And they served their idols; and they were a snare unto them
Psalm 106 is a confession, and the nation looks back over its own record. Verse 36 marks the moment when living beside the nations turned into serving their gods — and those gods became a trap.
Now the confession turns to life inside the land. Israel mixed with the nations there, and the influence ran only one way.
Having traced Israel's failure in the wilderness, the psalmist further confesses their sins in the land. There they mingled with the nations of the world. As a result the nations did not learn the ways of God, but God's people fell into the ways of the world.
God gave Israel a job to do in Canaan. The idols of verse 36 are the leftovers of a command they never carried out.
Because of their wickedness, the nations of Canaan were under God's sentence of destruction, and the Lord had put the carrying out of it into Israel's hands. Instead of doing it, they left them in the land and mixed with them. This brought the sure result that had been predicted: they learned their ways. Their gods became a snare to them. The unnatural deeds tied to their demon-worship became the shame and pollution of Israel.
The word "snare" is not the psalmist's invention. God had spoken it over Israel long before, after they failed to clear the land.
At the end of his life Joshua called the people together. He spoke of "these nations that remain" (23:4) and commanded that they be driven out. He assured the Israelites that God would drive them out before them. Israel only had to obey all that God had said. The book of Judges shows what happened next. Israel had good intentions and had promised Joshua they would obey. Even so, they failed in their own responsibility to drive out the Canaanites (see Judges 1:27–36). The result was that God had to withdraw His promise to drive them out. The angel of the Lord came to Bochim. He declared: "I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you" (Judges 2:3).
Commentators point to a power standing behind the carved image. The worshipper never meant to serve it.
The idols and their sacrifices may be completely powerless. But demons hiding behind them can and do shut out the true God from souls. They take for themselves the honour owed to Him alone. This is the effect of pagan worship, not the intention of the worshippers or of those who share in their sacrifices. Demons are fallen and evil spirits. The worshippers no more planned to honour them than unconverted people today mean to serve Satan. But they did so all the same.
The verse says Israel served these idols. One writer traces how the slide began.
But Israel foolishly allowed the wicked nations to remain in the land (at least in many cases). As a result the Jews themselves mixed with these ungodly Gentiles, learned their works and served their idols (vv. 35-36). If we tolerate wickedness, it will not be long before we embrace it.
The psalm follows the snare through to where it finally led the nation.
For all these sins the chastening hand of the Lord came upon His people. So the land became desolate, and God's people went into captivity. They came into subjection and under the oppression of the Gentiles. They were "brought low" for their iniquity.
Writers apply the verse to readers who own no carved images at all. They keep the very word the psalm uses.
And let us remember that the same tendency is at work with us today. That is why the first letter of John ends with the words, "keep yourselves from idols." For us an idol is anything that ensnares. It takes over in our hearts the place that belongs to God alone.
- Spared — God told Israel to clear Canaan of its wickedness. Instead they left the nations in the land, keeping alive the very thing God had condemned.
- Mingled — the mixing ran one way only: the nations did not learn God's ways, God's people learned theirs.
- Served — no one keeps an idol as a neighbour for long. Tolerate wickedness and you soon embrace it; embrace it and you soon serve it.
- Snared — God had warned long before that these gods would trap them. Behind the powerless images stood demons, taking the honour owed to God from people who never meant to give it.
- Enslaved — the snare closed. The land became desolate and the people went into captivity, brought low by their own sin. For us now, an idol is whatever ensnares the heart and takes God's place there.
And they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto demons,
Psalm 106 is a confession. It walks back through Israel's history, with God's mercy on one side and the nation's failures on the other. Verse 37 is the lowest point of that record. A people told to clear the land of its idols end up handing their own children to the powers behind those idols.
The verse does not stand alone. It ends a chain that began with a smaller act of disobedience: Israel left in the land what God had told them to remove.
But Israel foolishly left the wicked nations in the land (at least in many cases). So the Jews themselves mixed with these godless nations, learned their ways and served their idols (vv. 35-36). If we tolerate wickedness, it will not be long until we embrace it. In the end Israelites went so far as to sacrifice their sons and daughters to demons (v. 37). In many cases they really did shed the blood of their children, and they justified themselves by claiming they were offering sacrifices to God, while in fact they were sacrificing to demons.
Read as a whole, the psalm sorts Israel's sins into two groups, and verse 37 belongs to the darker one.
Their sin clearly has two distinct characters (vv. 7-18 and vv. 19-39). The first is more simply the self-will of man. The second is open contempt of God, and, from verse 34, devilish cruelty to their own children under Satan's power.
The carved image itself is empty, yet something real receives the worship.
Scripture also shows that idolatry was demon-worship at heart, the idol itself being nothing… The things worshipped may have been unseen objects, or they may have had some mysterious form, or they may have been mere idols. But behind all of them were real beings: evil, unclean spirits. So no one could have fellowship with the Lord Jesus and with these demons at the same time (1 Corinthians 10:19-21).
That raises an obvious objection: surely nobody sets out to worship an evil spirit. One writer answers that what a worshipper means to do and what he really does are two different things.
The idols and their sacrifices may be completely powerless. But demons hide behind them, and they can and do shut the true God out of people's souls and take for themselves the honour due to Him alone. This is the effect of pagan worship, not the intention of the worshippers or of those who share in their sacrifices. They no more meant to worship demons (fallen, evil spirits) than people today who do not know God mean to serve Satan. But they did so all the same, and they still do.
Set the two altars side by side. The contrast shows what kind of power stood behind the idol.
Jehovah accepted a sheep or an ox, or even a much smaller sacrifice. Satan, under these idol names, demanded their sons.
Some have argued that the children only passed near the flames and were not burned. In the same passage, Kelly rejects that reading. He calls it "a kindly effort to soften the reality of the wickedness."
Religious zeal supplied the cover. Parents thought they were doing something holy. An older account describes the idol Moloch itself.
Kimchi describes Moloch as a hollow brass figure shaped like a man, with an ox's head and hands stretched out to receive. Once the priests had heated it right through, they laid the baby in its hands. They beat drums to drown out the infant's cries, so that the parents would not relent… It seems hard to understand how religious zeal could excuse such wickedness, yet that is how satanic power seduces people.
The record is not only about Israel. One writer presses it home at the family level.
One of the first steps in this downward slide was burning the little ones of Judah in the fire of Moloch. What a fearful thought for a parent's heart! The backsliding sin and worldliness of a believer today may, unless grace prevents it, sacrifice his children to everlasting burnings. The true path of faith is very narrow. Satan's world lies all around it, on every side. To turn aside is to lead my children into the paths of the destroyer.
- Tolerated — the road to verse 37 opened when Israel left in the land what God had told them to clear out. What we tolerate, we soon embrace.
- Mingled — mixing with those nations meant learning their ways and serving their idols.
- Deceived — the idol is nothing, but real evil spirits stand behind it. The worshippers no more meant to serve demons than someone today who does not know God means to serve Satan.
- Demanded — Jehovah accepted a sheep or an ox; Satan, behind these idol names, asked for their sons, and religious zeal made parents willing.
- Repeated — the same slow drift in a parent's own life can carry the children with it. That is why the psalm keeps the record in plain sight.