1 Hear my teaching, my people. Turn your ears to the words of my mouth. 2 I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, 3 Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. 4 We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh, his strength, and his wondrous works that he has done. 5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a teaching in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; 6 that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born; who should arise and tell their children, 7 that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments, 8 and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn't make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God. 9 The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. 10 They didn't keep God's covenant, and refused to walk in his law. 11 They forgot his doings, his wondrous works that he had shown them. 12 He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. 13 He split the sea, and caused them to pass through. He made the waters stand as a heap. 14 In the daytime he also led them with a cloud, and all night with a light of fire. 15 He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths. 16 He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers. 17 Yet they still went on to sin against him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert. 18 They tempted God in their heart by asking food according to their desire. 19 Yes, they spoke against God. They said, "Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? 20 Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, and streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Will he provide flesh for his people?" 21 Therefore Yahweh heard, and was angry. A fire was kindled against Jacob, anger also went up against Israel, 22 because they didn't believe in God, and didn't trust in his salvation. 23 Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven. 24 He rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them food from the sky. 25 Man ate the bread of angels. He sent them food to the full. 26 He caused the east wind to blow in the sky. By his power he guided the south wind. 27 He rained also flesh on them as the dust; winged birds as the sand of the seas. 28 He let them fall in the midst of their camp, around their habitations. 29 So they ate, and were well filled. He gave them their own desire. 30 They didn't turn from their cravings. Their food was yet in their mouths, 31 when the anger of God went up against them, killed some of the fattest of them, and struck down the young men of Israel. 32 For all this they still sinned, and didn't believe in his wondrous works. 33 Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror. 34 When he killed them, then they inquired after him. They returned and sought God earnestly. 35 They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their redeemer. 36 But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue. 37 For their heart was not right with him, neither were they faithful in his covenant. 38 But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn't destroy them. Yes, many times he turned his anger away, and didn't stir up all his wrath. 39 He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and doesn't come again. 40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert! 41 They turned again and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel. 42 They didn't remember his hand, nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary; 43 how he set his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the field of Zoan, 44 he turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, so that they could not drink. 45 He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them. 46 He gave also their increase to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust. 47 He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost. 48 He gave over their livestock also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts. 49 He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil. 50 He made a path for his anger. He didn't spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence, 51 and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham. 52 But he led forth his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. 53 He led them safely, so that they weren't afraid, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. 54 He brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to this mountain, which his right hand had taken. 55 He also drove out the nations before them, allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents. 56 Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and didn't keep his testimonies; 57 but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were turned aside like a deceitful bow. 58 For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images. 59 When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel; 60 So that he forsook the tent of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men; 61 and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the adversary's hand. 62 He also gave his people over to the sword, and was angry with his inheritance. 63 Fire devoured their young men. Their virgins had no wedding song. 64 Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn't weep. 65 Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine. 66 He struck his adversaries backward. He put them to a perpetual reproach. 67 Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph, and didn't choose the tribe of Ephraim, 68 But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he loved. 69 He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has established forever. 70 He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds; 71 from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance. 72 So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands. A Psalm by Asaph.
This is one of the psalms ascribed to Asaph. See Introduction to Ps. 73. If, as is likely, it was composed at a later period than the time of David, the word "Asaph" must be taken as a general term denoting the successor in the family off Asaph, who presided over the music the sanctuary. On the word "Maschil" in the title, see the notes at the title to Psalm 32:1-11.
The time when the psalm was composed cannot now be ascertained with any certainty. It was evidently written, however, after the revolt of the ten tribes, and the establishment of the sovereignty in the tribe of Judah; that is, after the time of David and Solomon. This is apparent from Psalm 78:9, Psalm 78:67, where "Ephraim," the chief of the ten tribes, is referred to in distinction from "Judah."
The design of the psalm is, evidently, to vindicate the fact that Ephraim had been rejected, and that Judah had been chosen to be the head of the nation. The reason of this was found in the conduct of Ephraim, or the ten tribes, in revolting from God, and in forgetting the divine mercy and compassion shown to the Hebrew people in former days. See Psalm 78:9-11, Psalm 78:67-68.
The argument in the psalm is the following:
I. A call on all the people, addressed to them by the king or the ruler, to attend to the instructions of former times - the lessons which it was of importance to transmit to future generations, Psalm 78:1-4.
II. God had established a general law which he had designed for all the people, or which he intended should be the law of the nation as such - that all the people might set their hope in God, or be worshippers of Him as the only true God, and that they might all be one people, Psalm 78:5-8.
III. Ephraim - the most powerful of the ten tribes, and their head and representative - had been guilty of disregarding that law, and had refused to come to the common defense of the nation, Psalm 78:9-11.
IV. The wickedness of this rebellion is shown by the great favors which, in its former history, God had shown to the nation as such, including these very tribes, Ps. 78:12-66.
V. The reason is stated, founded on their apostasy, why God had rejected Ephraim, and why he had chosen Judah, and made Zion the capital of the nation, instead of selecting a place within the limits of the tribe of Ephraim for that purpose, Psalm 78:67-68.
VI. The fact is declared that David had been chosen to rule over the people; that he had been taken from humble life, and made the ruler of the nation, and that the line of the sovereignty had been settled in him, Psalm 78:69-72.
