Psalms 78

Translator Notes

1. The word torah in its original sense means 'instruction, direction, guidance' — from yarah ('to throw, to shoot, to direct'). The broader meaning of 'the Law of Moses' developed later. Here it refers to the pedagogical content of the psalm.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Matthew 13:35 quotes this verse as fulfilled in Jesus' use of parables, connecting the psalm's teaching method to the gospel tradition. In its original context, the 'parable' is the entire national history read as a lesson.

Translator Notes

1. The chain of transmission is explicit: ancestors (avoteinu) told the current generation (shamanu, 'we heard'), and the current generation will tell the next (verse 4). This is oral tradition's self-conscious claim to legitimacy — the story has been faithfully transmitted.

Translator Notes

1. This verse establishes the psalm's primary purpose: intergenerational transmission of sacred history. The concern is not antiquarian but existential — if the next generation does not know this story, they will repeat the failures described in what follows.

Translator Notes

1. The parallel edut ('testimony, witness') and torah ('law, instruction') refers to God's covenant requirements — the commands and teachings that define Israel's relationship with God. The transmission is not optional but commanded (tsivvah): teaching the next generation is itself a divine mandate.

Translator Notes

1. The chain extends three generations: the current generation tells the next, who tells the one after that. The phrase banim yivvaledu ('children yet to be born') acknowledges that the audience includes people who do not yet exist. History is told for the sake of the unborn.

Translator Notes

1. The three-part purpose: kislam ('their confidence') in God, not forgetting God's deeds, and keeping God's commands. Memory and obedience are linked: to forget what God has done leads directly to disobeying what God has commanded.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase dor sorer u-moreh echoes Deuteronomy 21:18, where the stubborn and rebellious son is the extreme case of covenant disloyalty within a family. Applied to a generation, it means the entire people behaved like a delinquent child toward their divine parent.

Translator Notes

1. The historical reference is obscure — no specific battle of Ephraimite retreat is recorded. The charge may be metaphorical: Ephraim was equipped for covenant faithfulness but turned away when tested. The military language describes spiritual failure.

Translator Notes

1. The accusation is twofold: covenant violation (lo shamru berit Elohim) and Torah rejection (uvtorato me'anu lalekhet, 'in His instruction they refused to walk'). Walking (halakh) is the standard metaphor for living according to God's commands — they refused to move in the direction God indicated.

Translator Notes

1. Forgetfulness is the root sin in Deuteronomic theology. The verb vayishkechu ('they forgot') is the opposite of the remembering commanded in verses 3-7. The cycle is clear: ancestors witnessed wonders, forgot them, and fell into rebellion. The psalm exists to break this cycle.

Translator Notes

1. Zoan (Tsoan) is the Hebrew name for the Egyptian city of Tanis in the eastern Nile Delta, near the traditional location of the Israelite settlement in Goshen. By naming the specific location, the psalmist anchors the miraculous events in a real, identifiable place.

Translator Notes

1. The verb baqa ('He split') is the same used in Psalm 74:15 for splitting springs open. The word ned ('heap, wall, dam') describes water standing upright in defiance of gravity — the same image as Exodus 15:8. The sea becomes architecture, solid walls flanking the path of escape.

Translator Notes

1. The pillar of cloud (Exodus 13:21-22) guided by day, the pillar of fire by night. God provided continuous navigation — no hour was uncovered. The phrase kol hallaylah ('all the night') emphasizes that darkness offered no gap in divine guidance.

Translator Notes

1. The verb yevaqqea ('He split') describes God cracking open tsurim ('rocks, cliffs') to produce water. The comparison ki-tehomot rabbah ('as from the great deep') is hyperbolic: the water from the rock was as abundant as the primordial ocean. This refers to the Meribah/Massah incidents (Exodus 17:1-7, Numbers 20:1-13).

Translator Notes

1. The nozelim ('streams, flowing waters') from the sela ('crag, cliff') were not a trickle but kanneharot ('like rivers'). The miracle's scale matches the need — water for an entire nation in the desert required rivers, not drops.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase vayyosifu od lachato ('they continued still to sin') uses the construction of ongoing, compounding rebellion — sin upon sin. The word tsiyyah ('dry land, parched ground') is ironic: God just provided rivers from rock, and they respond by rebelling in the very place of His provision.

Translator Notes

1. The verb vaynassu ('they tested') is from nasah — the same verb used for God's testing of Abraham (Genesis 22:1). Here the roles are reversed: the people test God. The demand for okhel lenafesham ('food for their appetite/soul') is not about survival but about desire — they want more than manna.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase 'Can God set a table in the wilderness?' becomes an ironic echo throughout the psalm. God can set a table anywhere — and He does, with manna and quail — but the provision does not cure the people's distrust.

