Psalms 78:9 - Meaning and Application

In these verses, the psalmist first notices the later rebukes that Israel had brought on itself by dealing treacherously with God (Psalm 78:9-11). The children of Ephraim, the tribe where Shiloh was located, were well armed and used to the bow, yet they turned back in the day of battle. This likely points to the shameful defeat the Philistines gave them in Eli’s time, when they captured the ark (1 Samuel 4:10-11). David could still speak of this event more than forty years later, because the ark, though soon brought out of Philistine hands, stayed out of honor and public sight until David brought it from Kirjath-jearim to his own city.

We should notice, first, the shameful cowardice of Ephraim, a tribe known for strong and brave men. Even though they had their weapons, they fled when they had to face the enemy. Weapons do little good without courage, and courage disappears when God is gone. Sin weakens people and takes away their heart.

We should also notice the shameful causes of their cowardice. One cause was a clear break with God’s law and covenant (Psalm 78:10). They were treacherous and unfaithful, because they did not keep God’s covenant. They were also stubborn and rebellious, because they refused to walk in his law and, in effect, told him they would not be ruled by him. Another cause was their ungratefulness. They forgot his works and his wonders, the very acts they should have remembered and praised (Psalm 78:11). Our forgetfulness of God’s works often lies at the root of our disobedience to his law.

From this, the psalmist turns to the record of their fathers, who had been equally forgetful of God’s mercies and unthankful to their great Benefactor. Because of that, they also often came under his displeasure. The account here is striking, because it shows a kind of struggle between God’s goodness and human badness, and in the end mercy triumphs over judgment.

God did great things for Israel when he first formed them into a nation. He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, and for their benefit, things so strange and kind that they should never have been forgotten. The psalm mentions his work in Egypt only briefly here (Psalm 78:12), then returns to it later (Psalm 78:43). He made a path for them through the Red Sea and gave them courage to go through, even though the waters stood above them like a wall (Psalm 78:13). He led them through the untrodden wilderness step by step, by day in a cloud that also shaded them from the heat, and by night with a fire of light, which made the darkness less frightening and may have kept wild animals away (Psalm 78:14).

He also gave their camp fresh water in a dry and thirsty land where there was no water. He did not send rain from heaven in the usual way. Instead, he split open a rock (Psalm 78:15-16). The hard rock gave them water, even though it could not naturally receive rain from above or springs from below. God brought water from dry stone, and it flowed in streams. He gives generously, because he is rich in mercy. He also gives at the right time, and sometimes lets us feel need so we can better value his gifts. This water from the rock was especially precious, because it was spiritual drink, and that rock was Christ.

When God began to bless them, they began to offend him even more (Psalm 78:17). They sinned more against him than they had in Egypt, though they had been bad enough there (Ezekiel 20:8). They endured slavery better than they handled deliverance, and they complained far more against Moses and Aaron than they had against their taskmasters. It was as if they had been rescued in order to commit all these sins (Jeremiah 7:10). Just as sin sometimes uses the commandment to stir itself up, so it can also use deliverance to become even more sinful.

They provoked the Most High, though they knew they were no match for him. They challenged his justice, and they did this in the wilderness, where he had them completely in his power and had already shown them great mercy. They were therefore bound by both reason and gratitude to please him. Yet there they said and did things they knew would anger him: they tested God in their heart (Psalm 78:18). Sin began in the heart, and from there it took on its full evil. As Hebrews 3:10 says, they were always going astray in their heart. In this way they tested God, pushing his patience to see whether he would bear with them or not.

They provoked him in two ways. First, they demanded what he had not seen fit to give them. They asked for food to feed their lusts. God had already given them food for their hunger in the manna, wholesome and pleasant food in plenty. He had even given them food as a sign of faith when he broke the heads of Leviathan, the sea monster, in pieces (Psalm 74:14). But none of that was enough. They wanted meat to satisfy their greedy appetites. Nothing angers God more than our dissatisfaction with what he has given and our giving in to fleshly desires.

Second, they provoked him by doubting his power to give what they wanted. That was a real testing of God. They challenged him to give them flesh, and if he did not, they would say it was because he could not, not because he saw it was not good for them (Psalm 78:19). They spoke against God. Anyone who limits God’s power speaks against him. It was a bitter insult to ask, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?” They had manna, but they did not think they had a full table unless they also had boiled and roasted food, a first course, a second, and a third, as they had in Egypt, where they had meat, fish, and sauces too (Exodus 16:3; Numbers 11:5).

