YEAR 3, WEEK 2, Day 7, Sunday, 11 January 2026

https://esv.literalword.com/?q=Psalm+106;+Nehemiah+4

Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Sunday, 11 January 2026:

Psalm 106:1 — Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!

Psalm 106 opens with hallelujah on the lips and confession in the heart. That is not hypocrisy; that is the proper order of repentance. We do not start with our sin as if it is bigger than God. We start with God’s goodness and covenant love, because only the light of His steadfast love exposes the darkness of our forgetfulness without crushing us into despair. God’s love endures longer than our failures endure.

Psalm 106:2-3 — Who can utter the mighty deeds of the LORD, or declare all his praise? Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!

God’s works are so weighty that the tongue cannot carry them all. The proper response to what cannot be fully spoken is a life that can be faithfully lived. Obedience is not payment for grace; it is the fruit of gratitude. When righteousness becomes “optional,” it is not because God’s commands became unclear — it is because God’s goodness became small in our sight. The blessed life is not a complicated secret. It is justice and righteousness practiced consistently, not selectively, from a heart of loving gratitude, not merely compliance.

Psalm 106:4-5 — Remember me, O LORD, when you show favor to your people; help me when you save them, that I may look upon the prosperity of your chosen ones, that I may rejoice in the gladness of your nation, that I may glory with your inheritance.

He does not ask merely for private relief; he asks to be gathered into the joy and honor of God’s redeemed people. This is covenant language — favor, chosen ones, inheritance. Salvation is not merely being spared; it is being included. He wants God’s saving work to put him back in the stream of God’s purposes, so that his life rejoices where God rejoices.

Psalm 106:6-7 — Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness. Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.

This is national confession with personal ownership. He does not stand above his fathers; he stands with them. He names sin plainly, because vague repentance produces weak change. The root is exposed: they did not consider, they did not remember. Forgetting God is never neutral; it is the seedbed of rebellion. When God’s mercies are treated as common, God’s commands soon feel unbearable.

Psalm 106:8-12 — Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power. He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry, and he led them through the deep as through a desert. So he saved them from the hand of the foe and redeemed them from the power of the enemy. And the waters covered their adversaries; not one of them was left. Then they believed his words; they sang his praise.

Here is the “yet” of grace. God saves rebellious people for His name’s sake so that His power and faithfulness are unmistakable. The Red Sea is not only a miracle; it is a revelation of who God is when His people are trapped and helpless. The tragedy is not that Israel sang — singing was right. The tragedy is that singing did not become lasting remembrance. A faith that only rises when the waters part will collapse when the desert stretches long.

Psalm 106:13-15 — But they soon forgot his works; they did not wait for his counsel. But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness, and put God to the test in the desert; he gave them what they asked, but sent a wasting disease among them.

“Forgetting” turns into “not waiting.” When we will not wait for God’s counsel, we will manufacture our own. Craving becomes a counterfeit guidance system. God’s judgment here is frightening because it is familiar: He may grant what we demand, and that “gift” becomes leanness, wasting inside. A full life is not measured by getting what you want; it is measured by being formed into what God wants.

Psalm 106:16-18 — When men in the camp were jealous of Moses and Aaron, the holy one of the LORD, the earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram. Fire also broke out in their company; the flame burned up the wicked.

Jealousy is never “just a feeling.” It is rebellion against God’s ordering, God’s choosing, God’s timing. The psalm calls Aaron “the holy one of the LORD” not because Aaron was flawless, but because God had set him apart. Envy often disguises itself as justice, but the root is refusal to submit. God’s judgments in Israel’s history are warnings written in fire: do not play with the kind of sin that corrodes unity and destroys God’s work from the inside.

Psalm 106:19-23 — They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a metal image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea. Therefore he said he would destroy them had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.

Idolatry is not merely having “something you like too much.” It is an exchange, trading God’s glory for something smaller, controllable, and dead. When God is forgotten, worship does not disappear; it gets redirected. The mercy in this passage is that judgment was real, and intercession was stronger. Moses “stood in the breach,” a picture that points beyond Moses to the greater Mediator. Christ stands in the breach not only by pleading, but by bearing wrath in His own body. Without a mediator, we do not merely struggle, we are lost.

Psalm 106:24-27 — Then they despised the pleasant land, having no faith in his promise. They murmured in their tents, and did not obey the voice of the LORD. Therefore he raised his hand and swore to them that he would make them fall in the wilderness, and would make their offspring fall among the nations, scattering them among the lands.

Unbelief is not a mere intellectual gap. It despises what God gives and mistrusts what God promises. Murmuring often happens “in their tents” — at home, in private, in the place where the heart talks most freely. Complaining is not harmless venting; it is refusal to obey the voice of the LORD. God’s oath of discipline shows that persistent unbelief has consequences that outlive a moment. What we normalize in our hearts can shape an entire generation.

Psalm 106:28-31 — Then they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices offered to the dead; they provoked the LORD to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them. Then Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stopped. And that was counted to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever.

