Psalm 99 · a question people ask
"You are a God who forgave them, although you took vengeance for their doings" (99:8). How can both be true of him at once?
The psalm says both in one line, speaking to the LORD, and doesn't explain how they fit. It doesn't name what was forgiven or which doings were punished. Them comes after Moses, Aaron and Samuel (99:6-7), and the psalm doesn't say whether it means those three, the people with them, or both; these notes don't choose. The Law puts forgiving beside not clearing the guilty in what the LORD proclaimed as he passed by Moses: "forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty" (Exodus 34:7). Forgiving there is nose, the word of "a God who forgave them" (99:8). When Moses prayed, "Please pardon the iniquity of this people" (Numbers 14:19), the LORD said, "I have pardoned according to your word" (Numbers 14:20), and in the same answer, "surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers" (Numbers 14:23). Psalm 99 doesn't point to either passage. What it does say is that he answered them (99:8), and it ends by calling everyone to worship him (99:9).
The verses
“Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel was among those who call on his name. They called on the LORD, and he answered them. He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud. They kept his testimonies, the statute that he gave them. You answered them, LORD our God. You are a God who forgave them, although you took vengeance for their doings. Exalt the LORD, our God. Worship at his holy hill, for the LORD, our God, is holy!”
“The LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, “The LORD! The LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth, keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the children’s children, on the third and on the fourth generation.””