Psalms 78:40 - Meaning and Application

The point of this paragraph is the same as the one before it. It shows how many mercies God had given Israel, how badly they had behaved, what judgments he brought on them for their sins, and how he still remembered mercy in the end. People who receive mercy from God should not use it as a reason to sin more. Those mercies will only make their sin worse and their punishment faster. Yet people under God’s rebukes for sin should not give up on repentance, because even punishment can lead people back to him, and it cannot block the mercy God still has in store.

The writer again calls attention to Israel’s sins in the wilderness, because they were written down to warn us (Psalm 78:40, Psalm 78:41). How often they provoked God there, many times over. The repeated offense made the sin much worse, and so did the place itself (Psalm 78:17). God kept count of how many times they tested him, even if they did not. As Numbers 14:22 says, “They have tempted me these ten times.”

When they provoked God, they did not just make him angry, they grieved him. He saw them as his children, and the disrespect of children cuts deeply into loving parents. It troubles them and feels unkind (Isaiah 1:2). They grieved him because they forced him to discipline them, something he does not do gladly. Even after they humbled themselves before him, they turned back and kept testing God. They limited the Holy One of Israel by telling him what signs of power and presence he should give, and what way he should lead and provide for them.

To limit God is proud and presumptuous. He is holy, so he will do what brings him the most glory. He is the Holy One of Israel, so he will also do what is best for his people. If we try to tell him what he must do, we insult his wisdom and show our own pride and foolishness. What led them to keep limiting God was that they forgot his past kindnesses (Psalm 78:42). They did not remember his hand, how strong it is, or the day when he rescued them from Pharaoh, their great enemy who sought their ruin. Some days of great deliverance should never be forgotten, because remembering them can strengthen us in our hardest trials.

The psalm then turns back to God’s mercies to Israel, mercies they ignored when they tested him and tried to control him. This list of wonders begins even earlier and goes further than the earlier one (Psalm 78:12). It starts with their rescue from Egypt and the plagues by which God forced the Egyptians to let them go. These were the signs he worked in Egypt, the wonders in the field of Zoan, that is, in the region of Zoan (Psalm 78:43).

Several of the plagues are named here, and each one shows God’s power, his favor to Israel, and his judgment on their enemies. He turned the waters into blood. The Egyptians had spilled the blood of God’s people, even their infants, and now God gave them blood to drink, because they were guilty enough for it (Psalm 78:44). He sent flies and frogs, swarms of insects that overran and ruined them (Psalm 78:45). God can use the weakest and most despised creatures as tools of his judgment, because number can make up for strength.

He also sent locusts, which devoured their crops and all they had worked for (Psalm 78:46). Scripture calls them God’s great army (Joel 2:25). Then came hail, which destroyed their trees, especially their vines, and their cattle, especially their flocks of sheep, the weakest of their animals. The passage also mentions frost, or frozen rain, so severe that it even destroyed the sycamore trees (Psalm 78:47-48).

The death of the firstborn was the final and harshest plague, and it completed Israel’s rescue. God had first planned it long before (Exodus 4:23), but he carried it out last. If gentler measures had worked, this judgment would have been avoided. It is described in detail here (Psalm 78:49-51). First, God’s anger was the cause. His wrath had now reached its full measure against the Egyptians. Pharaoh’s heart had often been hardened after lighter judgments failed to move him, so God now let loose the fullness of his anger. He sent them his fierce wrath, bringing trouble, suffering, and anguish, as Romans 2:8-9 says. He did this from above and did not spare them, and no one could escape from his hand (Job 27:22). He made a weighed path for his anger, which means he did not act carelessly, but in exact justice. Even in his deepest displeasure, God never does wrong to any creature. His anger always follows the measure of righteousness.

Second, God used angels to carry out this judgment. He sent evil angels among them, not evil by nature, but evil in the work they were sent to do. They were destroying angels, or angels of punishment, sent through all the land of Egypt with orders to kill only the firstborn, according to the measured justice of God’s wrath. Good angels become severe against sinners. Those who make the holy God their enemy should not expect the holy angels to be their friends.

Third, the execution itself was very severe. He did not spare their lives but handed them over to death, and death triumphed among them. He struck down all the firstborn in Egypt (Psalm 78:51), the chief strength of every family. Children are a parent’s strength, and the firstborn are the chief part of that strength. In this way, because Israel was precious in God’s sight, he gave other people for them, and other nations for their life (Isaiah 43:4).

By these plagues on Egypt, God made a way for his own people to go out like sheep. He separated them from the Egyptians, as a shepherd separates sheep from goats, and marked his own sheep by the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. He led them out like sheep, though they did not know where they were going, and guided them in the wilderness with the care and tenderness of a shepherd over his flock (Psalm 78:52).

He led them safely, even through dangerous places, so they had no reason to fear. They were frightened at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:10), but God’s words and acts on their behalf quieted their fears. The sea swallowed up the enemies who chased them into it (Psalm 78:63). It became a path for Israel, but a grave for those who pursued them.