To “yoke” yourself is to bind your life to an altar. Israel yoked itself to death, and death came like a plague. Phinehas’ intervention is recorded as righteousness because it aligned with God’s holiness in a uniquely appointed moment of covenant crisis. The point is not to imitate his exact action; the point is that God takes covenant purity seriously, and there are times when courage must cut through compromise. A community that will not confront sin will eventually be crushed by it.

Psalm 106:32-33 — They angered him at the waters of Meribah, and it went ill with Moses on their account, for they made his spirit bitter, and he spoke rashly with his lips.

The people’s rebellion became a pressure that exposed Moses’ weakness. Scripture does not excuse Moses, but it does explain the provocation. Leaders are not immune to the emotional damage of constant contention. Yet even provoked, Moses was accountable for representing God rightly. This teaches both sides: God’s people must not be carelessly quarrelsome, and God’s servants must not let bitterness rewrite their speech.

Psalm 106:34-39 — They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them, but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds.

Compromise rarely arrives announcing itself. It arrives as mixing, learning, adopting, and then serving. What begins as tolerance becomes imitation; what begins as imitation becomes bondage; what begins as bondage becomes cruelty. The psalm does not soften the language: demon-worship, innocent blood, pollution. When a people abandon God, they do not become “free.” They become capable of unspeakable evil while calling it normal. The land is polluted because sin is not merely private, it leaks into everything.

Psalm 106:40-43 — Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people, and he abhorred his heritage; he gave them into the hand of the nations, so that those who hated them ruled over them. Their enemies oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their power. Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes and were brought low through their iniquity.

God’s wrath is not a mood; it is holy opposition to what destroys His people. One of the severest judgments is when God gives people over to what they insisted on — being ruled by those who hate them. Yet even here, mercy shines: “many times he delivered them.” The cycle is painful: deliverance followed by rebellion, then being brought low. It is meant to teach what prosperity alone does not teach — that sin is slavery and only God is freedom.

Psalm 106:44-46 — Nevertheless, he looked upon their distress, when he heard their cry. For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love. He caused them to be pitied by all those who held them captive.

Here is the second great “nevertheless.” God’s covenant love outlasts Israel’s covenant forgetfulness. He relents according to the abundance of steadfast love, not according to the abundance of their record. Even captivity is not the end when God hears repentance. He can bend the hearts of captors, giving pity where cruelty would be expected. This is God’s mercy operating inside harsh realities, not merely removing harsh realities.

Psalm 106:47-48 — Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise. Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the LORD!

The goal of gathering is worship: thanks, glory, praise. This is repentance with direction, turning from sin toward God’s name. The psalm ends as it began: hallelujah. Confession has not canceled praise; confession has purified it. The right ending of national confession is not shame, it is worship restored.

Nehemiah 4:1 — Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews.

Opposition escalates when progress becomes visible. Sanballat’s anger is not rational analysis; it is threatened self-interest. When God’s work rebuilds what was broken, the people who benefited from the ruins often rage. Jeering is a cheap weapon for a fearful heart — if he can shame the builders, he can stop the building.

Nehemiah 4:2-3 — And he said in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and burned ones at that?” Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, “Yes, what they are building — if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!”

Mockery often mixes lies with a sliver of truth. Yes, they were feeble. Yes, the rubble was real. Yes, the stones were burned and broken. The enemy’s strategy is to magnify limitations and erase God. That is how discouragement works: it makes the obstacles look sovereign and makes the Lord look absent. Tobiah’s contempt — “their stone wall” — reveals his blindness. It is not ultimately their wall. It is God’s work, and therefore his ridicule is aimed at more than people; it is aimed at the purposes of God.

Nehemiah 4:4-5 — Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. Do not cover their guilt, and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders.

Nehemiah does not trade insults. He prays. He puts judgment in God’s hands rather than taking it into his own. This kind of prayer is not personal vendetta dressed in religion; it is an appeal to God’s justice in the face of malicious opposition to God’s work. Nehemiah understands something many forget: when you are doing what God has clearly assigned, opposition is not merely against you — it is against God’s mission.

Nehemiah 4:6 — So we built the wall. And all the wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

God’s answer is visible in perseverance. The wall rises because the people have a mind to work. A mind to work is not a personality trait; it is a grace that overcomes fatigue and fear. Halfway progress is both encouraging and dangerous: enough has been built to provoke the enemy, and enough remains to exhaust the builder. This is where many quit — right before completion becomes inevitable.

Nehemiah 4:7-8 — But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry, and they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it.

As the breaches close, opposition multiplies. Unity in evil forms quickly when God’s work advances. Their aim is not merely to stop the wall; it is to create confusion, because confusion paralyzes. A distracted, divided people can be defeated without a battle.

Nehemiah 4:9 — And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.

Here is the mature pattern: prayer and watchfulness. Not prayer instead of action, and not action instead of prayer. Godly strategy is spiritual dependence plus wise diligence. Day and night tells you they took the threat seriously without surrendering to fear. Faith does not deny danger; faith refuses to be ruled by it.