An enumeration of the principal effects of the goodness of God to his people, vv. 1-16; of their rebellions and punishment, vv. 17-33; their feigned repentance, Psalm 78:34-37; God's compassion towards them, Psalm 78:38, Psalm 78:39; their backsliding, and forgetfulness of his mercy, Psalm 78:40-42; the plagues which he brought upon the Egyptians, Psalm 78:43-51; the deliverance of his own people, and their repeated ingratitude and disobedience, Psalm 78:52-58; their punishment, Psalm 78:59-64; God's wrath against their adversaries, Psalm 78:65, Psalm 78:66; his rejection of the tribes of Israel abut his choice of the tribe of Judah, and of David to be king over his people, Psalm 78:67-72.
The title, Maschil of Asaph; or, according to the margin, A Psalm for Asaph to give instruction; contains nothing particular. The Arabic has, "A sermon from Asaph to the people." The Psalm was probably not written by David, but after the separation of the ten tribes of Israel, and after the days of Rehoboam, and before the Babylonish captivity, for the temple was still standing, Psalm 78:69. Calmet supposes that it was written in the days of Asa, who had gained, by the aid of the Syrians, a great victory over the Israelites; and brought back to the pure worship of God many out of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon. See 2-Chronicles 15 and 2-Chronicles 16:1-14.
INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 78
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.
(Psalm 78:1-8) Attention called for.
(v. 9-39) The history of Israel.
(v. 40-55) Their settlement in Canaan.
(v. 56-72) The mercies of God to Israel contrasted with their ingratitude.
The Warning-Mirror of History from Moses to David
In the last verse of Ps 77 Israel appears as a flock which is led by Moses and Aaron; in the last verse of Psalm 78 as a flock which is led by David, of a pure heart, with judicious hands. Both Psalm also meet in thoughts and expressions, just as the לאסף of both leads one to expect. Psalm 78 is called Maskı̂l, a meditation. The word would also be appropriate here in the signification "a didactic poem." For the history of Israel is recapitulated here from the leading forth out of Egypt through the time of the Judges down to David, and that with the practical application for the present age that they should cleave faithfully to Jahve, more faithfully than the rebellious generation of the fathers. After the manner of the Psalm of Asaph the Ephraimites are made specially prominent out of the whole body of the people, their disobedience as well as the rejection of Shiloh and the election of David, by which it was for ever at an end with the supremacy of Ephraim and also of his brother-tribe of Benjamin.
The old Asaphic origin of the Psalm has been contested: - (1) Because Psalm 78:9 may be referred to the apostasy of Ephraim and of the other tribes, that is to say, to the division of the kingdom. But this reference is capriciously imagined to be read in Psalm 78:9. (2) Because the Psalm betrays a malice, indeed a national hatred against Ephraim, such as is only explicable after the apostasy of the ten tribes. But the alienation and jealousy between Ephraim and Judah is older than the rupture of the kingdom. The northern tribes, in consequence of their position, which was more exposed to contact with the heathen world, had already assumed a different character from that of Judah living in patriarchal seclusion. They could boast of a more excited, more martial history, one richer in exploit; in the time of the Judges especially, there is scarcely any mention of Judah. Hence Judah was little thought of by them, especially by powerful Ephraim, which regarded itself as the foremost tribe of all the tribes. From the beginning of Saul's persecution of David, however, when the stricter principle of the south came first of all into decisive conflict for the mastery with the more lax principle of the Ephraimites, until the rebellion of Jeroboam against Solomon, there runs through the history of Israel a series of acts which reveal a deep reft between Judah and the other tribes, more especially Benjamin and Ephraim. Though, therefore, it were true that a tone hostile to Ephraim is expressed in the Psalm, this would not be any evidence against its old Asaphic origin, since the psalmist rests upon facts, and, without basing the preference of Judah upon merit, he everywhere contemplates the sin of Ephraim, without any Judaean boasting, in a connection with the sin of the whole nation, which involves all in the responsibility. Nor is Psalm 78:69 against Asaph the contemporary of David; for Asaph may certainly have seen the building of the Temple of Solomon as it towered upwards to the skies, and Caspari in his Essay on the Holy One of Israel (Luther. Zeitschrift, 1844, 3) has shown that even the divine name קדושׁ ישׂראל does not militate against him. We have seen in connection with Psalm 76:1-12 how deeply imbued Isaiah's language is with that of the Psalm of Asaph. It cannot surprise us of Asaph is Isaiah's predecessor in the use of the name "the Holy One of Isreal." The fact, however, that the writer of the Psalm takes the words and colours of his narration from all five books of the Pentateuch, with the exception of Leviticus, is not opposed to our view of the origin of the Pentateuch, but favourable to it. The author of the Book of Job, with whom in Psalm 78:64 he verbally coincides, is regarded by us as younger; and the points of contact with other Psalm inscribed "by David," "by the sons of Korah," and "by Asaph," do not admit of being employed for ascertaining his time, since the poet is by no means an unindependent imitator.
The manner of representation which characterizes the Psalm becomes epical in its extension, but is at the same time concise after the sententious style. The separate historical statements have a gnome-like finish, and a gem-like elegance. The whole falls into two principal parts, vv. 1-37, vv. 38-72; the second part passes over from the God-tempting unthankfulness of the Israel of the desert to that of the Israel of Canaan. Every three strophes form one group.
*More commentary available by clicking individual verses.