This account then moves all the way to their settlement in Canaan (Psalm 78:54). God brought them to the border of his sanctuary, the land where he set up his holy place. That land was, as it were, the center of the whole country, its crown and glory. A land is blessed when it lies along the border of God’s sanctuary, where he is known and where his dwelling place stands (Psalm 76:1-2). The whole land, and Zion in particular, was the mountain his right hand had won for them by his own power (Psalm 44:3).

God made them “ride on the high places of the earth” (Isaiah 58:14; Deuteronomy 32:13). The Canaanites were already living there in peace, but God drove them out before Israel. As Lord of the whole earth, he removed their claim to the land, and as Lord of hosts, he carried out the judgment against them. He then gave Israel each tribe its portion and let them live in the houses of those they had destroyed.

God could have turned an empty wilderness into good land and planted them there. But the land he chose for them was meant to point to heaven, so it had to be the glory of all lands. It also had to be fought for, because the kingdom of heaven is entered with effort.

The next part speaks of Israel’s sins after they settled in Canaan (Psalm 78:56-58). The children were like their fathers and carried the same corrupt heart into their new homes. Though God had done so much for them, they still tempted and provoked the Most High God. He gave them his commands, but they did not keep them. They started well, then turned back. They gave God pleasant words, but they acted falsely. They were like a deceitful bow, which looks ready to send the arrow straight, but when drawn it breaks, drops the arrow at the archer’s feet, or even flings it back in his face.

No one could trust them, either in their promises or in their religious claims. At times they seemed devoted to God, but soon they turned aside and angered him with their high places and carved images. Idolatry was the sin that most easily trapped them, and though they often said they repented of it, they kept falling back into it. It was spiritual adultery, whether they worshiped idols outright or worshiped God through images, as if he were an idol himself. That is why Scripture says they made him jealous (Deuteronomy 32:16, 21).

The next part shows the judgments God brought on them for these sins. Their place in Canaan would not protect them if they lived wickedly, any more than their descent from Israel would. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you” (Amos 3:2). Idolatry may be overlooked among the Gentiles, but not in Israel.

First, God was angry with them (Psalm 78:59). When he heard the cry of their sin, he was furious. He greatly despised Israel, though he had once greatly loved and delighted in them. The people he had chosen became the people under his wrath. Bold sins, especially idolatry, make even Israelites hateful to God’s holiness and open to his justice.

Second, he abandoned his tabernacle among them and took away the protection that covered it (Psalm 78:60). God never leaves us until we leave him, and he never withdraws until we have driven him away. He is a jealous God, so it is no surprise that a people he had joined to himself would be rejected when they turned to another. The tabernacle at Shiloh was the tent God had set among men, where he would truly dwell with them on earth. But when his people betrayed it, he rightly left it too, and all its glory departed. Israel gains little from the tabernacle if God is not present there.

Third, he handed them over to their enemies. Those whom God forsakes become easy prey for destruction. The Philistines were enemies of Israel and also enemies of Israel’s God, yet God used them as a rod to discipline his people.

He allowed them to capture the ark and carry it off as a trophy of victory, showing that he had not only abandoned the tabernacle but even the ark itself, which was no longer a sign of his presence (Psalm 78:61). He “delivered his strength into captivity,” as if it had been overcome, and his glory was handed over to shame. The story is told in 1 Samuel 4:11. When the ark had become like a stranger among Israelites, it was no surprise that it soon became a prisoner among Philistines.

He also let the Philistines defeat Israel’s armies (Psalm 78:62-63). He gave his people over to the sword, both to the sword of his justice and to the rage of the enemy, because he was angry with his inheritance. His anger was the fire that consumed their young men, in the strength of their life, by sword or sickness. The losses were so great that their young women were not praised, meaning they were not given in marriage, which is honorable in every age. There were no young men left for them, and the misery of the nation made marriage celebrations seem out of place. People even said, “Blessed is the womb that does not bear.” Large disasters leave a shortage of men. “I will make a man more precious than fine gold” (Isaiah 13:12), so that “seven women shall take hold of one man” (Isaiah 4:1, 25).

Yet this was not the worst part. Even their priests, who served at the ark, fell by the sword, Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s corrupt sons. They died justly, because they had made themselves vile and were very wicked before the Lord. Their priesthood did not protect them, it made their sin worse and their fall quicker. They also died justly because they had rushed into battle without a call or duty. We step out of God’s protection when we leave our place and the path of obedience.

When the priests fell, their widows did not even mourn (Psalm 78:64). Their grief was too deep for outward ritual. Phinehas’s widow did not lament her husband’s death, but died herself after naming her son Ichabod, meaning “the glory has departed” (1 Samuel 4:19).

God’s return to them in mercy came after this, along with his gracious acts on their behalf. We do not read here that they repented and came back to God, but God was moved by Israel’s misery (Judges 10:16) and by concern for his own honor. He feared the enemy’s pride, lest they should act in a strange and insulting way (Deuteronomy 32:27). So the Lord awoke, as if from sleep (Psalm 78:65), and like a mighty man shouting because of wine.

