Psalms 78
78
Psalm 78
God’s Goodness and Israel’s Ingratitude
A Maskil of Asaph.
1 #
Isa 51.4
Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 #
Mt 13.35
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
3 #
Ps 44.1
things that we have heard and known,
that our ancestors have told us.
4 #
Ex 12.26; Ps 22.30 We will not hide them from their children;
we will tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might
and the wonders that he has done.
5 #
Deut 4.9
He established a decree in Jacob
and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
to teach to their children,
6 #
Ps 102.18
that the next generation might know them,
the children yet unborn,
and rise up and tell them to their children,
7 #
Deut 6.12; 27.1 so that they should set their hope in God,
and not forget the works of God,
but keep his commandments;
8 #
v 37
; Ex 32.9; Ezek 20.18and that they should not be like their ancestors,
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
whose spirit was not faithful to God.
9 #
Judg 20.39; 1 Chr 12.2 The Ephraimites, armed with#78.9 Heb armed with shooting the bow,
turned back on the day of battle.
10 #
2 Kings 18.12; Ps 119.1 They did not keep God’s covenant
and refused to walk according to his law.
11 #
Ps 106.13
They forgot what he had done
and the miracles that he had shown them.
12 #
Ex 7—12; Isa 19.11, 13; Ezek 30.14 In the sight of their ancestors he worked marvels
in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan.
13 #
Ex 14.21; 15.8 He divided the sea and let them pass through it
and made the waters stand like a heap.
14 #
Ex 13.21
In the daytime he led them with a cloud
and all night long with a fiery light.
15 #
Num 20.11; 1 Cor 10.4 He split rocks open in the wilderness
and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.
16He made streams come out of the rock
and caused waters to flow down like rivers.
17 #
Deut 9.22; Heb 3.16 Yet they sinned still more against him,
rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
18 #
Ex 16.2; 1 Cor 10.9 They tested God in their heart
by demanding the food they craved.
19 #
Num 11.4
They spoke against God, saying,
“Can God spread a table in the wilderness?
20 #
Num 20.11
Even though he struck the rock so that water gushed out
and torrents overflowed,
can he also give bread
or provide meat for his people?”
21 #
Num 11.1
Therefore, when the Lord heard, he was full of rage;
a fire was kindled against Jacob,
his anger mounted against Israel,
22 #
Heb 3.18
because they had no faith in God
and did not trust his saving power.
23 #
Mal 3.10
Yet he commanded the skies above
and opened the doors of heaven;
24 #
Jn 6.31
he rained down on them manna to eat
and gave them the grain of heaven.
25Mortals ate of the bread of angels;
he sent them food in abundance.
26 #
Num 11.31
He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens,
and by his power he led out the south wind;
27 #
Ps 105.40
he rained flesh upon them like dust,
winged birds like the sand of the seas;
28he let them fall within their camp,
all around their dwellings.
29 #
Num 11.20
And they ate and were well filled,
for he gave them what they craved.
30But before they had satisfied their craving,
while the food was still in their mouths,
31 #
Num 11.33
the anger of God rose against them,
and he killed the strongest of them
and laid low the flower of Israel.
32 #
v 22
; Num 14; 16; 17In spite of all this they still sinned;
they did not believe in his wonders.
33 #
Num 14.29, 35 So he made their days vanish like a breath
and their years in terror.
34 #
Hos 5.15
When he killed them, they searched for him;
they repented and sought God earnestly.
35 #
Deut 32.4; Isa 41.14 They remembered that God was their rock,
the Most High God their redeemer.
36 #
Ex 32.7, 8; Ezek 33.31 But they flattered him with their mouths;
they lied to him with their tongues.
37Their heart was not steadfast toward him;
they were not true to his covenant.
38 #
Num 14.18; 1 Kings 21.29 Yet he, being compassionate,
forgave their iniquity
and did not destroy them;
often he restrained his anger
and did not stir up all his wrath.
39 #
Job 7.7, 16; Ps 103.14 He remembered that they were but flesh,
a wind that passes and does not come again.
40 #
Ps 95.8–10; Heb 3.16 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness
and grieved him in the desert!
41 #
Num 14.22; Ps 89.18 They tested God again and again
and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42They did not keep in mind his power
or the day when he redeemed them from the foe,
43when he displayed his signs in Egypt
and his miracles in the fields of Zoan.
44 #
Ex 7.20
He turned their rivers to blood,
so that they could not drink of their streams.
45 #
Ex 8.24; Ps 105.31 He sent among them swarms of flies that devoured them
and frogs that destroyed them.
46He gave their crops to the caterpillar
and the fruit of their labor to the locust.
47 #
Ex 9.25
He destroyed their vines with hail
and their sycamores with frost.
48 #
Ex 9.23
He gave over their cattle to the hail
and their flocks to thunderbolts.
49 #
Ex 15.7
He let loose on them his fierce anger,
wrath, indignation, and distress,
a company of destroying angels.
50He made a path for his anger;
he did not spare them from death
but gave their lives over to the plague.
51 #
Ex 12.29; Ps 106.22 He struck all the firstborn in Egypt,
the first issue of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52 #
Ps 77.20
Then he led out his people like sheep
and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
53 #
Ex 14.19, 27 He led them in safety so that they were not afraid,
but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54 #
Ex 15.17; Ps 44.3 And he brought them to his holy hill,
to the mountain that his right hand had won.
55 #
Ps 44.2; 105.11 He drove out nations before them;
he apportioned them for a possession
and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
56 #
vv 18, 40
Yet they tested the Most High God
and rebelled against him.
They did not observe his decrees
57 #
Ezek 20.27, 28; Hos 7.16 but turned away and were faithless like their ancestors;
they twisted like a treacherous bow.
58 #
Deut 12.2; 32.16, 21; 1 Kings 11.7 For they provoked him to anger with their high places;
they moved him to jealousy with their idols.
59When God heard, he was full of wrath,
and he utterly rejected Israel.
60 #
1 Sam 4.11
He abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh,
the tent where he dwelt among mortals,
61 #
Judg 18.30
and delivered his power to captivity,
his glory to the hand of the foe.
62 #
1 Sam 4.10
He gave his people to the sword
and vented his wrath on his heritage.
63 #
Jer 7.34
Fire devoured their young men,
and their young women had no marriage song.
64 #
1 Sam 22.18; Job 27.15 Their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows made no lamentation.
65 #
Isa 42.13
Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
like a warrior shouting because of wine.
66 #
1 Sam 5.6
He put his adversaries to rout;
he put them to everlasting disgrace.
67He rejected the tent of Joseph;
he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
68 #
Ps 87.2
but he chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which he loves.
69 #
1 Kings 6
He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,
like the earth, which he has founded forever.
70 #
1 Sam 16.11, 12 He chose his servant David
and took him from the sheepfolds;
71 #
Gen 33.13; 2 Sam 7.8; 1 Chr 11.2 from tending the nursing ewes he brought him
to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
of Israel, his inheritance.
72 #
1 Kings 9.4
With upright heart he tended them
and guided them with skillful hand.
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Psalms 78: NRSVUE
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New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, copyright © 2021 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.