Psalm 78
IN Mark 4:33,34, the Bible tells us that Jesus spake all things unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake He not unto them. But when they were alone, He expounded all things to His disciples.
Why did He do that? Matthew 13:35 explains, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.”
That quote is from Psalm 78, which begins with these three verses:
Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
Significantly, the greater portion of that long psalm faulted Israel for having provoked God to great anger. We wonder what spiritual truths has the Lord hidden in those historical accounts.
The promised Messiah. To put things in context, let’s look first at the concluding passage, verses 69-72:
And he built his sanctuary like high palaces, like the earth which he hath established for ever. He chose David also his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds: From following the ewes great with young he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.
That is parabolic language prophesying that a Messiah would come to establish His eternal sanctuary. David, of course, is a type of the Lord Jesus. We believers are Jacob His people and Israel His inheritance. After having laid down his life for us, the Good Shepherd has since been feeding us with His word and guiding us by His Spirit.
The Way We Were
With that in mind, we can infer that those negative records of Israel are really dark sayings showing how despicable we, the Israel of God, were before we became saved. For example:
1. We ignored God.
The Lord begins by saying in verses 9 and 10:
The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law.
Relying on our own strength, the “old man” that we were, lived a life of spiritual defeats. We refused to do things God’s way.
But how could we obey God’s law without having learned it? Well, the Bible says that’s no excuse. The requirements of the law, it insists, have been written on our hearts (Rom. 2:15). And it makes it clear in Psalm 19:1,3:
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork...There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
But instead of praising and worshipping Him, we just conveniently forgot His great works. Verses 11-16 say:
And forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them. Marvellous things did he in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. He divided the sea, and caused them to pass through; and he made the waters to stand as an heap. In the daytime also he led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire. He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.
2. We were ingrates.
Long before we became saved, God had been guiding the events of our lives, showering us with all kinds of blessings. Even before time began, in fact, He had predestinated us to be a child of His. Romans 2:4 therefore asks rhetorically, “Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”
That’s how we behaved, all right! In parabolic language, God describes us in verses 23-30:
Though he had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven, And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven. Man did eat angels’ food: he sent them meat to the full. He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven: and by his power he brought in the south wind. He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea: And he let it fall in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations. So they did eat, and were well filled: for he gave them their own desire; They were not estranged from their lust…
3. We practiced foxhole religion.
You’ve heard the saying: There are no atheists in foxholes. That is a fitting remark regarding our old self. We didn’t seek God, but we had no hesitation asking Him for help whenever trials came into our life. We even made vows to Him that were never meant to be kept. But God knows our heart. So, again using Israel to typify us, He says in verses 34-37:
When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned and inquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer. Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues. For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant.
4. We engaged in lustful idolatry.
In verses 56-58, God faulted the Israelites for idolatry, saying:
Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his testimonies: But turned back, and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow. For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.
Not many of us, to be sure, engaged in worshipping graven images these days. But without knowing it, we used to be avid idolaters nevertheless. For Colossians 3:5 states, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”
In one form or another, we were all quite covetous.
5. We were under the wrath of God.
Although God had chosen ancient Israel to be a special people of His, they repeatedly provoked God to anger. Alluding to the time when God gave them quails to eat in the wildness, verses 30b-33 note:
But while their meat was yet in their mouths, The wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel. For all this they sinned still, and believed not for his wondrous works. Therefore their days did he consume in vanity, and their years in trouble.
When we read such accounts about Israel, we tend to remark, “No wonder God was angry with them.” Yet, this and other similar passages are really describing the way we believers were. For the Bible says in Ephesians 2:1-3:
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
The Way God Is
Thankfully, ours is a God of mercy. Of Him, the psalmist was inspired by Him to write in verses 38 and 39:
But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath. For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.
By nature we are sinners that deserve all His wrath. But our God is compassionate. He has pity on us. He knows that we are human beings made of flesh, that we are just a breath away from death. There is nothing we can do to help ourselves from eventually pass from our earthly existence into eternal damnation in hell. God knows it.
The man of action. Our merciful God is also gracious. For those whom He had chosen to save before time began entirely for His name’s sake, He made this promise in verses 65-68:
Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine. And he smote his enemies in the hinder parts: he put them to a perpetual reproach. Moreover he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: But chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved.
God, of course, does not sleep. “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep,” Psalm 121:4 assures us. But in a figure of speech, this verse is saying that God would at some point act as through He has awakened out of sleep. You see, we sinners are in desperate need for Him to act on our behalf. Thus, we read in Psalm 44:23, “Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.”
The Cross. In the fullness of time, God the Word became flesh. With the death and resurrection of Christ, He destroyed Satan and all other spiritual enemies. No one from even the huge tribe of Ephraim can compare to Him. Nor could the tabernacle of Joseph, holy though it was, come close to Him in glory. The Lord Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Eternal Temple of God in spiritual Mount Zion.
The exodus. Colossians 1:13,14 speaks of God having delivered us from the power of darkness, translating us into the kingdom of His dear Son. Elsewhere in the Bible, God likens our salvation to His having freed Israel from their enslavement in Egypt. Thus, we read in verses 44-53:
And had turned their rivers into blood; and their floods, that they could not drink. He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them. He gave also their increase unto the caterpiller, and their labour unto the locust. He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycomore trees with frost. He gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts. He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them. He made a way to his anger; he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence; And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham: But made his own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. And he led them on safely, so that they feared not: but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
After God had sent His plagues to the Egyptians but before He finally drowned Pharaoh and his chariots was the killing and the eating of the Passover lamb. And that lamb was a picture of Christ, the Lamb of God, that died for our sins. In short, that whole long passage is pointing to the Cross. Hence, we read in verses 54 and 55:
And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary, even to this mountain, which his right hand had purchased. He cast out the heathen also before them, and divided them an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
The Great Commission
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. What should our response be? We worship and praise Him in truth and in spirit. We live to please and serve Him. We do our best to send forth the gospel so that others might receive the same blessing. And that precisely is what God reminds us to do in the opening statement of this Psalm. After having declared that He is speaking in parables, God says in the self-explanatory verses 4-7:
We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For 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: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.