That picture means more than just waking up. It is like a person who has shaken off sleep after rest, or like someone made lively and strong by the sober use of wine. When God had allowed the ark of his strength to go into captivity, he soon showed the power of his strength to rescue it. As a jealous defender of his honor, he stirred himself to do great things for his people.

He first struck the Philistines, who were holding the ark captive (Psalm 78:66). He smote them with tumors in their hinder parts, as if he had wounded them while they were fleeing, even when they thought themselves the victors. He put them to shame, and they helped make that shame lasting by sending back golden images of those tumors with the ark as a guilt offering (1 Samuel 6:5). Those images remained as a lasting reminder. The lesson is plain, sooner or later God will glorify himself by bringing disgrace on his enemies, even when they seem most successful.

He also provided a new home for his ark after months in captivity and years of obscurity. He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, meaning he did not send it back to Shiloh in Ephraim’s territory (Psalm 78:67). The ruins of that place stood as a clear warning of divine justice. God was saying, “See what I did to Shiloh” (Jeremiah 7:12). Yet he did not remove his glory from Israel altogether. Moving the ark was not the same as removing it forever.

Shiloh lost the ark, but Israel did not lose God’s church and kingdom in the world. He may remove his lampstand from one place, but his work continues elsewhere. In that way, the rejection of Shiloh was the choice of Zion, just as later the fall of the Jews brought riches to the Gentiles (Romans 11:12). When God did not choose Ephraim, the tribe of Joshua, he chose Judah instead (Psalm 78:68), because Jesus was to come from that tribe, and he is greater than Joshua. Kirjath-jearim, where the ark was taken after it was rescued from the Philistines, was in Judah’s territory. From there it later went to Zion, the mount Zion that he loved (Psalm 78:68), beautiful in its setting, the joy of the whole earth.

There God built his sanctuary like the high palaces and like the earth itself (Psalm 78:69). David only set up a tent for the ark, but a temple was planned then and later completed by his son. It was a very noble place, built like the palaces of princes and great men, and in splendor it surpassed them all. Solomon built it, yet the Psalm says God built it, because David had taught him, perhaps with this work in mind, that unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain (Psalm 127:1). It was also a very firm place, like the earth, not lasting forever in that form, but secure for as long as God intended. It was not finally destroyed until the gospel temple came, which will last as long as sun and moon endure (Psalm 89:36-37), and against which the gates of hell will not prevail.

He then gave them good government, a monarchy with a king after his own heart. He chose David his servant from among all the thousands of Israel and placed the scepter in his hand, from whose line Christ was to come, and who was to serve as a type of Christ (Psalm 78:70). David’s beginning was humble. His family line was noble, since he came from the ruling tribe of Judah, but his upbringing was plain. He was trained not as a scholar or a soldier, but as a shepherd.

He was taken from the sheepfolds, just as Moses was. God delights to honor the humble and hardworking, to lift the poor from the dust and set them among princes. At times, he finds those best fitted for public service among people who have spent their early years in quiet and reflection. The Son of David was once mocked for his ordinary background, “Is not this the carpenter?” David was taken, not from leading the rams, but from following the ewes, especially those with young. That detail shows he was marked by tenderness and compassion toward the sheep that needed his care most. That same gentle spirit fitted him for rule and made him a picture of Christ, who, as a shepherd, gently leads those that are with young (Isaiah 40:11).

His advancement was great. God chose him to feed Jacob his people (Psalm 78:71). It was a high honor to make him king, especially over Jacob and Israel, God’s own treasured people. Yet it was also a heavy trust, because he was charged with governing those who belonged to God. God raised him to the throne so that he might feed them, not feed himself, and so that he might do good, not build up his own family. That is the charge for all under-shepherds, both rulers and ministers, to feed the flock of God.

David also had a blessed way of carrying out that trust. He obtained mercy from the Lord so that he could be both skillful and faithful in his duty (Psalm 78:72). So he fed them. He ruled and taught them, guided and protected them. He did it honestly, with integrity of heart, aiming only at God’s glory and the good of the people placed under him. The principles of his religion shaped the rules of his government. He did not use worldly schemes, but godly sincerity, by the grace of God. In everything, he meant well and had no hidden purpose.

He did it wisely too, with skillful hands. He was not only sincere in what he wanted to do, but prudent in how he did it. He chose the best means to reach his goal, because God taught him discretion.

Happy are the people under such a government. The psalmist rightly treats this as the final and crowning sign of God’s favor to Israel. David was a type of Christ, the great and good Shepherd, who was first humbled and then exalted. About Christ it was foretold that he would be filled with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, and that he would judge and correct with fairness (Isaiah 11:3-4).

Because his heart is pure and his hands are skillful, all his people can fully trust him. His rule and his people will keep increasing, and there will be no end to either.