Text -- Psalms 78:50-72 (NET)

78:50 He sent his anger in full force; he did not spare them from death; he handed their lives over to destruction. 78:51 He struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, the firstfruits of their reproductive power in the tents of Ham. 78:52 Yet he brought out his people like sheep; he led them through the wilderness like a flock. 78:53 He guided them safely along, while the sea covered their enemies. 78:54 He brought them to the border of his holy land, to this mountainous land which his right hand acquired. 78:55 He drove the nations out from before them; he assigned them their tribal allotments and allowed the tribes of Israel to settle down. 78:56 Yet they challenged and defied the sovereign God, and did not obey his commands. 78:57 They were unfaithful and acted as treacherously as their ancestors; they were as unreliable as a malfunctioning bow. 78:58 They made him angry with their pagan shrines, and made him jealous with their idols. 78:59 God heard and was angry; he completely rejected Israel. 78:60 He abandoned the sanctuary at Shiloh, the tent where he lived among men. 78:61 He allowed the symbol of his strong presence to be captured; he gave the symbol of his splendor into the hand of the enemy. 78:62 He delivered his people over to the sword, and was angry with his chosen nation. 78:63 Fire consumed their young men, and their virgins remained unmarried. 78:64 Their priests fell by the sword, but their widows did not weep. 78:65 But then the Lord awoke from his sleep; he was like a warrior in a drunken rage. 78:66 He drove his enemies back; he made them a permanent target for insults. 78:67 He rejected the tent of Joseph; he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim. 78:68 He chose the tribe of Judah, and Mount Zion, which he loves. 78:69 He made his sanctuary as enduring as the heavens above; as secure as the earth, which he established permanently. 78:70 He chose David, his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds. 78:71 He took him away from following the mother sheep, and made him the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and of Israel, his chosen nation. 78:72 David cared for them with pure motives; he led them with skill.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Psa 78:51

Of the Egyptians, the posterity of Ham, the cursed children of a cursed parent.

Wesley: Psa 78:54

The land of Canaan, separated by God from all other lands.

Wesley: Psa 78:54

The mountainous country of Canaan; the word mountain is often used in scripture for a mountainous country.

Wesley: Psa 78:57

Which either breaks when it is drawn, or shoots awry, and frustrates the archer's expectation.

Wesley: Psa 78:59

Perceived or understood, it is spoken of God after the manner of men.

Wesley: Psa 78:60

Which was placed in Shiloh.

Wesley: Psa 78:60

Whereby he insinuates both God's wonderful condescension, and their stupendous folly in despising so glorious a privilege.

Wesley: Psa 78:61

The ark, called God's strength, 1Ch 16:11, because it was the sign and pledge of his strength put forth on his people's behalf.

Wesley: Psa 78:61

So the ark is called, as being the monument and seat of God's glorious presence.

Wesley: Psa 78:61

The Philistines.

Wesley: Psa 78:64

Hophni and Phinehas.

Wesley: Psa 78:64

No funeral solemnities; either because they were prevented by their own death, as the wife of Phinehas was, or disturbed by the invasion of the enemy.

Wesley: Psa 78:66

Them with the piles.

Wesley: Psa 78:66

He caused them to perpetuate their own reproach by sending back the ark of God with their golden emrods, the lasting monuments of their shame.

Wesley: Psa 78:67

He would not have his ark to abide any longer in the tabernacle of Shiloh, which was in the tribe of Joseph or Ephraim.

Wesley: Psa 78:68

For the seat of the ark and of God's worship.

Wesley: Psa 78:69

The temple of Solomon.

Wesley: Psa 78:69

Magnificent and gloriously.

Wesley: Psa 78:69

Not now to be moved from place to place, as the tabernacle was, but as a fixed place for the ark's perpetual residence.

JFB: Psa 78:50-51

Removed obstacles, gave it full scope.

JFB: Psa 78:51

Literally, "first-fruits," or, "first-born" (Gen 49:3; Deu 21:17).

JFB: Psa 78:51

One of whose sons gave name (Mizraim, Hebrew) to Egypt.

JFB: Psa 78:52-54

Or, brought them by periodical journeys (compare Exo 15:1).

JFB: Psa 78:54

Or, "holy border"--i. e., region of which--

JFB: Psa 78:54

(Zion) was, as the seat of civil and religious government, the representative, used for the whole land, as afterwards for the Church (Isa 25:6-7).

JFB: Psa 78:54

Or, "procured by His right hand" or power (Psa 60:5).

JFB: Psa 78:55

Or, the portion thus measured.

JFB: Psa 78:55

That is, the heathen, put for their possessions, so tents--that is, of the heathen (compare Deu 6:11).

JFB: Psa 78:56-57

Which turns back, and so fails to project the arrow (2Sa 1:22; Hos 7:16). They relapsed.

JFB: Psa 78:58

Idolatry resulted from sparing the heathen (compare Psa 78:9-11).

JFB: Psa 78:59-60

Perceived (Gen 11:7).

JFB: Psa 78:59-60

But not utterly.

JFB: Psa 78:60

Literally, "caused to dwell," set up (Jos 18:1).

JFB: Psa 78:61

The ark, as symbolical of it (Psa 96:6).

JFB: Psa 78:62

Or, "shut up."

JFB: Psa 78:62

(Psa 78:48; 1Sa 4:10-17).

JFB: Psa 78:63

Either figure of the slaughter (1Sa 4:10), or a literal burning by the heathen.

JFB: Psa 78:63

Literally, "praised"--that is, as brides.

JFB: Psa 78:64

(Compare 1Sa 4:17); and there were, doubtless, others.

JFB: Psa 78:64

Either because stupefied by grief, or hindered by the enemy.

JFB: Psa 78:65

(Compare Psa 22:16; Isa 42:13).

JFB: Psa 78:66

Or, "struck His enemies' back." The Philistines never regained their position after their defeats by David.

JFB: Psa 78:67-68

Or, "home," or, "tribe," to which--

JFB: Psa 78:67-68

Is parallel (compare Rev 7:8). Its pre-eminence was, like Saul's, only permitted. Judah had been the choice (Gen 49:10).

JFB: Psa 78:69

Or, "mountains," and abiding as--the earth.

JFB: Psa 78:70-72

Humility and exaltation--and the correspondence is beautiful.

JFB: Psa 78:71

Literally, "ewes giving suck" (compare Isa 40:11). On the pastoral terms, compare Psa 79:13.

Clarke: Psa 78:54

The border of his sanctuary - קדשו kodsho , "of his holy place,"that is, the land of Canaan, called afterwards the mountain which his right hand had purchased; because it was a mountainous country, widely differing from Egypt, which was a long, continued, and almost perfect level.

Clarke: Psa 78:57

They were turned aside like a deceitful bow - The eastern bow, which when at rest is in the form of a [curved figure], must be recurved, or turned the contrary way, in order to be what is called bent and strung. If a person who is unskilful or weak attempt to recurve and string one of these bows, if he take not great heed it will spring back and regain its quiescent position, and perhaps break his arm. And sometimes I have known it, when bent, to start aside, and regain its quiescent position, to my no small danger, and in one or two cases to my injury. This image is frequently used in the sacred writings; but no person has understood it, not being acquainted with the eastern bow [curved figure], which must be recurved, or bent the contrary way, [figure] in order to be proper for use. If not well made, they will fly back in discharging the arrow. It is said of the bow of Jonathan, it turned not back, 2Sa 1:22, לא נשוג אחור lo nasog achor , "did not twist itself backward."It was a good bow, one on which he could depend. Hosea, Hos 7:16, compares the unfaithful Israelites to a deceitful bow; one that, when bent, would suddenly start aside and recover its former position. We may find the same passage in Jer 9:3. And this is precisely the kind of bow mentioned by Homer, Odyss. xxi., which none of Penelope’ s suitors could bend, called καμπυλα τοξα and αγκυλα τοξα, the crooked bow in the state of rest; but τοξον παλιντονον, the recurred bow when prepared for use. And of this trial of strength and skill in the bending of the bow of Ulysses, none of the critics and commentators have been able to make any thing, because they knew not the instrument in question. On the τοξου θησις of Homer, I have written a dissertation elsewhere. The image is very correct; these Israelites, when brought out of their natural bent, soon recoiled, and relapsed into their former state.

Clarke: Psa 78:60

He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh - The Lord, offended with the people, and principally with the priests, who had profaned his holy worship, gave up his ark into the hands of the Philistines. And so true it is that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, that he never returned to it again. See 1Sa 6:1; 2 Samuel 6; 1Ki 8:1; where the several removals of the ark are spoken of, and which explain the remaining part of this Psalm. Because God suffered the Philistines to take the ark, it is said, Psa 78:61 : "He delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemy’ s hand;"and Psa 78:67, that "he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim;"for Shiloh was in the tribe of Ephraim the son of Joseph; and God did not suffer his ark to return thither, but to go to Kirjath-jearim, which was in the tribe of Benjamin, from thence to the house of Obed-edom: and so to Zion in the tribe of Judah, as it follows, Psa 78:68

The tabernacle which Moses had constructed in the wilderness remained at Shiloh even after the ark was taken by the Philistines and afterwards sent to Kirjath-jearim. From Shiloh it was transported to Nob; afterwards to Gibeon, apparently under the reign of Saul; and it was there at the commencement of Solomon’ s reign, for this prince went thither to offer sacrifices, 1Ki 3:4. From the time in which the temple was built, we know not what became of the tabernacle of Moses: it was probably laid up in some of the chambers of the temple. See Calmet.

Clarke: Psa 78:63

Their maidens were not given to marriage - הוללו hullalu , were not celebrated with marriage songs. It is considered a calamity in the east if a maiden arrives at the age of twelve years without being sought or given in marriage.

Clarke: Psa 78:64

Their priests fell by the sword - Hophni and Phinehas, who were slain in that unfortunate battle against the Philistines in which the ark of the Lord was taken, 1Sa 4:11

A Chaldee Targum on this passage says, "In the time in which the ark of the Lord was taken by the Philistines, Hophni and Phinehas, the two priests, fell by the sword at Shiloh; and when the news was brought, their wives made no lamentation, for they both died the same day."

Clarke: Psa 78:65

Then the Lord awaked - He seemed as if he had totally disregarded what was done to his people, and the reproach that seemed to fall on himself and his worship by the capture of the ark

Clarke: Psa 78:65

Like a mighty man - כגבור kegibbor , like a hero that shouteth by reason of wine. One who, going forth to meet his enemy, having taken a sufficiency of wine to refresh himself, and become a proper stimulus to his animal spirits shouts - gives the war-signal for the onset; impatient to meet the foe, and sure of victory. The idea is not taken from the case of a drunken man. A person in such a state would be very unfit to meet his enemy, and could have little prospect of conquest.

Clarke: Psa 78:66

He smote his enemies in the hinder part - This refers to the hemorrhoids with which he afflicted the Philistines. See the note on 1Sa 5:6-10 (note).

Clarke: Psa 78:67

He refused the tabernacle of Joseph - See the note on Psa 78:60 (note).

Clarke: Psa 78:69

He built his sanctuary like high palaces - כמו רמים kemo ramim , which several of the Versions understand of the monoceros or rhinoceros. The temple of God at Jerusalem was the only one in the land, and stood as prominent on Mount Zion as the horn of the unicorn or rhinoceros does upon his snout. And there he established his ark, to go no more out as long as the temple should last. Before this time it was frequently in a migratory state, not only in the wilderness, but afterwards in the promised land. See the notes on Psa 78:60 (note).

Clarke: Psa 78:70

He chose David - See the account 1Sa 16:11 (note), etc.

Clarke: Psa 78:71

From following the ewes - Instances of this kind are not unfrequent in the ancient Greek and Roman history. Croesus said that Gypes, who was the first of his race, was a slave, and rose to sovereignty, succeeding his predecessor, of whose sheep he had been the pastor.

Clarke: Psa 78:72

So he fed them - Here David is mentioned as having terminated his reign. He had fed the people, according to the integrity of his heart, for that was ever disposed to do the will of God in the administration of the kingdom: and his hand being skillful in war, he always led them out to victory against their enemies

Calvin: Psa 78:50

50.He made a way to his anger ³⁵² To take away all excuse from this ungrateful people, whom the most evident and striking proofs of the goodness of God which were presented before their eyes could not keep in their obedience to him, it is here again repeated that the wrath of God overflowed Egypt like an impetuous torrent. The miracle adverted to is the last which was there wrought, when God, by the powerful hand of his angel, slew, in one night, all the first-born of Egypt. According to a common and familiar mode of speaking in the Hebrew language, the first-born are called the beginning, or the first-fruits of strength. Although the old advance to death as they decline in years, yet as they are in a manner renewed in their offspring, and thus may be said to recover their decayed strength, the term strength is applied to their children. And the first-born are called the beginning or the first-fruits of this strength, as I have explained more at large on Gen 49:3. The houses of Egypt are called the tents of Ham, because Misraim, who gave the name to the country, was the son of Ham, Gen 10:6. Farther, there is here celebrated the free love of God towards the posterity of Shem, as manifested in his preferring them to all the children of Ham, although they were possessed of no intrinsic excellence which might render them worthy of such a distinction.

Calvin: Psa 78:52

52.And he made his people to go forth like sheep The Psalmist again celebrates God’s fatherly love towards the chosen people, whom, as we have elsewhere remarked, he compares to a flock of sheep. They had no wisdom or power of their own to preserve and defend themselves; but God graciously condescended to perform towards them the office of a shepherd. It is a singular token of the love which he bore towards them, that he did not disdain to humble himself so far as to feed them as his own sheep. What could a multitude who had never been trained up to the art of war do against powerful and warlike enemies? So far from having learned the art of war, the people, as is well known, had been employed, when in Egypt, in mean and servile occupations, as if they had been condemned to toil under the earth in mines or in quarries.

Calvin: Psa 78:53

53.And he conducted them in safety, and they were not afraid This does not imply that they relied on God confidently, and with tranquil minds, but that, having God for their guide and the guardian of their welfare, they had no just cause to be afraid. When at any time they were thrown into consternation, this was owing to their own unbelief. From this cause proceeded these murmuring questions to which they gave utterance, when Pharaoh pursued them, upon their leaving Egypt, and when they were “sore afraid:” “Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness,” (Exo 14:11.) This security, then, is not to be referred to the feeling of this in the minds of the people, but to the protection of God, by which it came to pass that, their enemies having been drowned in the Red Sea, they enjoyed quiet and repose in the wilderness. Other benefits which God had bestowed upon them are here recited, and at the same time other transgressions with which they had been chargeable. This shows the more clearly their deep ingratitude. After having obtained possession of the inheritance which was promised them, as if they had been under no obligations to God, their hearts were always rebellious and untractable. The accomplishment, and, as it were, the concluding act of their deliverance, was the putting them in possession of the land of Canaan, from entering which they had precluded themselves, had not God determined, notwithstanding their wickedness, to complete, in all respects, the work which he had commenced. The land itself is called the borders of God’s sanctuary, (verse 54,) because God, in assigning it to his people, had also consecrated it to himself. This, it is manifest, exhibits in a more heinous and aggravated light the iniquity of the people, who brought into that land the same pollutions with which it had been anciently defiled. What madness was it for the people of Israel, who knew that the old inhabitants of the country had been driven from it on account of their abominations, to strive to surpass them in all kinds of wickedness? as if they had been resolved to do all they could to bring down upon their own heads that divine vengeance which they had seen executed upon others. The words this mountain are improperly explained by some as applying to the whole country of Judea; for although it was a mountainous country, there were in it plain and level grounds of large extent, both as to breadth and length. I have, therefore, no doubt, that by way of amplification the Psalmist makes honorable mention of mount Zion, where God had chosen a habitation for himself, and his chief seat. I indeed allow, that under this expression, by the figure synecdoche, a part is put for the whole; only I would have my readers to understand, that this place is expressly named, because from it, as from a source or fountain, flowed the holiness of the whole land. It is asserted that God, by his right hand, possessed or acquired this mountain; for the Hebrew verb קנה , kanah, may be understood in either of these senses: and this assertion is made, that the Israelites might not be lifted up with pride, as if they had achieved the conquest of the land, or had obtained the peaceable possession of it by their own power. As is stated in Psa 44:3,

“They got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them, but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favor unto them.” (Psa 44:3)

Calvin: Psa 78:55

55.He expelled the heathen from before them; and made them to fall into their part of the inheritance These words are an explanation of the concluding sentence of the preceding verse: they describe the manner in which the land of Canaan was acquired, plainly intimating that the Israelites were not such a warlike race, nor those heathen nations so cowardly, as to render it an easy matter for the former to vanquish the latter, and that it would have been impossible for the former to have expelled the latter from the country, had they not been led on to victory under the conduct of God, and been aided by his power. Besides, it would have been unlawful for them to have taken possession of the country, had it not been the will of God that the first inhabitants should be deprived of it, and that strangers should be established in it in their room.

Calvin: Psa 78:56

56.And they tempted and provoked the Most High God Here they are upbraided for having, notwithstanding the many tokens of the divine favor by which they were distinguished, persevered in acting perfidiously: yea, even although God from time to time conferred upon them new benefits, to recover them to their allegiance to him, they, notwithstanding, by their rebellion, shook off his yoke. With respect to the word tempt, we have already explained its import. But it is added in general, that they provoked God, because they had not kept his covenant By this last clause, their open and gross rebellion is the more completely demonstrated; for, although they had been plainly taught their duty, they nevertheless refused to submit to the authority of God. The law is called testimonies or agreements, ³⁵⁷ because, as men enter into contracts upon certain conditions, so God, by his covenant, entered into a contract with this people, and bound them to himself. In speaking of them in this manner, there is pronounced upon them no light censure; but when they are charged in the next verse with apostasy and perfidiousness, that fills up the measure of their guilt. God had adopted them to be his people: they, on the other hand, despising his favor, voluntarily renounce it. He had gathered them together under his wings; and they, by their waywardness, scatter themselves in all directions. He had promised to be a father to them; and they refuse to be his children. He had shown them the way of salvation; and they, by going astray, willingly precipitate themselves into destruction. The prophet, therefore, concludes, that in every age they showed themselves to be an impious and wicked people. It is again to be noticed, that the fault which is most severely condemned in them is, that they too much resembled their fathers. This is particularly mentioned, to prevent any man from deceiving himself by supposing, that in indiscriminately imitating his ancestors he is doing right, and that he may not think of making use of their example as an argument for defending his own conduct. The instability of the people is next expressed by a very apposite figure, which Hosea also employs in Hos 7:16. As archers are deceived when they have a bow which is too weak, or ill bent, or crooked and flexible, so it is stated, that this people turned back, and slipped away by their deceitful and tortuous craftiness, that they might not be governed by the hand of God.

Calvin: Psa 78:58

58.And they provoked him to anger with their high places We have here adduced the species of defection by which the Israelites afforded incontestable evidence that they refused to be faithful to God, and to yield allegiance to him. They had been sufficiently, and more than sufficiently warned, that the service of God would be perverted and contaminated, unless they were regulated in every part of it by the Divine Word; and now, disregarding his whole law, they recklessly follow their own inventions. And the fruits which uniformly proceed from the contempt of the law are, that men who choose rather to follow their own understanding than to submit to the authority of God, become wedded to gross superstitions. The Psalmist complains that the service of God was corrupted by them in two ways; in the first place, by their defacing the glory of God, in setting up for themselves idols and graven images; and, secondly, by their inventing strange and forbidden ceremonies to appease the anger of God.

Calvin: Psa 78:59

59.God heard it, and was wroth The prophet again shows that God, when he found that no good resulted from his long-suffering, which the people abused, yea, even treated with mockery, and perverted as an encouragement to greater excess in sinning, at length proceeded to inflict severe punishments upon them. The metaphor, which he borrows from earthly judges, is frequently to be met with in the Scriptures. When God is said to hear, it is not meant that it is necessary for him to make inquisition, but it is intended to teach us that he does not rush forth inconsiderately to execute his judgments, and thus to prevent any from supposing that he ever acts precipitately. The amount of what is stated is, that the people continued so pertinaciously in their wickedness, that at length the cry of it ascended to heaven; and the very weight of the punishment demonstrated the aggravated nature of the offense.

Calvin: Psa 78:60

After it is said that Israel, whom God had loved so much, was become an abomination in his sight, it is added, (verse 60,) that they were bereft of the presence of God, which is the only source of true felicity and comfort under calamities of every kind. God, then, is said to have abhorred Israel, when he permitted the ark of the covenant to be carried into another country, as if he intended by this to indicate that he had departed from Judea, and bidden the people farewell. It is indeed very obvious, that God was not fixed to the outward and visible symbol; but as he had given the ark to be a token or sign of the close union which subsisted between him and the Israelites, in suffering it to be carried away, he testified, that he himself had also departed from them. Shiloh having been for a long time the abode of the ark, and the place where it was captured by the Philistines, (1Sa 4:11,) it is termed the habitation or dwelling-place of God. The manner of his residence, in short, is beautifully expressed in the next sentence, where Shiloh is described as his dwelling-place among men. God, it is true, fills both heaven and earth; but as we cannot attain to that infinite height to which he is exalted, in descending among us by the exercise of his power and grace, he approaches as near to us as is needful, and as our limited capacity will bear. It is a very emphatic manner of speaking to represent God as so incensed by the continual wickedness of his people, that he was constrained to forsake this place, the only one which he had chosen for himself upon the earth.

Calvin: Psa 78:61

61.And he delivered his strength into captivity In this verse, the same subject is prosecuted: it is declared, that the strength of God, by which the Israelites had been shielded and defended, was at that time in captivity. Not that his power could only be exerted in connection with the outward symbol; but instead of opposing their enemies as he had formerly done, it was now his will that the grace by which he had preserved his people should, so to speak, be led captive. This, however, is not to be understood as implying that the Philistines had made God their prisoner. The meaning simply is, that the Israelites were deprived of the protection of God, in consequence of which they fell into the hands of their enemies, even as an army is put to flight when the general is taken prisoner. The ark is also termed the beauty of God; because, being in himself invisible, he made it the symbol of his presence, or, as it were, a mirror in which he might be seen. It is a bold, and at first sight, an absurd hyperbole, to say that the strength of God was taken prisoner by the Philistines; but it is expressly used for the purpose of aggravating the wickedness of the people. As he had been accustomed mightily to display the power of his arm in aiding them, the offenses with which he had been provoked must have been of a very heinous character, when he suffered that symbol of his power to be forcibly carried away by a heathen army. We are taught by the prophet Jeremiah, (Jer 7:12,) that what is here related of Shiloh, is addressed as a warning to all those who, flattering themselves upon false grounds, that they enjoy the presence of God, are lifted up with vain confidence: “But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.” If, therefore, when God approaches us familiarly, we do not sincerely receive him with that reverence which becomes us, we have ground to fear that what happened to the people of Shiloh will happen also to us. So much the more disgusting, then, is the boasting of the Pope and his adherents, who support the claims of Rome as the special dwelling-place of God, from the fact, that the Church in former times flourished in that city. It is to be remembered, — what they seem to forget, — that Christ, who is the true temple of the Godhead, was born in Bethlehem, and brought up in Nazareth, and that he dwelt and preached in Capernaum and Jerusalem; and yet the miserable desolation of all these cities affords a dreadful testimony of the wrath of God.

