Psalms 78:50

50 He turned his anger against them; he did not spare the Egyptians’ lives but ravaged them with 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.

---

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 abandoned their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning.

49 He loosed on them his fierce anger— all his fury, rage, and hostility. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels.

50 He turned his anger against them; he did not spare the Egyptians’ lives but ravaged them with the plague.

51 He killed the oldest son in each Egyptian family, the flower of youth throughout the land of Egypt.

52 But he led his own people like a flock of sheep, guiding them safely through the wilderness.