The Great Ingathering Text: Psalm 106:47-48
Introduction: A Confession and a Doxology
Psalm 106 is a long and painful confession of national sin. It is a detailed accounting of Israel's serial faithlessness, from Egypt to the wilderness to the promised land. They forgot God's works, lusted in their hearts, grumbled in their tents, served idols, and shed innocent blood. It is a grim catalog of high-handed rebellion. And yet, the Psalm does not end there. It does not end in the slough of despond. After this long litany of failure, the psalmist pivots to a petition, a prayer that is shot through with a rugged, postmillennial confidence. And then he concludes the entire fourth book of the Psalter with a massive, corporate doxology.
This is instructive for us. We live in an age of national apostasy that rivals, and in many ways surpasses, that of ancient Israel. We have forgotten God. We have sacrificed our children on the altars of sexual convenience and radical autonomy. We have called evil good and good evil. And so, like the psalmist, we must learn how to confess the sins of our nation, identifying with them as our own. We must say "we have sinned with our fathers." But we must also learn how to pray with audacious faith for our national salvation, and we must learn to conclude all our prayers, all our confessions, and all our work with a rock-ribbed doxology. We are not pessimists. We do not believe the story ends with the prodigal in the pigsty. We believe in a Father who runs to meet the son, and we believe in a Son who has been given all authority in heaven and on earth to gather His people from every nation.
The end of this psalm teaches us that true confession does not lead to despair, but to a renewed confidence in the God who saves. It is precisely because of our great sin that we must appeal to His great name. Our hope is not in our track record, which is abysmal. Our hope is in His character, which is immutable. This prayer, and the thunderous "Amen" that follows it, is the hinge upon which history turns. It is a prayer for the great ingathering, a prayer that God is answering, and will continue to answer, until the knowledge of His glory covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.
The Text
Save us, O Yahweh our God,
And gather us from among the nations,
To give thanks to Your holy name
And revel in Your praise.
Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel,
From everlasting to everlasting.
And let all the people say, “Amen.”
Praise Yah!
(Psalm 106:47-48 LSB)
A Prayer for Gathering (v. 47)
We begin with the petition itself:
"Save us, O Yahweh our God, And gather us from among the nations, To give thanks to Your holy name And revel in Your praise." (Psalm 106:47)
The prayer begins with the raw cry for salvation. "Save us." This is not a polite request; it is a desperate plea from a people who know they are in a world of trouble that they made for themselves. But notice to whom they cry. "O Yahweh our God." They appeal to Him on the basis of the covenant. He is Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God who revealed His name to Moses. And He is "our God." Despite their whoring after other gods, they know, deep down, who their God is. All true reformation begins with this recognition. We are His people, and He is our God, and therefore we have grounds to appeal to Him.
The specific shape of this salvation is a gathering. "Gather us from among the nations." In the immediate context, this is a prayer from exile. Israel's sin led to their scattering, their dissolution among the pagans. The prayer is for a great reversal, a new exodus. But this is more than just a prayer for a geographical return to Palestine. It is a prophetic prayer for the great commission. God scatters in judgment, but He gathers in grace. And His ultimate plan was always to gather not just ethnic Israel, but a people for His name from every tribe, tongue, and nation. Jesus Himself says, "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself" (John 12:32). The cross is the great gathering point of history. This prayer in Psalm 106 is a Spirit-inspired plea for the very thing Jesus came to accomplish.
And what is the purpose of this great ingathering? It is not for our comfort, or for our political supremacy, or for our material prosperity. The purpose is doxological. It is "To give thanks to Your holy name And revel in Your praise." The end goal of salvation is worship. God saves us so that we might praise Him. To "revel" in His praise means to glory in it, to make our boast in it. This is the chief end of man, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. And this is the chief end of history. God is gathering a global choir that will sing His praises, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against this recruitment drive.
The Great Doxology (v. 48)
The final verse is not part of the prayer, but the response to it. It is the conclusion to the fourth book of the Psalms and a corporate explosion of worship.
"Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, From everlasting to everlasting. And let all the people say, 'Amen.' Praise Yah!" (Psalm 106:48 LSB)
"Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel." To bless God is not to add anything to Him. He is not deficient. It is to declare His supreme worthiness. It is to speak well of Him, to praise Him. And again, He is identified as the "God of Israel," the God who makes and keeps covenant with His people.
His reign and worthiness are eternal. "From everlasting to everlasting." This is a profound statement of God's aseity and immutability. Before the mountains were brought forth, from eternity past, He is God. And when this world is rolled up like a scroll, to eternity future, He will be God. He does not change. His purposes do not change. His promises do not fail. Our circumstances may be chaotic, our sins may be grievous, but our God is anchored in eternity. This is the foundation of our confidence. We are not praying to a God who is making it up as He goes along. We are praying to the Ancient of Days.
Then comes the summons to corporate agreement. "And let all the people say, 'Amen.'" The "Amen" is not a weak, pious throat-clearing. It is a robust, masculine, full-throated declaration of agreement and faith. It means "So be it," or "This is true and certain." When the people say "Amen" together, they are collectively binding themselves to the truth of this doxology and the faith of the preceding prayer. They are saying, "Yes, this is our prayer. Yes, this is our God. Yes, we believe He will do it." This is why corporate worship is so vital. It is where the people of God learn to speak with one voice. Our atomized, individualistic age has forgotten the power of a corporate Amen. We need to recover it.
And the psalm, and the fourth book of the Psalms, ends with the great exclamation: "Praise Yah!" This is, of course, Hallelujah. Praise Yahweh. It is the alpha and omega of this psalm. It began with Hallelujah and it ends with Hallelujah. In between is the messy, bloody, sinful history of God's people. But sin does not get the last word. Grace does. Rebellion does not get the last word. Redemption does. Our failure is not the period at the end of the sentence. God's everlasting glory is. Hallelujah.
Conclusion: Gathered for Praise
So what does this mean for us? It means that our personal and national sins, however great, should never lead us to quietism or despair. They should lead us to confession and then to this kind of bold prayer. We should be praying, "Save us, Lord Jesus, and gather us from the pagan nations we have become. Gather our families, gather our neighbors, gather our cities, gather our nation."
And we must be clear on the purpose. We are not praying for a return to some 1950s golden age. We are praying for a great revival of true worship. We want America gathered to give thanks to God's holy name and to revel in His praise. We are praying for a great, nationwide, culture-wide doxology.
This is God's stated purpose for the world. He is bringing all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. The story of the world is the story of God gathering a people for His name, a bride for His Son. And when the church gathers for worship, we are a microcosm of that great, final gathering. When we lift our voices together, when we confess our sins together, when we hear God's Word together, and when we thunderously say "Amen" together, we are rehearsing for the final victory.
So let us take this psalm to heart. Let us confess our sins without flinching. Let us pray for the ingathering with bold, postmillennial faith. And let us punctuate all of our lives with this unshakeable conclusion: Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. And let all the people say, Amen. Praise Yah!