Psalms 78 — WEBBE

A contemplation by Asaph.

78Verse 1Hear my teaching, my people.Turn your ears to the words of my mouth.^{Verse 2}I will open my mouth in a parable.I will utter dark sayings of old,^{Verse 3}which we have heard and known,and our fathers have told us.^{Verse 4}We will not hide them from their children,telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD,
his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done.^{Verse 5}For he established a covenant in Jacob,and appointed a teaching in Israel,
which he commanded our fathers,
that they should make them known to their children;^{Verse 6}that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born;who should arise and tell their children,^{Verse 7}that they might set their hope in God,and not forget God’s deeds,
but keep his commandments,^{Verse 8}and might not be as their fathers—a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal,
whose spirit was not steadfast with God.^{Verse 9}The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows,turned back in the day of battle.^{Verse 10}They didn’t keep God’s covenant,and refused to walk in his law.^{Verse 11}They forgot his doings,his wondrous deeds that he had shown them.^{Verse 12}He did marvellous things in the sight of their fathers,in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.^{Verse 13}He split the sea, and caused them to pass through.He made the waters stand as a heap.^{Verse 14}In the daytime he also led them with a cloud,and all night with a light of fire.^{Verse 15}He split rocks in the wilderness,and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths.^{Verse 16}He brought streams also out of the rock,and caused waters to run down like rivers.^{Verse 17}Yet they still went on to sin against him,to rebel against the Most High in the desert.^{Verse 18}They tempted God in their heartby asking food according to their desire.^{Verse 19}Yes, they spoke against God.They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?^{Verse 20}Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out,and streams overflowed.Can he give bread also?Will he provide meat for his people?”^{Verse 21}Therefore the LORD heard, and was angry.A fire was kindled against Jacob,
anger also went up against Israel,^{Verse 22}because they didn’t believe in God,and didn’t trust in his salvation.^{Verse 23}Yet he commanded the skies above,and opened the doors of heaven.^{Verse 24}He rained down manna on them to eat,and gave them food from the sky.^{Verse 25}Man ate the bread of angels.He sent them food to the full.^{Verse 26}He caused the east wind to blow in the sky.By his power he guided the south wind.^{Verse 27}He also rained meat on them as the dust,winged birds as the sand of the seas.^{Verse 28}He let them fall in the middle of their camp,around their habitations.^{Verse 29}So they ate, and were well filled.He gave them their own desire.^{Verse 30}They didn’t turn from their cravings.Their food was yet in their mouths,
^{Verse 31}when the anger of God went up against them,
killed some of their strongest,
and struck down the young men of Israel.^{Verse 32}For all this they still sinned,and didn’t believe in his wondrous works.^{Verse 33}Therefore he consumed their days in vanity,and their years in terror.^{Verse 34}When he killed them, then they enquired after him.They returned and sought God earnestly.^{Verse 35}They remembered that God was their rock,the Most High God, their redeemer.^{Verse 36}But they flattered him with their mouth,and lied to him with their tongue.^{Verse 37}For their heart was not right with him,neither were they faithful in his covenant.^{Verse 38}But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn’t destroy them.Yes, many times he turned his anger away,
and didn’t stir up all his wrath.^{Verse 39}He remembered that they were but flesh,a wind that passes away, and doesn’t come again.^{Verse 40}How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness,and grieved him in the desert!^{Verse 41}They turned again and tempted God,and provoked the Holy One of Israel.^{Verse 42}They didn’t remember his hand,nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary;^{Verse 43}how he set his signs in Egypt,his wonders in the field of Zoan,^{Verse 44}he turned their rivers into blood,and their streams, so that they could not drink.^{Verse 45}He sent amongst them swarms of flies, which devoured them;and frogs, which destroyed them.^{Verse 46}He also gave their increase to the caterpillar,and their labour to the locust.^{Verse 47}He destroyed their vines with hail,their sycamore fig trees with frost.^{Verse 48}He also gave over their livestock to the hail,and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.^{Verse 49}He threw on them the fierceness of his anger,wrath, indignation, and trouble,
and a band of angels of evil.^{Verse 50}He made a path for his anger.He didn’t spare their soul from death,
but gave their life over to the pestilence,^{Verse 51}and struck all the firstborn in Egypt,the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.^{Verse 52}But he led out his own people like sheep,and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.^{Verse 53}He led them safely, so that they weren’t afraid,but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.^{Verse 54}He brought them to the border of his sanctuary,to this mountain, which his right hand had taken.^{Verse 55}He also drove out the nations before them,allotted them for an inheritance by line,
and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.^{Verse 56}Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God,and didn’t keep his testimonies,^{Verse 57}but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers.They were twisted like a deceitful bow.^{Verse 58}For they provoked him to anger with their high places,and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.^{Verse 59}When God heard this, he was angry,and greatly abhorred Israel,^{Verse 60}so that he abandoned the tent of Shiloh,the tent which he placed amongst men,^{Verse 61}and delivered his strength into captivity,his glory into the adversary’s hand.^{Verse 62}He also gave his people over to the sword,and was angry with his inheritance.^{Verse 63}Fire devoured their young men.Their virgins had no wedding song.^{Verse 64}Their priests fell by the sword,and their widows couldn’t weep.^{Verse 65}Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep,like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine.^{Verse 66}He struck his adversaries backward.He put them to a perpetual reproach.^{Verse 67}Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph,and didn’t choose the tribe of Ephraim,^{Verse 68}But chose the tribe of Judah,Mount Zion which he loved.^{Verse 69}He built his sanctuary like the heights,like the earth which he has established forever.^{Verse 70}He also chose David his servant,and took him from the sheepfolds;^{Verse 71}from following the ewes that have their young,he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people,
and Israel, his inheritance.^{Verse 72}So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart,and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.