Translator Notes

1. The people concede the water miracle (verse 15-16) but doubt the next provision. Each miracle is acknowledged but deemed insufficient for the next challenge. Their faith is always one step behind God's action.

Translator Notes

1. God's response is immediate: shama vayyit'abbar ('He heard and was furious'). The verb it'abbar ('to become angry, to overflow with wrath') suggests anger that erupts uncontrollably. The 'fire' (esh) may be literal (Numbers 11:1-3 records fire consuming the camp's edges) or metaphorical for divine wrath.

Translator Notes

1. The double negative — lo he'eminu ('they did not believe') and lo batchu ('they did not trust') — diagnoses the core problem: unbelief. The specific object of unbelief is bishu'ato ('in His salvation') — they doubted God's ability and willingness to rescue.

Translator Notes

1. The 'doors of heaven' imagery appears in Genesis 7:11 (the flood) and Malachi 3:10 (blessing). God's provision comes from the same heavenly reservoir as His judgment — the door swings both ways.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The word man ('manna') is explained in Exodus 16:15 through the question man hu ('What is it?'). The parallel term degan shamayim ('grain of heaven') elevates manna to the status of celestial food — bread from God's own table. It is not emergency rations but heaven's own produce.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase lechem abbirim ('bread of the mighty ones') has been interpreted as 'bread of angels' (so the LXX and KJV), 'bread of the mighty,' or 'bread of the strong.' The word abbirim can refer to angels, warriors, or bulls. The point is that this food belongs to a higher order of being — humans ate what was not originally meant for them. The word lasova ('to satisfaction, to fullness') emphasizes abundance.

Translator Notes

1. God controls the winds as instruments: the qadim ('east wind') and teman ('south wind') are dispatched to carry the quail. The verb yassa ('He set in motion, He caused to journey') presents the wind as a traveling agent sent on a mission.

Translator Notes

1. The comparisons — ke-afar ('like dust') and ke-chol yammim ('like the sand of the seas') — are the standard Hebrew idioms for uncountable abundance (Genesis 13:16, 22:17). The quail were not a few birds but a blizzard of meat covering the camp.

Translator Notes

1. The quail landed beqerev machanahu ('in the middle of their camp') and saviv lemishkenotav ('around their tents'). The provision was delivered directly to their doors — they did not have to go far to gather it.

Translator Notes

1. The word ta'avatam ('their craving, their desire') is from avah ('to desire, to crave') — the same root used for the place name Qivrot hat-Ta'avah ('Graves of Craving') in Numbers 11:34. God gave them exactly what they wanted, and the getting proved deadly.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase lo zaru mitta'avatam ('they had not turned away from their craving') means the desire was still active, undiminished even by receiving what was desired. This is the nature of craving: fulfillment does not satisfy it. And then judgment arrives while the food is literally still in their mouths.

Translator Notes

1. The word mishmanneihem ('their sturdiest, their fattest, their most robust') describes the healthiest members of the community — those who should have been least vulnerable. The bachurei Yisrael ('young men of Israel') were the prime of the nation. God's judgment targeted strength itself, proving that no human vitality can resist divine anger.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase bekhol zot ('despite all this, in spite of all this') is the psalm's refrain of astonishment: despite provision, despite judgment, despite everything, the pattern continued. Rebellion was not a one-time failure but a chronic condition.

Translator Notes

1. The word hevel ('vanity, breath, futility') is Ecclesiastes' signature word — here it describes days that amount to nothing. Their years ended in behalah ('terror, sudden destruction'). The wilderness generation's forty years of wandering are summarized in a single devastating couplet.

Translator Notes

1. The bitter irony: only death prompted repentance. The verb darash ('to seek, to inquire') and shichar ('to search earnestly, to seek early') describe intense pursuit of God — but only after judgment had fallen. Their piety was reactive, not proactive.

Translator Notes

1. Under duress, memory returned: Elohim tsuram ('God was their rock') and El Elyon go'alam ('the Most High God was their redeemer'). But the next verse reveals that this memory was superficial — it produced flattery rather than genuine repentance.

Translator Notes

1. The accusation that Israel lied to God is one of the psalm's most shocking moments. It implies that religious speech can be false even when directed at the omniscient deity — that humans are capable of praying without meaning what they say.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase libbam lo nakhon immo ('their heart was not established with Him') echoes verse 8 — the same diagnosis applied to the same chronic condition. Faithlessness to the berit ('covenant') is the root: the external performance of religion without internal commitment.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The theology of divine restraint in this verse anticipates Paul's argument in Romans 9:22 about God's patience with 'vessels of wrath.' The psalmist's point is not that God lacks anger but that His compassion repeatedly overrides it.

