Chapter 78

A contemplation by Asaph.

¹Hear my law, my people.

Turn your ears to the words of my mouth.

²I will open my mouth in a parable.

I will utter dark sayings of old,

³Which we have heard and known,

And our fathers have told us.

⁴We will not hide them from their children,

Telling to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh,

His strength, and his wondrous works that he has done.

⁵For he established a testimony in Jacob,

And appointed a law in Israel,

Which he commanded our fathers,

That they should make them known to their children;

⁶That the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born;

Who should arise and tell their children,

⁷That they might set their hope in God,

And not forget the works of God,

But keep his commandments,

⁸And might not be as their fathers,

A stubborn and rebellious generation,

A generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal,

Whose spirit was not steadfast with God.

⁹The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows,

Turned back in the day of battle.

¹⁰They didn’t keep God’s covenant,

And refused to walk in his law.

¹¹They forgot his doings,

His wondrous works that he had shown them.

¹²He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers,

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

¹³He split the sea, and caused them to pass through;

He made the waters stand as a heap.

¹⁴In the daytime he also led them with a cloud,

And all night with a light of fire.

¹⁵He split rocks in the wilderness,

And gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths.

¹⁶He brought streams also out of the rock,

And caused waters to run down like rivers.

¹⁷Yet they still went on to sin against him,

To rebel against the Most High in the desert.

¹⁸They tempted God in their heart

By asking food according to their desire.

¹⁹Yes, they spoke against God.

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

²⁰Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out,

Streams overflowed.

Can he give bread also?

Will he provide flesh for his people?”

²¹Therefore Yahweh heard, and was angry.

A fire was kindled against Jacob,

Anger also went up against Israel,

²²Because they didn’t believe in God,

And didn’t trust in his salvation.

²³Yet he commanded the skies above,

And opened the doors of heaven.

²⁴He rained down manna on them to eat,

And gave them food from the sky.

²⁵Man ate the bread of angels.

He sent them food to the full.

²⁶He caused the east wind to blow in the sky.

By his power he guided the south wind.

²⁷He rained also flesh on them as the dust;

Winged birds as the sand of the seas.

²⁸He let them fall in the midst of their camp,

Around their habitations.

²⁹So they ate, and were well filled.

He gave them their own desire.

³⁰They didn’t turn from their cravings.

Their food was yet in their mouths,

³¹When the anger of God went up against them,

Killed some of the fattest of them,

And struck down the young men of Israel.

³²For all this they still sinned,

And didn’t believe in his wondrous works.

³³Therefore he consumed their days in vanity,

And their years in terror.

³⁴When he killed them, then they inquired after him.

They returned and sought God earnestly.

³⁵They remembered that God was their rock,

The Most High God their redeemer.

³⁶But they flattered him with their mouth,

And lied to him with their tongue.

³⁷For their heart was not right with him,

Neither were they faithful in his covenant.

³⁸But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn’t destroy them.

Yes, many times he turned his anger away,

And didn’t stir up all his wrath.

³⁹He remembered that they were but flesh,

A wind that passes away, and doesn’t come again.

⁴⁰How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness,

And grieved him in the desert!

⁴¹They turned again and tempted God,

And provoked the Holy One of Israel.

⁴²They didn’t remember his hand,

Nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary;

⁴³How he set his signs in Egypt,

His wonders in the field of Zoan,

⁴⁴Turned their rivers into blood,

And their streams, so that they could not drink.

⁴⁵He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them;

And frogs, which destroyed them.

⁴⁶He gave also their increase to the caterpillar,

And their labor to the locust.

⁴⁷He destroyed their vines with hail,

Their sycamore fig trees with frost.

⁴⁸He gave over their livestock also to the hail,

And their flocks to hot thunderbolts.

⁴⁹He threw on them the fierceness of his anger,

Wrath, indignation, and trouble,

And a band of angels of evil.

⁵⁰He made a path for his anger.

He didn’t spare their soul from death,

But gave their life over to the pestilence,

⁵¹And struck all the firstborn in Egypt,

The chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.

⁵²But he led forth his own people like sheep,

And guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

⁵³He led them safely, so that they weren’t afraid,

But the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

⁵⁴He brought them to the border of his sanctuary,

To this mountain, which his right hand had taken.

⁵⁵He also drove out the nations before them,

Allotted them for an inheritance by line,

And made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.

⁵⁶Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God,

And didn’t keep his testimonies;

⁵⁷But turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers.

They were turned aside like a deceitful bow.

⁵⁸For they provoked him to anger with their high places,

And moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.

⁵⁹When God heard this, he was angry,

And greatly abhorred Israel;

⁶⁰So that he forsook the tent of Shiloh,

The tent which he placed among men;

⁶¹And delivered his strength into captivity,

His glory into the adversary’s hand.

⁶²He also gave his people over to the sword,

And was angry with his inheritance.

⁶³Fire devoured their young men;

Their virgins had no wedding song.

⁶⁴Their priests fell by the sword,

And their widows couldn’t weep.

⁶⁵Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep,

Like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine.

⁶⁶He struck his adversaries backward.

He put them to a perpetual reproach.

⁶⁷Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph,

And didn’t choose the tribe of Ephraim,

⁶⁸But chose the tribe of Judah,

Mount Zion which he loved.

⁶⁹He built his sanctuary like the heights,

Like the earth which he has established forever.

⁷⁰He also chose David his servant,

And took him from the sheepfolds;

⁷¹From following the ewes that have their young,

He brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people,

And Israel, his inheritance.

⁷²So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart,

And guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.