What a foolish and greedy thing luxury is. These people thought a well-filled table was such a great thing that they acted as if even God could not provide it for them in the wilderness. Yet the beasts of the forest and all the birds of the mountains are his (Psalm 50:10, Psalm 50:11). Their unbelief was even worse because they admitted that he had already done something just as great, when he struck the rock and water poured out for them and their livestock to drink (Psalm 78:20).

Which is harder, to spread a table in the wilderness, which a rich man can do, or to bring water out of a rock, which no ruler on earth can do? Unbelief has never asked a more absurd question: can the God who turned a rock into streams of water also give bread and meat? Is anything too hard for all-powerful God? Once God goes beyond the normal powers of nature, he has shown his mighty power, and we must say that nothing is impossible for him. No matter how great a thing we ask, we should still say, “Lord, if you are willing, you can do it.”

God rightly took offense and was deeply displeased with them (Psalm 78:21). The Lord heard them and was angry. God hears all our complaining and mistrust, and he is greatly displeased by it. A fire was kindled against Jacob, the fire of the Lord burned among them (Numbers 11:1). Or this may mean the fire of God’s anger rose against Israel. For those who will not believe in God, he himself is a consuming fire. Those who refuse to trust the power of his mercy will feel the power of his wrath, and they will learn that it is a terrible thing to fall into his hands.

The reason God was so offended was that their unbelief showed they did not truly believe in him (Psalm 78:22). They did not accept the truth he had revealed about himself, because they would not commit themselves to him or trust him with their lives. They did not trust the salvation he had already begun to work for them, because if they had, they would not have doubted its future outcome. No one can honestly say they trust God’s salvation as their final hope if they cannot trust his care for daily needs along the way.

Their unbelief was made worse by all they had already seen of God’s power and goodness (Psalm 78:23-25). He had given them clear proof of his power, not only on the earth below, but also in the heavens above. He commanded the clouds from above, as one who created them and rules them. He used them however he pleased. Usually clouds help the earth grow grain through their rain, but when God ordered it, they rained down grain themselves. That is why it is called the corn of heaven, for heaven can do the work without the earth, but the earth cannot do the work without heaven.

God, who holds the key to the clouds, opened the doors of heaven. That is even greater than opening the windows, though Scripture also speaks of that as a great blessing (Malachi 3:10). To all who ask, seek, and knock by faith and prayer, those doors will be opened at any time, because the God of heaven is rich in mercy to all who call on him. He not only keeps a good house, he keeps open house.

It was only right for God to be offended that they doubted him after he had been so kind. He had rained manna on them to eat, steady food every day, enough for all and enough for each person. Man ate angels’ food, food that was either fit for angels if they needed food, or food given through angels, and as the Chaldee reads it, food that came down from the angels’ dwelling. Even the smallest child in Israel ate the bread of the mighty (margin reading). It was easy for the weakest to digest, yet it was strong food. And although the provision was so good, they were never short of it, because he sent them food in full measure. If they gathered little, that was their own fault, yet even then they lacked nothing (Exodus 16:18).

God’s daily care for us, ever since we came into the world, does not have as much outward wonder as this, but it has no less mercy in it. That makes our distrust of him even more serious. God did not answer their sinful craving by refusing them what they wanted. Instead, he gave them what they lusted after, and in that he showed them their sin.

Did they question his power? He quickly showed them that he could indeed prepare a table in the wilderness. Though the winds seem to blow wherever they please, he made them his servants to bring in food (Psalm 78:26). He caused an east wind to blow, and also a south wind, either a southeast wind or one wind followed by the other, so that the quails came from those directions. He rained meat on them, and it was the finest kind, not butchered meat but wild birds, and plenty of them, as dust and as the sand of the sea (Psalm 78:27). Even the poorest Israelite had enough. And it cost them nothing, not even the trouble of bringing it from the hills, because he made it fall in the middle of their camp, all around their homes (Psalm 78:28). See Numbers 11:31-32.

Here we should see how good God is even to the evil and ungrateful, and how strange it is that his goodness does not overcome their bad hearts. We should also learn not to judge God’s love by gifts like these. Fine food is not a sign of special favor. Christ gave dry bread to the disciples he loved, but he gave a dipped piece to Judas, who betrayed him.

Did they challenge his justice and boast that they had gotten their way? He made them pay dearly for their quails. He gave them what they asked for, but they were not freed from their craving (Psalm 78:29-30). Their appetite had no limit. They were full and still not satisfied, because they did not know what they really wanted. That is the nature of lust: it is never content, and the more it is indulged, the more demanding it becomes. Those who give in to lust will never be done with it.

