IN THE HISTORY of every family and every nation, there are stories of joy and heartbreak, honor and shame. Some of the tales of our ancestors are the stuff of legend, setting heroic examples for the generations to come. And then there are the stories used to frighten children into obedience: “You want to turn out like your uncle Joey? Let me tell you what happened to him.”

We can be tempted to sanitize the history. We may want to scrub the story clean of all manner of bad behavior beyond the amusing misdemeanor or two. But that’s not reality.

That’s not to say that there aren’t times of celebration in which it’s appropriate to focus only on the good bits. One wouldn’t give a wedding toast, for example, by listing all of the bride and groom’s previous failed relationships! But when the reception is over, the couple’s marital hopes can’t be built on a denial of their personal and interpersonal shortcomings. The way forward, over time, begins with learning to see themselves and each other clearly.

Think, then, of how a psalmist might look back and tell the story of the ancient Israelites and their relationship to God. Today we have the benefit of being able to read the Old Testament as a whole, following the people’s history from the patriarchs, through the exile, and finally to the return of a chastened remnant to the Promised Land. There’s a consistent, positive thread of hope that runs all the way through the story, but the plot keeps taking tragic twists and turns of disobedience and punishment. A psalmist, still in the midst of that continually unfolding story, could decide to look back and just tell about the times in which God was gracious and the people responded in faith and gratitude. But the larger narrative is more honest than that, more deeply realistic. The story is dominated by episodes of failure, not just victories.

A handful of psalms are known as historical psalms, because their purpose is to retell the story of God’s past relationship to his people. Read, for example, Psalms 78, 105, and 106; each is a lengthy recap of episodes from Israel’s history. Psalms 135 and 136 are shorter, pithier examples, both praising God for his faithfulness in the exodus from Egypt and the conquest of Canaan.

We’re going to spend some time with Psalms 105 and 106, which should be read back-to-back as a pair. Afterward, we’ll invite Psalm 107 to the party as well. But for now, here are three reasons why we should take 105 and 106 together.

First, if you read one right after the other, you can see how the two psalms share a common theme: the faithfulness of God to the covenant promise made to Abraham. Psalm 105 is a relentlessly positive take on the history, so much so that it might seem that the psalmist is trying to impress somebody by editing out the more problematic aspects of the story. In verses 40 and 41, for example, we read these words about the people’s time in the wilderness after their escape from Egypt:

They asked, and he brought them quail;
    he fed them well with the bread of heaven.
He opened the rock, and water gushed out;
    it flowed like a river in the desert. (Ps 105:40-41, NIV)

“They asked”??? Compare the psalmist’s description of these events to the description in Exodus 16 and 17. The psalmist makes it sound as if the people made a polite request of God, while Exodus highlights the people’s faithless grumbling and their anger at Moses, as if he had dragged them out of Egypt against their will. Where’s the other side of the story? Where’s the honest acknowledgment of the people’s ungrateful disobedience?

In Psalm 106.

As we’ll see, Psalm 105 gives a sunnier reading of the history for a reason; the psalmist is not in denial. Psalm 106 promptly and humbly gives the other side of the coin. Yes, God is faithful — and he continues to be faithful even when the people aren’t.

The second reason the psalms should be taken together is their position in the Psalter: the two psalms come at the very end of Book IV. The psalms, as a collection, are not arranged in a random order. The selection of which psalms to put at the beginning and end of each of the five books is important. Together, Psalms 105 and 106 end Book IV by ensuring that the people’s praise and thanksgiving includes a sober recognition that the love of God is filled with mercy for their waywardness. This sets up Book V, where the dominant note is praise, introduced this way in the opening verse of Psalm 107: “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

But third, perhaps the most compelling reason to read the two psalms together is that they both echo the same passage of Scripture, a song of praise that may go back to the time of David. Indeed, it’s possible that the song was written by David himself as part of a worship service of praise and celebration. For the sake of convenience, here and in subsequent posts, I’m going to refer to it as “David’s song.” Psalm 105 directly quotes a full fifteen verses from the beginning of that song, and goes on from there to elaborate all the reasons to praise God for what he has done on behalf of the people.

Psalm 106 then quotes three verses from the end of the song, but in an interesting way. One verse is quoted at the beginning of the psalm, and the other two at the end, like bookends. And in between those bookends is the sad litany of all the ways the people have been unfaithful, the repeated cycle of mercy, disobedience, and punishment.

Why is the psalm built this way? Because, it seems, David’s words from long ago are being used to give the people hope in the midst of exile. Psalm 106 reaches out to a God who has remained faithful through generations to a people who have been spectacularly and repeatedly unfaithful. It’s a humble prayer that relies solely on the mercy of God.

You’ll find David’s song in 1 Chronicles 16:8-36. Let’s explore that next, before digging into the two psalms.