Nehemiah 4:10 — In Judah it was said, “The strength of those who bear the burdens is failing. There is too much rubble. By ourselves we will not be able to rebuild the wall.”

The next threat is internal. Weariness speaks through Judah, the tribe that should have led with courage. The rubble is real; the exhaustion is real. But the conclusion, “by ourselves”, is the hidden mistake. God’s work is never designed to be accomplished “by ourselves.” When fatigue rises, temptation says, “This is impossible,” and forgets that God never asked us to build alone.

Nehemiah 4:11 — And our enemies said, “They will not know or see till we come among them and kill them and stop the work.”

The enemy plans a surprise because discouragement makes people careless. The goal is not merely harm; it is to stop the work. The enemy always targets momentum. He wants God’s people to conclude that obedience is too costly, that building is too dangerous, that it is safer to live with ruins than to face conflict.

Nehemiah 4:12 — At that time the Jews who lived near them came from all directions and said to us ten times, “You must return to us.”

Fear spreads faster than faith if not checked. Ten times means relentless pressure — repeated warnings, repeated anxiety, repeated attempts to pull people away from the work. Some counsel sounds practical, but if it pulls you away from what God assigned, it is not wisdom — it is retreat wearing a respectable mask.

Nehemiah 4:13-14 — So in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, in open places, I stationed the people by their clans, with their swords, their spears, and their bows. And I looked and arose and said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”

Nehemiah manages risk without losing mission. He stations families together because people fight best when they remember what they are protecting. Then he gives the core command: do not be afraid, remember the Lord. Fear shrinks when God enlarges. Remembering the Lord is not mental trivia; it is a deliberate act of faith that re-centers reality. God is great and awesome, and therefore the enemy is never ultimate.

Nehemiah 4:15 — When our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, we all returned to the wall, each to his work.

God frustrates the plan, and the people return to the work. That is the victory: not merely surviving the threat, but continuing the mission. Many people treat “enduring” as success, but endurance that stops obedience is not victory. Victory is returning to the wall.

Nehemiah 4:16-18 — From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail. And the leaders stood behind the whole house of Judah, who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other. And each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built. The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me.

This is the “sword and trowel” life: build and be ready. God’s people do not get to choose between construction and vigilance. The enemy does not politely wait until the wall is finished. The trumpet beside Nehemiah is leadership under pressure — communication, rally points, readiness, shared responsibility. Leaders stand behind the workers, not above them, because real leadership absorbs strain and sustains courage.

Nehemiah 4:19-20 — And I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “The work is great and widely spread, and we are separated on the wall, far from one another. In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us.”

Nehemiah is honest: the work is great, the people are spread out, and vulnerability is real. But he refuses panic. He establishes a simple plan — rally at the trumpet — because confusion kills progress. Then he anchors it: our God will fight for us. God fights for His people not so they can be passive, but so they can be faithful without fear.

Nehemiah 4:21-22 — So we labored at the work, and half of them held the spears from the break of dawn until the stars came out. I also said to the people at that time, “Let every man and his servant pass the night within Jerusalem, that they may be a guard for us by night and may labor by day.”

This is costly obedience. From dawn to stars. Guard by night, labor by day. The work of God is not sustained by convenience. It is sustained by consecrated endurance. When God assigns a mission, He also supplies the strength, but He often does so through disciplined routines that are not glamorous.

Nehemiah 4:23 — So neither I nor my brothers nor my servants nor the men of the guard who followed me took off our clothes; each kept his weapon at his right hand.

Constant readiness is not paranoia; it is disciplined sobriety. They stayed prepared because they valued the mission. In the Christian life, the equivalent is living awake—repentant, prayerful, vigilant—so you are not surprised by temptation, discouragement, or spiritual attack. You do not live in fear; you live in readiness.

“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) — 11 January 2026: Today, do one act of deliberate remembrance and one act of deliberate rebuilding. Remember the LORD by naming, out loud, one specific mercy He has shown you lately, and give Him thanks for it before you ask Him for anything else. Rebuild by taking one practical step of obedience you have delayed — one hard conversation, one act of integrity, one disciplined habit, one clearing of “rubble” that you’ve used as an excuse. Refuse the twin enemies of these chapters: the inward enemy of forgetfulness and the outward enemy of intimidation. Pray, set a watch, and keep building.

Pray: “Father, Praise be to You, for You are good, and Your steadfast love endures forever. I confess that I am quick to forget Your works, quick to crave what cannot satisfy, and quick to complain instead of waiting for Your counsel. Have mercy on me for Jesus’ sake, our greater Mediator who stood in the breach for us. Strengthen me where discouragement has drained my strength and where the rubble feels overwhelming. When mockery rises, teach me to pray. When threats grow, teach me to watch. When fear speaks, teach me to remember You, great and awesome, and to keep building what You have commanded. Give me a mind to work, hands that labor with faith, and a heart that stays grateful. Guard me from compromise within and confusion without. Gather me into joyful obedience, that I may give thanks to Your holy name and glory in Your praise. I trust You to fight for me as I walk in Your will. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”