A teaching poem retells rebellion and mercy: Rebellion persists; compassion remembers flesh

Wonders do not automatically create belief, and death does not automatically create truth

For all this they sinned still, and believed not for his wondrous works. Therefore their days did he consume in vanity, and their years in trouble. When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned and enquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer.

Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues. For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant. Early enquiry after slaughter is narrated, then unmasked as mouth-deep. The psalm does not recommend killing as a revival method, and it does not call every liturgy flattery.

Compassion remembers flesh and will not spend all the wrath

But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath. For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.

The hinge is God's memory of mortality, not the quality of the flattery. Forgiveness here is repeated restraint toward a people who remain flesh. Descendants are not to be shamed with this portrait, and readers are not to conclude that compassion makes rebellion costless.