Calvin: Psa 78:62

62.And he shut up his people to the sword Other parts of the calamity which befell Israel in the time of the high priest Eli are here mentioned. God, in permitting the ark to be carried away, showed that he had withdrawn his favor from them. This was also demonstrated from the fact, that all the flower of the people — those who were in the prime and blush of manhood — were consumed by the wrath of God: which is expressed by the fire devouring them. But this language is metaphorical, as is evident from the history of the event referred to, which informs us, that those that perished who were of the chosen of Israel, to the number of thirty thousand men, fell by the sword of the enemy, and not by fire, (1Sa 4:10.) This figure points out the suddenness of the dreadful calamity. It is as if it had been said, They were destroyed in a moment, even as fire quickly consumes chaff and the dry leaves of trees. ³⁶¹

The great extent of this slaughter is heightened by another figure, which is, that for want of men, the maidens continued unmarried. This is the meaning of the clause, Their virgins were not applauded; the reference being to the nuptial songs which were wont to be sung at marriages in praise of the bride. To aggravate still more the unwonted and appalling nature of the calamity, it is added, that even the priests, whom God had taken under his special protection, perished indiscriminately with others. When it is said, that the widows made no lamentation, I would explain it as denoting, either that they themselves died first for sorrow, so that they had no opportunity of mourning for others, or else, that when led captive by their enemies, they were prohibited to mourn. By all these expressions, the object is to show, in a few words, that all kinds of calamities were heaped upon them. ³⁶²

Calvin: Psa 78:65

65.But the Lord awoke as one asleep Some understand this as spoken of the Israelites, implying that the Lord awoke against them; and others, as spoken of their enemies. If the first sense is adopted, it need not excite our surprise, that the Israelites are termed, in the 66^th verse, the enemies of God, even as they are so designated in Isa 1:24,

“Therefore, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah! I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies.” (Isa 1:24)

And thus the meaning will be, that the Israelites paid dearly for abusing the patience of God, by taking encouragement from it to indulge to greater excess in the commission of sin; for awaking suddenly, he rushed upon them with so much the greater fury. But as we find the prophets drawing their doctrine from Moses, and also framing their language according to his as a standard, the opinion of those who understand this and the following verse, as referring to the Philistines, is no less probable. The prophet here appears to have borrowed this order, from the song of Moses, (Deu 32:27,) where God declares, that while he punished his own people, he, at the same time, did not forget to repress their enemies. Since it is a common proverb, that the issue of wars is uncertain, if, after the enemies of the chosen tribes had obtained the victory, no change had happened to them, it would not have been so manifest, that what befell his own people was a punishment inflicted upon them by God. But when God, after having afflicted and humbled the Israelites, made his judgments to fall on their conquerors, without the instrumentality of man, beyond all human expectation, and contrary to what happens in the ordinary course of events; — from this it is the more plainly manifest, that when the Israelites were laid in the dust, it was the work of God, who intended thus to punish them. The prophet, however, at the same time, gives us to understand, that God was constrained, as it were, by necessity, to punish them with greater severity; because, in afterwards inflicting his judgments upon the Philistines, he gave abundant evidence of his regard to his covenant, which the Israelites might be very apt to think he had quite forgotten. Although he had, so to speak, taken the side of the Philistines for a time, it was not his intention utterly to withdraw his love from the children of Abraham, lest the truth of his promise should become void.

The figure of a drunken man may seem somewhat harsh; but the propriety of using it will appear, when we consider that it is employed in accommodation to the stupidity of the people. Had they been of a pure and clear understanding, ³⁶³ God would not have thus transformed himself, and assumed a character foreign to his own. When he, therefore, compares himself to a drunken man, it was the drunkenness of the people; that is to say, their insensibility that constrained him to speak thus: which was so much the greater shame to them. With respect to God, the metaphor derogates nothing from his glory. If he does not immediately remedy our calamities, we are ready to think that he is sunk into a profound sleep. But how can God, it may be said, be thus asleep, when he is superior in strength to all the giants, and yet they can easily watch for a long time, and are satisfied with little sleep? I answer, when he exercises forbearance, and does not promptly execute his judgments, the interpretation which ignorant people put upon his conduct is, that he loiters in this manner like a man who is stupified, and knows not how to proceed. ³⁶⁴ The prophet, on the contrary, declares, that this sudden awaking of God will be more alarming and terrible than if he had at the first lifted up his hand to execute judgment; and that it will be as if a giant, drunken with wine, should start up suddenly out of his sleep, while as yet he had not slept off his surfeit. Many restrict the statement in the 66^th verse, concerning God’s smiting his enemies behind, to the plague which he sent upon the Philistines, recorded in 1Sa 5:12. The phrase, everlasting disgrace, agrees very well with this interpretation; for it was a shameful disease to be afflicted with haemorrhoids in their hinder parts. But as the words, They were smitten behind, admit of a more simple sense, I leave the matter undecided.

Calvin: Psa 78:67

67.And he rejected the tabernacle of Joseph Those who suppose that the word enemies, in the 66^th verse, applies to the Israelites, connect these verses with the preceding, and suppose the meaning to be, that the wound which God had inflicted upon them was incurable. But, preferring the other opinion, which regards the Philistines as spoken of, and the scope to be, that God, in punishing them so severely, evidently showed that the covenant which he had made with his people was not disannulled, since he had avenged himself in such an awful manner upon their enemies, the explanation which I would rather give is, that this is added by way of correction, as if it had been said, That God was not yet fully reconciled towards his people who had wickedly revolted from him, and that, as an evidence of this, there remained among them some traces of the punishment with which he had visited them. The meaning of the text, therefore, is, that when the ark was taken by the Philistines, God was, so to speak, asleep, having been made drunk by the sins of his people, so that he could no longer keep watch for their defense as he had been accustomed to do; and yet, that he did not continue long sunk in sleep, but that, whenever he saw the ungodly Philistines treating with mockery the glory of his majesty, this heinous insult awoke and provoked him, just as if a giant, having well supped, had awoke from his first sleep before he had recovered from the exciting effects of his wine; and that, at the same time, his anger had not been so provoked against this heathen and uncircumcised nation as to prevent him from exhibiting some signs of the chastisement which he had inflicted upon the wicked and ungrateful Israelites even to the end. The rejection spoken of amounts to this, that when God permitted his ark to be carried away to another place, the Israelites were thereby deprived of the honor with which, by special privilege, they had been previously distinguished.

There are two principal points which should here be particularly attended to; in the first place, when the Philistines were smitten with unseemly ulcers, the plainest evidence was afforded that when the Israelites were conquered by them, this happened solely because God willed it to be so. He did not recover new strength, or gather together a new army for the purpose of invading, some short time after, the Philistines who had been victorious, nor did he have recourse, in doing this, to foreign aid. The other point is, that although God stretched forth his hand against the Philistines, to show that he had still some remembrance of his covenant, and some care of the people whom he had chosen, yet in restoring the Israelites in some measure to their former state, he made the rejection of Shiloh a perpetual monument of his wrath. He, therefore, rejected the tribe of Ephraim; ³⁶⁶ not that he cast them off for ever, or completely severed them from the rest of the body of the Church, but he would not have the ark of his covenant to reside any longer within the boundaries of that tribe. To the tribe of Ephraim is here opposed the tribe of Judah, in which God afterwards chose for himself a dwelling-place.

Thus the prophet proceeds to show, that when the ark of the covenant had a resting-place assigned to it on mount Zion, the people were in a manner renewed; and this symbol of reconciliation being restored to them, they were recovered to the favor of God from which they had fallen. As God had, so to speak, been banished from the kingdom, and his strength led into captivity through the sins of the Israelites, they had need to be taught, by this memorial, that God had been so highly displeased with their wickedness, that he could not bear to look upon the place in which he had formerly dwelt. After this separation, although to teach the people to be more on their guard in time to come, there was not a full and perfect restitution, yet God again chose a fixed residence for his ark, which was a manifestation of wonderful goodness and mercy on his part. The ark, after its return, was carried from one place to another, as to Gath, Ekron, and other places, until mount Zion was pointed out by an oracle as its fixed abode; but this intervening period is not taken notice of by the prophet, because his design went no farther than to impress upon the memory, both the example of the punishment, and the grace of God, which was greater than any could have ventured to hope for. ³⁶⁷ That which is often repeated by Moses should also be remembered:

“But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come,” etc., (Deu 12:5.)

Shiloh having acquired this renown, because the ark had dwelt there for a long time, when the ark was carried away into the country of the enemies of Israel, the minds of men were strangely perplexed, until they knew the place which God had chosen for its future residence. The ten tribes were not at that time rejected, and they had an equal interest in the kingdom and the priesthood with the tribe of Judah; but in process of time their own rebellion cut them off. This is the reason why the prophet says, in scorn, that the tribe of Ephraim was rejected, and that the tribe of Joseph, from whom it sprung, was not chosen.

Calvin: Psa 78:68

68.But he chose the tribe of Judah The meaning is, that God preferred the tribe of Judah to all the rest of the people, and chose from it a king, whom he might set over all the Israelites as well as the Jews. And he chose the mountain of Zion, appointing a certain spot upon it to be the seat of his sanctuary. That the cause of this choice might not be sought any where else but in God, it is particularly stated that the preferring of mount Zion to all other places, and the enriching of it in such a distinguished manner, proceeded entirely from the free and unmerited love of God. The relative which is here put instead of the causal adverb for; the meaning being, that the sanctuary of God was established there, not for any worthiness of the place, but solely because it was the good pleasure of God. It was proper that this second restitution of the people should be no less free than their first adoption was, when God made his covenant with Abraham, or when he delivered them from the land of Egypt. God’s love to the place had a respect to men. From this it follows, that the Church has been gathered together from the beginning, and in all ages, by the pure grace and goodness of God; for never have men been found to possess any intrinsic meritorious claims to his regard, and the Church is too precious to be left to depend upon the power of men.

Calvin: Psa 78:69

69.And built his sanctuary like high places ³⁶⁸ In this verse, what is intimated is simply this, that Mount Zion was singularly beautified; which, however, ought to be referred to the heavenly pattern. It was not the will of God that the minds of his people should be entirely engrossed with the magnificence of the building, or with the pomp of outward ceremonies; but that they should be elevated to Christ, in whom the truth of the figures of the former economy was exhibited. It is, therefore affirmed, that the sanctuary was built like high places; that is to say, it was conspicuous among all the high mountains: even as Isaiah (Isa 2:2,) and Micah, (Mic 4:1,) prophesying of the building of the new and spiritual temple, declare that it “shall be established in the tops of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills.” And it is well known that fortresses were in those days erected upon high places. Zion is next compared to the entire mass of the globe: He hath built his sanctuary like the earth, ³⁶⁹ which he has established for ever. Some regions of the globe are visited by earthquakes, or perish by the opening of the earth, or are agitated by some violent commotion, or undergo some alteration; but the body of the earth itself continues always stable and unchanged, because it rests upon deep foundations. It is, therefore, here taught that the building spoken of was not temporary, like the sumptuous palaces of kings, which fall into ruins during the lapse of time, or are in danger of being destroyed by other means; but that it was founded to stand entire, even to the end of the world. If it is objected that the temple was destroyed by the Chaldeans and Assyrians, the answer is obvious, That the stability celebrated consists in Christ alone; for, if the ancient sanctuary, which was only a figure, is considered merely in itself, without any regard to that which it typified, it will be only an empty shadow. But as God intended it to be a pledge to show that Christ was to come, perpetuity is justly attributed to it. In like manner it is said, in another place, (Psa 87:1,) “His foundation is in the holy mountains;” and in Isaiah, (Isa 14:32,) “The Lord hath founded Zion;” and again, in Psa 74:2, God is said “to dwell in mount Zion,” so that it should never be moved.

Calvin: Psa 78:70

70.And he chose David his servant After having made mention of the temple, the prophet now proceeds to speak of the kingdom; for these two things were the chief signs of God’s choice of his ancient people, and of his favor towards them; and Christ also hath appeared as our king and priest to bring a full and perfect salvation to us. He proves that David was made king by God, who elevated him from the sheepfold, and from the keeping of cattle, to the royal throne. It serves in no small degree to magnify the grace of God, that a peasant was taken from his mean shepherd’s cot, and exalted to the dignity of a king. Nor is this grace limited to the person of David. We are taught that whatever worth there was in the children of Abraham, flowed from the fountain of God’s mercy. The whole glory and felicity of the people consisted in the kingdom and priesthood; and both these are attributed to the pure grace and good pleasure of God. And it was requisite that the commencement of the kingdom of Christ should be lowly and contemptible, that it might correspond with its type, and that God might clearly show that he did not make use of external aids in order to accomplish our salvation.

Calvin: Psa 78:71

71.He took him from following the suckling ewes, etc The grace of God is farther commended from the circumstance, that David, who was a keeper of sheep, was made the shepherd of the chosen people and heritage of God. There is an allusion to David’s original condition; but the Spirit of God, at the same time, shows us the difference between good and lawful kings, and tyrants, robbers, and insatiable extortioners, by telling us that whoever would aspire to the character of the former must be like shepherds.

It is afterwards added, (verse 72,) that David had faithfully performed the duties of the trust committed to him. By this the prophet indirectly rebukes the ingratitude and perverseness of the people, who not only overturned the holy and inviolable order which God had established, but who had also, in shaking off his salutary yoke, thrown themselves into a state of miserable dispersion. What follows concerning the prudence of David’s hands seems to be an improper form of expression. But it is intended forcibly to express, that he not only was successful in what he had undertaken, but that he was governed by the Spirit of God, which prevented him from putting his hand at random to any work which might come in his way, and led him prudently and skilfully to do that to which faith and duty called him; and thus, in the success of his undertakings, his wisdom appears more conspicuous than his good fortune.

Defender: Psa 78:51

Mizraim, the son of Ham, is commonly identified as Egypt in the Bible. Here Ham also is assumed to be a founder of Egypt."

Defender: Psa 78:69

The earth, like all God's creation, will continue forever (Ecc 3:14). God is the Creator, not a "de-Creator!" (Ecc 1:4). In "the day of the Lord" (2Pe 3:10), "the earth ... shall be burned up," but its mass will possibly be converted into other forms of energy (heat, sound, etc.). It will not be completely annihilated. God will then renew the earth as a "new earth" (2Pe 3:13) which will never pass away (Isa 66:22)."

TSK: Psa 78:50

made way : Heb. weighed a path

he spared : Job 27:22; Eze 5:11, Eze 7:4, Eze 7:9, Eze 8:18, Eze 9:10; Rom 8:32; 2Pe 2:4, 2Pe 2:5

life over to the pestilence : or, beasts to the murrain, Exo 9:3-6

TSK: Psa 78:51

smote : Psa 105:36, Psa 135:8, Psa 136:10; Exo 12:12, Exo 12:29, Exo 12:30, Exo 13:15; Heb 11:28

the chief : Gen 49:3

tabernacles : Psa 105:23, Psa 106:22; Gen 9:22-25, Gen 10:6

TSK: Psa 78:52

But : Psa 77:20, Psa 105:37; Neh 9:12; Isa 63:11-14

like a : Psa 95:7, Psa 100:3; Isa 40:11; Jer 23:2-4; Ezek. 34:11-31; Luk 15:4-6; John 10:11-42

TSK: Psa 78:53

so that : Exo 14:15, Exo 14:19, Exo 14:20; Heb 11:29

but : Psa 136:15; Exo 14:27, Exo 14:28, Exo 15:10

overwhelmed : Heb. covered

TSK: Psa 78:54

And he : Exo 15:13, Exo 15:17; Dan 9:16-20, Dan 11:45

his right : Psa 44:3; Eph 1:14

TSK: Psa 78:55

cast : Psa 44:2, Psa 105:44, Psa 105:45, Psa 135:10-12, Psa 136:18-22; Josh. 6:1-21:45; Neh 9:22-25

divided : Num 33:54; Jos 13:7, Jos 19:51

and made : Deu 6:10-12

TSK: Psa 78:56

Psa 78:40, Psa 78:41; Deu 31:16-20, Deu 32:15-21; Jdg 2:11, Jdg 2:12; 2Kings 17:7-23; Neh 9:25, Neh 9:26; Eze 16:15-26

TSK: Psa 78:57

But : Psa 78:41; Jdg 3:5-7, Jdg 3:12; Eze 20:27, Eze 20:28

they were : Psa 78:8, 10-37; Hos 7:16

TSK: Psa 78:58

their high : Lev 26:30; Num 33:52; Deu 12:2, Deu 12:4; Eze 20:28, Eze 20:29

moved : Psa 79:5; Exo 34:14; Deu 32:16, Deu 32:17, Deu 32:21; Jdg 2:12, Jdg 2:20; Eze 8:3-5; 1Co 10:22

with : Psa 97:7; Exo 20:4, Exo 20:5; Deu 4:16-25, Deu 27:15; Jdg 2:11, Jdg 2:17, Jdg 10:6; 1Ki 11:7, 1Ki 11:10; 1Ki 12:31; Jer 8:19; Hos 13:2

TSK: Psa 78:59

God : Psa 11:4, Psa 14:2-5; Gen 18:20, Gen 18:21

greatly : Psa 106:40; Lev 20:23, Lev 26:44; Lam 2:7; Zec 11:8

TSK: Psa 78:60

Jos 18:1; 1Sa 1:3, 1Sa 4:4-11; Jer 7:12-14, Jer 26:6-9

TSK: Psa 78:61

his strength : That is, the ark, where his power and glory were displayed. Psa 132:8; Jdg 18:30; 1Sa 5:1, 1Sa 5:2; 2Ch 6:41

glory : Psa 24:7; Exo 40:34; 1Sa 4:21, 1Sa 4:22

TSK: Psa 78:62

gave : 1Sa 4:2, 1Sa 4:10, 1Sa 4:11, wrought, Psa 89:38; Isa 64:9

TSK: Psa 78:63

fire : Psa 78:21; Deu 29:20, Deu 32:22

maidens : Isa 4:1; Jer 7:34, Jer 16:9, Jer 25:10

given to marriage : Heb. praised

TSK: Psa 78:64

priests : 1Sa 2:33, 1Sa 2:34, 1Sa 4:11, 1Sa 4:17, 1Sa 22:18, 1Sa 22:19

widows : 1Sa 4:19, 1Sa 4:20; Job 27:15; Eze 24:23

TSK: Psa 78:65

Then : Psa 7:6, Psa 44:23; Isa 51:9

and like : Isa 42:13, Isa 42:14

TSK: Psa 78:66

And he : 1Sa 5:6, 1Sa 6:4; Job 40:12

he put : Jer 23:40

TSK: Psa 78:67

1Sa 6:21, 1Sa 7:1; 2Sa 6:2, 2Sa 6:17

TSK: Psa 78:68

chose : Gen 49:8-10; Rth 4:17-22; 1Sa 16:1; 2Ch 6:6

mount : Psa 87:2, Psa 132:12-14

TSK: Psa 78:69

And he : 1Ki 6:2, 1Ki 9:8; 2Ch 3:4

high : 1Ch 29:1, 1Ch 29:19; 2Ch 2:9

earth : Psa 102:25, Psa 104:5, Psa 119:90, Psa 119:91; 1Sa 2:8; Job 26:7; Isa 48:13, Isa 51:6; Col 1:16, Col 1:17; Rev 20:11

established : Heb. founded

TSK: Psa 78:70

chose : Psa 89:19, Psa 89:20; 1Sa 16:11, 1Sa 16:12; 2Sa 3:18, 2Sa 6:21; Act 13:22

and took : Exo 3:1, Exo 3:10; 1Sam. 17:15-54; 2Sa 7:8; 1Ki 19:19, 1Ki 19:20; Amo 7:14, Amo 7:15; Mat 4:18-22

TSK: Psa 78:71

From following : Heb. From after

ewes : Gen 33:13; Isa 40:11

brought : Psa 75:6, Psa 75:7, Psa 113:7, Psa 113:8; 1Sa 2:7, 1Sa 2:8; Jer 27:5, Jer 27:6

feed : 2Sa 5:2; 1Ch 11:2; Eze 34:23, Eze 34:24; Mic 5:2-4; Zec 11:4-17; Mat 2:6 *marg. Joh 21:15-17; 1Pe 5:2

TSK: Psa 78:72

according : Psa 75:2, Psa 101:1-8; 2Sa 8:15; 1Ki 9:4, 1Ki 15:5; Isa 11:2-4; Act 13:22, Act 13:36

guided : 1Ki 3:6-9, 1Ki 3:28; Zec 11:15-17; 2Co 3:5, 2Co 3:6; 2Ti 2:15; Jam 1:5

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Psa 78:50

He made a way to his anger - Margin, he weighed a path. He leveled a path for it; he took away all hindrance to it; he allowed it to have free scope. The idea of weighing is not in the original. The allusion is to a preparation made by which one can march along freely, and without any obstruction. See the notes at Isa 40:3-4.

He spared not their soul from death - He spared not their lives. That is, he gave them over to death.

But gave their life over to the pestilence - Margin, their beasts to the murrain. The original will admit of either interpretation, but the connection seems rather to demand the interpretation which is in the text. Both these things, however, occurred.

Barnes: Psa 78:51

And smote all the firstborn in Egypt - See Exo 11:4-5; Exo 12:29-30.

The chief of their strength - Those on whom they relied; their firstborn; their pride; their glory; their heirs. Compare Gen 49:3.

In the tabernacles of Ham - The tents; the dwelling-places of Ham; that is, of Egypt. Compare Gen 10:6; Psa 105:23, Psa 105:27; Psa 106:22,

Barnes: Psa 78:52

But made his own people to go forth like sheep ... - That is, he was a shepherd to them. He defended them; provided for them; led them - as a shepherd does his flock. See the notes at Psa 23:1-2.

Barnes: Psa 78:53

And he led them on safely, so that they feared not - In hope; in confidence; so that they had no occasion for alarm. He showed himself able and willing to defend them.

But the sea overwhelmed their enemies - Margin, as in Hebrew, covered. See Exo 14:27-28; Exo 15:10.

Barnes: Psa 78:54

And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary - The Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate render this, "to the mountain of his holiness"; that is, his holy mountain. But the reference is rather to the whole land of Canaan. He brought them to the borders of that land - the land of promise - the holy land. They who came out from Egypt did not indeed enter that land, except Caleb and Joshua, but they were conveyed to its borders before all of them fell. It was true also that the people - the Hebrew people - came to the promised land, and secured its possession.

Even to this mountain - Mount Zion, for the object of the psalm was to show that the worship of God was properly celebrated there. See Psa 78:68. The meaning is not that the people who came out of Egypt actually inherited that mountain, but that their descendants - the people of God - had been put in possession of it.

Which his right hand had purchased - Had procured, or obtained possession of. That is, he had secured it by his power.

