Ps. 99.8

You were / a forgiving god / to them
though punishing / their wrong doings.

The previous verse highlighted their obedience; this verse looks at their disobedience. What we find in this dynamic is important: their obedience is rewarded with the ‘blessing’ of Yhwh answering them, and of his giving over to them his commands and decrees. Their ‘disobedience’, on the other hand, is met by both forgiveness and punishment. Moses, Aaron and Samuel all stand, utterly, under the authority of Yhwh. To look at them is to look at men ‘contained’ (from obedience to disobedience) within the ‘reign of Yhwh’, or, in other words, they ‘covenanted’ people, bound within the realm of blessings-curses of the covenant itself. These are Yhwh’s ‘servants’. Their lives, even in the mercy and punishment of their disobedience, are ‘icons’ of Yhwh; the covenant makes them icons.