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78. Psalm 78

¹ My people, hear my teaching;
   listen to the words of my mouth.
² I will open my mouth with a parable;
   I will utter hidden things, things from of old—
³ things we have heard and known,
   things our ancestors have told us.
⁴ We will not hide them from their descendants;
   we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD,
   his power, and the wonders he has done.
⁵ He decreed statutes for Jacob
   and established the law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
   to teach their children,
⁶ so the next generation would know them,
   even the children yet to be born,
   and they in turn would tell their children.
⁷ Then they would put their trust in God
   and would not forget his deeds
   but would keep his commands.
⁸ They would not be like their ancestors—
   a stubborn and rebellious generation,
whose hearts were not loyal to God,
   whose spirits were not faithful to him.

    ⁹ The men of Ephraim, though armed with bows,
   turned back on the day of battle;
¹⁰ they did not keep God’s covenant
   and refused to live by his law.
¹¹ They forgot what he had done,
   the wonders he had shown them.
¹² He did miracles in the sight of their ancestors
   in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.
¹³ He divided the sea and led them through;
   he made the water stand up like a wall.
¹⁴ He guided them with the cloud by day
   and with light from the fire all night.
¹⁵ He split the rocks in the wilderness
   and gave them water as abundant as the seas;
¹⁶ he brought streams out of a rocky crag
   and made water flow down like rivers.

    ¹⁷ But they continued to sin against him,
   rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High.
¹⁸ They willfully put God to the test
   by demanding the food they craved.
¹⁹ They spoke against God;
   they said, “Can God really
   spread a table in the wilderness?
²⁰ True, he struck the rock,
   and water gushed out,
   streams flowed abundantly,
but can he also give us bread?
   Can he supply meat for his people?”
²¹ When the LORD heard them, he was furious;
   his fire broke out against Jacob,
   and his wrath rose against Israel,
²² for they did not believe in God
   or trust in his deliverance.
²³ Yet he gave a command to the skies above
   and opened the doors of the heavens;
²⁴ he rained down manna for the people to eat,
   he gave them the grain of heaven.
²⁵ Human beings ate the bread of angels;
   he sent them all the food they could eat.
²⁶ He let loose the east wind from the heavens
   and by his power made the south wind blow.
²⁷ He rained meat down on them like dust,
   birds like sand on the seashore.
²⁸ He made them come down inside their camp,
   all around their tents.
²⁹ They ate till they were gorged—
   he had given them what they craved.
³⁰ But before they turned from what they craved,
   even while the food was still in their mouths,
³¹ God’s anger rose against them;
   he put to death the sturdiest among them,
   cutting down the young men of Israel.

    ³² In spite of all this, they kept on sinning;
   in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.
³³ So he ended their days in futility
   and their years in terror.
³⁴ Whenever God slew them, they would seek him;
   they eagerly turned to him again.
³⁵ They remembered that God was their Rock,
   that God Most High was their Redeemer.
³⁶ But then they would flatter him with their mouths,
   lying to him with their tongues;
³⁷ their hearts were not loyal to him,
   they were not faithful to his covenant.
³⁸ Yet he was merciful;
   he forgave their iniquities
   and did not destroy them.
Time after time he restrained his anger
   and did not stir up his full wrath.
³⁹ He remembered that they were but flesh,
   a passing breeze that does not return.

    ⁴⁰ How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness
   and grieved him in the wasteland!
⁴¹ Again and again they put God to the test;
   they vexed the Holy One of Israel.
⁴² They did not remember his power—
   the day he redeemed them from the oppressor,
⁴³ the day he displayed his signs in Egypt,
   his wonders in the region of Zoan.
⁴⁴ He turned their river into blood;
   they could not drink from their streams.
⁴⁵ He sent swarms of flies that devoured them,
   and frogs that devastated them.
⁴⁶ He gave their crops to the grasshopper,
   their produce to the locust.
⁴⁷ He destroyed their vines with hail
   and their sycamore-figs with sleet.
⁴⁸ He gave over their cattle to the hail,
   their livestock to bolts of lightning.
⁴⁹ He unleashed against them his hot anger,
   his wrath, indignation and hostility—
   a band of destroying angels.
⁵⁰ He prepared a path for his anger;
   he did not spare them from death
   but gave them over to the plague.
⁵¹ He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt,
   the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of Ham.
⁵² But he brought his people out like a flock;
   he led them like sheep through the wilderness.
⁵³ He guided them safely, so they were unafraid;
   but the sea engulfed their enemies.
⁵⁴ And so he brought them to the border of his holy land,
   to the hill country his right hand had taken.
⁵⁵ He drove out nations before them
   and allotted their lands to them as an inheritance;
   he settled the tribes of Israel in their homes.

    ⁵⁶ But they put God to the test
   and rebelled against the Most High;
   they did not keep his statutes.
⁵⁷ Like their ancestors they were disloyal and faithless,
   as unreliable as a faulty bow.
⁵⁸ They angered him with their high places;
   they aroused his jealousy with their idols.
⁵⁹ When God heard them, he was furious;
   he rejected Israel completely.
⁶⁰ He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,
   the tent he had set up among humans.
⁶¹ He sent the ark of his might into captivity,
   his splendor into the hands of the enemy.
⁶² He gave his people over to the sword;
   he was furious with his inheritance.
⁶³ Fire consumed their young men,
   and their young women had no wedding songs;
⁶⁴ their priests were put to the sword,
   and their widows could not weep.

