Psalms Chapter 78 of 150 about 5 min read

Psalm 78

What happens in this chapter

Chapter summary coming soon.

Verse 1. A Maskil of Asaph. Give ear, O my people, to my instruction; listen to the words of my mouth.

Verse 2. I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the beginning,

Verse 3. that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.

Verse 4. We will not hide them from their children but will declare to the next generation the praises of the LORD and His might and the wonders He has performed.

Verse 5. For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children,

Verse 6. that the coming generation would know them—even children yet to be born—to arise and tell their own children

Verse 7. that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments.

Verse 8. Then they will not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose heart was not loyal, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

Verse 9. The archers of Ephraim turned back on the day of battle.

Verse 10. They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.

Verse 11. They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.

Verse 12. He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

Verse 13. He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.

Verse 14. He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night.

Verse 15. He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.

Verse 16. He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers.

Verse 17. But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

Verse 18. They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.

Verse 19. They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?

Verse 20. When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?”

Verse 21. Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel,

Verse 22. because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.

Verse 23. Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens.

Verse 24. He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.

Verse 25. Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.

Verse 26. He stirred the east wind from the heavens and drove the south wind by His might.

Verse 27. He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

Verse 28. He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.

Verse 29. So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved.

Verse 30. Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,

Verse 31. God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.

Verse 32. In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.

Verse 33. So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror.

Verse 34. When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.

Verse 35. And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.

Verse 36. But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues.

Verse 37. Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

Verse 38. And yet He was compassionate; He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. He often restrained His anger and did not unleash His full wrath.

Verse 39. He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

Verse 40. How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

Verse 41. Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Verse 42. They did not remember His power—the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

Verse 43. when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

Verse 44. He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink.

Verse 45. He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.

Verse 46. He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust.

Verse 47. He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

Verse 48. He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.

Verse 49. He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity—a band of destroying angels.

Verse 50. He cleared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague.

Verse 51. He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham.

Verse 52. He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

Verse 53. He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.

Verse 54. He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired.

Verse 55. He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

Verse 56. But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees.

Verse 57. They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.

Verse 58. They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

Verse 59. On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.

Verse 60. He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men.

Verse 61. He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

Verse 62. He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage.

Verse 63. Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs.

Verse 64. His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.

Verse 65. Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.

Verse 66. He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame.

Verse 67. He rejected the tent of Joseph and refused the tribe of Ephraim.

Verse 68. But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.

Verse 69. He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever.

Verse 70. He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds;

Verse 71. from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance.

Verse 72. So David shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.