Barnes: Psa 78:55

He cast out the heathen also before them - literally, the nations. The idea of their being pagan, in the sense which is now attached to that word, is not in the original. The word is one which would be applied to any nation, without reference to its religion. These nations were, indeed, pagans according to the present use of that term, but that idea is not necessarily in the Hebrew word.

And divided them an inheritance by line - Divided to his people an inheritance by a measurement of the land. That is, the land was partitioned out among the tribes, by a survey, fixing their limits and boundaries. See Jos 13:7; 18; 19.

And made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents - To dwell securely and quietly, no longer roaming from place to place, but having a fixed habitation and a home.

Barnes: Psa 78:56

Yet they tempted and provoked ... - They tried the patience of God, and provoked him to anger after they were peaceably settled in the promised land. See Jdg 2:10-13. The object is to show that it was the character of the people that they were prone to depart from God. Compare Psa 78:10-11, note; Psa 78:17, note; Psa 78:40, note.

Barnes: Psa 78:57

But turned back ... - See the notes at Psa 78:41.

They were turned aside like a deceitful bow - literally, a bow of deceit. That is, a bow that could not be depended on; a bow, one of whose arms was longer or more elastic than the other, so that the arrow would turn aside from the mark. The marksman would attempt to hit an object, and would fail. So it was with the people of Israel. They could not be depended on. No reliance could be put on their promises, their covenant-engagements, their attachment, their fidelity, for in these things they failed, as the arrow from a deceitful bow would fail to strike the mark. Their whole history shows how just was this charge; alas! the history of many of the professed people of God has shown how applicable the description has been to them also.

Barnes: Psa 78:58

For they provoked him to anger with their high places - places where idols were worshipped; usually on mountains or elevated places. Lev 26:30; compare 1Ki 3:2; 1Ki 12:31-32; 2Ki 17:32; 2Ch 33:17.

And moved him to jealousy - As one is when affections due to himself are bestowed upon another - as in the married life. "With their graven images."Their idols. Graven images are here put for idols in general.

Barnes: Psa 78:59

When God heard this - literally, "God heard;"that is, he understood this; he was acquainted with it. He heard their prayers addressed to false gods; he heard their praises sung in honor of idols.

He was wroth - This is language taken from the common manner of speaking among people, for language derived from human conceptions and usages must be employed when we speak of God, though it may be difficult to say what is its exact meaning. The general sense is that his conduct toward them was as if he was angry; or was that which is used by a man who is displeased.

And greatly abhorred Israel - The idea in the word rendered abhorred is that of rejecting them with abhorrence; that is, the reference is not merely to the internal feeling or emotion, but to the act which is the proper accompaniment of such an internal feeling. He cast them off; he treated them as not his own. The addition of the word "greatly"shows how intense this feeling was; how decided was his aversion to their conduct.

Barnes: Psa 78:60

So that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh - The tabernacle or tent which had been erected at Shiloh. He forsook that as a place where he was to be worshipped; that is, he caused his tabernacle, or his place of worship, to be erected in another place, to wit, on Mount Zion. See Psa 78:68. The name Shiloh means properly a place of rest, and seems to have been given to this place as such a place, or as a place where the ark might abide after its migrations. Shiloh was a city within the limits of the tribe of Ephraim, on a mountain north of Bethel. Here the ark of God remained for many years after it came into the promised land. Jos 18:1; Jdg 18:31; Jdg 21:12, Jdg 21:19; 1Sa 1:3, 1Sa 1:24; 1Sa 2:14; 1Sa 4:3-4. The ark, after it was taken by the Philistines, was never returned to Shiloh, but was deposited successively at Nob 1Sa 21:1-6, and at Gibeon 1Ki 3:4, until David pitched a tabernacle for it on Mount Zion 1Ch 15:1. The meaning here is, that in consequence of the sins of the people, the place of worship was finally and forever removed from the tribe of Ephraim, within whose limits Shiloh was, to the tribe of Judah, and to Mount Zion.

The tent which he placed among men - It was the place which he selected as his abode on earth.

Barnes: Psa 78:61

And delivered his strength into captivity - That is, the ark, considered as the symbol of his power. This constituted the defense of the people; this was the emblem of the presence of God, which, when with them, was their real protection. The allusion here is to the time when the ark was taken by the Philistines in the days of Eli. See 1Sa 4:3-11.

And his glory - That which was emblematic of his glory, to wit, the ark.

Into the enemy’ s hand - The hand or power of the Philistines.

Barnes: Psa 78:62

He gave his people over also unto the sword - When the ark was taken, 1Sa 4:10. Thirty thousand of the children of Israel fell on that occasion.

And was wroth with his inheritance - Was angry with his people, considered as his inheritance; that is, considered as his own special people, or his possession.

Barnes: Psa 78:63

The fire consumed their young men - Fire here may be regarded as an image of destructive war, as in Num 21:28 : "For there is a fire gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon: it hath consumed Ar of Moab,"etc. The idea here is, that the young people had been cut off in war.

And their maidens were not given to marriage - As the young people who would have entered into this relation were cut off in war. The margin here is praised; "The maidens were not praised."This is in accordance with the Hebrew. The idea is, "Their virgins were not praised in nuptial songs;"that is, there were no marriage celebrations; no songs such as were usually composed on such occasions in praise of those who were brides. The Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate render this much less accurately, and much less beautifully, were not lamented.

Barnes: Psa 78:64

Their priests fell by the sword - Compare 1Sa 4:11. It was considered a special calamity that the ministers of religion were cut down in war.

And their widows made no lamentation - That is, the public troubles were so great, the danger was still so imminent, the calamities thickened so fast, that there was no opportunity for public mourning by formal processions of women, and loud lamentations, such as were usual on these occasions. See the notes at Job 27:15. The meaning is not that there was a want of affection or attachment on the part of the friends of the slain, or that there was no real grief, but that there was no opportunity for displaying it in the customary manner.

Barnes: Psa 78:65

Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep - literally, as one sleeping; that is, as one who is asleep suddenly arouses himself. The Lord seemed to have slept, or to have been inattentive to what was occurring. Suddenly he aroused himself to inflict vengeance on the enemies of his people. Compare Psa 7:6, note; Psa 44:23, note.

And like a mighty man - The allusion is probably to a warrior.

That shouteth by reason of wine - The proper idea here is that of singing, or lifting up the voice in exultation and rejoicing; the idea of a man who sings and shouts as he is excited by wine, and as he presses onward to conflict and to victory. It is not uncommon in the Scriptures to compare God, as he goes forth to accomplish his purposes on his enemies, with a warrior. See Exo 15:3; Psa 24:8.

Barnes: Psa 78:66

And he smote his enemies in the hinder part - From behind; that is, as they fled. There are two ideas here: one, that they fled at his approach, or turned their backs; the other, that as they fled, he smote and destroyed them.

He put them to a perpetual reproach - As discomfited; as defeated and scattered; as unable to contend with him. The allusion is, probably, to the victories of David, occurring after the events related in the preceding verses.

Barnes: Psa 78:67

Moreover, he refused the tabernacle of Joseph - As a place where his worship should be celebrated. This is the completion of the statement in Psa 78:60. The design is to show that there had been a transfer of the preeminence from the tribe of Ephraim to the tribe of Judah, and from Shiloh to Zion. Joseph is mentioned here as the father of Ephraim, from whom one of the tribes - (one of the most influential and numerous) - was named. Jacob had twelve sons, from whom the twelve tribes in general took their name. As the tribe of Levi, however, being devoted to the sacerdotal work, was not reckoned as one of the, twelve, the number was made up by giving to the descendants of the two sons of Joseph - Ephraim and Manasseh Gen 48:5 - a place among the tribes; and, on this account, the name Joseph does not appear as one of the twelve tribes. Yet Joseph is mentioned here, as the ancestor of one of them - that of Ephraim, from whom the priority and supremacy were withdrawn in favor of the tribe of Judah.

And chose not the tribe of Ephraim - To be the tribe within whose limits the tabernacle should be permanently set up; or within whose limits the place of public worship was finally to be established.

Barnes: Psa 78:68

But chose the tribe of Judah - He chose David of the tribe of Judah as ruler and king; he chose a place within the limits of Judah, to wit, Mount Zion, or Jerusalem, as the place where his worship was to be celebrated. Thus, the ancient prediction in regard to the supremacy of Judah was accomplished. Gen 49:8-10.

The Mount Zion, which he loved - Which he chose, for which he had an affection. Compare Psa 87:2.

Barnes: Psa 78:69

And he built his sanctuary - His holy place; that is, his tabernacle. The temple was not then built; and, when reared, it was not on Mount Zion, but on Mount Moriah. The name Zion, however, was often given to the whole city.

Like high palaces - The word palaces is not in the original. The Hebrew means simply high places, like hills or mountains. The meaning is, that his sanctuary was exalted, as if it were placed on a high hill. It was a conspicuous object; it could be seen from afar; it was the most prominent thing in the land. See the notes at Isa 2:2.

Like the earth - Permanent and established.

Which he hath established for ever - Margin, as in Hebrew, founded. The earth is often represented as founded or established on a solid basis, and thus becomes an emblem of stability and perpetuity.

Barnes: Psa 78:70

He chose David also his servant - He chose him that he might set him over his people as their king. The idea is, that David was selected when he had no natural pretensions to the office, as he did not pertain to a royal family, and could have no claim to such a distinction. The account of this choice is contained in 1 Sam. 15:1-30.

And took him from the sheep-folds - From the humble occupation of a shepherd. 1Sa 16:11; 2Sa 7:8.

Barnes: Psa 78:71

From following the ewes great with younq - Margin, as in Hebrew, From after. The meaning is, that he followed after them; that is, he attended them, or watched over them as a shepherd. The single word rendered "the ewes great with young"- עול ‛ûl - is a participle from עלוה ‛âlâhô , to ascend, to go up; and then, to bring up, to nourish. The exact idea here is doubtless that of bringing up, or of sucking them, and the word should have been so translated here. It is so rendered by Luther. The idea in our translation has been derived from the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate. The meaning is, that he brought him from being a shepherd to be the ruler of his people - expressed still in the language of a shepherd life.

To feed Jacob his people - Rather, to be a shepherd to them; to perform toward them the office of a shepherd, including the ideas of governing them, providing for them, and defending them. See the notes at Psa 23:1-2.

Barnes: Psa 78:72

So he fed them - He performed toward them the office of a shepherd.

According to the integrity of his heart - literally, "According to the perfection of his heart."That is, he was upright and pure in the administration of his government.

And guided them by the skillfulness of his hands - literally, "by the understanding of his hands"- as if the hand had been endued with intelligence. Compare Psa 144:1 : "Which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight."See also Psa 137:5. The idea is, that he administered the government with integrity and uprightness. This is a beautiful tribute to the integrity and purity of the administration of David. It is not the language of flattery; it is a simple statement, flowing from the heart, in favor of a just and upright administration; and it is a true statement of what the administration of David was. Save in the matter of Uriah - over which he afterward wept so bitterly - his administration was eminently just, pure, impartial, wise, and benignant; probably none among people have been more so. The whole psalm is thus a beautiful argument showing why the government had been transferred from Ephraim to Judah, and why it had been placed in the hands of David.

Poole: Psa 78:50

He made a way Heb. He weighed a path or causeway , i.e. he made a most smooth, and even, and exact path, as if he had done it by weight and measure, that so his anger might pass swiftly and freely without interruption. The phrase also seems to note the wisdom and justice of God in weighing out their plagues proportionably to their sins, and exercising great severity towards them answerably to their great and barbarous cruelty towards his people.

He spared not their soul from death i.e. he punished them with death or killing plagues, as the next words explain it.

Their life or, their beasts . So he speaks of the murrain among their cattle. But our translation seems better to agree with the next foregoing and following passages, which plainly speak of the death of persons.

Poole: Psa 78:51

The chief of their strength another expression noting the first-born, who are so called, Gen 49:3 .

Of Ham of the Egyptians, the posterity of Ham, Gen 10:6 ; which title he there gives them, to intimate that they were the cursed children of a cursed parent, Ham, Gen 9:25 , and therefore were proper objects for Divine wrath and vengeance.

Poole: Psa 78:53

They feared not But it is said that they were sore afraid , Exo 14:10 .

Answ . 1. They were afraid at first, but after Moses had encouraged them they grew bold and secure; one evidence whereof was, that they confidently went into the middle of the sea, and passed between the vast heaps of water which were on both sides of them.

2. The meaning may be that they had no just cause to fear; for men are oft said to do not only what they actually do, but also what they ought to do, as Mal 1:6 2:7 , &c.

Poole: Psa 78:54

Of his sanctuary or, of his holiness , or his holy place i.e. the land of Canaan, which is so called, Ezr 9:8 Zec 2:12 , &c., as being separated by God from all other lands for his people and service, and sanctified by his presence and dwelling in it.

This mountain either,

1. The mountain upon which the tabernacle or temple stood. Or rather,

2. The mountainous country of Canaan, which called a land of hills and valleys, Deu 11:11 . And the word mountain is oft used in Scripture for a mountainous country, as Gen 36:8 Deu 1:7 Jos 11:21 .

Poole: Psa 78:57

Which either breaketh when it is drawn, or shooteth awry, and frustrateth the archer’ s design and expectation So when they pretended, and both God and men expected, obedience and gratitude to their great Benefactor, they behaved themselves undutifully and unfaithfully towards him.

Poole: Psa 78:59

Heard i.e. perceived or understood, as hearing is oft used, as Gen 11:7 41:15 , &c. It is spoken of God after the manner of men.

Poole: Psa 78:60

The tabernacle of Shiloh which then was placed in Shiloh, from whence, as the Israelites fetched the ark, so God withdrew himself.

Which he placed among men whereby he insinuates both God’ s wonderful condescension and favour to such worthless and wretched creatures, and their stupendous folly and wickedness in despising and sinning away so glorious a privilege.

Poole: Psa 78:61

His strength to wit, the ark, called God’ s strength, 1Ch 16:11 , and the ark of his strength , Psa 132:8 , because it was the sign and pledge of his strength or power put forth on his people’ s behalf.

His glory so the ark is called, as being the monument and seat of God’ s glorious presence, and an instrument of his glorious works.

The enemy namely, the Philistines; of which see 1Sa 4 .

Poole: Psa 78:63

Because the young men who should have married them were slain. Heb. were not praised , to wit, with marriage songs, which was usual at marriage solemnities among the Jews, as appears from Jer 7:34 16:9 25:10 .

Poole: Psa 78:64

Their priests Hophni and Phinehas, and others.

No lamentation no funeral solemnities; either because they were prevented by their own death, as the wife of Phinehas was, or disturbed by the invasion of the enemy; or so overwhelmed with the sense of the public calamity, that the resentment of their private losses was swallowed up by it. See Job 27:15 Eze 24:23 .

Poole: Psa 78:65

Awaked as one out of sleep for God, by giving up not only his people, but his ark, to the contempt and insolency of the Philistines, might seem to be asleep, and insensible of his own honour and interest, till by a sudden and unexpected blow he convinced his enemies of the contrary.

Shouteth by reason of wine whose spirit and courage is revived and inflamed by a liberal draught of generous wine; which comparison is no more injurious to the Divine Majesty than that of a thief’ s coming in the night , to which Christ’ s second coming is compared, 1Th 5:2 .

Poole: Psa 78:66

Smote his enemies in the hinder part with the disease of the emerods, which was both painful and shameful. He caused them to perpetuate their own reproach by sending back the ark of God with their golden emerods, the lasting monuments of their shame.

Poole: Psa 78:67

Moreover and as he smote his enemies for their sins, so he punished his own people for the same cause.

He refused the tabernacle of Joseph either,

1. He rejected the kingdom of the ten tribes, whereof Ephraim was the head. But this Psalm reacheth not so far as the erection of that kingdom. Or rather,

2. He would not have his ark to abide longer in the tabernacle of Shiloh, which was in the tribe of Joseph or Ephraim: see 1Sa 6:12 7:1,2 Jer 7:12,14 26:6,9 .

And chose not the tribe of Ephraim the same thing repeated in other words, after the manner.

Poole: Psa 78:68

Chose the tribe of Judah either,

1. For the seat of the kingdom. Or rather,

2. For the seat of the ark and of God’ s worship.

Object . Jerusalem was in the tribe of Benjamin, Jos 18:28 .

Answ . 1. It was so in part, and part of it was in Judah, as appears from Jos 15:63 ; to which tribe Zion belonged by special reason, because David the head of that tribe conquered and took it.

2. Benjamin, after the division of the two kingdoms, was incorporated with Judah, and is oft comprehended under the name of Judah.

Poole: Psa 78:69

His sanctuary the temple of Solomon.

High palaces magnificent and glorious.

Established for ever not now to be removed from place to place, as the tabernacle was, but as a fixed place for the ark’ s perpetual residence, unless the people by their apostasy should cause its removal.

Poole: Psa 78:71

Following the ewes great with young by which employment he was inured to that care, and diligence, and self-denial which is necessary in a king or governor; and instructed to rule his people with all gentleness and tenderness.

Poole: Psa 78:72

He commends David for the two necessary ingredients of a good prince.

1. Integrity whereby he sincerely sought the good and welfare of his people, avoiding and abhorring those counsels and courses which were contrary thereunto.

2. Skilfulness whereby he managed all the public affairs with singular prudence; which is here ascribed to his hands, not because it was seated in them, but because it was acted and discovered by them, and appeared in all his actions or administrations.

PBC: Psa 78:53

Ps 78:1-72

This psalm narrates God’s rich care of His people in their escape from Egypt and their wilderness wanderings. 

                Consider the setting of the Israelites as they prepared to leave Egypt.  Despite several miraculous demonstrations of God’s power, the Egyptians stubbornly refused to release Israel from slavery.   Finally after God’s severe judgment against all the firstborn of Egypt, the pharaoh sent them away, but shortly thereafter sent his army to bring them back or destroy them.  Various Bible scholars have estimated that the nation of Israel numbered around two and a half million people, including men, women, and children, at the time of their exit.  Despite the significant number, they were wholly unprepared for a military confrontation with the most powerful nation on the earth at that time.  Their people had lived in slavery for over four hundred years. 

                In the context of this verse (Ps 78:52) we read that God led the people as a shepherd leads his flock safely to green pastures.  Slaves, however numerous, were no match for Egypt’s army, but Egypt’s army was no match for Israel’s God.  Ex 14:1-31 records this incredible deliverance.  God supernaturally parted the Red Sea, dried up the mud, and allowed sufficient time for His people to cross over.  As the Egyptians approached the sea and observed the miracle, they foolishly plunged into the chasm, expecting to cross as Israel did, but, as soon as they went into the opening, the sea collapsed and drowned them.  Exodus and Numbers record the wilderness wanderings that the poet surveys in Ps 78:1-72.  We see one danger after another to the people, but God provided deliverance for His people from each of them in turn.  Israel witnessed all those miracles in Egypt, the parting of the sea, and the ongoing miracles of God, providing daily food and water in the desert for two and a half million people, defeating their enemies one after another.  Yet with almost every new danger we see these same people doubting, questioning God, and recoiling in fear at the next appearance of danger or deprivation. 

And he led them on safely….  When God leads His people, the course may appear difficult, but God ensures that the path is safe.  We occasionally encounter dangers and painful difficulties, but often, if we would but examine our choices, we would discover that we had left the divinely assigned path and its assured safety.  God promises safety as we stay on His path. 

so that they feared not.  At least for the moment on the safe side of the Red Sea, Israel could look back and see God’s powerful deliverance.  Instead of dreading their fate with Egypt’s army, they stood on the safe side of the sea and sang a delightful song of deliverance.  They had witnessed the hand of the Lord destroying the horse and his rider in the sea.  Near helpless slaves saw a formidable army drowned in the sea.  The very sea that had been their deliverance became the snare that destroyed their enemy.  God’s surprising deliverance would be repeated many times during the next forty years. 

We have received countless blessings of deliverance, no less amazing in their own right than God’s deliverance of His people out of Egypt, though perhaps less dramatic.  Yet at the appearance of each new trial we recoil with the same pride, fear, and unbelief that these people demonstrated in the wilderness. 

In 1Co 10:1-33 Paul reminded this church of the severe judgments of God against His own people in the Old Testament.    These events appear in Scripture as a warning to us not to repeat their callous sins.  We learn from those old lessons.  We see God’s sufficient provision clearly demonstrated in their experiences.  We even acknowledge that we are like them!  Do we also realize that Paul’s point is that we are not to be like them?  That we are to learn from their sins, as well as from God’s certain provisions so that we live our lives in the faith, not in our own " wilderness wanderings" ? 

                The point of these lessons in Scripture is not to comfort us in stubborn sin and disobedience to God, but to enlighten us to a better way to live.  The path of authentic and at times sacrificial obedience to God always proves to be a safe path, far better than any of the alternatives we might be tempted to choose.  Doing what God commands us to do, even when it is difficult—even when it seems impossible—will consistently demonstrate God’s goodness, sufficiency, and wisdom in directing our conduct.  As long as we walk in God’s way, defined and clearly set forth in Scripture (not mystically " revealed" to us in private esoteric visions; I find it amazing that people who make their private choices to disobey God always claim a higher revelation that contradicts the clear teachings of Scripture.), we may safely walk the path without fear.  Obstacles?  We shall surely face them.  Challenges to the path?  Yes, at every junction along the way.  Difficulties?  Absolutely, incredible difficulties accompany the Christian walk, but God proves Himself superior to every obstacle in our way.  This blessing in Scripture is conditional.  We only realize it as we faithfully obey Scripture and follow God in His way, not ours.  Are you ready for fearless obedience? 

Elder Joe Holder

Gill: Psa 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" ^m; 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, Exo 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.

Gill: Psa 78:51

And smote all the firstborn in Egypt,.... From the prince to the peasant; and not only the firstborn of men, but of beasts also, Exo 12:29,

the chief of their strength; or first of it, as the firstborn is called, Gen 49:3,

in the tabernacles of Ham; in the several cities, towns, villages, and houses of the Egyptians, the descendants of cursed Ham; for Mizraim, from whom the Egyptians have their name, and from whence they sprung, was a son of Ham's, Gen 10:6. Perhaps No Ammon may be particularly meant, Nah 3:8, the same with Memphis, and which signifies the mansion or palace of Ammon, that is, Ham; and so Chemmis, another city in Egypt, signifies the same ⁿ; of which see Psa 105:23 this was the tenth and last plague: according to Suidas ^o, the plagues of Egypt continued forty days.

Gill: Psa 78:52

But made his own people to go forth like sheep,.... The people of Israel, whom the Lord chose to be his peculiar people above all others; these he caused to go forth out of Egypt, with a mighty hand and stretched out arm; like sheep, weak, timorous, unarmed, harmless, and inoffensive, not a dog daring to move his tongue at them: the power of God was wonderfully displayed in the delivery of his poor, helpless, and oppressed people, well may it be ascribed to him; for it was not their arm, but his, that brought them out:

and guided them in the wilderness like a flock; by the hands of Moses and Aaron, Psa 77:20, he also going before them as the Shepherd of the flock, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night; he kept them together as a flock from scattering, straying, and being lost; and directed their way in the untrodden wilderness, through all the windings and turnings of it, and protected them from all dangers and enemies.

