spirit declares that all the fruit of their burning zeal was their becoming more abominable in God's sight by their lewd inventions. For a strict adherence to the word of God constitutes spiritual chastity.
Psalm 106:40-46
40. And the wrath of Jehovah waxed hot against his people, and he abhorred his own inheritance: 41. And he delivered them into the hands of the heathen; and their enemies ruled over them. 42. And their adversaries subdued them, and they were afflicted under their hand. 43. Many times he delivered them; and they provoked him with their counsel, and were oppressed by their iniquity. 44. And he saw when they were in straits, in that he heard their cry: 45. And he remembered his covenant towards them, and it repented him according to the greatness of his mercies. 46. And he made them to find pity from those who had carried them away captive.
40. And the wrath of Jehovah waxed hot. The severity of the punishment inflicted upon the people confirms the truth of what we formerly said, that they had been guilty of no trivial offense, in presuming to corrupt the worship of God. And they themselves showed how hopeless their reformation was, in that all this as yet failed to bring them truly to repent of their sin. That the people, who were God's sacred and chosen heritage, were delivered up to the abominations of the heathen, who themselves were the slaves of the devil, was an awful manifestation of his vindictive wrath. Then, at least, ought they to have held in abhorrence their own wickedness, by which they had been precipitated into such direful calamities. In saying, that they were subdued and afflicted by their enemies, the prophet points out, in a still more astonishing manner, the baseness of their conduct. Reduced to a state of bondage and oppression, their folly appears the more disgraceful, in that they were not truly and heartily humbled under God's almighty hand. For prior to this, they had been warned by Moses, that they had not casually