Psalms 78
78
Lessons from History
Asaph’s poetic song of instruction
1Beloved ones, listen to this instruction.
Open your heart to the revelation
of this mystery that I share with you.
2A parable and a proverb are hidden in what I say—
an intriguing riddle # 78:2 The Hebrew word for “riddle” (chidoth) comes from the verb meaning “to tie a knot.” It is something that must be untied and unraveled by the Spirit of God. One of these riddles or wordplays is the name of Jesus hidden in plain sight (see v. 22 and footnote). from the past.
3-4We’ve heard true stories from our fathers about our rich heritage.
We will continue to tell our children
and not hide from the rising generation
the great marvels of our God—
his miracles and power that have brought us all this far.
5The story of Israel is a lesson in God’s ways.
He established decrees for Jacob and established the law in Israel,
and he commanded our forefathers to teach them to their children.
6For perpetuity God’s ways will be passed down
from one generation to the next, even to those not yet born.
7In this way, every generation will set its hope in God
and not forget his wonderful works but keep his commandments.
8By following his ways they will break the past bondage
of their fickle fathers, who were a stubborn, rebellious generation
and whose spirits strayed from the eternal God.
They refused to love him with all their hearts.
9Take, for example, the sons of Ephraim.
Though they were all equipped warriors, each with weapons,
when the battle began they retreated and ran away in fear.
10They didn’t really believe the promises of God;
they refused to trust him and move forward in faith.
11They forgot his wonderful works and the miracles of the past,
12even their exodus from Egypt, the epic miracle of his might.
They forgot the glories of his power at the place of passing over. # 78:12 Or “the fields of Zoan.” Zoan means “crossing place” or “place of departure.” (See v. 43.)
13God split the sea wide open, and
the waters stood at attention on either side
as the people passed on through!
14By day the moving glory-cloud led them forward.
And all through the night the fire-cloud stood as a sentry of light.
15-16In the days of desert dryness, he split open the mighty rock,
and the waters flowed like a river before their very eyes.
He gave them all they wanted to drink from his living springs.
17Yet they kept their rebellion alive against God Most High,
and their sins against God continued to be counted.
18In their hearts they tested God just to get what they wanted,
asking for the food their hearts craved.
19-20Like spoiled children they grumbled against God,
demanding he prove his love by saying,
“Can’t God provide for us in this barren wilderness?
Will he give us food, or will he only give us water?
Where’s our meal?”
21Then God heard all their complaining and was furious!
His anger flared up against his people.
22For they turned away from faith and walked away in fear;
they failed to trust in his power to save # 78:22 The word for “save” looks and sounds like Yeshua (Jesus). them when he was near.
23-24Still he spoke on their behalf, and the skies opened up;
the windows of heaven poured out food,
the mercy bread-manna.
The grain of grace fell from the clouds.
25Humans ate angels’ food—the meal of the mighty ones. # 78:25 The word for “angels” is ‘abirim which means “brave,” “noble,” or “strong.” The psalmist was saying that God gave them the best, most delicious food imaginable, a meal eaten by the mighty ones, and yet the people grew tired of it and began to complain and demanded some variety.
His grace gave them more than enough!
26-27The heavenly winds of miracle power blew in their favor,
and food rained down upon them;
succulent quail quieted their hunger as they ate all they wanted.
28Food fell from the skies, thick as clouds;
their provision floated down right in front of their eyes!
29He gave them all they desired, and they ate to their fill.
30-31But before they had even finished,
even with their food still in their mouths,
God’s fiery anger arose against them,
killing the finest of their mighty men.
32Yet in spite of all this, they kept right on sinning.
Even when they saw God’s marvels,
they refused to believe God could care for them.
33So God cut their lives short with sudden disaster,
with nothing to show for their lives but fear and failure.
34When he cared for them they ignored him,
but when he began to kill them, ending their lives in a moment,
they came running back to God, pleading for mercy.
35They remembered that God, the Mighty One,
was their strong protector,
the Hero-God who would come to their rescue.
36-37But their repentance lasted only as long as they were in danger;
they lied through their teeth to the true God of the Covenant.
So quickly they wandered away from his promises,
following God with their words and not their hearts!
Their worship was only flattery.
38But amazingly, God—so full of compassion—still forgave them.
He covered over their sins with his love,
refusing to destroy them all.
Over and over he held back his anger,
restraining wrath to show them mercy.
39He knew that they were made from mere dust—
frail, fragile, and short-lived, here today and gone tomorrow.
40How many times they rebelled in their desert days!
How they grieved him with their grumblings.
41Again and again they limited God, preventing him from blessing them.