Gill: Psa 78:53

And he led them on safely,.... Through the sea, where the waters were on each side; and through the wilderness, in which were serpents and scorpions, and where they were attacked by many powerful enemies:

so that they feared not; for though they feared for a while at the Red sea, yet their fears were soon silenced, and they by faith passed through the Red sea as on dry land; and especially their fears were gone, when they saw the Egyptians dead on the sea shore; wherefore it follows:

but the sea overwhelmed their enemies; or "covered" them ^p; the waters returned, and overflowed and drowned the Egyptians, who were their implacable enemies, and vowed their destruction, and were sure of it; but now the Israelites had nothing to fear from them.

Gill: Psa 78:54

And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary,.... Of the land of Canaan, which the Lord had sanctified, and set apart for them; and of Jerusalem, the holy city, the city of the great God, and of the temple where his residence was to be; so the Targum,

"to the border of the place of the house of his sanctuary:''

even to this mountain, which his right hand purchased; the mount Moriah, on which the temple was built; this psalm being composed, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi think, after it was made known to David, by the prophet Gad, the place where the temple should be built; namely, on the very mountain, on part of which David had his palace; and this was obtained and possessed, not by the power nor through the merits of the Israelites, but through the power and goodness of God; see Psa 44:3.

Gill: Psa 78:55

He cast out the Heathen also before them,.... The seven nations, the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, Deu 7:1.

and divided them an inheritance by line: the land of Canaan was divided among the nine tribes and a half by Joshua, the other two and a half having had their portion assigned them on the other side; this distribution was made very exactly by lot, by line, and measure, so that every tribe had their proper portion and inheritance; see Jos 13:6,

and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents; in the cities, towns, villages, and houses of the Heathen cast out before them.

Gill: Psa 78:56

Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God,.... After the death of Joshua, and in the times of the judges, by worshipping and serving the gods of the nations, and forsaking the Lord their God, who had done such great things for them, Jdg 2:11,

and kept not his testimonies; the laws of God, which testified and declared his mind and will; nor observed his word and ordinances, which testified of his grace, and of the way of salvation by Jesus Christ.

Gill: Psa 78:57

But turned back,.... From God and his worship, apostatized from the true religion, and turned to idols:

and dealt unfaithfully, like their fathers; in the wilderness; see Psa 78:8,

they were turned aside like a deceitful bow; that promises well to carry the arrow right, but drops it at the feet of the archer; or carries it another way, so that it misses the mark, The Targum is,

"as a bow casting arrows;''

to the ground, and not to the mark; see Hos 7:16, or being too much stretched is suddenly broken, and kills the archer; or returns to its own nature; so Arama.

Gill: Psa 78:58

For they provoked him to anger with their high places,.... Which they built to Baal, and other Heathen dieties:

and moved him to jealousy with their graven images; which they worshipped, see Jdg 10:6, which idolatry was spiritual adultery, and so made the Lord jealous of them, who stood in the relation of a husband to them, as a man becomes jealous by the unchaste and lascivious conduct of his wife; and such a course of life the Israelites lived, throughout the reigns of the judges, at certain seasons, until the times of Eli and Samuel, when the ark was carried captive, of which mention is made in the following verses.

Gill: Psa 78:59

When God heard this,.... Their building high places, and sacrificing on them, their making and worshipping graven images, and the language which such actions spoke; who also heard what they said to their idols, when they paid their devotion to them, acknowledging them to be their gods; he took notice of and observed all this, for nothing could pass his all seeing eye and hearing ear; and who acted as a righteous Judge, first heard, and then proceeded to give and execute the sentence; by which he let them know that he did hear and observe what they said and did:

he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel; not his remnant among them, according to the election of grace, which he in all ages had; for this would be contrary to his everlasting love, which always continues; to the immutability of his nature, who changes not; to his Word, who says, fury is not in me; and to his oath, who hath sworn that he will not be wroth with his people: he may indeed, and does, abhor their sins, but not their persons; he may seem to them and others, in the dispensations of his providence, to be wroth with them and abhor them; but does not in reality. This is to be understood of the bulk of the people in general, and is to be explained and illustrated by those several instances of his displeasure with them in the times of the judges; when his anger waxed hot against them for their idolatries and other sins, and he delivered them up into the hands of their enemies, Jdg 3:7.

Gill: Psa 78:60

So that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh.... The tabernacle which Moses built in the wilderness by the command of the Lord, and according to the pattern showed him; and which, when the Israelites were settled in the land of Canaan, was set up in Shiloh; see Jos 18:1, and here it was in the times of Eli and Samuel, which are here referred to:

the tent which he placed among men; it was as a tent moveable from place to place, and was to continue at longest but for a while, as the whole tabernacle worship and service was to do; here the divine Majesty dwelt, and among men, vile, sinful, wicked, and ungrateful men; which was a wonderful instance of his condescension and goodness, 1Ki 8:27, but when their iniquities grew to such a degree as were intolerable, he forsook it and removed it elsewhere; see Jer 7:12, rather the words may be rendered, "the tent", or "tabernacle, which he had fixed in Adam"; as they are by Doctor Lightfoot ^q; that is, in the city Adam, which was in the centre of the parting of the waters of Jordan, and where was the station of the tabernacle and ark of the covenant, when Israel entered into them, and passed through them; which is mentioned as a wonderful circumstance, both with respect to the tabernacle and to the people of Israel.

Gill: Psa 78:61

And delivered his strength into captivity,.... That is, the ark, called his strength, and the ark of his strength, Psa 105:4, because it was a token of his strength, and by means of which he displayed it, as when the Israelites passed through Jordan into Canaan's land, and encompassed the city of Jericho; and besides, it was typical of Christ, the man of God's right hand, made strong for himself, and in whom is strength as well as righteousness for his people; now this was delivered up into the hands of the Philistines, and carried captive, 1Sa 4:11. The Targum renders it, "his law", because the two tables of the law were in the ark; so Jarchi interprets it, the ark and the tables:

and his glory into the enemy's hand; which designs the same thing, the ark being the glory of God, over which upon the mercy seat the glorious majesty of the Lord was; hence Phinehas's wife, when she heard the ark was taken, fell into labour, her time being near, and brought forth a son, and called him Ichabod, saying, the glory is departed from Israel, for the ark of God is taken, 1Sa 4:21.

Gill: Psa 78:62

He gave his people over also to the sword,.... To those that kill with the sword, as the Targum; that is, to the Philistines, when there fell of them thirty thousand men at once, 1Sa 4:10.

and was wroth with his inheritance; and the above showed that he was, though they were his inheritance, his portion and possession, and he had chosen them for it, Psa 33:12.

Gill: Psa 78:63

The fire consumed their young men,.... Not Nadab and Abihu, as some of the Jewish Rabbins interpret it, of which Jarchi makes mention; but the young men, the choice, the flower, of the Israelitish army, which engaged with the Philistines in the times of Eli; and the fire that consumed them is not to be understood of material fire, or of extraordinary fire from heaven, but either of the wrath of God, as Jarchi, or of the flaming glittering sword of the enemy, which consumed them like fire; see Num 21:28.

and their maidens were not given to marriage; the young men to whom they should have been married, and to whom they might have been espoused, being slain in battle: or, "were not honoured" ^a; that with marriage, which is honourable to all, Heb 13:4, or "were not praised" ^b; were not attended with epithalamies and nuptial songs, such as used to be sung at the time of marriage; hence, as Kimchi observes, the nuptial chamber is called בית הלולא, "the house of praise"; and so frequently, when a great calamity is threatened or described, it is said, the voice of the bride and bridegroom is not heard; see Jer 16:9.

Gill: Psa 78:64

Their priests fell by the sword,.... Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, and other priests; which shows the cruelty of the enemy, not to spare men unarmed, as the priests were; and the justice of God, which pursued these men, who were very wicked, and whose character and office could not secure them from divine wrath:

and their widows made no lamentation; for their husbands the priests, who fell by the sword; particularly the widow of Phinehas, who upon the news fell into labour, and as soon as she brought forth her child died, and while she lived took no notice of the death of her husband, nor lamented that, only that the ark of the Lord was taken, 1Sa 4:19, and which might be the case of others; nor could they attend their funerals, or follow them to the grave with lamentations, they falling in battle; and such was their concern for the public loss, that their private sorrow was swallowed up in it. Some understand it of the disrespect and neglect of others, who came not to lament with them, and comfort them, as was usual: one of the Targums paraphrases the whole thus,

"at the time that the Philistines carried captive the ark of the Lord, the priests of Shiloh, Hophni, and Phinehas, fell by the sword; and at the time they brought their wives the news of it, they wept not, for they died even the same day.''

Gill: Psa 78:65

Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep,.... He seemed to be asleep, while he suffered the ark to be taken, and the Israelites to be slain; and he may be said to awake when he exerted his power in smiting the Philistines, and causing their idol to fall before his ark; see Psa 7:6,

and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine; who having taken a free draught of generous wine, not to excess, goes forth with great courage and cheerfulness to meet his adversary, shouting as he goes, being sure of victory; which must be applied to God with decency, consistent with the glory of his majesty, and the perfections of his nature; and seems designed to express his power and readiness to help his people, and avenge himself on his enemies; see Isa 42:13.

Gill: Psa 78:66

And he smote his enemies in the hinder parts,.... Not the Israelites, as Kimchi interprets it, but the Philistines, who in another battle were put to flight, and turned their backs, and so were smitten in their hinder parts; or rather this has reference to the Philistines being smitten with haemorrhoids, or piles in their posteriors, while the ark was retained a captive by them, 1Sa 5:6, and so the Targum paraphrases it,

"and he smote them that troubled them with haemorrhoids in their posteriors;''

the Greek version, as quoted by Suidas ^c, is, "he smote his enemies on the back parts of the seat"; signifying, he says, a disease, modestly expressed:

he put them to a perpetual reproach; either by causing their idol Dagon to fall before his ark, and be broken upon the threshold of the house of the idol; in memory of which the priests ever after, nor any that came in thither, trod upon the threshold, 1Sa 5:3, or rather through their sending golden images of their haemorrhoids, and golden mice along with the ark, which were reserved to their perpetual reproach: other instances of the Lord's regard to Israel follow, in providing a proper place for the ark, and appointing a suitable governor over the people.

Gill: Psa 78:67

Moreover, he refused the tabernacle of Joseph,.... That is, the tabernacle of Moses, which had been for a long time at Shiloh, a city in the tribe of Ephraim, the son of Joseph; when the ark was brought back by the Philistines, it was not returned to Shiloh, but carried to Kirjathjearim, where it remained twenty years, and after that was had to Zion, the city of David, 1Sa 7:1, so the Targum,

"and he rejected the tabernacle which he had stretched out in the border of Joseph;''

he did not refuse the tabernacle, or remove his presence from it; but he refused the place it had been in, or refused that it should be any more there:

and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: the same thing is designed as before; the meaning is, not that he rejected the tribe of Ephraim from being one of the tribes of Israel; nor does it refer to the revolt of Ephraim, or the ten tribes, from the pure worship of God to idolatry, and their separation from the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin; or to their being carried captive into Assyria; since this historical narration reaches no further than the reign of David, or the time of Solomon at furthest; whereas the facts mentioned were a long time afterwards; nor does it regard the removal of government from the tribe of Ephraim, which was the seat of it in the times of Joshua, of which tribe he was, Num 13:8, though this tribe was overlooked in the choice of a king, one of the tribe of Benjamin being first chosen; and when he was rejected, then one of the tribe of Judah; but this purely, at least principally, intends that it was the will of God that the seat of worship should not be in this tribe any longer; that the ark and tabernacle should be no more there: perhaps the Ephraimites were more culpable, and more provoked the Lord with their idolatry, than the other tribes, since they are first and last taken notice of as the objects of the divine resentment in this account; see Psa 78:9.

Gill: Psa 78:68

But chose the tribe of Judah,.... Both to be the seat of kingly power and government, and of religious worship; the latter is chiefly designed. Jerusalem was, at least part of it, in the tribe of Judah: here David, who was of that tribe, dwelt, and Solomon his son, and all the kings of Judah afterwards; here the temple was built, into which the ark of the covenant was put, and whither the tribes went up to worship

the mount Zion, which he loved; where was the city of David; into which the ark was brought when removed from Gibeah, and on part of which the temple was built: the choice of this place, for such a purpose, was from love, Psa 87:2, it was typical of the church, the choice of which also arises from the everlasting and unchangeable love of God to it.

Gill: Psa 78:69

And he built his sanctuary like high palaces,.... The temple at Jerusalem, called a sanctuary, or holy place, because separated and dedicated to holy use and service; where the holy God had his residence, and was worshipped, and was a figure of the holy place not made with hands: this is said to be built by the Lord, because the materials provided for it, and which David and his people so willingly offered, were his own; "of his own" they gave him; as well as the pattern after which it was made was had from the Spirit of God; and it was the Lord that put it into the heart of David to set such a work afoot, and encouraged Solomon to begin and finish it, and gave wisdom, health, and strength, to the workmen to accomplish it; and in reference to this are the words in Psa 127:1, "except the Lord build the house", &c. and this he built not like the "high places", where idolatry was committed; the temple was not built in imitation of them; but like what high and eminent men, like such buildings as: they erect; like stately palaces, so Aben Ezra and Kimchi, built for kings and great personages; and such a building was the temple, the most magnificent in all the world, as built by Solomon, and even as rebuilt by Zerubbabel, and repaired by Herod; see Mar 13:1 or it was built "on high", as the Syriac version, on a high hill, Mount Moriah: the Targum is,

"as the horn of the unicorn;''

and so the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions. Jarchi interprets it as the high heavens, of which it was a figure; it was like them for magnificence and glory, and like the earth for stability, as follows:

like the earth, which he hath established for ever; as to the substance of it; though as to the qualities of it, it will be done away, and a new one arise; otherwise it will abide for ever, Ecc 1:4, this respects the continuance of the temple during the Jewish dispensation, when the Gospel temple, or Gospel church, should take place, which will continue to the end of the world: this is opposed to the frequent moves of the tabernacle and ark before the temple was built, when there was no abiding habitation provided for it.

Gill: Psa 78:70

He chose David also his servant,.... To be king of Israel, the youngest of his father's family, when he rejected all the rest; see 1Sa 16:6, an eminent type of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is called by his name, Psa 89:3 and the signification of his name "Beloved" agrees with him, who is beloved of God, as his Son, and as man and Mediator; and beloved of men, of all the saints: and so likewise his character as a servant suits with him; who not only frequently has the name of a servant, Psa 89:19, but appeared in the form of one, Phi 2:7, had the work of a servant to do, which he has accomplished, even the great work of our salvation, Joh 17:4, in doing which, and all things leading on and appertaining to it, he took the utmost delight and pleasure, and used the greatest diligence and assiduity, Joh 4:34 and justly acquired the character of a faithful and righteous servant, Isa 53:11, and to this work and office he was chosen and called by his Father, Isa 42:1,

and took him from the sheepfolds; from whence he was fetched when Samuel was sent by the Lord to anoint him, 1Sa 16:11, so Moses, while he was feeding his father's sheep, was called to be the saviour and deliverer of Israel, Exo 3:1, and Amos was taken from following the flock to be a prophet of the Lord, Amo 7:13, and as David was a type of Christ, this may express the mean condition of our Lord, in his state of humiliation, previous to his exaltation, and the more open exercise of his kingly office.

Gill: Psa 78:71

From following the ewes great with young,.... Or, "from after" them ^a; it was usual with the shepherd to put them before him, and to follow them, and gently drive them, which is expressive of his care and tenderness of them; see Gen 33:13, the same is observed of David's antitype, the great and good Shepherd of the sheep, Isa 40:11. David was a type of Christ as a shepherd; as he kept his father's sheep, so Christ keeps those that the Father has given him, Joh 10:29, as David kept his flock with great care and courage, and in safety, 1Sa 17:34, so does the Lord Jesus Christ keep his flock in safety, and preserves it from Satan, the roaring lion, and from grievous wolves that enter into it, and every beast of prey that would devour it; and particularly as David took special care of those that were with young, so does the Lord take special care of such that are newborn babes, that have Christ formed in them, and are big with desires after him, carry a burden, and are weary, and heavy laden: the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi, interpret the word ^b of such that give suck, and so it most properly signifies:

he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance; that is, to rule over them: this is said in allusion to his having been a shepherd; and nothing is more common than for kings to be represented as shepherds, and their acts of government by leading and feeding; and one and the same word in the Greek language signifies to feed and rule: and so the Targum,

"he brought him to rule over Jacob his people:''

this was a great honour indeed, to be the governor of the Lord's people, a special people above all people on the face of the earth, and whom he had chosen to be his inheritance; and in this also he was a type of Christ, who has the throne of his father David given him, and who reigns over the house of Jacob, one of whose titles is King of saints; for as the government of the world in general, so of the church in particular, is on his shoulders, Luk 1:32.

Gill: Psa 78:72

So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart,.... Or, "reigned over them", as the Targum; that is, over the people of Israel, and which he did in such manner as showed uprightness of heart, and that he was, as his character is, a man after God's own heart: it appeared, by his administration of government, that he sought not his own honour and interest, and the aggrandizing of his family, but the good of his people, and the glory of God; and this character, in the fullest extent, and highest sense of it, best agrees with Christ, the righteous branch raised unto David, Jer 23:5,

and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands; or "by the prudencies" of his hands, as the Targum; or, by the prudencies ^c, as in the original text; with the most consummate wisdom and skill: hands are made mention of, partly in allusion to the shepherd, as David had been, who carries a staff in his hand, and guides his flock with it; and partly with respect to the acts and administration of government, which were wisely performed by him: he made wise laws for his people and soldiers, and put them in execution; he behaved wisely in the court and in the camp; but was greatly and infinitely exceeded by his antitype, the servant of the Lord, that should deal prudently, Isa 52:13, and who is abundantly qualified for it, as being not only the Wisdom of God, and the all wise God, but even, as Mediator, has the spirit of wisdom on him, and the treasures of wisdom in him.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Psa 78:50

¹ tn Heb “he leveled a path for his anger.” There were no obstacles to impede its progress; it moved swiftly and destructively.

² tn Or perhaps “[the] plague.”

NET Notes: Psa 78:51

¹ tn Heb “the beginning of strength.” If retained, the plural form אוֹנִים (’onim, “strength”) probably indicates degree (“great strength”), but many ancient witnesses read “their strength,” which presupposes an emendation to אֹנָם (’onam; singular form of the noun with third masculine plural pronominal suffix).

NET Notes: Psa 78:54

¹ tn Heb “this mountain.” The whole land of Canaan seems to be referred to here. In Exod 15:17 the promised land is called the “mountain of your [i.e., God’s] inheritance.”

² tn The “right hand” here symbolizes God’s military strength (see v. 55).

NET Notes: Psa 78:55

¹ tn Heb “he caused to fall [to] them with a measuring line an inheritance.”

² tn Heb “and caused the tribes of Israel to settle down in their tents.”

NET Notes: Psa 78:56

¹ tn Or “tested and rebelled against.”

² tn Heb “God, the Most High.”

³ tn Or “keep.”

⁴ tn Heb “his testimonies” (see Ps 25:10).

NET Notes: Psa 78:57

¹ tn Heb “they turned back.”

² tn Or “acted treacherously like.”

³ tn Heb “they turned aside like a deceitful bow.”

NET Notes: Psa 78:58

¹ tn Traditionally, “high places.”

NET Notes: Psa 78:60

¹ tn Or “rejected.”

NET Notes: Psa 78:61

¹ tn Heb “and he gave to captivity his strength.” The expression “his strength” refers metonymically to the ark of the covenant, which was housed in the tabernacle at Shiloh.

² tn Heb “and his splendor into the hand of an enemy.” The expression “his splendor” also refers metonymically to the ark of the covenant.

³ sn Verses 60-61 refer to the Philistines’ capture of the ark in the days of Eli (1 Sam 4:1-11).

NET Notes: Psa 78:62

¹ tn Heb “his inheritance.”

NET Notes: Psa 78:63

¹ tn Heb “his.” The singular pronominal suffix is collective, referring back to God’s “people” (v. 62).

² tn Heb “his.” The singular pronominal suffix is collective, referring back to God’s “people” (v. 62).

³ tn Heb “were not praised,” that is, in wedding songs. The young men died in masses, leaving no husbands for the young women.

NET Notes: Psa 78:64

¹ tn Heb “his.” The singular pronominal suffix is collective, referring back to God’s “people” (v. 62).

² tn Heb “his.” The singular pronominal suffix is collective, referring back to God’s “people” (v. 62).

³ sn Because of the invading army and the ensuing panic, the priests’ widows had no time to carry out the normal mourning rites.

NET Notes: Psa 78:65

¹ tn Heb “and the master awoke like one sleeping.” The Lord’s apparent inactivity during the time of judgment is compared to sleep.

² tn Heb “like a warrior overcome with wine.” The Hebrew verb רוּן (run, “overcome”) occurs only here in the OT. The phrase “overcome with wine” could picture a drunken warrior controlled by his emotions and passions (as in the present translation), or it could refer to a warrior who awakes from a drunken stupor.

NET Notes: Psa 78:66

¹ tn Heb “a permanent reproach he made them.”

NET Notes: Psa 78:69

¹ tc Heb “and he built like the exalting [ones] his sanctuary.” The phrase כְּמוֹ־רָמִים (kÿmo-ramim, “like the exalting [ones]”) is a poetic form of the comparative preposition followed by a participial form of the verb רוּם (rum, “be exalted”). The text should be emended to כִּמְרֹמִים (kimromim, “like the [heavenly] heights”). See Ps 148:1, where “heights” refers to the heavens above.

² tn Heb “like the earth, [which] he established permanently.” The feminine singular suffix on the Hebrew verb יָסַד (yasad, “to establish”) refers to the grammatically feminine noun “earth.”

NET Notes: Psa 78:71

¹ tn Heb “from after the ewes he brought him.”

² tn Heb “to shepherd Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance.”

NET Notes: Psa 78:72

¹ tn Heb “He”; the referent (David, God’s chosen king, mentioned in v. 70) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “and he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart.”

³ tn Heb “and with the understanding of his hands he led them.”

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:51

And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the ^{( e )} chief of [their] strength in the tabernacles of ^{( f )} Ham:

^{( e )} The firstborn are so called, as in (Gen 49:3).

^{( f )} That is, Egypt: for it was called Mizraim, or Egypt of Mizraim that was the son of Ham.

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:53

And he led them on safely, so that they ^{( g )} feared not: but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

^{( g )} That is, they had no opportunity to fear, even as God destroyed their enemies and delivered them falsely.

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:54

And he brought them to the border of his ^{( h )} sanctuary, [even to] this mountain, [which] his right hand had purchased.

^{( h )} Meaning, Canaan, which God had consecrated to himself and appointed to his people.

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:57

But turned back, and dealt ^{( i )} unfaithfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow.

^{( i )} Nothing more displeases God in the children, than when they continue in that wickedness, which their fathers had begun.

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:58

For they ^{( k )} provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

^{( k )} By serving God other than he had appointed.