Translator Notes

1. This verse echoes Psalm 103:14-16 ('He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust'). God's memory of human frailty becomes the ground of mercy — He does not expect more than flesh can deliver.

Translator Notes

1. The verb ya'atsi'vuhu ('they grieved Him, they caused Him pain') attributes emotional response to God. Israel's rebellion does not merely violate a contract; it wounds a person. The yeshimon ('wasteland, desolation') is the harshest desert terrain — rebellion in the place of maximum dependence.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase vayyashuvu vaynassu ('they turned back and tested') indicates repetitive behavior — it happened over and over. The verb hitvu (from tavah, 'to mark, to set a limit, to provoke') means they 'set limits' on the Qedosh Yisrael ('Holy One of Israel') — they defined what God could and could not do based on their own expectations. Limiting God is the theological sin at the heart of their rebellion.

Translator Notes

1. Forgetfulness again: lo zakhru et yado ('they did not remember His hand'). The 'hand' of God (yad) is His power in action — specifically, the power displayed at the Exodus. The yom ('day') when He padam ('redeemed them') from the tsar ('adversary, foe') is the foundational event. What follows (verses 43-51) is the psalmist's retelling of the plagues to remind them of what they forgot.

Translator Notes

1. The retelling returns to Zoan (verse 12) — the Egyptian city in the delta region. The otot ('signs') and moftim ('wonders') are the plagues, now recounted in a sequence that differs from Exodus.

Translator Notes

1. The first plague: water to blood (Exodus 7:14-25). The ye'oreihem ('their rivers/canals') is the Nile and its channels — the lifeblood of Egyptian civilization. Turning it to dam ('blood') struck at Egypt's most essential resource.

Translator Notes

1. The arov ('swarm') — the fourth plague (Exodus 8:20-32) — may refer to flies, mosquitoes, or mixed swarms of insects. The tsefardea ('frogs') — the second plague — destroyed their land. The order differs from Exodus, suggesting the psalmist is grouping by poetic effect rather than chronological sequence.

Translator Notes

1. The chasil ('grasshopper, locust') and arbeh ('locust') consumed yevulam ('their produce') and yegi'am ('their toil, the fruit of their labor'). The eighth plague (Exodus 10:1-20) destroyed agriculture — the stored product of human effort devoured by insects.

Translator Notes

1. The seventh plague: hail (Exodus 9:13-35). The gafen ('grapevine') and shiqmah ('sycamore fig') were valuable agricultural crops. The chanamal ('frost, sleet') is a rare word, possibly referring to ice storms or severe hail.

Translator Notes

1. The verb vayyasger ('He delivered over, He handed over') is the language of judicial sentencing — God formally transferred the Egyptians' livestock to destruction. The reshafim ('lightning bolts, flames') extend the hailstorm to include electrical strikes.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase mal'akhei ra'im is unique to this verse and has generated significant discussion. The 'evil' is not moral wickedness in the angels but calamity inflicted by them — they are agents of divine judgment, not demonic beings.

Translator Notes

1. The verb yefalles ('He leveled, He made straight, He cleared a path') pictures God removing every obstacle between His anger and its target. The dever ('plague, pestilence') — the fifth plague (Exodus 9:1-7) — was the instrument of execution.

Translator Notes

1. The designation of Egypt as 'tents of Ham' connects to the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, where Mitsrayim (Egypt) is listed as a son of Ham. The archaic, genealogical language adds weight to the historical sweep of the narrative.

Translator Notes

1. The shepherd metaphor returns (cf. Psalm 77:21). The contrast is stark: Egypt's firstborn are dead; Israel's flock is alive and moving. God destroys one nation's future to preserve another's.

Translator Notes

1. The juxtaposition is absolute: Israel walks safely (lavetach, 'in security'); the sea covers (kissah, 'engulfed, overwhelmed') their enemies. Safety for one and destruction for the other happen simultaneously in the same body of water.

Translator Notes

1. The gevul qodsho ('the border/territory of His holiness') is the promised land, and specifically har zeh ('this mountain') — either Zion or the entire hill country of Canaan. God's right hand (yemin) qantah ('acquired, purchased') this mountain — it belongs to God by right of acquisition.

Translator Notes

1. The verb vayyegaresh ('He drove out') describes the conquest. The chevel nachalah ('measuring line of inheritance') refers to the land allotment — each tribe received its territory measured by cord. The tribes now dwell be-aholeihem ('in their tents') — in the former dwellings of the displaced nations.

Translator Notes

1. The cycle repeats: even after settlement in the promised land, the pattern of testing (vaynassu) and rebelling (vayyamru) continues. The edot ('testimonies, decrees') are God's covenant stipulations — the conditions of the relationship. They ignored them.

