CVI.
The motive of this historical psalm differs from that of the last as it does from that of Psalms 78. Its survey of the past is neither hymnic nor didactic, but penitential. Though the first of the series of “Hallelujah” psalms, it is closely related to these long liturgical confessions of national sins which are distinctly enjoined in Deuteronomy 26, where the type form of them is given, and of which the completest specimen is retained in Nehemiah 9.
But this example sprang from particular circumstances. It evidently dates from the exile period, and may well, both from its spirit and from its actual correspondence of thought and language in some of the verses, have been composed by Ezekiel, to encourage that feeling of penitence from which alone a real reformation and restoration of the nation could be expected. The verse is mostly synthetic.