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:60

So that he ^{( l )} forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent [which] he placed among men;

^{( l )} For their ingratitude he permitted the Philistines to take the Ark which was the sign of his presence, from among them.

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:61

And delivered his ^{( m )} strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemy's hand.

^{( m )} The Ark is called his power and beauty because by this he defended his people, and beautifully appeared to them.

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:63

The fire ^{( n )} consumed their young men; and their maidens were not ^{( o )} given to marriage.

^{( n )} They were suddenly destroyed, (1Sa 4:10).

^{( o )} They had no marriage songs: that is, they were not married.

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:64

Their priests fell by the sword; and their ^{( p )} widows made no lamentation.

^{( p )} Either they were slain before or taken prisoner by their enemies, and so were forbidden.

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:65

Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, [and] like a mighty man that ^{( q )} shouteth by reason of wine.

^{( q )} Because they were drunk in their sins, they judged God's patience to be slumbering, as though he were drunk, therefore he answering their beastly judgment, says, he will awake and take sudden vengeance.

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:67

Moreover he refused the tabernacle of ^{( r )} Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim:

^{( r )} Showing that he did not spare the Israelites altogether, though he punished their enemies.

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:69

And he ^{( s )} built his sanctuary like high [palaces], like the earth which he hath established for ever.

^{( s )} By building the temple, and establishing the kingdom, he declares that the signs of his favour were among them.

Geneva Bible: Psa 78:72

So ^{( t )} he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.

^{( t )} He shows where a kings charge stands: that is, to provide faithfully for his people, to guide them by counsel, and defend them by power.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Psa 78:1-72

1 An exhortation both to learn and to preach, the law of God.

9 The story of God's wrath against the incredulous and disobedient.

67 The Israelites being rejected, God chose Judah, Zion, and David.

MHCC: Psa 78:40-55

Let not those that receive mercy from God, be thereby made bold to sin, for the mercies they receive will hasten its punishment; yet let not those who are under Divine rebukes for sin, be discouraged from repentance. The Holy One of Israel will do what is most for his own glory, and what is most for their good. Their forgetting former favours, led them to limit God for the future. God made his own people to go forth like sheep; and guided them in the wilderness, as a shepherd his flock, with all care and tenderness. Thus the true Joshua, even Jesus, brings his church out of the wilderness; but no earthly Canaan, no worldly advantages, should make us forget that the church is in the wilderness while in this world, and that there remaineth a far more glorious rest for the people of God.

MHCC: Psa 78:56-72

After the Israelites were settled in Canaan, the children were like their fathers. God gave them his testimonies, but they turned back. Presumptuous sins render even Israelites hateful to God's holiness, and exposed to his justice. Those whom the Lord forsakes become an easy prey to the destroyer. And sooner or later, God will disgrace his enemies. He set a good government over his people; a monarch after his own heart. With good reason does the psalmist make this finishing, crowning instance of God's favour to Israel; for David was a type of Christ, the great and good Shepherd, who was humbled first, and then exalted; and of whom it was foretold, that he should be filled with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. On the uprightness of his heart, and the skilfulness of his hands, all his subjects may rely; and of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. Every trial of human nature hitherto, confirms the testimony of Scripture, that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, and nothing but being created anew by the Holy Ghost can cure the ungodliness of any.

Matthew Henry: Psa 78:40-72

The matter and scope of this paragraph are the same with the former, showing what great mercies God had bestowed upon Israel, how provoking they had been, what judgments he had brought upon them for their sins, and yet how, in judgment, he remembered mercy at last. Let not those that receive mercy from God be thereby emboldened to sin, for the mercies they receive will aggravate their sin and hasten the punishment of it; yet let not those that are under divine rebukes for sin be discouraged from repentance, for their punishments are means of repentance, and shall not prevent the mercy God has yet in store for them. Observe,

I. The sins of Israel in the wilderness again reflected on, because written for our admonition (Psa 78:40, Psa 78:41): How often did they provoke him in the wilderness! Note once, nor twice, but many a time; and the repetition of the provocation was a great aggravation of it, as well as the place, Psa 78:17. God kept an account how often they provoked him, though they did not. Num 14:22, They have tempted me these ten times. By provoking him they did not so much anger him as grieve him, for he looked upon them as his children ( Israel is my son, my first-born ), and the undutiful disrespectful behaviour of children does more grieve than anger the tender parents; they lay it to heart, and take it unkindly, Isa 1:2. They grieved him because they put him under a necessity of afflicting them, which he did not willingly. After they had humbled themselves before him they turned back and tempted God, as before, and limited the Holy One of Israel, prescribing to him what proofs he should give of his power and presence with them and what methods he should take in leading them and providing for them. They limited him to their way and their time, as if he did not observe that they quarrelled with him. It is presumption for us to limit the Holy One of Israel; for, being the Holy One, he will do what is most for his own glory; and, being the Holy One of Israel, he will do what is most for their good; and we both impeach his wisdom and betray our own pride and folly if we go about to prescribe to him. That which occasioned their limiting God for the future was their forgetting his former favours (Psa 78:42): They remembered not his hand, how strong it is and how it had been stretched out for them, nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy, Pharaoh, that great enemy who sought their ruin. There are some days made remarkable by signal deliverances, which ought never to be forgotten; for the remembrance of them would encourage us in our greatest straits.

II. The mercies of God to Israel, which they were unmindful of when they tempted God and limited him; and this catalogue of the works of wonder which God wrought for them begins higher, and is carried down further, than that before, Psa 78:12, etc.

1. This begins with their deliverance out of Egypt, and the plagues with which God compelled the Egyptians to let them go: these were the signs God wrought in Egypt (Psa 78:43), the wonders he wrought in the field of Zoan, that is, in the country of Zoan, as we say, in Agro N., meaning in such a country.

(1.) Several of the plagues of Egypt are here specified, which speak aloud the power of God and his favour to Israel, as well as terror to his and their enemies. As, [1.] The turning of the waters into blood; they had made themselves drunk with the bloods of God's people, even the infants, and now God gave them blood to drink, for they were worthy, Psa 78:44. [2.] The flies and frogs which infested them, mixtures of insects in swarms, in shoals, which devoured them, which destroyed them, Psa 78:45. For God can make the weakest and most despicable animals instruments of his wrath when he pleases; what they want in strength may be made up in number. [3.] The plague of locusts, which devoured their increase, and that which they had laboured for, Psa 78:46. They are called God's great army, Joe 2:25. [4.] The hail, which destroyed their trees, especially their vines, the weakest of trees (Psa 78:47), and their cattle, especially their flocks of sheep, the weakest of their cattle, which were killed with hot thunder-bolts (Psa 78:48), and the frost, or congealed rain (as the word signifies), was so violent that it destroyed even the sycamore-trees. [5.] The death of the first-born was the last and sorest of the plagues of Egypt, and that which perfected the deliverance of Israel; it was first in intention (Exo 4:23), but last in execution; for, if gentler methods would have done the work, this would have been prevented: but it is here largely described, Psa 78:49-51. First, The anger of God was the cause of it. Wrath had now come upon the Egyptians to the uttermost; Pharaoh's heart having been often hardened after less judgments had softened it, God now stirred up all his wrath; for he cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, anger in the highest degree, wrath and indignation the cause, and trouble ( tribulation and anguish, Rom 2:8, Rom 2:9) the effect. This from on high he cast upon them and did not spare, and they could not flee out of his hands, Job 27:22. He made a way, or (as the word is) he weighed a path, to his anger. He did not cast it upon them uncertainly, but by weight. His anger was weighed with the greatest exactness in the balances of justice; for, in his greatest displeasure, he never did, nor ever will do, any wrong to any of his creatures: the path of his anger is always weighed. Secondly, The angels of God were the instruments employed in this execution: He sent evil angels among them, not evil in their own nature, but in respect to the errand upon which they were sent; they were destroying angels, or angels of punishment, which passed through all the land of Egypt, with orders, according to the weighed paths of God's anger, not to kill all, but the first-born only. Good angels become evil angels to sinners. Those that make the holy God their enemy must never expect the holy angels to be their friends. Thirdly, The execution itself was very severe: He spared not their soul from death, but suffered death to ride in triumph among them and gave their life over to the pestilence, which cut the thread of life off immediately; for he smote all the first-born in Egypt (Psa 78:51), the chief of their strength, the hopes of their respective families; children are the parents' strength, and the first-born the chief of their strength. Thus, because Israel was precious in God's sight, he gave men for them and people for their life, Isa 43:4.

(2.) By these plagues on the Egyptians God made a way for his own people to go forth like sheep, distinguishing between them and the Egyptians, as the shepherd divides between the sheep and the goats, having set his own mark on these sheep by the blood of the lamb sprinkled on their door-posts. He made them go forth like sheep, not knowing whither they went, and guided them in the wilderness, as a shepherd guides his flock, with all possible care and tenderness, Psa 78:52. He led them on safely, though in dangerous paths, so that they feared not, that is, they needed not to fear; they were indeed frightened at the Red Sea (Exo 14:10), but that was said to them, and done for them, which effectually silenced their fears. But the sea overwhelmed their enemies that ventured to pursue them into it, Psa 78:63. It was a lane to them, but a grave to their persecutors.

2. It is carried down as far as their settlement in Canaan (Psa 78:54): He brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to that land in the midst of which he set up his sanctuary, which was, as it were, the centre and metropolis, the crown and glory, of it. That is a happy land which is the border of God's sanctuary. It was the happiness of that land that there God was known, and there were his sanctuary and dwelling-place, Psa 76:1, Psa 76:2. The whole land in general, and Zion in particular, was the mountain which his right hand had purchased, which by his own power he had set apart for himself. See Psa 44:3. He made them to ride on the high places of the earth, Isa 58:14; Deu 32:13. They found the Canaanites in the full and quiet possession of that land, but God cast out the heathen before them, not only took away their title to it, as the Lord of the whole earth, but himself executed the judgment given against them, and, as Lord of hosts, turned them out of it, and made his people Israel tread upon their high places, dividing each tribe an inheritance by line, and making them to dwell in the houses of those whom they had destroyed. God could have turned the uninhabited uncultivated wilderness (which perhaps was nearly of the same extent as Canaan) into fruitful soil, and have planted them there; but the land he designed for them was to be a type of heaven, and therefore must be the glory of all lands; it must likewise be fought for, for the kingdom of heaven suffers violence.

III. The sins of Israel after they were settled in Canaan, Psa 78:56-58. The children were like their fathers, and brought their old corruptions into their new habitations. Though God had done so much for them, yet they tempted and provoked the most high God still. He gave them his testimonies, but they did not keep them; they began very promisingly, but they turned back, gave God good words, but dealt unfaithfully, and were like a deceitful bow, which seemed likely to send the arrow to the mark, but, when it is drawn, breaks, and drops the arrow at the archer's foot, or perhaps makes it recoil in his face. There was no hold of them, nor any confidence to be put in their promises or professions. They seemed sometimes devoted to God, but they presently turned aside, and provoked him to anger with their high places and their graven images. Idolatry was the sin that did most easily beset them, and which, though they often professed their repentance for, they as often relapsed into. It was spiritual adultery either to worship idols or to worship God by images, as if he had been an idol, and therefore by it they are said to move him to jealousy, Deu 32:16, Deu 32:21.

IV. The judgments God brought upon them for these sins. Their place in Canaan would no more secure them in a sinful way than their descent from Israel. You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you, Amo 3:2. Idolatry is winked at among the Gentiles, but not in Israel, 1. God was displeased with them (Psa 78:59): When God heard this, when he heard the cry of their iniquity, which came up before him, he was wroth, he took it very heinously, as well he might, and he greatly abhorred Israel, whom he had greatly loved and delighted in. Those that had been the people of his choice became the generation of his wrath. Presumptuous sins, idolatries especially, render even Israelites odious to God's holiness and obnoxious to his justice. 2. He deserted his tabernacle among them, and removed the defence which was upon that glory, Psa 78:60. God never leaves us till we leave him, never withdraws till we have driven him from us. His name is Jealous, and he is a jealous God; and therefore no marvel if a people whom he had betrothed to himself be loathed and rejected, and he refuse to cohabit with them any longer, when they have embraced the bosom of a stranger. The tabernacle at Shiloh was the tent God had placed among men, in which God would in very deed dwell with men upon the earth; but, when his people treacherously forsook it, he justly forsook it, and then all its glory departed. Israel has small joy of the tabernacle without the presence of God in it. 3. He gave up all into the hands of the enemy. Those whom God forsakes become an easy prey to the destroyer. The Philistines are sworn enemies to the Israel of God, and no less so to the God of Israel, and yet God will make use of them to be a scourge to his people. (1.) God permits them to take the ark prisoner, and carry it off as a trophy of their victory, to show that he had not only forsaken the tabernacle, but even the ark itself, which shall now be no longer a token of his presence (Psa 78:61): He delivered his strength into captivity, as if it had been weakened and overcome, and his glory fell under the disgrace of being abandoned into the enemy's hand. We have the story 1Sa 4:11. When the ark has become as a stranger among Israelites, no marvel if it soon be made a prisoner among Philistines. (2.) He suffers the armies of Israel to be routed by the Philistines (Psa 78:62, Psa 78:63): He gave his people over unto the sword, to the sword of his own justice and of the enemy's rage, for he was wroth with his inheritance; and that wrath of his was the fire which consumed their young men, in the prime of their time, by the sword or sickness, and made such a devastation of them that their maidens were not praised, that is, were not given in marriage (which is honourable in all), because there were no young men for them to be given to, and because the distresses and calamities of Israel were so many and great that the joys of marriage-solemnities were judged unseasonable, and it was said, Blessed is the womb that beareth not. General destructions produce a scarcity of men. Isa 13:12, I will make a man more precious than fine gold, so that seven women shall take hold of one man, Isa 4:1; Isa 3:25. Yet this was not the worst: (3.) Even their priests, who attended the ark, fell by the sword, Hophni and Phinehas. Justly they fell, for they made themselves vile, and were sinners before the Lord exceedingly; and their priesthood was so far from being their protection that it aggravated their sin and hastened their fall. Justly did they fall by the sword, because they exposed themselves in the field of battle, without call or warrant. We throw ourselves out of God's protection when we go out of our place and out of the way of our duty. When the priests fell their widows made no lamentation, Psa 78:64. All the ceremonies of mourning were lost and buried in substantial grief; the widow of Phinehas, instead of lamenting her husband's death, died herself, when she had called her son Ichabod, 1Sa 4:19, etc.

V. God's return, in mercy, to them, and his gracious appearances for them after this. We read not of their repentance and return to God, but God was grieved for the miseries of Israel (Jdg 10:16) and concerned for his own honour, fearing the wrath of the enemy, lest they should behave themselves strangely, Deu 32:27. And therefore then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep (Psa 78:65), and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine, not only like one that is raised out of sleep and recovers himself from the slumber which by drinking he was overcome with, who then regards that which before he seemed wholly to neglect, but like one that is refreshed with sleep, and whose heart is made glad by the sober and moderate use of wine, and is therefore the more lively and vigorous, and fit for business. When God had delivered the ark of his strength into captivity, as one jealous of his honour, he soon put forth the arm of his strength to rescue it, stirred up his strength to do great things for his people.

1. He plagued the Philistines who held the ark in captivity, Psa 78:66. He smote them with emerods in the hinder parts, wounded them behind, as if they were fleeing from him, even when they thought themselves more than conquerors. He put them to reproach, and they themselves helped to make it a perpetual reproach by the golden images of their emerods, which they returned with the ark for a trespass-offering (1Sa 6:5), to remain in perpetuam rei memoriam - as a perpetual memorial. Note, Sooner or later God will glorify himself by putting disgrace upon his enemies, even when they are most elevated with their successes.

2. He provided a new settlement for his ark after it had been some months in captivity and some years in obscurity. He did indeed refuse the tabernacle of Joseph; he never sent it back to Shiloh, in the tribe of Ephraim, Psa 78:67. The ruins of that place were standing monuments of divine justice. God, see what I did to Shiloh, Jer 7:12. But he did not wholly take away the glory from Israel; the moving of the ark is not the removing of it. Shiloh has lost it, but Israel has not. God will have a church in the world, and a kingdom among men, though this or that place may have its candlestick removed; nay, the rejection of Shiloh is the election of Zion, as, long after, the fall of the Jews was the riches of the Gentiles, Rom 11:12. When God chose not the tribe of Ephraim, of which tribe Joshua was, he chose the tribe of Judah (Psa 78:68), because of that tribe Jesus was to be, who is greater than Joshua. Kirjath-jearim, the place to which the ark was brought after its rescue out of the hands of the Philistines, was in the tribe of Judah. There it took possession of that tribe; but thence it was removed to Zion, the Mount Zion which he loved (Psa 78:68), which was beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth; there it was that he built his sanctuary like high palaces and like the earth, Psa 78:69. David indeed erected only a tent for the ark, but a temple was then designed and prepared for, and finished by his son; and that was, (1.) A very stately place. It was built like the palaces of princes, and the great men of the earth, nay, it excelled them all in splendour and magnificence. Solomon built it, and yet here it is said God built its, for his father had taught him, perhaps with reference to this undertaking, that except the Lord build the house those labour in vain that build it, Psa 127:1, which is a psalm for Solomon. (2.) A very stable place, like the earth, though not to continue as long as the earth, yet while it was to continue it was as firm as the earth, which God upholds by the word of his power, and it was not finally destroyed till the gospel temple was erected, which is to continue as long as the sun and moon endure (Psa 89:36, Psa 89:37) and against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.

3. He set a good government over them, a monarchy, and a monarch after his own heart: He chose David his servant out of all the thousands of Israel, and put the sceptre into his hand, out of whose loins Christ was to come, and who was to be a type of him, Psa 78:70. Concerning David observe here, (1.) The meanness of his beginning. His extraction indeed was great, for he descended from the prince of the tribe of Judah, but his education was poor. He was bred not a scholar, not a soldier, but a shepherd. He was taken from the sheep-folds, as Moses was; for God delights to put honour upon the humble and diligent, to raise the poor out of the dust and to set them among princes; and sometimes he finds those most fit for public action that have spent the beginning of their time in solitude and contemplation. The Son of David was upbraided with the obscurity of his original: Is not this the carpenter? David was taken, he does not say from leading the rams, but from following the ewes, especially those great with young, which intimated that of all the good properties of a shepherd he was most remarkable for his tenderness and compassion to those of his flock that most needed his care. This temper of mind fitted him for government, and made him a type of Christ, who, when he feeds his flock like a shepherd, does with a particular care gently lead those that are with young, Isa 40:11. (2.) The greatness of his advancement. God preferred him to feed Jacob his people, Psa 78:71. It was a great honour that God put upon him, in advancing him to be a king, especially to be king over Jacob and Israel, God's peculiar people, near and dear to him; but withal it was a great trust reposed in him when he was charged with the government of those that were God's own inheritance. God advanced him to the throne that he might feed them, not that he might feed himself, that he might do good, not that he might make his family great. It is the charge given to all the under-shepherds, both magistrates and ministers, that they feed the flock of God. (3.) The happiness of his management. David, having so great a trust put into his hands, obtained mercy of the Lord to be found both skilful and faithful in the discharge of it (Psa 78:72): So he fed them; he ruled them and taught them, guided and protected them, [1.] Very honestly; he did it according to the integrity of his heart, aiming at nothing but the glory of God and the good of the people committed to his charge; the principles of his religion were the maxims of his government, which he administered, not with carnal policy, but with godly sincerity, by the grace of God. In every thing he did he meant well and had no by-end in view. [2.] Very discreetly; he did it by the skilfulness of his hands. He was not only very sincere in what he designed, but very prudent in what he did, and chose out the most proper means in pursuit of his end, for his God did instruct him to discretion. Happy the people that are under such a government! With good reason does the psalmist make this the finishing crowning instance of God's favour to Israel, for David was a type of Christ the great and good Shepherd, who was humbled first and then exalted, and of whom it was foretold that he should be filled with the spirit of wisdom and understanding and should judge and reprove with equity, Isa 11:3, Isa 11:4. On the integrity of his heart and the skilfulness of his hands all his subjects may entirely rely, and of the increase of his government and people there shall be no end.

Keil-Delitzsch: Psa 78:49-59

When these plagues rose to the highest pitch, Israel became free, and removed, being led by its God, into the Land of Promise; but it continued still to behave there just as it had done in the desert. The poet in Psa 78:49-51 brings the fifth Egyptian plague, the pestilence (Exo 9:1-7), and the tenth and last, the smiting of the first-born ( מכּת בּכרות ), Exo 11:1, together. Psa 78:49 sounds like Job 20:23 (cf. below Psa 78:64). מלאכי רעים are not wicked angels, against which view Hengstenberg refers to the scriptural thesis of Jacobus Ode in his work De Angelis, Deum ad puniendos malos homines mittere bonos angelos et ad castigandos pios usurpare malos , but angels that bring misfortune. The mode of construction belongs to the chapter of the genitival subordination of the adjective to the substantive, like אשׁת רע , Pro 6:24, cf. 1Sa 28:7; Num 5:18, Num 5:24; 1Ki 10:15; Jer 24:2, and the Arabic msjdu 'l - jâm‛ , the mosque of the assembling one, i.e., the assembling (congregational) mosque, therefore: angels (not of the wicked ones = wicked angels, which it might signify elsewhere, but) of the evil ones = evil, misfortune-bringing angels (Ew. §287, a ). The poet thus paraphrases the המּשׁחית that is collectively conceived in Exo 12:13, Exo 12:23; Heb 11:28. In Psa 78:50 the anger is conceived of as a stream of fire, in Psa 78:50 death as an executioner, and in 50 c the pestilence as a foe. ראשׁית אונים (Gen 49:3; Deu 21:17) is that which had sprung for the first time from manly vigour ( plur. intensivus ). Egypt is called חם as in Ps 105 and Psa 111:1-10 according to Gen 10:6, and is also called by themselves in ancient Egyptian Kemi , Coptic Chêmi, Kême (vid., Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride , ch. 33). When now these plagues which softened their Pharaoh went forth upon the Egyptians, God procured for His people a free departure, He guided flock-like ( כּעדר like בּעדר , Jer 31:24, with Dag. implicitum ), i.e., as a shepherd, the flock of His people (the favourite figure of the Psalms of Asaph) through the desert, - He led them safely, removing all terrors out of the way and drowning their enemies in the Red Sea, to His holy territory, to the mountain which ( זה ) His right hand had acquired, or according to the accents (cf. supra , p. 104): to the mountain there ( זה ), which, etc. It is not Zion that is meant, but, as in the primary passage Exo 15:16., in accordance with the parallelism (although this is not imperative) and the usage of the language, which according to Isa 11:9; Isa 57:13, is incontrovertible, the whole of the Holy Land with its mountains and valleys (cf. Deu 11:11). בּחבל נחלה is the poetical equivalent to בּנחלה , Num 34:2; Num 36:2, and frequently. The Beth is Beth essentiae (here in the same syntactical position as in Isa 48:10; Eze 20:41, and also Job 22:24 surely): He made them (the heathen, viz., as in Jos 23:4 their territories) fall to them (viz., as the expression implies, by lot, בגורל ) as a line of inheritance, i.e., (as in Psa 105:11) as a portion measured out as an inheritance. It is only in Psa 78:56 (and not so early as Psa 78:41) that the narration passes over to the apostate conduct of the children of the generation of the desert, that is to say, of the Israel of Canaan. Instead of עדוריו from עדוּת , the word here is עדוריו from עדה (a derivative of עוּד , not יעד ). Since the apostasy did not gain ground until after the death of Joshua and Eleazar, it is the Israel of the period of the Judges that we are to think of here. קשׁת רמיּה , Psa 78:57, is not: a bow of slackness, but: a bow of deceit; for the point of comparison, according to Hos 7:16, is its missing the mark: a bow that discharges its arrow in a wrong direction, that makes no sure shot. The verb רמה signifies not only to allow to hang down slack (cogn. רפה ), but also, according to a similar conception to spe dejicere , to disappoint, deny. In the very act of turning towards God, or at least being inclined towards Him by His tokens of power and loving-kindness, they turned (Jer 2:21) like a vow that misses the mark and disappoints both aim and expectation. The expression in Psa 78:58 is like Deu 32:16, Deu 32:21. שׁמע refers to their prayer to the Ba(a4lim (Jdg 2:11). The word התעבּר , which occurs three times in this Psalm, is a word belonging to Deuteronomy (Deu 3:26). Psa 78:59 is purposely worded exactly like Psa 78:21. The divine purpose of love spurned by the children just as by the fathers, was obliged in this case, as in the former, to pass over into angry provocation.