Translator Notes

1. Hosea 7:16 uses nearly identical language: 'They turn, but not upward; they are like a treacherous bow.' The image may have been a common prophetic metaphor for Israel's unreliability — a nation that appeared functional but consistently missed its mark.

Translator Notes

1. The bamot ('high places') were the local sanctuaries where Canaanite-influenced worship occurred. The pesilim ('carved images, idols') were the physical representations of other gods. The verb yaqni'uhu ('they made Him jealous') uses the language of marriage: Israel's idolatry is adultery, and God responds with the jealousy of a betrayed spouse (cf. Exodus 20:5, 'I the LORD your God am a jealous God').

Translator Notes

1. The verb vayyit'abbar ('He was furious, He overflowed with anger') is the same as verse 21. But this time the consequence is more severe: vayyim'as me'od be-Yisrael ('He utterly rejected Israel'). The verb ma'as ('to reject, to refuse, to despise') is the language of covenant termination — not discipline but rejection.

Translator Notes

1. Jeremiah explicitly references Shiloh's destruction as a warning to Jerusalem: 'Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it' (Jeremiah 7:12). The psalm uses the same event to explain why God chose Judah over Ephraim.

Translator Notes

1. The 'strength' (uzzo) and 'splendor' (tif'arto) refer to the ark of the covenant, captured by the Philistines in 1 Samuel 4:11. The ark was the physical symbol of God's presence and power. God allowed His own symbol to be taken — the ultimate expression of judgment on His people.

Translator Notes

1. The parallel between 'His people' (ammo) and 'His inheritance' (nachalato) emphasizes that these are not strangers but God's own possession. The verse describes the battle of Aphek (1 Samuel 4:1-11) where thirty thousand Israelite soldiers fell.

Translator Notes

1. The 'fire' consuming bachurav ('His young men') is war. The betulotav ('His young women') lo hullalu ('were not praised/celebrated in wedding songs'). The verb hillel in this context refers to the wedding celebration — with so many young men dead, marriages did not happen. The social fabric collapsed.

Translator Notes

1. Hophni and Phinehas, the priests who accompanied the ark, died at Aphek (1 Samuel 4:11). The phrase almanotav lo tivkeinah ('their widows did not weep') likely means the death was so sudden and the disaster so overwhelming that there was no time for proper mourning — or that the widows themselves were killed or captured.

Translator Notes

1. This is one of the most daring anthropomorphisms in the Hebrew Bible. Psalm 44:24 pleads 'Awake! Why do You sleep, O Lord?' — here the psalmist reports that God actually did wake up. The metaphor serves the narrative: the period of judgment felt like divine slumber, and God's re-engagement felt like a warrior's battle cry.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase vayyakh tsarav achor ('He struck His enemies in the rear') refers to the Philistine plague described in 1 Samuel 5:6-12, where God struck the Philistines with tumors (ofalim) in their hindquarters. The cherpat olam ('perpetual reproach') means the shame was not temporary but defining.

Translator Notes

1. This verse is the psalm's political-theological thesis: the fall of Shiloh and the northern shrine was not random but an act of divine election. God actively chose to reject Ephraim and actively chose Judah — this is the explanation for the Davidic dynasty and the Jerusalem temple.

Translator Notes

1. The transition from 'rejected Ephraim' to 'chose Judah' mirrors the biblical pattern of divine election: God passes over the expected choice (the firstborn, the older, the stronger) in favor of the unexpected. This pattern runs from Jacob/Esau through David (the youngest son) to Zion (a relatively insignificant hill).

Translator Notes

1. The sanctuary (miqdash) is compared to kemo ramim ('like the heights, like high places') — either heavenly heights or mountain peaks. The second comparison ke-erets yesadah le-olam ('like the earth He founded forever') equates the temple's permanence with the earth's — God's dwelling is as enduring as creation itself. This confidence will be tested by the destruction of 586 BCE.

Translator Notes

1. The connection between David the shepherd and God the shepherd (Psalm 23, Psalm 77:21, Psalm 78:52) is deliberate: God chose a shepherd to be king because kingship is shepherding. The ideal ruler tends, feeds, and protects a flock.

Translator Notes

1. The image of David following nursing ewes echoes 2 Samuel 7:8, where God reminds David: 'I took you from the pasture, from following the flock.' The psalm's conclusion deliberately parallels God's own words to David.

Translator Notes

1. The psalm that began with a call to teach the next generation ends with the model of what faithful leadership looks like. The entire historical sweep — Egypt, Exodus, wilderness, conquest, Shiloh, rejection, election — converges on this single image: a shepherd with a blameless heart and skilled hands. This is what the next generation needs to know.