Psalm 78:1
A Maskil of Asaph. Give ear, O my people, to my instruction; listen to the words of my mouth.
Psalm 78:2
I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the beginning,
Psalm 78:3
that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.
Psalm 78:4
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.
Psalm 78:5
For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children,
Psalm 78:6
that the coming generation would know them—even children yet to be born—to arise and tell their own children
Psalm 78:7
that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments.
Psalm 78:8
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.
Psalm 78:9
The archers of Ephraim turned back on the day of battle.
Psalm 78:10
They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.
Psalm 78:11
They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.
Psalm 78:12
He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.
Psalm 78:13
He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.
Psalm 78:14
He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night.
Psalm 78:15
He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.
Psalm 78:16
He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers.
Psalm 78:17
But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.
Psalm 78:18
They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.
Psalm 78:19
They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?
Psalm 78:20
When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?”
Psalm 78:21
Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel,
Psalm 78:22
because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.
Psalm 78:23
Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens.
Psalm 78:24
He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.
Psalm 78:25
Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.
Psalm 78:26
He stirred the east wind from the heavens and drove the south wind by His might.
Psalm 78:27
He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea.
Psalm 78:28
He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.
Psalm 78:29
So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved.
Psalm 78:30
Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,
Psalm 78:31
God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.
Psalm 78:32
In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.
Psalm 78:33
So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror.
Psalm 78:34
When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.
Psalm 78:35
And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.
Psalm 78:36
But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues.
Psalm 78:37
Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.
Psalm 78:38
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.
Psalm 78:39
He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.
Psalm 78:40
How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!
Psalm 78:41
Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
Psalm 78:42
They did not remember His power—the day He redeemed them from the adversary,
Psalm 78:43
when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.
Psalm 78:44
He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink.
Psalm 78:45
He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.
Psalm 78:46
He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust.
Psalm 78:47
He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet.
Psalm 78:48
He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.
Psalm 78:49
He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity—a band of destroying angels.
Psalm 78:50
He cleared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague.
Psalm 78:51
He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham.
Psalm 78:52
He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.
Psalm 78:53
He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.
Psalm 78:54
He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired.
Psalm 78:55
He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
Psalm 78:56
But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees.
Psalm 78:57
They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.
Psalm 78:58
They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.
Psalm 78:59
On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.
Psalm 78:60
He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men.
Psalm 78:61
He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.
Psalm 78:62
He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage.
Psalm 78:63
Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs.
Psalm 78:64
His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.
Psalm 78:65
Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.
Psalm 78:66
He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame.
Psalm 78:67
He rejected the tent of Joseph and refused the tribe of Ephraim.
Psalm 78:68
But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.
Psalm 78:69
He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever.
Psalm 78:70
He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds;
Psalm 78:71
from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance.
Psalm 78:72
So David shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.