Keil-Delitzsch: Psa 78:60-72

The rejection of Shiloh and of the people worshipping there, but later on, when the God of Israel is again overwhelmed by compassion, the election of Judah, and of Mount Zion, and of David, the king after His own heart. In the time of the Judges the Tabernacle was set up in Shiloh (Jos 18:1); there, consequently, was the central sanctuary of the whole people, - in the time of Eli and Samuel, as follows from 1Sa 1:1, it had become a fixed temple building. When this building was destroyed is not known; according to Jdg 18:30., cf. Jer 7:12-15, it was probably not until the Assyrian period. The rejection of Shiloh, however, preceded the destruction, and practically took place simultaneously with the removal of the central sanctuary to Zion; and was, moreover, even previously decided by the fact that the Ark of the covenant, when given up again by the Philistines, was not brought back to Shiloh, but set down in Kirjath Jearîm (1Sa 7:2). The attributive clause שׁכּן בּאדם uses שׁכּן as השׁכּין is used in Jos 18:1. The pointing is correct, for the words to not suffice to signify "where He dwelleth among men"(Hitzig); consequently שׁכּן is the causative of the Kal , Lev 16:16; Jos 22:19. In Psa 78:61 the Ark of the covenant is called the might and glory of God ( ארון עזּו , Psa 132:8, cf. כבוד , 1Sa 4:21.), as being the place of their presence in Israel and the medium of their revelation. Nevertheless, in the battle with the Philistines between Eben-ezer and Aphek, Jahve gave the Ark, which they had fetched out of Shiloh, into the hands of the foe in order to visit on the high-priesthood of the sons of Ithamar the desecration of His ordinances, and there fell in that battle 30,000 footmen, and among them the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests (1 Sam. 4). The fire in Psa 78:63 is the fire of war, as in Num 21:28, and frequently. The incident mentioned in 1Sa 6:19 is reasonably (vid., Keil) left out of consideration. By לא הוּלּלוּ (lxx erroneously, οὐκ ἐπένθησαν = הוללוּ = הילילוּ ) are meant the marriage-songs (cf. Talmudic הלּוּלא , the nuptial tent, and בּית הלוּלים the marriage-house). "Its widows (of the people, in fact, of the slain) weep not"(word for word as in Job 27:15) is meant of the celebration of the customary ceremony of mourning (Gen 23:2): they survive their husbands (which, with the exception of such a case as that recorded in 1Sa 14:19-22, is presupposed), but without being able to show them the last signs of honour, because the terrors of the war (Jer 15:8) prevent them.

With Psa 78:65 the song takes a new turn. After the punitive judgment has sifted and purified Israel, God receives His people to Himself afresh, but in such a manner that He transfers the precedence of Ephraim to the tribe of Judah. He awakes as it were from a long sleep (Psa 44:24, cf. Psa 73:20); for He seemed to sleep whilst Israel had become a servant to the heathen; He aroused Himself, like a hero exulting by reason of wine, i.e., like a hero whose courage is heightened by the strengthening and exhilarating influence of wine (Hengstenberg). התרונן is not the Hithpal . of רוּן in the Arabic signification, which is alien to the Hebrew, to conquer, a meaning which we do not need here, and which is also not adapted to the reflexive form (Hitzig, without any precedent, renders thus: who allows himself to be conquered by wine), but Hithpo . of רנן : to shout most heartily, after the analogy of the reflexives התאונן , התנודד , התרועע . The most recent defeat of the enemy which the poet has before his mind is that of the Philistines. The form of expression in Psa 78:66 is moulded after 1Sa 5:6. God smote the Philistines most literally in posteriora (lxx, Vulgate, and Luther). Nevertheless Psa 78:66 embraces all the victories under Samuel, Saul, and David, from 1Sa 5:1-12 and onwards. Now, when they were able to bring the Ark, which had been brought down to the battle against the Philistines, to a settled resting-place again, God no longer chose Shiloh of Ephraim, but Judah and the mountain of Zion, which He had loved (Psa 47:5), of Benjamitish-Judaean (Jos 15:63; Jdg 1:8, Jdg 1:21) - but according to the promise (Deu 33:12) and according to the distribution of the country (vid., on Psa 68:28) Benjamitish - Jerusalem.

(Note: According to B. Menachoth 53 b , Jedidiah (Solomon, 2Sa 12:25) built the Temple in the province of Jedidiah (of Benjamin, Deu 33:12).)

There God built His Temple כּמו־רמים . Hitzig proposes instead of this to read כּמרומים ; but if נעימים , Psa 16:6, signifies amaena , then רמים may signify excelsa (cf. Isa 45:2 הדוּרים , Jer 17:6 חררים ) and be poetically equivalent to מרומים : lasting as the heights of heaven, firm as the earth, which He hath founded for ever. Since the eternal duration of heaven and of the earth is quite consistent with a radical change in the manner of its duration, and that not less in the sense of the Old Testament than of the New (vid., e.g., Isa 65:17), so the לעולם applies not to the stone building, but rather to the place where Jahve reveals Himself, and to the promise that He will have such a dwelling-place in Israel, and in fact in Judah. Regarded spiritually, i.e., essentially, apart from the accidental mode of appearing, the Temple upon Zion is as eternal as the kingship upon Zion with which the Psalm closes. The election of David gives its impress to the history of salvation even on into eternity. It is genuinely Asaphic that it is so designedly portrayed how the shepherd of the flock of Jesse (Isai) became the shepherd of the flock of Jahve, who was not to pasture old and young in Israel with the same care and tenderness as the ewe-lambs after which he went ( עלות as in Gen 33:13, and רעה ב , cf. 1Sa 16:11; 1Sa 17:34, like משׁל בּ and the like). The poet is also able already to glory that he has fulfilled this vocation with a pure heart and with an intelligent mastery. And with this he closes.

From the decease of David lyric and prophecy are retrospectively and prospectively turned towards David.

Constable: Psa 73:1--89:52

I. Book 3: chs 73--89

A man or men named Asaph wrote 17 of the psalms in this book (Pss. 73-83). Other writers were the sons of Korah (Pss. 84-85, 87), David (Ps. 86), Heman (Ps. 88), and Ethan (Ps. 89). Asaph, Heman, and Ethan were musicians from the tribe of Levi who were contemporaries of David.

Constable: Psa 78:1-72

Psalm 78

This didactic psalm teaches present and future generations to learn from the past, and it stresses the grace of God.

"This could be sub-titled, in view of verses 12 and 68, From Zoan to Zion, for it reviews the turbulent adolescence of Israel from its time of slavery in Egypt to the reign of David. Like the parting song of Moses (Dt. 32) it is meant to search the conscience; it is history that must not repeat itself. At the same time, it is meant to warm the heart, for it tells of great miracles, of a grace that persist through all the judgments, and of the promise that displays its tokens in the chosen city and chosen king."¹⁴⁰

Constable: Psa 78:12-72

3. The record of God's goodness and Israel's unfaithfulness 78:12-72

78:12-20 In his historical review Asaph began with the plagues in Egypt (v. 12). He drew broad strokes on his verbal canvas tracing God's faithfulness to the generation that left Egypt in the Exodus (vv. 12-16). Each verse in this section recalls stories in the books of Exodus and Numbers.

In spite of God's provisions the Israelites rebelled against Him. They put God to the test by demanding that He provide for them on their terms rather than simply trusting and obeying Him (vv. 17-20).

78:21-33 In response to their murmuring God sent fire that burned on the outskirts of the camp (Num. 11:1-3). This was a warning to the people. When they requested bread He sent it to them abundantly (Exod. 16:14-31). Asaph called the manna angels' food (v. 25) because it came down from heaven. When the people insisted on having meat God sent abundant quail (Exod. 16:13; Num. 11:31). However, He also sent a plague that should have taught them to be content with His provisions (Num. 11:33). In spite of all these lessons the generation of Israelites that left Egypt in the Exodus continued to disbelieve and disobey Yahweh. Consequently that generation perished in the wilderness (v. 33).

78:34-39 When God killed some of that generation the others of them turned back to Him. However they did not do so wholeheartedly or consistently. Still God consistently showed them compassion, forgave them, and did not destroy all of them at once. The contrast between Israel's unfaithfulness and Yahweh's loyal love stands out in this pericope.

78:40-55 The emphasis in this section is on how often the unfaithful generation rebelled against God despite earlier signs of His power and care.¹⁴¹ Asaph recounted several of the plagues God brought on the Egyptians that should have taught His people to trust and obey Him. In spite of repeated instances of murmuring and rebelling God led that generation as a shepherd leads a flock of helpless sheep through the wilderness (vv. 52-53). He even brought them safely into the land He had promised to give them and drove the Canaanites out before them (vv. 54-55).

78:56-64 After Joshua died the people again tested God by failing to drive the inhabitants of the land out as He had commanded them to do. They turned from Him to worship false gods (vv. 56-58). Consequently God permitted the Philistines to capture the ark at Shiloh (cf. 1 Sam. 4:4-11). Many Israelites died on that occasion including the priests Hophni and Phinehas (v. 64).

78:65-72 The writer pictured God waking up though He was always aware of His people's condition. He simply did not move to deliver them until David's time. God rejected Joseph (i.e., the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh) and Ephraim, the leader of the northern tribes, in the sense that He chose someone from Judah to lead Israel. He also chose Mt. Zion as the site of His sanctuary. David took it from the Jebusites. God's provision of David, the shepherd king, was the writer's climactic evidence of God's grace to Israel.

Shepherding should always spring from personal integrity and wisdom (v. 72). A person of integrity is one who practices what he preaches. What a person is determines what he does. Relationship with God shapes character. Wisdom involves taking what God has revealed into consideration as we live.

In view of all His blessings His people should learn from history and remain faithful to the Lord who has been faithful to them (cf. 2 Tim. 2:13).¹⁴²

"If Israel's record is her shame, God's persistent goodness emerges as her hope (and ours) for the unfinished story."¹⁴³

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Psalms (Book Introduction)

The Hebrew title of this book is Tehilim ("praises" or "hymns"), for a leading feature in its contents is praise, though the word occurs in the title of only one Psalm (the hundred forty-fifth). The Greek title (in the Septuagint, a translation made two hundred years before Christ) is psalmoi, whence our word "Psalms." This corresponds to the Hebrew word mizmoi by which sixty-five Psalms are designated in their inscriptions, and which the Syriac, a language like the Hebrew, uses for the whole book. It means, as does also the Greek name, an ode, or song, whose singing is accompanied by an instrument, particularly the harp (compare 1Ch 16:4-8; 2Ch 5:12-13). To some Psalms, the Hebrew word (shir) "a song," is prefixed. Paul seems to allude to all these terms in Eph 5:19, "singing . . . in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs."

TITLES.--To more than a hundred Psalms are prefixed inscriptions, which give one or more (and in one case, [Psalm 60], all) of these particulars: the direction to the musician, the name of the author or the instrument, the style of the music or of the poetry, the subject or occasion. The authority of these inscriptions has been disputed by some writers. They say that the earliest translators, as the Greek and Syriac, evince a disregard for their authority, by variations from a proper translation of some, altering others, and, in several instances, supplying titles to Psalms which, in Hebrew, had none. It is also alleged that the subject of a Psalm, as given in the title, is often inconsistent with its contents. But those translators have also varied from a right translation of many passages in the Bible, which all agree to be of good authority; and the alleged inconsistency may be shown, on more accurate investigation, not to exist. The admitted antiquity of these inscriptions, on the other hand, and even their obscurity, raise a presumption in their favor, while such prefaces to a composition accord with the usages of that age and part of the world (compare Isa 38:9).

"The Chief Musician" was the superintendent of the music (compare "to oversee," 1Ch 15:21, Margin). "To" prefixed to this, means, "pertaining to" in his official character. This inscription is found in fifty-three Psalms and is attached to Habakkuk's prayer (Hab. 3:1-19). The same Hebrew preposition is prefixed to the name of the author and translated "of," as "a Psalm of David," "of Asaph," except that to "the sons of Korah," it is translated "for," which is evidently wrong, as the usual direction, "to the chief musician," is given, and no other authorship intimated. On the apparent exception to this last remark, see below, and see on Psa 88:1, title. The explanations of other particulars in the titles will be given as they occur.

AUTHORS.--This book is often called "The Psalms of David," he being the only author mentioned in the New Testament (Luk 20:42) and his name appearing in more titles than that of any other writer. Besides about one-half of the Psalms in which it thus appears, Psalms 2 and 95 are ascribed to him (Act 4:25 and Heb 4:7). He was probably the author of many others which appear without a name. He used great efforts to beautify the worship of the sanctuary. Among the two hundred eighty-eight Levites he appointed for singing and performing instrumental music, we find mentioned the "sons of Korah" (1Ch 9:19); including Heman (1Ch 6:33-38); and also Asaph (1Ch 6:39-44); and Ethan (1Ch 15:17-19). God was doubtless pleased to endow these men with the inspiration of His Spirit, so that they used those poetic talents which their connection with the kindred art of music had led them to cultivate, in the production of compositions like those of their king and patron. To Asaph are ascribed twelve Psalms; to the sons of Korah, eleven, including the eighty-eighth, which is also ascribed to Heman, that being the only instance in which the name of the "son" (or descendant) is mentioned; and to Ethan, one. Solomon's name appears before the seventy-second and hundred twenty-seventh; and that of Moses before the ninetieth. Special questions respecting authorship will be explained as they arise.

CONTENTS.--As the book contains one hundred fifty independent compositions, it is not susceptible of any logical analysis. The Jews having divided it into five books, corresponding to the Five Books of Moses (First, Psalms 1-42; Second, Psalms 43-72; Third, Psalms 73-89; Fourth, Psalms 90-106; Fifth, Psalms 107-150), many attempts have been made to discover, in this division, some critical or practical value, but in vain. Sundry efforts have been made to classify the Psalms by subject. Angus' Bible Hand Book is perhaps the most useful, and is appended.

Still the Psalms have a form and character peculiar to themselves; and with individual diversities of style and subject, they all assimilate to that form, and together constitute a consistent system of moral truth. They are all poetical, and of that peculiar parallelism (see Introduction to the Poetical Books,) which distinguished Hebrew poetry. They are all lyrical, or songs adapted to musical instruments, and all religious lyrics, or such as were designed to be used in the sanctuary worship.

The distinguishing feature of the Psalms is their devotional character. Whether their matter be didactic, historical, prophetical, or practical, it is made the ground or subject of prayer, or praise, or both. The doctrines of theology and precepts of pure morality are here inculcated. God's nature, attributes, perfections, and works of creation, providence, and grace, are unfolded. In the sublimest conceptions of the most exalted verse, His glorious supremacy over the principalities of heaven, earth, and hell, and His holy, wise, and powerful control of all material and immaterial agencies, are celebrated. The great covenant of grace resting on the fundamental promise of a Redeemer, both alike the provisions of God's exhaustless mercy, is set forth in respect of the doctrines of regeneration by the Spirit, forgiveness of sins, repentance toward God, and faith toward Jesus Christ, while its glorious results, involving the salvation of men "from the ends of the earth" [Act 13:47], are proclaimed in believing, prophetic prayer and thankful praise. The personal history of the authors, and especially David's in its spiritual aspects, is that of God's people generally. Christian biography is edifying only as it is truth illustrated in experience, such as God's Word and Spirit produce. It may be factitious in origin and of doubtful authenticity. But here the experience of the truly pious is detailed, under divine influence, and "in words which the Holy Ghost" taught [1Co 2:13]. The whole inner life of the pious man is laid open, and Christians of all ages have here the temptations, conflicts, perplexities, doubts, fears, penitent moanings, and overwhelming griefs on the one hand, and the joy and hope of pardoning mercy, the victory over the seductions of false-hearted flatterers, and deliverance from the power of Satan on the other, with which to compare their own spiritual exercises. Here, too, are the fruits of that sovereign mercy, so often sought in earnest prayer, and when found, so often sung in rapturous joy, exhibited by patience in adversity, moderation in prosperity, zeal for God's glory, love for man, justice to the oppressed, holy contempt for the proud, magnanimity towards enemies, faithfulness towards friends, delight in the prosperity of Zion, and believing prayer for her enlargement and perpetuity.

The historical summaries of the Psalms are richly instructive. God's choice of the patriarchs, the sufferings of the Israelites in Egypt, their exodus, temptations of God, rebellions and calamities in the wilderness, settlement in Canaan, backslidings and reformations, furnish illustrations of God's providential government of His people, individually and collectively, tending to exalt His adorable grace and abase human pride. But the promises and prophecies connected with these summaries, and elsewhere presented in the Psalms, have a far wider reach, exhibiting the relations of the book to the great theme of promise and prophecy:

THE MESSIAH AND HIS KINGDOM.--David was God's chosen servant to rule His people, as the head at once of the State and the Church, the lineal ancestor, "according to the flesh" [Act 2:30; Rom 1:3], of His adorable Son, and His type, in His official relations, both in suffering and in triumph. Generally, David's trials by the ungodly depicted the trials of Christ, and his final success the success of Christ's kingdom. Typically, he uses language describing his feelings, which only finds its full meaning in the feelings of Christ. As such it is quoted and applied in the New Testament. And further, in view of the great promise (2Sa 7:12-16) to him and his seed, to which such frequent reference is made in the Psalms, David was inspired to know, that though his earthly kingdom should perish, his spiritual would ever endure, in the power, beneficence, and glory of Christ's. In repeating and amplifying that promise, he speaks not only as a type, but "being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne," he "foretold the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. His incarnation, humiliating sorrows, persecution, and cruel death are disclosed in the plaintive cries of a despairing sufferer; and His resurrection and ascension, His eternal priesthood, His royal dignity, His prophetical office, the purchase and bestowal of the gifts of the Spirit, the conversion of the nations, the establishment, increase, and perpetuity of the Church, the end of time, and the blessedness of the righteous who acknowledge, and the ruin of the wicked who reject this King in Zion, are predicted in the language of assured confidence and joy." While these great themes have supplied the people of God with a popular theology and a guide in religious experience and Christian morality, clothed in the language of devotion, they have provided an inspired liturgy in which the pious, of all creeds and sects, have, for nearly three thousand years, poured out their prayers and praises. The pious Jew, before the coming of Christ, mourned over the adversity, or celebrated the future glories, of Zion, in the words of her ancient king. Our Saviour, with His disciples, sang one of these hymns on the night on which He was betrayed [Mat 26:30]; He took from one the words in which He uttered the dreadful sorrows of His soul [Mat 27:46], and died with those of another on His lips [Luk 23:46]. Paul and Silas in the dungeon [Act 16:25], primitive Christians in their covert places of worship, or the costly churches of a later day, and the scattered and feeble Christian flocks in the prevalence of darkness and error through the Middle Ages, fed their faith and warmed their love with these consoling songs. Now, throughout the Christian world, in untold forms of version, paraphrase, and imitation, by Papists and Protestants, Prelatists and Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Methodists--men of all lands and all creeds, in public and private worship, God is still adored in the sentiments expressed in these venerable Psalms. From the tone of sorrow and suffering which pervade their earlier portions we are gradually borne on amid alternate conflicts and triumphs, mournful complaints and awakening confidence; as we approach the close the tones of sorrow grow feebler, and those of praise wax louder and stronger--till, in the exulting strains of the last Psalm, the chorus of earth mingles with the hallelujahs of the multitude, which no man can number, in the sanctuary above.

