It’s a good thing God’s not a prima donna.
These three psalms all retell parts of Israel’s story in different ways. Psalm 105 concentrates on God’s election of Israel and blessing through her story. Psalm 106 faces up to the fact that Israel wasn’t always living up to her side of the Covenant, and confesses her sin.
Psalm 107 seems to go a bit further in facing up to the present reality that God’s people still sin and need his forgiveness.
One thing that is telling us that it’s only when things get really bad that Israel repents and asks for God’s help. He is the helper of last resort, when everything else has failed. And this happens time after time. You’d think that he might get fed up, but each time he answers the prayer, however late in the day it may come.
Perhaps one message of the Psalms is that prayer can be genuine even when it’s almost forced from us by circumstances. And God answers the honesty of the prayer, not how soon it was offered.
On the other hand, if we learn to pray from the heart before things get desperate, we could probably save ourselves a lot of trouble.
Nick Watson 