Psalm 78

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That the Generation to Come Might Know

A Maskil of Asaph.

Give ear, O my people, to my instruction;

Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

I will open my mouth in a parable;

I will pour forth dark sayings of old,

Which we have heard and known,

And our fathers have recounted to us.

We will not conceal them from their children,

But recount to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh,

And His strength and His wondrous deeds that He has done.

For He established a testimony in Jacob

And set a law in Israel,

Which He commanded our fathers

That they should teach them to their children,

That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born,

That they may arise and recount them to their children,

That they should set their confidence in God

And not forget the deeds of God,

But observe His commandments,

And not be like their fathers,

A stubborn and rebellious generation,

A generation that did not prepare its heart

And whose spirit was not faithful to God.

The sons of Ephraim were archers equipped with bows,

Yet they turned back in the day of battle.

They did not keep the covenant of God

And refused to walk in His law;

So they forgot His acts

And His wondrous deeds that He had shown them.

He did wonders before their fathers

In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.

He split the sea and caused them to pass through,

And He made the waters stand up like a heap.

Then He led them with the cloud by day

And all the night with a light of fire.

He was splitting the rocks in the wilderness

And so gave them abundant drink like the ocean depths.

He brought forth streams also from the cliff face

And caused waters to run down like rivers.

Yet they still continued to sin against Him,

To rebel against the Most High in the desert.

And in their heart they put God to the test

By asking for food according to their desire.

Then they spoke against God;

They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?

Behold, He struck the rock so that waters gushed out,

And streams were overflowing;

Can He give bread also?

Will He prepare meat for His people?”

Therefore Yahweh heard and was full of wrath;

And a fire was kindled against Jacob

And anger also mounted against Israel,

Because they did not believe in God

And did not trust in His salvation.

Yet He commanded the skies above

And opened the doors of heaven;

He rained down manna upon them to eat

And gave them grain from heaven.

Man ate the bread of angels;

He sent them provision to satisfy.

He led forth the east wind in the heavens

And by His strength He guided the south wind.

Then He rained meat upon them like the dust,

Even winged fowl like the sand of the seas,

He caused them to fall in the midst of His camp,

All around His dwelling places.

So they ate and were very satisfied,

And their desire He brought to them.

Before they had satisfied their desire,

While their food was in their mouths,

The anger of God rose against them

And killed some of their stoutest ones,

And subdued the choice men of Israel.

In spite of all this they still sinned

And did not believe in His wondrous deeds.

So He brought their days to an end in futility

And their years in sudden terror.

When He killed them, then they sought Him,

And returned and sought earnestly for God;

And they remembered that God was their rock,

And the Most High God their Redeemer.

But they deceived Him with their mouth

And lied to Him with their tongue.

For their heart was not prepared to remain with Him,

Nor were they faithful in His covenant.

But He, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them;

And He abounded in turning back His anger

And did not arouse all His wrath.

Thus He remembered that they were but flesh,

A wind that goes and does not return.

How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness

And grieved Him in the wasteland!

Again and again they tested God,

And pained the Holy One of Israel.

They did not remember His power,

The day when He redeemed them from the adversary,

When He performed His signs in Egypt

And His miracles in the field of Zoan,

And turned their rivers to blood,

And their streams, they could not drink.

He sent among them swarms of flies which devoured them,

And frogs which destroyed them.

He gave also their crops to the grasshopper

And the fruit of their labor to the locust.

He killed their vines with hailstones

And their sycamore trees with frost.

He gave over their cattle also to the hailstones

And their herds to bolts of lightning.

He sent upon them His burning anger,

Fury and indignation and distress,

A band of destroying angels.

He leveled a path for His anger;

He did not hold back their soul from death,

But gave over their life to the plague,

So He struck all the firstborn in Egypt,

The first of their vigor in the tents of Ham.

But He led forth His own people like sheep

And guided them in the wilderness like a flock;

He led them safely, so that they did not fear;

But the sea covered their enemies.

So He brought them to His holy land,

To this hill country which His right hand had acquired.

He also drove out the nations before them

And apportioned them for an inheritance by measurement,

And made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.

Yet they tested and rebelled against the Most High God

And did not keep His testimonies,

But turned back and acted treacherously like their fathers;

They turned aside like a treacherous bow.

For they provoked Him with their high places

And aroused His jealousy with their graven images.

God heard and was filled with wrath

And greatly rejected Israel;

So that He abandoned the dwelling place at Shiloh,

The tent which He caused to dwell among men,

And gave up His strength to captivity

And His beauty into the hand of the adversary.

He also gave over His people to the sword,

And was filled with wrath at His inheritance.

Fire devoured His choice men,

And His virgins had no wedding songs.

His priests fell by the sword,

And His widows could not weep.

Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep,

As if He were a warrior overcome by wine.

He struck His adversaries backward;

He put on them an everlasting reproach.

He also rejected the tent of Joseph,

And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,

But chose the tribe of Judah,

Mount Zion which He loved.

And He built His sanctuary like the heights,

Like the earth which He has founded forever.

He also chose David His servant

And took him from the sheepfolds;

From following the nursing ewes He brought him

To shepherd Jacob His people,

And Israel His inheritance.

So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart,

And led them with his skillful hands.

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