Nevertheless: Why We Feel So Empty Inside

One of my favorite things about the Bible is how it will often give commentary on itself. Psalm 106 is primarily a commentary on the events of the Torah after God delivered the Israelites from Egyptian tyranny. The psalm’s lost author praises the LORD (YHWH) for His forgiveness towards Israel after all the terrible things they’ve done as a nation. He recognizes that they have sinned just like their ancestors, harkening back all the way to the time of Moses.

Art by Paul Lasaine

“We have sinned with our fathers,

We have committed iniquity,

We have done wickedly.

Our fathers in Egypt did not 

understand Your wonders; 

They did not remember the 

multitude of Your mercies, 

But rebelled by the sea–the Red Sea.”

–Ps. 106:6-7

What follows are verses of God’s miraculous power and transformation of His children’s hearts. They sing praises and remember, as if discovering their memories locked away in a chest hidden in time by the shadow of sin, their Father who loves them.

“Nevertheless He saved them for His 

name’s sake,

That He might make His mighty 

power known.

He rebuked the Red sea also, and it 

dried up; 

So He led them through the depths, 

As through the wilderness. 

He saved them from the hand of 

him who hated them, 

And redeemed them from the hand 

of the enemy. 

The waters covered their enemies; 

There was not one of them left. 

Then they believed His words; 

They sang His praise.”

–Ps. 106:8-12

The very next words lament “They soon forgot His works,” and for the next thirty-one verses, we are sung a dirge of Israel’s spiritual adultery. YHWH’s inheritance, the ones He had chosen to be His children after the events of Babel that shattered the world, had utterly turned their backs on their Father. So He gave them over to their exceeding lusts, but with their request came “leanness into their soul” (verse 14-15). They had everything they wanted yet the entirety of their being–breath and body, flesh and spirit–was empty. 

Verse 30 and 31 account for Phinehas who stood against his own people as they provoked the LORD to anger, showing that God does not forget a single thing we do in His name “to all generations forevermore.” The psalmist sheds tears over the total idolatry of his people as they had gone so far as to sacrifice their innocent children to demons as a part of pagan ritual. After all this, God would be more than justified in His decision to completely forget about Israel as they were ruled by Gentiles and start over with someone like Moses who advocated for them in the breach.

NEVERTHELESS

“Nevertheless He regarded their 

affliction,

When He heard their cry;

And for their sake He remembered

His covenant,

And relented according to the

multitude of His mercies.

He also made them to be pitied

By all those who carried them

away captive.”

–Ps. 106:44-46

You and I were made in the image of our Creator, YHWH–the One Who Is, the Great I AM. We were made to understand and know Him. We were made to walk with Him and worship. Our first parents chose to know both good and evil, and so our sin separated us from the One who numbers every hair on our head. We lust exceedingly in this wilderness, looking out for ourselves and “doing what’s best for me”. So God gives us over to what we desire only for us to find that it cannot fill our soul. Then we feel like God isn’t there anymore, that He's totally turned His back on us only for Him to hear our cries and reveal He never left. So why don’t we just stay with Him? Why don’t we just stay if without Him we always end up feeling so empty inside?

Well, it’s in our corrupted nature to sin. This inevitability requires an external force to break our inertia into hell–that eternal separation from God. So the Father sent His Son in a body like our own to be the perfect payment for humanity’s sins. Without Jesus, there would be nothing to save us from these wretched bodies of death. Therefore, let us triumph in His praise.

“Blessed be the LORD God of Israel

From everlasting to everlasting!

And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

Praise the Lord!”

–Ps. 106:48

May His will be done :)