Psalms 78:50

50 He cleared a path for his anger. He did not spare them from death but handed their life over to the plague.

Psalms 78:50 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 78:50

He made a way to his anger
Or, "for" it, so that nothing could obstruct it, or hinder the execution of it; or "he weighed a path for his anger" ^F13; he weighed it in the balance of justice, and proportioned his anger to their crimes, and punished them according to their just deserts:

he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the
pestilence;
which some understand of their cattle, and of the murrain that came upon them, by which they were destroyed, and which was the fifth plague of Egypt, ( Exodus 9:3 ) , so the Targum,

``their beasts he delivered unto death;''

but Aben Ezra interprets it of the slaughter of the firstborn, expressed in the following verse; and so others.

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FOOTNOTES:

F13 (wpal bytn olpy) "ponderavit semitam furori suo", Pagninus, Vatablus; "libravit semitam irae suae", Tigurine version; "iter ad iram suam", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Psalms 78:50 In-Context

48 He also handed their cattle over to the hail and their livestock to the lightning bolts.

49 He sent against them his fierce anger, rage and indignation and trouble, a band of {destroying} angels.

50 He cleared a path for his anger. He did not spare them from death but handed their life over to the plague.

51 And he struck down all [the] firstborn in Egypt, [the] first of [their] virility in the tents of Ham.

52 Then he led out his people like sheep and guided them like a herd in the wilderness.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew "their soul"