Psalm 106:40

The Message

And God was furious—a wildfire anger; he couldn’t stand even to look at his people. He turned them over to the heathen so that the people who hated them ruled them. Their enemies made life hard for them; they were tyrannized under that rule. Over and over God rescued them, but they never learned— until finally their sins destroyed them.

Cross References

Psalm 74:1

You walked off and left us, and never looked back. God, how could you do that? We’re your very own sheep; how can you stomp off in anger?

Jeremiah 12:7

“I will abandon the House of Israel, walk away from my beloved people. I will turn over those I most love to those who are her enemies. She’s been, this one I held dear, like a snarling lion in the jungle, Growling and baring her teeth at me— and I can’t take it anymore. Has this one I hold dear become a preening peacock? But isn’t she under attack by vultures? Then invite all the hungry animals at large, invite them in for a free meal! Foreign, scavenging shepherds will loot and trample my fields, Turn my beautiful, well-cared-for fields into vacant lots of tin cans and thistles. They leave them littered with junk— a ruined land, a land in lament. The whole countryside is a wasteland, and no one will really care. * * *

Lamentations 2:7

God abandoned his altar, walked away from his holy Temple and turned the fortifications over to the enemy. As they cheered in God’s Temple, you’d have thought it was a feast day!

Deuteronomy 32:19

God saw it and spun around, angered and hurt by his sons and daughters. He said, “From now on I’m looking the other way. Wait and see what happens to them. Oh, they’re a turned-around, upside-down generation! Who knows what they’ll do from one moment to the next? They’ve goaded me with their no-gods, infuriated me with their hot-air gods; I’m going to goad them with a no-people, with a hollow nation incense them. My anger started a fire, a wildfire burning deep down in Sheol, Then shooting up and devouring the Earth and its crops, setting all the mountains, from bottom to top, on fire. I’ll pile catastrophes on them, I’ll shoot my arrows at them: Starvation, blistering heat, killing disease; I’ll send snarling wild animals to attack from the forest and venomous creatures to strike from the dust. Killing in the streets, terror in the houses, Young men and virgins alike struck down, and yes, breast-feeding babies and gray-haired old men.”

Deuteronomy 9:29

“They are your people still, your inheritance whom you powerfully and sovereignly rescued.”

Judges 2:20

And God’s anger blazed against Israel. He said, “Because these people have thrown out my covenant that I commanded their parents and haven’t listened to me, I’m not driving out one more person from the nations that Joshua left behind when he died. I’ll use them to test Israel and see whether they stay on God’s road and walk down it as their parents did.”