they provoked the LORD to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them.
This psalm shows God's boundless goodness toward His people, yet it confesses that they repaid His kindness with rank ingratitude, idolatry, and rebellion from the very start. The Psalmist begins with praise precisely so that we would dare to ask pardon for such shameful abuse of His covenant mercies.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 106:1-48
Thus they provoked him to anger with their inventions: and the plague brake in upon them. Open licentiousness and avowed idolatry were too gross to be winked at. This time the offences clamoured for judgment, and the judgment came at once. Twenty-four thousand persons fell before a sudden and deadly disease which threatened to run through the whole camp.
This is an abridgment of the history of Israel's provocations in the wilderness, and of the wrath of God against them for those provocations: and this abridgment is abridged by the apostle, with application to us Christians (Co1 10:5, etc.); for these things were written for our admonition, that we sin not like them, lest we suffer like them. I.
Commenting on Psalm 106:13-33