Psalms 78

I Will Open My Mouth in Parables

1

A Maskil of Asaph.

1 Give ear, O my people, to my instruction; ¹ listen to the words of my mouth.

2 I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the beginning, ^[a]

3 that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.

4 We will not hide them from their children but will declare to the next generation the praises of the LORD and His might and the wonders He has performed.

5 For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children,

6 that the coming generation would know them— even children yet to be born— to arise and tell their own children

7 that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments.

8 Then they will not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose heart was not loyal, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

9 The archers of Ephraim turned back on the day of battle.

10 They failed to 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 worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

13 He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.

14 He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night.

15 He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.

16 He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers.

17 But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

18 They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.

19 They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?

20 When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?”

21 Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel,

22 because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.

23 Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens.

24 He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven. ^[b]

25 Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.

26 He stirred the east wind from the heavens and drove the south wind by His might.

27 He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

28 He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.

29 So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved.

30 Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,

31 God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.

32 In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.

33 So He ended their days in futility, ^[c] and their years in sudden terror.

34 When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.

35 And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High ^[d] was their Redeemer.

36 But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues.

37 Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

38 And yet He was compassionate; He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. He often restrained His anger and did not unleash His full wrath.

39 He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

40 How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

41 Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

42 They did not remember His power ^[e]— the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

43 when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

44 He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink.

45 He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.

46 He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust.

47 He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet. ^[f]

48 He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.

49 He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity— a band of destroying angels.

50 He cleared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague.

51 He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham.

52 He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

53 He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.

54 He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired.

55 He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

56 But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees.

57 They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.

58 They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

59 On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.

60 He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men.

61 He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

62 He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage.

63 Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs.

64 His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.

65 Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.

66 He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame.

67 He rejected the tent of Joseph and refused 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 He has established forever.

70 He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds;

71 from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance.

72 So David shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.

Psalms 78 Commentary

Chapter 78

Attention called for. (1-8) The history of Israel. (9-39) Their settlement in Canaan. (40-55) The mercies of God to Israel contrasted with their ingratitude. (56-72)

Verses 1-8 These are called dark and deep sayings, because they are carefully to be looked into. The law of God was given with a particular charge to teach it diligently to their children, that the church may abide for ever. Also, that the providences of God, both in mercy and in judgment, might encourage them to conform to the will of God. The works of God much strengthen our resolution to keep his commandments. Hypocrisy is the high road to apostacy; those that do not set their hearts right, will not be stedfast with God. Many parents, by negligence and wickedness, become murderers of their children. But young persons, though they are bound to submit in all things lawful, must not obey sinful orders, or copy sinful examples.

9-39. Sin dispirits men, and takes away the heart. Forgetfulness of God's works is the cause of disobedience to his laws. This narrative relates a struggle between God's goodness and man's badness. The Lord hears all our murmurings and distrusts, and is much displeased. Those that will not believe the power of God's mercy, shall feel the fire of his indignation. Those cannot be said to trust in God's salvation as their happiness at last, who can not trust his providence in the way to it. To all that by faith and prayer, ask, seek, and knock, these doors of heaven shall at any time be opened; and our distrust of God is a great aggravation of our sins. He expressed his resentment of their provocation; not in denying what they sinfully lusted after, but in granting it to them. Lust is contented with nothing. Those that indulge their lust, will never be estranged from it. Those hearts are hard indeed, that will neither be melted by the mercies of the Lord, nor broken by his judgments. Those that sin still, must expect to be in trouble still. And the reason why we live with so little comfort, and to so little purpose, is, because we do not live by faith. Under these rebukes they professed repentance, but they were not sincere, for they were not constant. In Israel's history we have a picture of our own hearts and lives. God's patience, and warnings, and mercies, imbolden them to harden their hearts against his word. And the history of kingdoms is much the same. Judgments and mercies have been little attended to, until the measure of their sins has been full. And higher advantages have not kept churches from declining from the commandments of God. Even true believers recollect, that for many a year they abused the kindness of Providence. When they come to heaven, how will they admire the Lord's patience and mercy in bringing them to his kingdom!

40-55. Let not those that receive mercy from God, be thereby made bold to sin, for the mercies they receive will hasten its punishment; yet let not those who are under Divine rebukes for sin, be discouraged from repentance. The Holy One of Israel will do what is most for his own glory, and what is most for their good. Their forgetting former favours, led them to limit God for the future. God made his own people to go forth like sheep; and guided them in the wilderness, as a shepherd his flock, with all care and tenderness. Thus the true Joshua, even Jesus, brings his church out of the wilderness; but no earthly Canaan, no worldly advantages, should make us forget that the church is in the wilderness while in this world, and that there remaineth a far more glorious rest for the people of God.

Verses 56-72 After the Israelites were settled in Canaan, the children were like their fathers. God gave them his testimonies, but they turned back. Presumptuous sins render even Israelites hateful to God's holiness, and exposed to his justice. Those whom the Lord forsakes become an easy prey to the destroyer. And sooner or later, God will disgrace his enemies. He set a good government over his people; a monarch after his own heart. With good reason does the psalmist make this finishing, crowning instance of God's favour to Israel; for David was a type of Christ, the great and good Shepherd, who was humbled first, and then exalted; and of whom it was foretold, that he should be filled with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. On the uprightness of his heart, and the skilfulness of his hands, all his subjects may rely; and of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. Every trial of human nature hitherto, confirms the testimony of Scripture, that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, and nothing but being created anew by the Holy Ghost can cure the ungodliness of any.

Cross References

• 1. (Matthew 13:34–35)

Footnotes

• [a]. Or from ancient times; see also LXX; cited in Matthew 13:35
• [b]. Cited in John 6:31
• [c]. Or in vapor
• [d]. Hebrew El-Elyon
• [e]. Or His hand
• [f]. Or frost or driving rain

Chapter Summary

Maschil of Asaph. Or for "Asaph" {f}; a doctrinal and "instructive" psalm, as the word "Maschil" signifies; see Psalm 32:1, which was delivered to Asaph to be sung; the Targum is, "the understanding of the Holy Spirit by the hands of Asaph." Some think David was the penman of it; but from the latter part of it, in which mention is made of him, and of his government of the people of Israel, it looks as if it was wrote by another, and after his death, though not long after, since the account is carried on no further than his times; and therefore it is probable enough it was written by Asaph, the chief singer, that lived in that age: whoever was the penman of it, it is certain he was a prophet, and so was Asaph, who is called a seer, the same with a prophet, and who is said to prophesy, 2 Chronicles 29:30 and also that he represented Christ; for that the Messiah is the person that is introduced speaking in this psalm is clear from Matthew 13:34 and the whole may be considered as a discourse of his to the Jews of his time; giving them an history of the Israelites from their first coming out of Egypt to the times of David, and in it an account of the various benefits bestowed upon them, of their great ingratitude, and of the divine resentment; the design of which is to admonish and caution them against committing the like sins, lest they should be rejected of God, as their fathers were, and perish: some Jewish writers, as Arama observes, interpret this psalm of the children of Ephraim going out of Egypt before the time appointed.