    ⁶⁵ Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
   as a warrior wakes from the stupor of wine.
⁶⁶ He beat back his enemies;
   he put them to everlasting shame.
⁶⁷ Then he rejected the tents of Joseph,
   he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;
⁶⁸ but he chose the tribe of Judah,
   Mount Zion, which he loved.
⁶⁹ He built his sanctuary like the heights,
   like the earth that he established forever.
⁷⁰ He chose David his servant
   and took him from the sheep pens;
⁷¹ from tending the sheep he brought him
   to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
   of Israel his inheritance.
⁷² And David shepherded them with integrity of heart;
   with skillful hands he led them.

34. When he slew them, then they sought him. By the circumstance here recorded, it is intended to aggravate their guilt. When under a conviction of their wickedness they acknowledged that they were justly punished, and yet did not with sincerity of heart humble themselves before God, but rather mocked him, intending to put him off with false pretences, their impiety was the less excusable. If a man who has lost his judgment does not feel his own calamities, he is excusable because he is insensible; but he who is forced to acknowledge that he is culpable, and yet always continues the same, or after having lightly sought pardon, in fair but deceitful words, suddenly returns to his former state of mind, manifestly shows by such hollowness of heart that his disease is incurable. It is here tacitly intimated, that the punishments, by which a people so obstinate were constrained to seek God, were of no common or ordinary kind; and we are informed, (verse 35, ³³⁹³³⁹ In the Hebrew Bible, a masoretic note is inserted after the 35th verse, חצי הספר, chatsi ha-sepher, the middle of the book, that is, with respect to verses. ) not only that they were convinced of wickedness, but also that they were affected with a sense and a remembrance of the redemption from which they were fallen. By this means they are the more effectually deprived of all excuse on the ground of ignorance. The language implies that they were not carried away inadvertently, or deceived through ignorance, but that they had provoked the wrath of God, by dealing treacherously, as it were with deliberate purpose. And, indeed, God opened their eyes with the view of more openly discovering their desperate wickedness, as if, shaking off their hypocrisy and flatteries, he drew them from their lurking-places into the light.

36. And they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue. Here they are charged with perfidiousness, because they neither confessed their guilt with sincerity of heart, nor truly ascribed to God the glory of their deliverance. We are not to suppose that they made no acknowledgement at all; but it is intimated that the confession of the mouth, as it did not proceed from the heart, was constrained and not voluntary. This is well worthy of being noticed; for from it we learn, not only the duty incumbent upon us of guarding against that gross hypocrisy which consists in uttering with the tongue, before men, one thing, while we think a different thing in our hearts, but also that we ought to beware of a species of hypocrisy which is more hidden, and which consists in this, that the sinner, being constrained by fear, flatters God in a slavish manner, while yet, if he could, he would shun the judgment of God. The greater part of men are mortally smitten with this disease; for although the divine majesty extorts from them some kind of awe, yet it would be gratifying to them were the light of divine truth completely extinguished. It is, therefore, not enough to yield an assent to the divine word, unless that assent is accompanied with true and pure affection, so that our hearts may not be double or divided. The Psalmist points out the cause and source of this dissimulation to be, that they were not steadfast and faithful By this he intimates, that whatever does not proceed from unfeigned purity of heart is accounted lying and deceit in the sight of God. Since this uprightness is every where required in the law, he accuses the people with being covenant-breakers, because they had not kept the covenant of God with that fidelity which became them. As I have observed elsewhere, there is always to be presupposed a mutual relation and correspondence between the covenant of God and our faith, in order that the unfeigned consent of the latter may answer to the faithfulness of the former.

38. Yet he, being merciful, expiated their iniquity. To show the more fully that no means had succeeded in bending the Israelites, and causing them to return to a sound state of mind, we are now informed that, although God bare with their multiplied transgressions, and exercised his mercy in forgiving them, they had no less manifested their wickedness in abusing his benignity in every instance in which it was displayed, than they had shown themselves refractory and obstinate when he treated them with severity. At the same time, the reason is assigned why they did not utterly perish. They no doubt deserved to be involved in one common destruction; but it is declared that God mitigated his anger, that some seed of them might remain. That none might infer, from these examples of vengeance which have been mentioned, that God had proceeded to punish them with undue severity, we are told that the punishments inflicted upon them were moderate — yea, mild, when compared with the aggravated nature of their wickedness. God kept back his hand, not looking so much to what they had deserved, as desiring to give place to his mercy. We are not, however, to imagine that he is changeable, when at one time he chastises us with a degree of severity, and at another time gently draws and allures us to himself; for in the exercise of his matchless wisdom, he has recourse to different means by which to try whether there is really any hope of our recovery. But the guilt of men becomes more aggravated, when neither his severity can reform them nor his mercy melt them. It is to be observed, that the mercy of God, which is an essential attribute of his nature, is here assigned as the reason why he spared his people, to teach us that he was not induced by any other cause but this, to show himself so much inclined and ready to pardon. Moreover, as he pardoned them not only in one instance, nor in one respect, it is affirmed that he expiated their iniquity, that he might not destroy them; and again, that although he had been oftentimes provoked, he yet ceased not to turn away his anger; and, finally, that he mitigated his chastisements, lest the people should be overwhelmed with the weight of them.