We continue in Psalm 78, a teaching psalm of 72 verses. We considered the first 31 verses in the blog post from yesterday and now look at the second half of the psalm.
The Old Testament history is a cycle of deliverance, rebellion, oppression, pleading and deliverance again. This psalm, repeating that history, has this same cycle.
Psalm 78:32-37, Cycles of futility
In spite of all this, they kept on sinning;
in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.
So he ended their days in futility
and their years in terror.
Whenever God slew them,
they would seek him;
they eagerly turned to him again.
They remembered that God was their Rock,
that God Most High was their Redeemer.
But then they would flatter him with their mouths,
lying to him with their tongues;
their hearts were not loyal to him,
they were not faithful to his covenant.
The cycles of stubborness, repentance, salvation, stubborness are described as wasted years, years spent in terror. Alter points out the wordplay in verse 32, the Hebrew translated "futility" is ba·he·ḇel and the Hebrew word translated "terror" is bab·be·hā·lāh; rebellion against YHWH leads to
days in ba·he·ḇel,
years in bab·be·hā·lāh.
Psalm 78:38-39, Flesh, a passing breeze
Yet he was merciful;
he forgave their iniquities
and did not destroy them.
Time after time he restrained his anger
and did not stir up his full wrath.
He remembered that they were but flesh,
a passing breeze that does not return.
The cycle here emphasizes grace, God's willingness to start over with Israel. Zoan is mentioned again, as the original place of wonders in Egypt, possibly in the Pharaoh's palace in Zoan/Tanis?
Psalm 78:40-43,
How often they rebelled against him in the desert
and grieved him in the wasteland!
Again and again they put God to the test;
they vexed the Holy One of Israel.
They did not remember his power--
the day he redeemed them from the oppressor,
the day he displayed his miraculous signs in Egypt,
his wonders in the region of Zoan.
The cycle here emphasizes grace, God's willingness to start over with Israel. Zoan is mentioned again, as the original place of wonders in Egypt, possibly in the Pharaoh's palace in Zoan/Tanis. The Israelites are accused of forgetfulness, of seeing God's power and then not remembering it. (Which, of course, is very human.) Because of their forgetfulness, this teaching song will remind them.
Psalm 78:44-51, Plagues
He turned their rivers to blood;
they could not drink from their streams.
He sent swarms of flies that devoured them,
and frogs that devastated them.
He gave their crops to the grasshopper,
their produce to the locust.
He destroyed their vines with hail
and their sycamore-figs with sleet.
He gave over their cattle to the hail,
their livestock to bolts of lightning.
He unleashed against them his hot anger,
his wrath, indignation and hostility--
a band of destroying angels.
He prepared a path for his anger;
he did not spare them from death
but gave them over to the plague.
He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt,
the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of Ham.
Various plagues of Egypt are described here: rivers of blood, swarm of flies, swarm of frogs, swarm of locusts. hail, a plague (on livestock?), and the death of the firstborn.
Psalm 78:52-55, Guided out by their Shepherd
But he brought his people out like a flock;
he led them like sheep through the desert.
He guided them safely, so they were unafraid;
but the sea engulfed their enemies.
Thus he brought them to the border of his holy land,
to the hill country his right hand had taken.
He drove out nations before them
and allotted their lands to
them as an inheritance;
he settled the tribes of Israel intheir homes.
After the plagues, we recall the safe travel across the Red Sea and the desert, to the border of Canaan.
Psalm 78:56-58, Yet rebellion
But they put God to the test and rebelled against the Most High;
they did not keep his statutes.
Like their fathers they were disloyal and faithless,
as unreliable as a faulty bow.
They angered him with their high places;
they aroused his jealousy with their idols.
Despite all the miracles, the people were still stubbornly rebelling in the wilderness
Psalm 78:59-64, Ichabod
When God heard them, he was very angry;
he rejected Israel completely.
He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,
the tent he had setup among men.
He sent [the ark of] his might into captivity,
his splendor into the hands of the enemy.
He gave his people over to the sword;
he was very angry with his inheritance.
Fire consumed their young men,
and their maidens had no wedding songs;
their priests were put to the sword,
and their widows could not weep.
Kidner says that this section recalls the abandoned tabernacle at Shiloh (in 1 Samuel 4) when the Philistines captured the ark in battle and among the slain were Eli's two sons. Phineas's widow, pregnant and dying as she gives birth, names her son Ichabod, meaning "The glory of the Lord has departed."
Psalm 78:65-72, An then a shepherd-king
Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
as a man wakes from the stupor of wine.
He beat back his enemies;
he put them to everlasting shame.
Then he rejected the tents of Joseph,
he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;
but he chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which he loved.
He built his sanctuary like the heights,
like the earth that he established forever.
He chose David his servant
and took him from the sheep pens;
from tending the sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
of Israel his inheritance.
And David shepherded them with integrity of heart;
with skillful hands he led them.
The culmination of the history lesson is, of course, David, the one who planned (but did not build) the temple, one who wrote the numerous praise songs and established Israel as a godly nation most at that time.
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