John Calvin Commentary Psalms 106:29

"Thus they provoked him to anger with their doings; And the plague brake in upon them." — Psalms 106:29 (ASV)

And they provoked God to anger. The prophet once more informs us that they had been warned by another plague, to show that God always had a strict regard for His own glory in chastising the people; but as they did not improve because of these plagues, these chastisements were fruitless.

Having previously stated that God’s wrath had been appeased by the prayers of Moses, he now says that the plague had been arrested or ceased through the kind intervention of Phinehas. Some render the word פלל, pillel, to pray; but the other rendering, to execute justice, is more in accordance with the context; namely, that by his zeal in executing justice upon the profligates, he turned away God’s vengeance from the Israelites.

He stood up therefore; that is, he rose up or intervened when all others maintained a careless indifference. Since the Jews were aware that it was by the kind intervention of one man that the plague was now healed, their obstinacy in not ceasing to sin even then was less excusable.

We must not forget that all these things are addressed to us. For when God from time to time chastises us and calls upon us to repent by setting before us the example of others, how few profit by His corrections!

Moreover, it deserves to be noticed that the plague ceased at the very time when Phinehas executed justice. From this we may learn that the most effective way to quench the fire of God’s anger is when the sinner willingly sits in judgment upon himself for the punishment of his own transgressions, as Paul says (1 Corinthians 11:31):

If we would judge ourselves, verily we would not be judged of the Lord.

And surely God confers no small honor upon us in placing the punishment of our sins within our reach. At the same time, it must be observed that on that occasion the plague ceased as a result of the punishment of a single person, because the people then shrunk from the abominable wickedness to which they had been addicted.