Continually they turned back from him
and provoked # 78:41 The Hebrew verb for “provoked” is a hapax legomenon and comes from a root word for “marked.” It is as though Israel’s behavior wounded the heart of God. the Holy One of Israel!
42They forgot his great love, how he took them by his hand,
and with redemption’s kiss he delivered them from their enemies.
43They disregarded all the epic signs and marvels they saw
when they escaped from Egypt’s bondage.
They forgot the judgment of the plagues that set them free.
44God turned their rivers into blood, leaving the people thirsty.
45He sent them vast swarms of filthy flies that sucked their blood.
He sent hordes of frogs, ruining their lives.
46Grasshoppers consumed all their crops.
47Every garden and every orchard
was flattened with blasts of hailstones,
their fruit trees ruined by a killing frost.
48Even their cattle fell prey, pounded by the falling hail;
their livestock were struck with bolts of lightning.
49Finally, he unleashed upon them the fierceness of his anger.
Such fury!
He sent them sorrow and devastating trouble
by his mighty band of destroying angels;
messengers of death were dispatched against them.
50-51He lifted his mercy and let loose his fearful anger
and did not spare their lives.
He released the judgment-plagues to rage through their land.
God struck down in death all the firstborn sons of Egypt—
the pride and joy of each family.
52Then, like a shepherd leading his sheep, God led his people
out of tyranny, guiding them through the wilderness like a flock.
53Safely and carefully God led them out, with nothing to fear.
But their enemies he led into the sea.
He took care of them there once and for all!
54Eventually God brought his people to the Holy Land,
to a land of hills that he had prepared for them. # 78:54 The Aramaic reads “He brought them to the border of his holiness, the mountain possessed by his right hand.”
55He drove out and scattered all the peoples occupying the land,
staking out an inheritance, a portion for each of Israel’s tribes.
56Yet for all of this, they still rebelled and refused to follow his ways,
provoking to anger the God Most High.
57-58Like traitors turning back, they forsook him.
They were even worse than their fathers!
They became treacherous deceivers, crooked and corrupt,
and worshiped false gods in the high places,
bringing low the name of God with every idol they erected.
No wonder he was filled with jealousy and furious with anger!
59Enraged with anger, God turned his wrath on them,
and he rejected his people with disgust.
60God walked away from them and left his dwelling place at Shiloh,
abandoning the place where he had lived among them,
61allowing his emblem of strength, his glory-ark, to be captured.
Enemies stole the very source of Israel’s power.
62God vented his rage, allowing his people to be butchered
when they went out to battle,
for his anger was intense against his very own.
63Their young men fell on the battlefield and never came back.
Their daughters never heard their wedding songs,
since there was no one left to marry!
64Their priests were slaughtered and their widows were killed
before they had time to weep.
65Then all at once the Almighty awakened
as though he had been asleep.
Like a mighty man he arose, roaring into action!
66He blasted into battle, driving back every foe,
defeating them and disgracing them for time and eternity.
67He rejected Joseph’s family, the tribe of Ephraim.
68He chose instead the tribe of Judah # 78:68 The place of God’s dwelling was moved from the land of Ephraim (Shiloh) to the land of Judah (Jerusalem).
and Mount Zion, which he loves.
69There he built his towering temple,
strong and enduring as the earth itself.
70God also chose his beloved one, David.
He promoted him from caring for sheep
and made him his prophetic servant.
71-72God prepared David and took this gentle shepherd-king
and presented him before the people
as the one who would love and care for them
with integrity, a pure heart, and the anointing
to lead Israel, his holy inheritance.
Currently Selected:
Psalms 78: TPT
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
The Passion Translation® is a registered trademark of Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc.
Copyright © 2020 Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc.
Learn More About The Passion TranslationTehillim (Psa) 78
78
1A maskil of Asaf:
Listen, my people, to my teaching;
turn your ears to the words from my mouth.
2I will speak to you in parables
and explain mysteries from days of old.
3The things which we have heard and known,
and which our fathers told us
4we will not hide from their descendants;
we will tell the generation to come
the praises of Adonai and his strength,
the wonders that he has performed.
5He raised up a testimony in Ya‘akov
and established a Torah in Isra’el.
He commanded our ancestors
to make this known to their children,
6so that the next generation would know it,
the children not yet born,
who would themselves arise
and tell their own children,
7who could then put their confidence in God,
not forgetting God’s deeds,
but obeying his mitzvot.
8Then they would not be like their ancestors,
a stubborn, rebellious generation,
a generation with unprepared hearts,
with spirits unfaithful to God.
9The people of Efrayim, though armed with bows and arrows,
turned their backs on the day of battle.
10They did not keep the covenant of God
and refused to live by his Torah.
11They forgot what he had done,
his wonders which he had shown them.
