Bible Strands
Psalms 106:40
So the anger of the LORD burned against His people, and He abhorred His own inheritance.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Psalmist addresses the assembled community of Israel, recounting the historical moment when divine judgment follows the nation’s idolatry and ritual defilement (Psalms 106:39).
The words — `אַף` ('af) = anger, and `יְתָעֵב` (yi'ta'ev) = he abhorred. The Hebrew verbs `חָרָה` (charah) = burned and `יְתָעֵב` (yi'ta'ev) = he abhorred describe the shift from provoked wrath to active rejection.
The thread — The pattern of Yahweh’s anger burning against Israel and resulting in foreign domination appears in Judges 2:14. The tension between divine rejection and covenantal ownership is echoed in Deuteronomy 9:29 and Deuteronomy 32:19.
Why it lands — The text states that God’s wrath directly targets His chosen people and that He treats His own inheritance as detestable. A reader must confront the reality that covenant privilege does not immunize a community from divine judgment when it persists in defilement.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance.
Cross-references
- Judges 2:14 Then the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of those who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.
- Deuteronomy 9:29 But they are Your people, Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your great power and outstretched arm.”
- Deuteronomy 32:19 When the LORD saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters.
- Judges 2:20 So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He said, “Because this nation has transgressed the covenant I laid down for their fathers and has not heeded My voice,
- Judges 3:8 Then the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He sold them into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim king of Aram-naharaim, and the Israelites served him eight years.
- Leviticus 20:23 You must not follow the statutes of the nations I am driving out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.
- Nehemiah 9:27 So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies.
- Psalms 74:1 A Maskil of Asaph. Why have You rejected us forever, O God? Why does Your anger smolder against the sheep of Your pasture?
- Lamentations 2:7 The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast.
- Zechariah 11:8 And in one month I dismissed three shepherds. My soul grew impatient with the flock, and their souls also detested me.