Or this may mean that God’s generosity did not make them ashamed of their selfish craving, as it would have if they had any sense of honor. But what happened in the end? While the meat was still in their mouths, while it still seemed sweet to them, the wrath of God came on them and killed the strongest among them (Psalm 78:31), those who were most indulgent and most bold. See Numbers 11:33-34. They were fed like sheep for slaughter, and the butcher takes the fattest first.

We can suppose there were some godly and contented Israelites who ate the quails in moderation and suffered no harm. It was not the meat that poisoned them, but their own lust. Let lovers of luxury and sensual pleasure read their warning here.

The end of people who make a god of their stomach is destruction (Philippians 3:19). The prosperity of fools will ruin them, and their fall will be worse because of their success.

God’s judgments did not reform them, any more than his mercies had. As Psalm 78:32 says, “For all this, they sinned still.” They kept grumbling and arguing with God and Moses just as before. Though God was angry and struck them, they still went on stubbornly in the path their own hearts chose (Isaiah 57:17). They did not believe, even after his mighty acts.

God’s works of judgment were just as amazing, and just as clear a display of his power, as his works of mercy. Yet those works did not move them to fear God, or to see how much it was in their own interest to make him their friend. A heart is truly hard when it will not be softened by God’s kindness or broken by his discipline.

Because they kept on sinning, God went on with his judgments, but in a slower way. He did not strike them then with sudden diseases like the one that killed the fattest among them. Instead, he gave them a long, wasting sickness (Psalm 78:33). “Therefore their days he consumed in vanity in the wilderness, and their years in trouble.” By an unchangeable sentence, they were condemned to spend thirty-eight long years in the wilderness.

Those years were wasted. In all that time, they did not move one step nearer to Canaan. They were turned back again and wandered around like people lost in a maze. Not one blow was struck toward taking the land. And those years were full of trouble too, because their bodies were sentenced to fall in the wilderness, and all of them died there except Caleb and Joshua. Those who keep sinning must expect to keep finding trouble.

The reason many people spend their days in so much emptiness and distress, and live with so little comfort and so little purpose, is that they do not live by faith.

Under these warnings, they acted as if they had repented, but their repentance was neither deep nor sincere. Their outward words sounded good enough. As Psalm 78:34-35 says, when God killed some of them, or ordered them to be killed, then they sought him. They confessed their sin and begged for mercy. When some were struck down, others, in fear, cried out to God, promised reform, and seemed eager to return to him.

They also said they remembered that God was their rock, so now, when they needed him, they would run to him for safety. They remembered that the Most High was their Redeemer, the one who brought them out of Egypt, and so they thought they could come to him boldly. Affliction is meant to remind us that God is our rock and Redeemer, because in prosperity we are so quick to forget him.

But their words were not sincere. Psalm 78:36-37 says they only flattered him with their mouth, as if fair speech could make him withdraw the sentence and remove the judgment. They secretly meant to break their promise once the danger had passed. They did not return to God with their whole heart, but only in a false way, like the people described in Jeremiah 3:10. Their prayers and promises were forced out of them by fear.

It was clear they did not mean what they said, because they did not hold to it. They melted in the sun, but froze in the shade. They lied to God with their tongues, because their hearts were not with him and were not right with him. This showed up in the outcome, because they were not steadfast in his covenant. They were not sincere in changing their lives, because they were not constant.

By trying to fool the God who searches hearts, they insulted him as much as by any of their complaints. Yet God, in pity, stopped the judgments that had been threatened and partly carried out (Psalm 78:38-39). “But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity.” One would think this fake repentance should have filled up the full measure of their guilt. What could be more provoking than to lie this way to the holy God, or to hold back what was owed, as in Acts 5:3?

Still, because he is full of compassion, he forgave their guilt in this sense: he did not destroy them or cut them off as a people, though he justly could have done so. Instead, he spared their lives until a new generation grew up to enter the promised land. “Do not destroy it, for a blessing is in it” (Isaiah 65:8). Many times he turned his anger away, because he rules over his own anger, and he did not pour out all his wrath.

Why did he do this? Not because their destruction would have harmed him, but for two reasons. First, he was full of compassion. When he was about to destroy them, his compassion rose up, and he said, “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?” (Hosea 11:8). Second, though they did not properly remember that he was their rock, he remembered that they were only flesh. He took into account the weakness and brokenness of their nature, and he was pleased to make that a reason for sparing them, though it was no excuse for their sin. See Genesis 6:3.

He considered how frail they were, and how easy it would have been to crush them. They are like a wind that passes away and does not return. They may soon be taken away, but once gone, they are gone for good. Then what would become of the covenant with Abraham? Since they are flesh, since they are like wind, one might argue that they could justly be cut off at once, and that no loss would come from it. But God reasons the other way: therefore he will not destroy them. The real reason is this, he is full of compassion.