12He had done wonderful things
in the presence of their ancestors
in the land of Egypt,
in the region of Tzo‘an.
13He split the sea and made them pass through,
he made the waters stand up like a wall.
14He also led them by day with a cloud
and all night long with light from a fire.
15He broke apart the rocks in the desert
and let them drink as if from boundless depths;
16yes, he brought streams out of the rock,
making the water flow down like rivers.
17Yet they sinned still more against him,
rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High;
18in their hearts they tested God
by demanding food that would satisfy their cravings.
19Yes, they spoke against God by asking,
“Can God spread a table in the desert?
20True, he struck the rock, and water gushed out,
until the vadis overflowed;
but what about bread? Can he give that?
Can he provide meat for his people?”
21Therefore, when Adonai heard, he was angry;
fire blazed up against Ya‘akov;
his anger mounted against Isra’el;
22because they had no faith in God,
no trust in his power to save.
23So he commanded the skies above
and opened the doors of heaven.
24He rained down man on them as food;
he gave them grain from heaven —
25mortals ate the bread of angels;
he provided for them to the full.
26He stirred up the east wind in heaven,
brought on the south wind by his power,
27and rained down meat on them like dust,
birds flying thick as the sand on the seashore.
28He let them fall in the middle of their camp,
all around their tents.
29So they ate till they were satisfied;
he gave them what they craved.
30They were still fulfilling their craving,
the food was still in their mouths,
31when the anger of God rose up against them
and slaughtered their strongest men,
laying low the young men of Isra’el.
32Still, they kept on sinning
and put no faith in his wonders.
33Therefore, he ended their days in futility
and their years in terror.
34When he brought death among them, they would seek him;
they would repent and seek God eagerly,
35remembering that God was their Rock,
El ‘Elyon their Redeemer.
36But they tried to deceive him with their words,
they lied to him with their tongues;
37for their hearts were not right with him,
and they were unfaithful to his covenant.
38Yet he, because he is full of compassion,
forgave their sin and did not destroy;
many times he turned away his anger
and didn’t rouse all his wrath.
39So he remembered that they were but flesh,
a wind that blows past and does not return.
40How often they rebelled against him in the desert
and grieved him in the wastelands!
41Repeatedly they challenged God
and pained the Holy One of Isra’el.
42They didn’t remember how he used his hand
on the day he redeemed them from their enemy,
43how he displayed his signs in Egypt,
his wonders in the region of Tzo‘an.
44He turned their rivers into blood,
so they couldn’t drink from their streams.
45He sent swarms of flies, which devoured them,
and frogs, which destroyed them.
46He gave their harvest to shearer-worms,
the fruit of their labor to locusts.
47He destroyed their vineyards with hail
and their sycamore-figs with frost.
48Their cattle too he gave over to the hail
and their flocks to lightning bolts.
49He sent over them his fierce anger,
fury, indignation and trouble,
with a company of destroying angels
50to clear a path for his wrath.
He did not spare them from death,
but gave them over to the plague,
51striking all the firstborn in Egypt,
the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52But his own people he led out like sheep,
guiding them like a flock in the desert.
53He led them safely, and they weren’t afraid,
even when the sea overwhelmed their foes.
54He brought them to his holy land,
to the hill-country won by his right hand.
55He expelled nations before them,
apportioned them property to inherit
and made Isra’el’s tribes live in their tents.
56Yet they tested El ‘Elyon
and rebelled against him,
refusing to obey his instructions.
57They turned away and were faithless, like their fathers;
they were unreliable, like a bow without tension.
58They provoked him with their high places
and made him jealous with their idols.
59God heard, and he was angry;
he came to detest Isra’el completely.
60He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh,
the tent he had made where he could live among people.
61He gave his strength into exile,
his pride to the power of the foe.
62He gave his people over to the sword
and grew angry with his own heritage.
63Fire consumed their young men,
their virgins had no wedding-song,
64their cohanim fell by the sword,
and their widows could not weep.
65Then Adonai awoke, as if from sleep,
like a warrior shouting for joy from wine.
66He struck his foes, driving them back
and putting them to perpetual shame.
67Rejecting the tents of Yosef
and passing over the tribe of Efrayim,
68he chose the tribe of Y’hudah,
Mount Tziyon, which he loved.
69He built his sanctuary like the heights;
like the earth, he made it to last forever.
70He chose David to be his servant,
taking him from the sheep-yards;
71from tending nursing ewes he brought him
to shepherd Ya‘akov his people,
Isra’el his heritage.
72With upright heart he shepherded them
and guided them with skillful hands.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
For more information and to purchase a hard copy of the Complete Jewish Bible,
Learn More About Complete Jewish Bible