JFB: Psalms (Outline)

• ALEPH. (Psa 119:1-8). This celebrated Psalm has several peculiarities. It is divided into twenty-two parts or stanzas, denoted by the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Each stanza contains eight verses, and the first letter of each verse is that which gives name to the stanza. Its contents are mainly praises of God's Word, exhortations to its perusal, and reverence for it, prayers for its proper influence, and complaints of the wicked for despising it. There are but two verses (Psa 119:122, Psa 119:132) which do not contain some term or description of God's Word. These terms are of various derivations, but here used, for the most part, synonymously, though the use of a variety of terms seems designed, in order to express better the several aspects in which our relations to the revealed word of God are presented. The Psalm does not appear to have any relation to any special occasion or interest of the Jewish Church or nation, but was evidently "intended as a manual of pious thoughts, especially for instructing the young, and its peculiar artificial structure was probably adopted to aid the memory in retaining the language." (Psa. 119:1-176)
• BETH. (Psa 119:9-16). The whole verse may be read as a question; for,
• GIMEL. (Psa 119:17-24). Life is desirable in order to serve God; that we may do so aright, we should seek to have our eyes opened to behold His truth, and earnestly desire fully to understand it.
• DALETH. (Psa 119:25-32). Submitting ourselves in depression to God, He will revive us by His promises, and lead us to declare His mercy to others.
• HE. (Psa 119:33-40). To encourage us in prayer for divine aid in adhering to His truth, we are permitted to believe that by His help we shall succeed.
• VAU. (Psa 119:41-48). The sentiment more fully carried out. God's mercies and salvation, as revealed in His Word, provide hope of forgiveness for the past and security in a righteous course for the future.
• ZAIN. (Psa 119:49-56). Resting on the promises consoles under affliction and the tauntings of the insolent.
• CHETH. (Psa 119:57-64). Sincere desires for God's favor, penitence, and activity in a new obedience, truly evince the sincerity of those who profess to find God a portion (Num 18:20; Psa 16:5; Lam 3:24).
• TETH. (Psa 119:65-72). The reliance on promises (Psa 119:49) is strengthened by experience of past dealings according with promises, and a prayer for guidance, encouraged by sanctified affliction.
• JOD. (Psa 119:73-80). As God made, so He can best control, us. So as to Israel, he owed to God his whole internal and external existence (Deu 32:6).
• CAPH. (Psa 119:81-88). In sorrow the pious heart yearns for the comforts of God's promises (Psa 73:26; Psa 84:2).
• LAMED. (Psa 119:89-96). In all changes God's Word remains firm (1Pe 1:25). Like the heavens, it continually attests God's unfailing power and unchanging care (Psa 89:2).
• MEM. (Psa 119:97-104). This characteristic love for God's law (compare Psa 1:2) ensures increase.
• NUN. (Psa 119:105-112). Not only does the Word of God inform us of His will, but, as a light on a path in darkness, it shows us how to follow the right and avoid the wrong way. The lamp of the Word is not the sun. He would blind our eyes in our present fallen state; but we may bless God for the light shining as in a dark place, to guide us until the Sun of Righteousness shall come, and we shall be made capable of seeing Him (2Pe 1:19; Rev 22:4). The lamp is fed with the oil of the Spirit. The allusion is to the lamps and torches carried at night before an Eastern caravan.
• SAMECH. (Psa 119:113-120).
• AIN. (Psa 119:121-128). On the grounds of his integrity, desire for God's word, and covenant relation to Him, the servant of God may plead for His protecting care against the wicked, gracious guidance to the knowledge of truth, and His effective vindication of the righteous and their cause, which is also His own.
• PE. (Psa 119:129-136).
• TZADDI. (Psa 119:137-144). God's justice and faithfulness in His government aggravate the neglect of the wicked, and more excite the lively zeal of His people.
• KOPH. (Psa 119:145-152). An intelligent devotion is led by divine promises and is directed to an increase of gracious affections, arising from a contemplation of revealed truth.
• RESH. (Psa 119:153-160). Though the remembering of God's law is not meritorious, yet it evinces a filial temper and provides the pious with promises to plead, while the wicked in neglecting His law, reject God and despise His promises (compare Psa 9:13; Psa 43:1; Psa 69:18).
• SCHIN. (Psa 119:161-168). (Compare Psa 119:46, Psa 119:86).
• TAU. (Psa 119:169-176). The prayer for understanding of the truth precedes that for deliverance. The fulfilment of the first is the basis of the fulfilment of the second (Psa 90:11-17). On the terms "cry" and "supplication" (compare Psa 6:9; Psa 17:1).
• LIVING VOICES SHALL TAKE UP THE FAILING SOUNDS OF DEAD INSTRUMENTS, AND AS THEY CEASE ON EARTH, THOSE OF INTELLIGENT RANSOMED SPIRITS AND HOLY ANGELS, AS WITH THE SOUND OF MIGHTY THUNDERS, WILL PROLONG ETERNALLY THE PRAISE, SAYING: "ALLELUIA! SALVATION, AND GLORY, AND HONOR, AND POWER, UNTO THE LORD OUR GOD;" "ALLELUIA! FOR THE LORD GOD OMNIPOTENT REIGNETH." AMEN!.

TSK: Psalms (Book Introduction)

The Psalms have been the general song of the universal Church; and in their praise, all the Fathers have been unanimously eloquent. Men of all nations find in these compositions a language at once suitable to their feelings, and expressive of their highest joys and deepest sorrows, as well as of all the endlessly varied wishes and desires of their hearts. Whether the pious believer is disposed to indulge the exalted sentiments of praise and thanksgiving towards the ALMIGHTY FATHER of his being; to pour out his soul in penitence or prayer; to bewail, with tears of contrition, past offences; to magnify the goodness and mercy of GOD; to dwell with ecstacy on the divine attributes of wisdom and omnipotence; or to rejoice in the coming of the MESSIAH, the Psalms afford him the most perfect models for expressing all his feelings.

TSK: Psalms 78 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Psa 78:1, An exhortation both to learn and to preach, the law of God; Psa 78:9, The story of God’s wrath against the incredulous and disobedient; Psa 78:67, The Israelites being rejected, God chose Judah, Zion, and David.

Asaph, to give instruction. Psa 74:1 *title This Psalm was probably written, as Calmet and others suppose, by Asaph 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. 2Chr. 15:1-16:14

Poole: Psalms (Book Introduction)

OF PSALMS

THE ARGUMENT

The divine authority of this Book of PSALMS is so certain and evident, that it was never questioned in the church; which being fixed, it is of small moment that the penman of some of them is not now known; nor doth this any more lessen its authority, than it invalidates the decree of a prince, or an act of parliament, that it is not certain by whose pen it was drawn up. Most of them were composed by David, as is evident, both from the title of them, and from the express testimony of the New Testament concerning some of them; and that by the inspiration of God’ s Spirit, as appears both from the Divine matter and frame of them, and from 2Sa 23:1 Mat 22:43 Act 1:16 2:25 . But some of them were composed by other persons; by Moses, as Ps 90 , by Heman, and Ethan, and Asaph, as the title of the Psalms show; and by others after their times, whose names are not mentioned, as is manifest from Ps 126 Ps 127 . It is apparent that the Psalms were not written in the order in which they now lie; and they were put into this order either by Ezra, as the Hebrew doctors affirm, or by some other holy prophet or prophets. It is sufficient for us that the whole book is owned as canonical by our blessed Saviour, Luk 24:44 .

PSALM 1

Poole: Psalms 78 (Chapter Introduction)

THE ARGUMENT

The scope of this Psalm is plainly expressed Psa 78:6-8 , and is this, that the Israelites might learn to hope and trust in God, and steadfastly to keep his laws and covenant; which great lesson he presseth upon them, from the sad effects of the contrary practices in their forefathers, of which he gives a brief yet full account in a recapitulation of he most remarkable passages in the history of their church and nation.

An exhortation to attend to and instruct others in the word and works of the Lord, Psa 78:1-8 . A rehearsal of God’ s love and long-suffering to the unbelieving and obstinate Israelites, Psa 78:9-11 , in their journey out of Egypt to the land of Canaan, Psa 78:12-65 . Rejecting the rest of the tribes, he chooseth Zion for a place of worship, and David to the kingdom, Psa 78:67-72 .

My people: if Asaph was the composer of this Psalm, he might well call the Israelites his people , not only as he was their prophet and teacher, but also because they were of the same country and parentage with him; upon which account this very phrase of my people is used of them, not only by queen Esther, Est 7:3,4 , but also by the Shunammitish woman, 2Ki 4:13 .

My law i.e. the doctrine which I am about to deliver to you, concerning your duty, and the danger of neglecting it.

MHCC: Psalms (Book Introduction)

David was the penman of most of the psalms, but some evidently were composed by other writers, and the writers of some are doubtful. But all were written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost; and no part of the Old Testament is more frequently quoted or referred to in the New. Every psalm either points directly to Christ, in his person, his character, and offices; or may lead the believer's thoughts to Him. And the psalms are the language of the believer's heart, whether mourning for sin, thirsting after God, or rejoicing in Him. Whether burdened with affliction, struggling with temptation, or triumphing in the hope or enjoyment of deliverance; whether admiring the Divine perfections, thanking God for his mercies, mediating on his truths, or delighting in his service; they form a Divinely appointed standard of experience, by which we may judge ourselves. Their value, in this view, is very great, and the use of them will increase with the growth of the power of true religion in the heart. By the psalmist's expressions, the Spirit helps us to pray. If we make the psalms familiar to us, whatever we have to ask at the throne of grace, by way of confession, petition, or thanksgiving, we may be assisted from thence. Whatever devout affection is working in us, holy desire or hope, sorrow or joy, we may here find words to clothe it; sound speech which cannot be condemned. In the language of this Divine book, the prayers and praises of the church have been offered up to the throne of grace from age to age.

MHCC: Psalms 78 (Chapter Introduction)

(Psa 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.

Matthew Henry: Psalms (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Book of Psalms

We have now before us one of the choicest and most excellent parts of all the Old Testament; nay, so much is there in it of Christ and his gospel, as well as of God and his law, that it had been called the abstract, or summary, of both Testaments. The History of Israel, which we were long upon, let us to camps and council-boards, and there entertained and instructed us in the knowledge of God. The book of Job brought us into the schools, and treated us with profitable disputations concerning God and his providence. But this book brings us into the sanctuary, draws us off from converse with men, with the politicians, philosophers, or disputers of this world, and directs us into communion with God, by solacing and reposing our souls in him, lifting up and letting out our hearts towards him. Thus may we be in the mount with God; and we understand not our interests if we say not, It is good to be here. Let us consider,

I. The title of this book. It is called, 1. The Psalms; under that title it is referred to, Luk 24:44. The Hebrew calls it Tehillim , which properly signifies Psalms of praise, because many of them are such; but Psalms is a more general word, meaning all metrical compositions fitted to be sung, which may as well be historical, doctrinal, or supplicatory, as laudatory. Though singing be properly the voice of joy, yet the intention of songs is of a much greater latitude, to assist the memory, and both to express and to excite all the other affections as well as this of joy. The priests had a mournful muse as well as joyful ones; and the divine institution of singing psalms is thus largely intended; for we are directed not only to praise God, but to teach and admonish ourselves and one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, Col 3:16. 2. It is called the Book of Psalms; so it is quoted by St. Peter, Act 1:20. It is a collection of psalms, of all the psalms that were divinely inspired, which, though composed at several times and upon several occasions, are here put together without any reference to or dependence upon one another; thus they were preserved from being scattered and lost, and were in so much greater readiness for the service of the church. See what a good master we serve, and what pleasantness there is in wisdom's ways, when we are not only commanded to sing at our work, and have cause enough given us to do so, but have words also put in our mouths and songs prepared to our hands.

II. The author of this book. It is, no doubt, derived originally from the blessed Spirit. They are spiritual songs, words which the Holy Ghost taught. The penman of most of them was David the son of Jesse, who is therefore called the sweet psalmist of Israel, 2Sa 23:1. Some that have not his name in their titles yet are expressly ascribed to him elsewhere, as Psa 2:1-12 (Act 4:25) and Psa 96:1-13 and 105 (1 Chr. 16). One psalm is expressly said to be the prayer of Moses (Ps. 90); and that some of the psalms were penned by Asaph is intimated, 2Ch 29:30, where they are said to praise the Lord in the words of David and Asaph , who is there called a seer or prophet. Some of the psalms seem to have been penned long after, as Psa 137:1-9, at the time of the captivity in Babylon; but the far greater part of them were certainly penned by David himself, whose genius lay towards poetry and music, and who was raised up, qualified, and animated, for the establishing of the ordinance of singing psalms in the church of God, as Moses and Aaron were, in their day, for the settling of the ordinances of sacrifice; theirs is superseded, but his remains, and will to the end of time, when it shall be swallowed up in the songs of eternity. Herein David was a type of Christ, who descended from him, not from Moses, because he came to take away sacrifice (the family of Moses was soon lost and extinct), but to establish and perpetuate joy and praise; for of the family of David in Christ there shall be no end.

III. The scope of it. It is manifestly intended, 1. To assist the exercises of natural religion, and to kindle in the souls of men those devout affections which we owe to God as our Creator, owner, ruler, and benefactor. The book of Job helps to prove our first principles of the divine perfections and providence; but this helps to improve them in prayers and praises, and professions of desire towards him, dependence on him, and an entire devotedness and resignation to him. Other parts of scripture show that God is infinitely above man, and his sovereign Lord; but this shows us that he may, notwithstanding, be conversed with by us sinful worms of the earth; and there are ways in which, if it be not our own fault, we may keep up communion with him in all the various conditions of human life. 2. To advance the excellencies of revealed religion, and in the most pleasing powerful manner to recommend it to the world. There is indeed little or nothing of the ceremonial law in all the book of Psalms. Though sacrifice and offering were yet to continue many ages, yet they are here represented as things which God did not desire (Psa 40:6, Psa 51:16), as things comparatively little, and which in time were to vanish away. But the word and law of God, those parts of it which are moral and of perpetual obligation are here all along magnified and made honourable, nowhere more. And Christ, the crown and centre of revealed religion, the foundation, corner, and top-stone, of that blessed building, is here clearly spoken of in type and prophecy, his sufferings and the glory that should follow, and the kingdom that he should set up in the world, in which God's covenant with David, concerning his kingdom, was to have its accomplishment. What a high value does this book put upon the word of God, his statutes and judgments, his covenant and the great and precious promises of it; and how does it recommend them to us as our guide and stay, and our heritage for ever!

IV. The use of it. All scripture, being given by inspiration of God, is profitable to convey divine light into our understandings; but this book is of singular use with that to convey divine life and power, and a holy warmth, into our affections. There is no one book of scripture that is more helpful to the devotions of the saints than this, and it has been so in all ages of the church, ever since it was written and the several parts of it were delivered to the chief musician for the service of the church. 1. It is of use to be sung. Further than David's psalms we may go, but we need not, for hymns and spiritual songs. What the rules of the Hebrew metre were even the learned are not certain. But these psalms ought to be rendered according to the metre of every language, at least so as that they may be sung for the edification of the church. And methinks it is a great comfort to us, when we are singing David's psalms, that we are offering the very same praises to God that were offered to him in the days of David and the other godly kings of Judah. So rich, so well made, are these divine poems, that they can never be exhausted, can never be worn thread-bare. 2. It is of use to be read and opened by the ministers of Christ, as containing great and excellent truths, and rules concerning good and evil. Our Lord Jesus expounded the psalms to his disciples, the gospel psalms, and opened their understandings (for he had the key of David) to understand them, Luk 24:44. 3. It is of use to be read and meditated upon by all good people. It is a full fountain, out of which we may all be drawing water with joy. (1.) The Psalmist's experiences are of great use for our direction, caution, and encouragement. In telling us, as he often does, what passed between God and his soul, he lets us know what we may expect from God, and what he will expect, and require, and graciously accept, from us. David was a man after God's own heart, and therefore those who find themselves in some measure according to his heart have reason to hope that they are renewed by the grace of God, after the image of God, and many have much comfort in the testimony of their consciences for them that they can heartily say Amen to David's prayers and praises. (2.) Even the Psalmist's expressions too are of great use; and by them the Spirit helps our praying infirmities, because we know not what to pray for as we ought. In all our approaches to God, as well as in our first returns to God, we are directed to take with us words (Hos 14:2), these word, words which the Holy Ghost teaches. If we make David's psalms familiar to us, as we ought to do, whatever errand we have at the throne of grace, by way of confession, petition, or thanksgiving, we may thence be assisted in the delivery of it; whatever devout affection is working in us, holy desire or hope, sorrow or joy, we may there find apt words wherewith to clothe it, sound speech which cannot be condemned. It will be good to collect the most proper and lively expressions of devotion which we find here, and to methodize them, and reduce them to the several heads of prayer, that they may be the more ready to us. Or we may take sometimes one choice psalm and sometimes another, and pray it over, that is, enlarge upon each verse in our own thoughts, and offer up our meditations to God as they arise from the expressions we find there. The learned Dr. Hammond, in his preface to his paraphrase on the Psalms (sect. 29), says, " That going over a few psalms with these interpunctions of mental devotion, suggested, animated, and maintained, by the native life and vigour which is in the psalms, is much to be preferred before the saying over the whole Psalter, since nothing is more fit to be averted in religious offices than their degenerating into heartless dispirited recitations." If, as St. Austin advises, we form our spirit by the affection of the psalm, we may then be sure of acceptance with God in using the language of it. Nor is it only our devotion, and the affections of our mind, that the book of Psalms assists, teaching us how to offer praise so as to glorify God, but, it is also a directory to the actions of our lives, and teaches us how to order our conversation aright, so as that, in the end, we may see the salvation of God, Psa 50:23. The Psalms were thus serviceable to the Old Testament church, but to us Christians they may be of more use than they could be to those who lived before the coming of Christ; for, as Moses's sacrifices, so David's songs, are expounded and made more intelligible by the gospel of Christ, which lets us within the veil; so that if to David's prayers and praises we all St. Paul's prayers in his epistles, and the new songs in the Revelation, we shall be thoroughly furnished for this good work; for the scripture, perfected, makes the man of God perfect.

As to the division of this book, we need not be solicitous; there is no connexion (or very seldom) between one psalm and another, nor any reason discernable for the placing of them in the order wherein we here find them; but it seems to be ancient, for that which is now the second psalm was so in the apostles' time, Act 13:33. The vulgar Latin joins the 9th and 10th together; all popish authors quote by that, so that, thenceforward, throughout the book, their number is one short of ours; our 11 is their 10, our 119 is their 118. But they divide the 147th into two, and so make up the number of 150. Some have endeavoured to reduce the psalms to proper heads, according to the matter of them, but there is often such a variety of matter in one and the same psalm that this cannot be done with any certainty. But the seven penitential Psalms have been in a particular manner singled out by the devotions of many. They are reckoned to be Psa 6:1-10, Psa 32:1-11, 38, 51,102, Psa 130:1-8, and Psa 143:1-12. The Psalms were divided into five books, each concluding with Amen, Amen, or Hallelujah; the first ending with Psa 41:1-13, the second with Ps. 72, the third with Ps. 89, the fourth with Ps. 106, the fifth with Psa 150:1-6. Others divide them into three fifties; others into sixty parts, two for every day of the month, one for the morning, the other for the evening. Let good Christians divide them for themselves, so as may best increase their acquaintance with them, that they may have them at hand upon all occasions and may sing them in the spirit and with the understanding.

Matthew Henry: Psalms 78 (Chapter Introduction)

This psalm is historical; it is a narrative of the great mercies God had bestowed upon Israel, the great sins wherewith they had provoked him, and the many tokens of his displeasure they had been under for their sins. The psalmist began, in the foregoing psalm, to relate God's wonders of old, for his own encouragement in a difficult time; there he broke off abruptly, but here resumes the subject, for the edification of the church, and enlarges much upon it, showing not only how good God had been to them, which was an earnest of further finishing mercy, but how basely they had conducted themselves towards God, which justified him in correcting them as he did at this time, and forbade all complaints. Here is, I. The preface to this church history, commanding the attention of the present age to it and recommending it to the study of the generations to come (Psa 78:1-8). II. The history itself from Moses to David; it is put into a psalm or song that it might be the better remembered and transmitted to posterity, and that the singing of it might affect them with the things here related, more than they would be with a bare narrative of them. The general scope of this psalm we have (Psa 78:9-11) where notice is taken of the present rebukes they were under (Psa 78:9), the sin which brought them under those rebukes (Psa 78:10), and the mercies of God to them formerly, which aggravated that sin (Psa 78:11). As to the particulars, we are here told, 1. What wonderful works God had wrought for them in bringing them out of Egypt (Psa 78:12-16), providing for them in the wilderness (Psa 78:23-29), plaguing and ruining their enemies (Psa 78:43-53), and at length putting them in possession of the land of promise (Psa 78:54, Psa 78:55). 2. How ungrateful they were to God for his favours to them and how many and great provocations they were guilty of. How they murmured against God and distrusted him (Psa 78:17-20), and did but counterfeit repentance and submission when he punished them (Psa 78:34-37), thus grieving and tempting him (Psa 78:40-42). How they affronted God with their idolatries after they came to Canaan (Psa 78:56-58). 3. How God had justly punished them for their sins (Psa 78:21, Psa 78:22) in the wilderness, making their sin their punishment (Psa 78:29-33), and now, of late, when the ark was taken by the Philistines (Psa 78:59-64). 4. How graciously God had spared them and returned in mercy to them, notwithstanding their provocations. He had forgiven them formerly (Psa 78:38, Psa 78:39), and now, of late, had removed the judgments they had brought upon themselves, and brought them under a happy establishment both in church and state (Psa 78:65-72). As the general scope of this psalm may be of use to us in the singing of it, to put us upon recollecting what God has done for us and for his church formerly, and what we have done against him, so the particulars also may be of use to us, for warning against those sins of unbelief and ingratitude which Israel of old was notoriously guilty of, and the record of which was preserved for our learning. " These things happened unto them for ensamples," 1Co 10:11; Heb 4:11.

Maschil of Asaph.

Constable: Psalms (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title

The title of this book in the Hebrew Bible is Tehillim, which means "praise songs." The title adopted by the Septuagint translators for their Greek version was Psalmoi meaning "songs to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument." This Greek word comes from the Hebrew word mizmor that occurs in the titles of 57 of the psalms. In time the Greek word psalmoi came to mean "songs of praise" without reference to stringed accompaniment. The English translators transliterated the Greek title resulting in the title "Psalms" in English Bibles.

Date and Writers

The texts of the individual psalms do not usually indicate who wrote them.¹ However some of the titles of the individual psalms do contain information about the writers.² This is the only really reliable information we have as to who composed these psalms, though the commentators have their theories.

Not all the titles contain information about authorship.³ The ones that do refer to the following writers. Moses wrote Psalm 90.⁴ David composed 73 psalms, mostly in the first two books of the Psalter (i.e., Pss. 1-72). Asaph wrote 12 (Pss. 50, 73-83). Korah's descendents were responsible for 10 (Pss. 42, 44-49, 84, 87-88). Solomon wrote one or two (127 and perhaps 72). Heman the Ezrahite wrote one (Ps. 88). Ethan the Ezrahite composed one (Ps. 89).

Of these the earliest would have been the one Moses wrote (Ps. 90) and it probably dates from about 1405 B.C. Those David composed would have originated between about 1020 and 975 B.C. Asaph was a contemporary of David so we can date his in approximately the same period. Solomon's psalm(s) seem to have been produced about 950 B.C. Korah's descendents as well as Heman and Ethan probably lived after Solomon, but exactly when we cannot identify. Since Heman and Ethan are connected with Ezra as Ezrahites it is probable that they lived and wrote after the Babylonian exile as he did.

We can date some of the psalms that do not contain information about their writers in the title, if they have a title, by their subject matter. For example, David seems to have written Psalms 2 and 33 even though his name does not occur in the superscriptions (cf. Acts 4:25). Likewise Psalms 126 and 137 must have been late compositions dating from the time the Jews returned from Babylonian exile or shortly after that.

Most of the Psalms, then, were written between 1000 and 450 B.C. The one by Moses was composed considerably earlier and a few may have been written later, but probably not much later, than 450 B.C.

There is some internal evidence in the Book of Psalms that the Jews collected the individual psalms and compiled them into groups in various stages and that this process took some time.⁵ We would expect this because some psalms date hundreds of years after others. Psalm 72:20, for example, seems to mark the end of a collection of David's psalms that antedated the Psalter we now have, but which editors incorporated into the larger work. Psalm 1 appears intended to introduce this collection and, probably later, the entire Psalter. The writer of most of the first 72 psalms (Books 1 and 2 of our modern editions) was David.⁶ Solomon (2 Chron. 5:11-14; 7:6; 9:11; Eccles. 2:8), Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 20:21-22), and Jehoiada (2 Chron. 23:18) all organized temple singing and may have had a hand in compiling some of the psalms. Hezekiah (715-686 B.C.; 2 Kings 18-20; 2 Chron. 29-32), one of Judah's best kings and one who led his people in returning to Scripture, may have added to and organized part of the Psalter (cf. 2 Chron. 29:25-28, 30; 30:21; 31:2; Prov. 25:1). So may Josiah, another reforming king of Judah (640-609 B.C.; 2 Kings 22:1-23:30; 2 Chron. 34-35; cf. 2 Chron. 35:15, 25). The last two books (sections) of Psalms (chs. 90-106 and 107-150) contain more miscellaneous psalms dating from Moses to the return from exile. It seems likely that Ezra, the great renovator of postexilic Judaism, may have been responsible for adding these and perhaps putting the whole collection in its final form.

