Psalm 106 - Confession of national sins

Psalm 106 text: hodu l'YHWH ki tov

Psalm 106 opens with the same formula with which Ps 105 closes — hodu l'YHWH ki tov, ki l'olam hasdo — «give thanks to YHWH, for he is good, for his hesed is forever» (Ps 106:1 MT) — but what follows is the exact reverse: not the wonders of God but the sins of the people. Psalm 106 belongs to the genre of teshuvah qehillah (communal confession), a liturgical genre that finds its most extensive expression in Neh 9:5–37 and its normative formulation in the tradition of the viduy (oral confession) prescribed for the Day of Atonement. Verse 4 introduces the individual prayer set within the collective confession: zokhreini YHWH birtzon ammekha, paqdeini bish'uatekha — «remember me, YHWH, with the favor you show your people; visit me with your salvation» (Ps 106:4 MT). The singular zokhreini («remember me») within a collective psalm is significant: each individual inserts himself into the history of the people to participate in the same mercy.

Verse 6 introduces the direct confession: chatanu im avoteinu, he'evinu hirsha'nu — «we have sinned like our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have acted wickedly» (Ps 106:6 MT). The triple parallelism — chatanu/he'evinu/hirsha'nu — encompasses the three dimensions of sin in the Jewish tradition: transgression, perversion and deliberate wickedness. The structure of Psalm 106 follows the paradigm of the riv (divine lawsuit): rebellion of the people → wrath of YHWH → intercession → forgiveness. This scheme traces every episode from Egypt (vv. 7–12) to the golden calf (vv. 19–22, Exod 32), from the rejection of the Land (vv. 24–27, Num 14) to the sin of Baal-Peor (vv. 28–31, Num 25), up to the exile (vv. 40–46). The prayer for healing united with the confession of sins — as the biblical tradition testifies in Ps 41:5 MT (chatati lakha, «I have sinned against you») — is the soteriological model of the traditional Psalm 106 commentary.