Psalms Chapter 78
Maskil of Asaph
1 Listen to my instruction, my people;
pay attention to what I’m saying.
2 I’ll tell a parable and offer hidden truths from our history,
3 things we’ve heard and known from our ancestors.
4 We won’t keep them from our children;
we’ll tell the next generation what we praise Yahveh for:
his strength, the amazing things he’s done.
Ps 78:1-4
5 He established a Testimony in Jacob
and appointed a Law in Israel,
one that he commanded our ancestors
to teach their children;
6so the coming generation would know—
children not yet born—
so they’d grow up and tell their children
7to put their confidence in God,
not forget what he’s done,
and keep his commands.
8 They weren’t to be like their ancestors,
stubborn and rebellious,
who didn’t prepare their heart,
whose spirit wasn’t faithful to God.
9The Ephraimites were archers equipped with bows;
yet they retreated in battle.
10They didn’t keep God’s covenant
or follow his Law.
Ps 78:5-10
11 They forgot what he’d done,
the miracles he’d shown them.
12He performed wonders for their ancestors to see
in Egypt and in the plain of Zoan.
13He divided the sea so they could pass through it
and made the water stand in a pile.
14He led them with a cloud in the daytime
and the light of fire at night.
15He split rocks open in the desert
to give them drinking water in abundance.
16He brought streams out of rock
and made water run like a river.
17 Yet they continued to sin against him,
to rebel against the Most High in the desert.
18In their heart they put him to trial
by asking for food they’d like better.
19They spoke against him
“Can God prepare a table in the desert?
20 He struck the rock, and water gushed out
and streams overflowed.
Can he give us bread too?
Can he feed us meat?”
Ps 78:11-20
21 When Yahveh heard it, he was furious;
his wrath burned like fire against Jacob;
his anger flared at Israel
22 because they didn’t believe in him
or trust in him to deliver them.
23 Yet he commanded the clouds above
and opened the doors in the sky,
24and rained down manna on them
and gave them bread from the sky to eat.
25 People ate the bread of angels;
God sent them food in abundance.
26 He made the east wind blow
and directed the south wind by his power.
27 When he rained meat on them as plentiful as dust—
winged fowl as abundant as sand by the sea—
28he let them fall in the camp around the tents.
Ps 78:21-28
29 So they ate their fill of what they craved.
30 Before they’d satisfied their desire,
while their food was in their mouths,
31God’s anger swelled up against them;
he killed their strongest
and cut down Israel’s picked men.
32 In spite of that, they still sinned
and didn’t believe in his wonderful deeds.
33 So he brought their days to an end in futility,
their years in terror.
Ps 78:29-33
34 When he started taking their lives,
they finally repented and turned to him diligently.
35 They remembered that he was their rock,
that the Most High God was their redeemer.
36 But they tried to flatter him and lie to him
37because they weren’t being honest with him
or faithful to his covenant.
38 But in his mercy, he forgave their sin
and didn’t destroy them;
he often restrained his anger
and didn’t express all his wrath.
39 He remembered that they were mortal,
wind that blows and doesn’t return.
40 How often they rebelled against him in the desert
and grieved him there!
41Again and again they tested him
and pained the Holy One of Israel.
Ps 78:34-41
42 They didn’t keep in mind his power
or his rescuing them from their foe
43 as when he performed his signs in Egypt
and his miracles in the plain of Zoan:
44 he turned their streams to blood
so they couldn’t drink from them;
45he sent swarms of flies that devoured them
and frogs to devour them;
46he gave their crops to caterpillars
and the product from their labor to locusts;
47he destroyed their grapevines with hail
and their sycamore-figs with sleet;
48he exposed their cattle to hailstones
and their flocks to lightning bolts;
49he let loose his hot anger on them:
fury, indignation, and distress—
a band of destroying messengers;
50he directed his anger against them,
not sparing them from plague and death;
51he struck Egypt’s firstborn,
the oldest sons in the tents of Ham.
52 Then he led his own people out like sheep
and guided them in the desert like a flock.
53 He led them safely so they weren’t afraid,
but the sea drowned their enemies.
Ps 78:42-53
54 He brought them to his holy land,
to this hill country that he’d won.
55 He drove out the nations in front of them,
divided up the land for an inheritance,
and enabled the tribes of Israel to live in their tents.
56 Yet they tested him and rebelled against the Most High God,
and didn’t observe his testimonies.
57They were as unreliable as a crooked bow.
58 They provoked him with their high places
and aroused his jealousy with their carved images.
Ps 78:54-58
59 When God heard it, he was angry
and came to abhor Israel.
60So he abandoned his house in Shiloh,
the Tabernacle he’d pitched among them.
61He let his powerful Ark be captured
and surrendered his honor to the adversary.
62 He allowed the sword to destroy his people
and vented his anger on his inheritance.
63 Fire consumed his young men;
virgins had no wedding songs.
64 His priests fell by the sword,
and widows couldn’t weep.
Ps 78:59-64
65 Then Yahveh woke up as from sleeping,
like a soldier aroused from drunkenness.
66 He routed his adversaries
and put them to eternal shame.
67 He rejected Joseph’s descendants
and chose not to keep the tribe of Ephraim,
68but chose Judah, Mount Zion that he loved.
69 He built his sanctuary as high as the sky,
as enduring as the earth.
70 He chose David his servant,
took him from the sheepfolds,
71 from tending ewes that had young
to shepherding Jacob his people,
Israel his inheritance.
72He shepherded them with a godly heart
and led them with skillful hands.
Ps 78:65-72