"The picture that emerges is a mixture of order and informality of arrangement, which invites but also defeats the attempt to account for every detail of its final form. There is some chronological progression, with David most in evidence in the first half, and a clear allusion to the captivity towards the close of Book V (Ps. 137). But David reappears in the next psalm (138), and by contrast, the fall of Jerusalem had been lamented as far back as Psalm 74."⁷

Each of the five books or major sections of the Psalter ends with a doxology, and Psalm 150 is a grand doxology for the whole collection. The earliest evidence of the five-fold division of the Book of Psalms comes from the Qumran scrolls, which scribes copied early in the first century A.D. Undoubtedly the Psalter was in its final form by the close of the Old Testament canon, namely by 400 B.C.

Scope

Historically the psalms cover a period of about 1000 years, from the time of Moses (c. 1400 B.C.) to the Isrealites' return from exile (c. 450 B.C.).

In terms of subject matter they deal with selected events of that millennium. They provide us with the thoughts and feelings of those who went through the experiences recorded, especially their God-directed thoughts and feelings.

"Of all the books in the Old Testament the Book of Psalms most vividly represents the faith of individuals in the Lord. The Psalms are the inspired responses of human hearts to God's revelation of Himself in law, history, and prophecy. Saints of all ages have appropriated this collection of prayers and praises in their public worship and private meditations."⁸

Genre

"One should think of this aspect of interpretation as being like the Olympics, a grand occasion made up of a variety of sports. Though it is all sport, each game is played by its own rules and has its own expectations about how to play the game. The variety of literature is the same way. It all has a message, but it conveys that message in a variety of ways and with a variety of expectations. To try to play basketball with soccer's rules will never work, though both use a ball and require foot speed. Or think of musical instruments, they all make music, but in different ways with different sounds. One cannot play the violin like a piano or drums; nor should one expect a violin to sound like either a piano or the kettledrum! In the same way, to read the poetry of the Psalms like a historical book is to miss the emotional and pictorial impact of the message, though both genres convey reality about people's experience with God. To transform the imagery and setting of the Psalter into mere theological proposition is also to take the passion and lifeblood out of its veins."⁹

Types

The messianic psalms are perhaps the most commonly known type. They predict the coming of a messiah. Franz Delitzsch broke these psalms down into five kinds. The first is the purely prophetic, which predicts that a future Davidic king would be the Lord (Ps. 110). Second, the eschatological psalms predict the coming of Messiah and the consummation of His kingdom (Pss. 96-99, et al.). Third, we have the typological-prophetic in which the writer describes his own experience but goes beyond that to describe what became true of the Messiah (e.g., Ps. 22). Fourth, there are the indirectly messianic psalms composed for a contemporary king but having ultimate fulfillment in Messiah (Pss. 2: 45; 72). Fifth, we have the typically messianic in which the writer was in some way typical of Messiah, but all he wrote in the psalm did not describe Him (e.g., Ps. 34:20; 109:8 as used in Acts 1:20).¹⁰ The following seem to be messianic psalms in whole or in part: 2 (cf. Matt. 3:17; Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5; 5:5; 7:28; 2 Pet. 1:17); 8 (Matt. 21:15-16; Heb. 2:6-9); 16 (Acts 2:25-28; 13:55); 22 (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34); 34; 40; 41; 45 (Heb. 1:8-9); 68; 69 (John 2:17; 15:25); 72; 96-99; 102; 109; 110; and 118 (Matt. 21:42).¹¹

The imprecatory psalms are thought of as a distinct type by some interpreters on the basis of their subject matter.¹² These psalms contain imprecations, or curses, on God's enemies. They have created a problem for some Christians since Jesus Christ taught His disciples to bless their enemies and not to curse them (Matt. 5:43-44; Luke 6:27-28; cf. Rom. 12:14). In the progress of revelation it was not easy for the writers of the psalms to see the details of the future distinctly. They could not feel the peace about God's ultimate establishment of justice that modern believers who know their Bibles do. Consequently when they witnessed injustice and oppression they did not usually know how God would deal with it so they called on Him to vindicate Himself immediately. With the coming of Jesus Christ and the added revelation He provided believers now have a fuller picture of how God will balance the scales of justice. It is therefore inappropriate for us to pray imprecations of the sort we find in the Old Testament. God has recorded them for our benefit, not as examples to follow in their wording but in their spirit of zeal for God's glory.¹³

What is now the most common way of classifying the psalms originated with the German scholar Hermann Gunkel at the beginning of the twentieth century.¹⁴ He was one of the founders of the form critical school of scholarship that sought to understand a given portion of Scripture by analyzing the form in which the writer composed it. Scholars then compared that form with other biblical and contemporary literature from the ancient Near Eastern countries that were Israel's neighbors, particularly Egypt and Mesopotamia. Gunkel classified the psalms into various categories or types (Germ. gattungen) by trying to identify the general situation in life (Germ. sitz im leben) that brought them into existence rather than by their content. He concluded that most of the psalms were postexilic. Many scholars have followed this form critical approach in their study of the Psalms as well as in other portions of the Old Testament.¹⁵

Most form critical scholars speculated about the origins of the various psalms and concluded that priests wrote most of them late in Israel's history. This has led many conservatives to reject form criticism completely. Nonetheless this school of interpreters has given us some helpful information, namely the various literary types of psalms that appear in the book.

Some of the more important types of psalms by literary form are the following. Individual laments are psalms by individuals calling on God for help from distress. National laments are similar but voice a corporate cry for help in view of some national situation.

"Laments outnumber every other kind of psalm in the Psalter; almost a third of the psalms belong to this category."¹⁶

Thanksgiving psalms--also called psalms of declarative praise--center on some act of deliverance God granted His people. Descriptive praise psalms offer praise to God for Himself or for His general working rather than for a specific instance of His working. The poets wrote the pilgrim psalms, also called songs of ascent, for singing by the Israelites as they made their thrice-yearly pilgrimages up to Jerusalem for the required festival observances there. Royal psalms are those in which the king of Israel is the chief character. Some event in his reign is being described such as his coronation, wedding, or going out to battle. The enthronement psalms speak of the Lord as the great king fulfilling His role in some way such as reigning or coming to judge.

Another type of psalm, based on the form in which the writer set it rather than on the subject matter, is the acrostic. In these each verse, or group of verses in the case of Psalm 119, begins with the succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The psalmists adopted this style so the Israelites could memorize and remember the psalm easily. The acrostic psalms are these: 9, 10, 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, 119, and 145.¹⁷

Message¹⁸

The Book of Psalms is an inspired collection of Hebrew poems intended for use in worship. Spirit directed compilers put them in their present order for several reasons including authorship and affinity of ideas. The compilers did not organize them in the order in which the psalmist wrote them. Each psalm is the expression of one writer who responded to God in the light of his particular circumstances when he wrote. Consequently there is no argument or progression of thought as the reader makes his or her way through the book.

The subject of the Book of Psalms is worship. Worship is the act of offering to God what is due Him because of who He is. The Hebrew word translated "worship" (shachah) means to bow oneself down or to do obeisance. The psalmists used it to describe prostration before God or some angel or another human being. It pictures an attitude of submission to a superior person. This word occurs only 15 times in Psalms with God as the object, but the idea of worshipping God is present in every psalm.

In these 15 passages the psalmists referred to God as Yahweh, Elohim, or Adonai. Those worshipping Him are individuals, kings, nations, and all the earth. His temple (Israel's central sanctuary) and His holy hill (Mt. Zion) were the central places of worship. Fear, holiness, and joy are the primary attitudes prominent in this worship.

God's people throughout history have loved the Psalter. There are a number of reasons for its popularity. First, it is a collection of songs that arise out of experiences with which we can all identify. It is very difficult to find any circumstance in life that does not find expression in some psalm or another. Some arose out of prosperity, others out of adversity. Some psalms deal with holiness, and others with sinfulness. Some are laments that bewail the worst of situations whereas others are triumphant hymns of joy and thanksgiving. Some look back to the past while others look forward to the future.

The psalms are great because their writers composed them out of their most profound experiences. Great poetry arises out of great living. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matt. 12:34). They are also great because the writers brought these profound experiences into God's presence. They show how people behave when they are conscious of God, the only truly realistic way to live. Therefore the permanent value of the psalms lies in their revelation of worship.

First, the Psalter reveals the person of God who is the object of worship. The primary revelation of God's character in the psalms is His names. The writers employed dozens of titles and figures of speech to describe God, but the three names of God that they used most are Yahweh, Elohim, and Adonai. When we understand these names alone we will want to worship God.

The name Yahweh captures the essential being of God. He is who He is (Exod. 3:14). This name occurs more often than any other in the psalms. Essentially it means that God is the eternally self-existent Person who becomes all that His people need. God's being is never the subject of debate in the psalms. The writers assumed His existence. As Yahweh God is always an adequate resource for whatever His people need whenever they have needs. That is because the Name Yahweh describes God in covenant relationship with His people. Translators normally render it LORD in English translations. Psalm 139 is perhaps the greatest exposition of the essential being of God, and Psalm 23 the chief revelation of His becoming all His people need.

The second great name of God in the Psalter is Elohim. Normally this Hebrew word translates as "God" in our English Bibles. It is a plural word in the Hebrew, which does not necessarily signify number but immensity. God as He reveals Himself is so infinite that no singular word can express Him adequately. "Elohim" suggests God's essential might and the fact that He is extremely powerful. God's strength is not just potential, but kinetic (i.e., in motion). It is latent, but also active. Such power elicited the awe of the psalmists. Psalm 68 is perhaps the greatest revelation of God's essential might in the Psalter, and Psalm 46 sets forth His great power at work most impressively.

The title "Adonai" (Lord in the sense of Master) does not occur frequently in the psalms, but the idea it expresses is present constantly. This title expresses the sovereignty of God, the fact that there is no one higher in authority than He. He is the King over the whole universe and the ultimate ruler over Israel. Perhaps Psalm 86 sets forth the sovereignty of God more magnificently than any other psalm.

Whenever a person, king, nation, or race conceives of God as Yahweh, Elohim, or Adonai the result is worship. We can do nothing else but prostrate ourselves before such an One. That is what the writers of these psalms did as they reflected on their experiences in the light of who God is.

The second great revelation of the Psalter is man's attitude in worship. Briefly we see man responding to the revelation of God joyfully, trustfully, and submissively. When we understand that God Himself is an adequate resource for us regardless of our needs, we worship by rejoicing. When we appreciate God's mighty power we worship Him by trusting Him. When we learn that God is sovereign we respond in worship by submitting to Him.

When we appreciate God's grace in providing all we need we rejoice. In the psalms we see joy manifesting itself in penitence and adoration. Penitence manifests joy in the following way. We have God's promises of forgiveness if we confess when we sin. Forgiveness for sin is one of God's greatest gifts to humankind. It is not something we can earn or deserve. It is a gift of God based ultimately on a work God has done for us through His Son. The penitential root attitude blossoms into adoration for God's grace. The sweetest music comes out of hearts broken by sin, hearts aware of their total bankruptcy before God. The most glorious praises spring from the lips of those who most sense the great gifts God has given them.

Trust in God's almighty power expresses itself in honesty and courage. Honesty is the internal fruit of trust and courage its external manifestation. The person who really trusts God's power will be open and honest because he believes God will exercise His power to defend him. He will be willing to take risks because he is relying on God's supernatural power to sustain and uphold him. The psalmists expressed themselves and behaved honestly before God and people because they believed in His sovereignty. They also faced danger courageously because they believed God could and would provide adequate help for His own.

Submission to the sovereignty of God expresses itself in reverence and obedience in the psalms. Reverence is the external evidence of submission to God, and obedience the core proof of it. The person who really believes God is the ultimate authority will respect Him. He will also yield to God's superior authority submissively. We see the psalmists expressing their reverence for God and bowing humbly to His will throughout the Psalter.

The third major revelation concerning worship in the psalms is the activities of worship. As we have seen, one's conception of God leads to worship, and one's attitudes shape worship. One's activities also demonstrate worship.

The psalms reveal that worship grows out of something God has done for man. Man does not worship because there is something intrinsic within him that must come out. Worship is always a response to something God has done. God elicits worship. Man does not initiate it on his own. Throughout the psalms the psalmists responded to God's dealings with them. God is always the initiator and man the responder. This fact helps us see that God is worthy of worship.

Human response in worship involves opening the soul to God. David's confession in Psalm 32 is a good example of this. He rejoiced in his open relationship with God when he acknowledged his sin. He also received God's gift of pardon. Then he offered praise to God. These are the essential human activities of worship: confession, reception, and praise.

After God initiates worship and man responds by worshipping, God becomes to the worshipper all he or she needs. God is true and faithful in His dealings with worshippers. He becomes for us all we need when we worship Him. Thus the activities of worship begin and end with God. They begin with His initiating situations in life. They end with His drawing us to Himself. In between we bare our souls, receive His gifts, and offer our praise.

The message of the Psalter then is, "Worship God!" Turn every situation into an occasion for worship. If we are sad we should worship. If we are glad we should worship. If we are in the dark we should worship. If we are in the light we should worship. The Apostle Paul expressed it this way in Philippians 4:4 and 7: "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice. . . . And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. You praise the Lord" (Ps. 150:6).

Constable: Psalms (Outline)

Outline

I. Book 1: chs. 1-41

II. Book 2: chs. 42-72

III. Book 3: chs. 73-89

IV. Book 4: chs. 90-106

V. Book 5: chs. 107-150

Constable: Psalms

Psalms

Bibliography

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Psalms (Book Introduction)

THE BOOK OF PSALMS.

INTRODUCTION.

The Psalms are called by the Hebrew, Tehillim; that is, hymns of praise. The author, of a great part of them at least, was king David; but many are of opinion, that some of them were made by Asaph and others, whose names are prefixed in the titles. (Challoner) --- These, however, are not unquestionably of divine authority, though they deserve to be respected. (Calmet) --- St. Jerome (ad Cyprian) says: "Let us be convinced that those labour under a mistake, who suppose that David was the author of all the Psalms, and not those whose names appear in the titles." Paine is not, therefore, the first who has made this discovery. (Watson) (2 Paralipomenon xxix. 30.) --- Psalm lxxvi., compared with Psalms xxxviii., lxiv., lxx., cxi., cxxv., cxxxvi., and cxlv., seems favourable of this opinion, (Calmet; Tirinus; &c.) which is contrary to St. Ambrose, &c. The matter is not of great moment, as all confess that the 150 Psalms were dedicated by the Holy Ghost. (Du Hamel) --- St. Augustine (City of God xvii. 14.) attributes all the Psalms to David; and it seems best to adhere to this opinion, as it is most generally received. (Menochius) --- Our Saviour cites the cix. Psalm as belonging to David, (Matthew xxii. 44.) agreeably to the title; and the 2d Psalm is also attributed to him, by the apostles, (Acts iv. 25.) though it have no title at all, no more than the first. (Haydock) --- It has generally been asserted, that when a Psalm is in this position, it must be referred to the author who was mentioned last. But Bellarmine calls this in question: and the titles of themselves afford but a precarious argument, either to know the author or the real import of the Psalm. (Calmet) --- St. Jerome himself (ad Paulin.) seems to suppose that David was the writer of all the Psalms, (Worthington) and that he has left us compositions which may vie with those of the most celebrated pagan bards. In effect, nothing could excel the harmony of these divine hymns, to judge even from a translation. (Fleury.) --- What then would they be in the original? The difficulty of coming to a perfect knowledge of the author's meaning, arises chiefly from the variety of translations and commentaries, which have been more numerous on this work than any other. To examine all minutely, would require more volumes than our present limits will allow. The version which we have to explain, is not that which St. Jerome made from the Hebrew and which possesses the same intrinsic merit as the rest of his works: but the Church has declared authentic the holy doctor's corrected (Haydock) version from St. Lucian, (Bellarmine; Tirinus) or from the Septuagint as the people had been accustomed to sing the psalter in that manner; and it would have been difficult for them to learn another. (Calmet) --- A critical examination would show, that the Septuagint have not so often deviated from the original [Hebrew] as some would pretend. See Berthier, &c. Pellican extols the fidelity of our version on the Psalms, though he was a Protestant. (Ward. Err. p. 6.) --- When therefore we offer a different version, we would not insinuate that the Vulgate is therefore to be rejected. The copiousness of the Hebrew language, (Haydock) and on some occasions the uncertainty of its roots, or precise import, (Somon. Crit.) ought to make every one diffident in pronouncing peremptorily on such subjects. Let us rather adhere to the decision of the Church, when it is given on any particular text; and when she is silent, let us endeavour to draw the streams of life from our Saviour's fountains, and read for our improvement in virtue. (Haydock) --- No exhortations could be more cogent, than those which we may find in the Psalms. They contain the sum of all the other sacred books, as the Fathers agree. (St. Augustine; St. Basil; &c.) To understand them better, we must reflect upon what key or string they each play. Expositors discover ten such stings on this mysterious harp: 1. God; 2. his works; 3. Providence; 4. the peculiar people of the Jews; 5. Christ; 6. his Church; 7. true worship; 8. David; 9. the end of the world; 10. a future life. On some of these subjects the Psalm principally turns. The titles, composed by Esdras, or the Septuagint, (Worthington) or by some other, (Calmet) will often point out the subject; and if that be not the case, the context and other parts of Scripture will (Worthington) commonly (Haydock) do it. (Worthington) --- The greatest stress must be laid on these. (Calmet) --- An intimate acquaintance with the history of David, and with the Jewish and Christian religion, will also be of essential service to enable us to penetrate the hidden treasures contained in these most heavenly canticles. (Haydock) --- David excels all the pagans in point of antiquity, as he lived 100 years before Homer. His natural genius led him to follow the pursuits of poetry and music; (1 Kings xvi. 23.) and God inspired him to compose these poems, as works in metre are more easily remembered, and make a more pleasing impression upon the heart. Hence Moses and other prophets adopted the same plan, both in the Old and the New Testament. The pious king [David] not being permitted to build the temple, made nevertheless all necessary preparations for it; and among the rest, procured 288 masters of music to train up 4000 singers, 1 Paralipomenon xxiii. 25. He foresaw that these Psalms would be of service, not only on the Jewish festivals, but also in the Christian Church, (Psalm lvi., 10., &c.) gathered from all nations, (Worthington) among whom he sings by the mouths (Haydock) of the clergy, who are commanded daily to sing or recite some of these Psalms. (Worthington) --- The psalter takes its name from an instrument of ten strings, resembling the Greek [letter] Lamda, (Ven. Bede) and sounding from above, to insinuate that we may (Worthington) here learn to observe (Haydock) all the decalogue, and to aim at heaven. If difficulties present themselves in the perusal of these sacred writings, we must remember not to trust private interpretation, (2 Peter i.) but to the doctrine of the Church, (John xiv. 16., and 1 Corinthians xii.) which we may find in the works of the holy Fathers, (St. Augustine, Doct.[On Christian Doctrine?]) and exercise ourselves in humility, when any thing occurs above our comprehension. (St. Gregory xvii. in Ezechiel) (Worthington) --- We must pray with all earnestness to the Father of Lights, and surely no prayers can be more efficacious to obtain what we want, than those which he has here delivered. Whether just or sinners, whether in joy or sorrow, we may here find what may be suitable for us. (Haydock) --- In hoc libro spiritualis Bibliotheca instructa est. (Cassiodorus)

Gill: Psalms (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO PSALMS

The title of this book may be rendered "the Book of Praises", or "Hymns"; the psalm which our Lord sung at the passover is called an "hymn", Mat 26:30; and the one hundred forty fifth Psalm is entitled תהלה, "an Hymn of David"; and the psalms in general are called "hymns" by Philo the Jew ^a, and songs and hymns by Josephus ^b; and to these several names of this book the apostle manifestly refers in Eph 5:19, Col 3:16. The Jews divided the writings of the Old Testament into three parts: the first division is the Law, or five books of Moses; the second is the Prophets, former and latter; and the third, the "Hagiographa", or holy writings; to which division Christ has a regard in Luk 24:44; and because the book of Psalms stand first in the last division, the whole goes by its name. This book by the Apostle Peter is entitled as here, Act 1:20; the title in the Syriac version is,

"the Book of the Psalms of David, King and Prophet,''

with which agrees the Arabic version. As to the divine authority of it, that it was written by inspiration of God, we have not only the testimony of David, who says, "the Spirit of God spake by me", 2Sa 23:2; but the testimonies of Christ and his apostles, Mat 22:43; and, as Aben Ezra ^c observes the whole of it was spoken ברוח הקודש, "by the Holy Ghost". Concerning the penman or amanuensis, employed by the Spirit of God in writing it, there are different opinions. The Jews make mention of ten, which are differently reckoned by them. According to Jarchi ^d, they were Adam, Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Asaph, and the three sons of Korah. According to Kimchi ^e, they were Adam, the first, Melchizedek, Abraham, Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, Moses, and the three sons of Korah; Asir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph. Some ascribe all the Psalms to David ^f, and think that those which are said to be a psalm of Asaph, or of Heman, &c. should be rendered "a psalm to Asaph", &c. and only signify that they were psalms delivered to them, to be sung in a public manner. But the truest opinion seems to be, that the greater part of them were written by David, and for the most part those that have no title; and the rest by those whose names they bear. Some were written at and after the Babylonish captivity, as Psa 126:1 and Psa 137:1. The manner or form in which they were written was metre ^g, though some deny it that the Jews had metre: as appears by the different accentuation of them from other writings, and from their being sung vocally and on musical instruments. Josephus ^h, the Jewish historian, says, that

"David being free from war, and enjoying a profound peace, composed songs and hymns to God, of various metre; some trimeter, and some pentameter;''

that is, some of three feet, and others of five feet: for the Psalms of David are thought to be of the "lyric" kind; and Gomarus, in his Lyra, has given many instances out of them, which are of the "iambic", "trochaic" kind, &c. though the Jews for many years have lost the knowledge of the sacred poetry. R. Benjamin ⁱ indeed says, that in his time there were at Bagdad R. Eleazar and his brethren, who knew how to sing the songs, as the singers did when the temple was standing. The subject matter of this book is exceeding great and excellent; many of the psalms respect the person, offices, and grace of Christ; his sufferings and death, resurrection, ascension, and session at the right hand of God; and so are exceeding suitable to the Gospel dispensation. The whole book is a rich mine of grace and evangelical truths, and a large fund of spiritual experience; and is abundantly suited to every case, state, and condition, that the church of Christ, or particular believers, are in at any time.

Gill: Psalms 78 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 78

Maschil of Asaph. Or for "Asaph" ^f; a doctrinal and "instructive" psalm, as the word "Maschil" signifies; see Psa 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, 2Ch 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 Mat 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.