Psalms 78:50

How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! -The Israelites in the time of the Judges tempted God by forgetting His judgments in Egypt in Israel's behalf, which are here detailed, as also His love in bringing Israel into Canaan. Verse 40. HOW OFT DID THEY PROVOKE ... AND GRIEVE HIM IN THE DESERT! - (Psalms 95:9: Isaiah 63:10.) "They vexed His Holy Spirit," Ephesians 4:30; Ezekiel 16:43, 'thou hast fretted me.' Verse 41. YEA, THEY TURNED BACK, AND TEMPTED GOD - Hebrew idiom, 'They tempted God anew.' The rebellio...

50._He made a way to his anger. _(352) To take away all excuse from this ungrateful people, whom the most evident and striking proofs of the goodness of God which were presented before their eyes could not keep in their obedience to him, it is here again repeated that the wrath of God overflowed Egypt like an impetuous torrent. The miracle adverted to is the last which was there wrought, when God, by the powerful hand of his angel, slew, in one night, all the first-born of Egypt. According to a common and familiar mode of speaking in the Hebrew language, the first-born are called _the beginning, _or _the first-fruits of strength. _Although the old advance to death as they decline in years, yet as they are in a manner renewed in their offspring, and thus may be said to recover their decayed strength, the term _strength _is applied to their children. And the first-born are called the begin...

40-55. Let not those that receive mercy from God, be thereby made bold to sin, for the mercies they receive will hasten its punishment; yet let not those who are under Divine rebukes for sin, be discouraged from repentance. The Holy One of Israel will do what is most for his own glory, and what is most for their good. Their forgetting former favours, led them to limit God for the future. God made his own people to go forth like sheep; and guided them in the wilderness, as a shepherd his flock, with all care and tenderness. Thus the true Joshua, even Jesus, brings his church out of the wilderness; but no earthly Canaan, no worldly advantages, should make us forget that the church is in the wilderness while in this world, and that there remaineth a far more glorious rest for the people of God....

HE MADE A WAY TO HIS ANGER - Margin, he weighed a path. He leveled a path for it; he took away all hindrance to it; he allowed it to have free scope. The idea of weighing is not in the original. The allusion is to a preparation made by which one can march along freely, and without any obstruction. See the notes at Isaiah 40:3. HE SPARED NOT THEIR SOUL FROM DEATH - He spared not their lives. That is, he gave them over to death. BUT GAVE THEIR LIFE OVER TO THE PESTILENCE - Margin, their beasts to the murrain. The original will admit of either interpretation, but the connection seems rather to demand the interpretation which is in the text. Both these things, however, occurred....

EXPOSITION This, the first of the "historical psalms," though assigned by the rationalistic school (De Wette, Ewald, Koster, Hitzig) to a period subsequent to the Captivity, is generally allowed by more sober critics (Hengstenberg, Kay, Wordsworth, Canon Cook, Professor Alexander) to belong to the Davidical age—_i.e._ either to the reign of David or to that of Solomon. The abrupt conclusion when David's time is reached indicates that the writer cannot carry the lessons of history any further. The way in which David is spoken of (Psalms 78:72), and the (apparent) mention of the temple in Psalms 78:69, indicate that Solomon's reign was begun, and make "a few years after the accession of Solomon" the most probable date of the composition. There is thus no reason for rejecting the authors

HE MADE A WAY TO HIS ANGER,.... Or, "for" it, so that nothing could obstruct it, or hinder the execution of it; or "he weighed a path for his anger" m; he weighed it in the balance of justice, and proportioned his anger to their crimes, and punished them according to their just deserts: HE SPARED NOT THEIR SOUL FROM DEATH, BUT GAVE THEIR LIFE OVER TO THE PESTILENCE; which some understand of their cattle, and of the murrain that came upon them, by which they were destroyed, and which was the fifth plague of Egypt, Exodus 9:3, so the Targum, "their beasts he delivered unto death;'' but Aben Ezra interprets it of the slaughter of the firstborn, expressed in the following verse; and so others. m יפלס נתיב לאפו "ponderavit semitam furori suo", Pagninus, Vatablus; "libravit semitam irae suae", Tigurine version; "iter ad iram suam", Junius Treme

This story of the children of Israel, after they came out of Egypt, is like a looking-glass in which we may, with great sadness, see ourselves reflected. Psalms 78:9. _The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle._ They had every opportunity of serving their God; he had provided them with fit weapons for the war, but they were cowardly, so they «turned back in the day of battle.» Psalms 78:10. _They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law; and forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them._ Let each one of us ask, «Does the psalmist describe me?» Psalms 78:12. Marvellous t

PSALM 78-83 Psalms 78 A Historical Retrospect _ 1. The call to hear (Psalms 78:1)_ 2. Ephraim's failure (Psalms 78:9) 3. His dealings in power and mercy (Psalms 78:12) 4. The continued provocation (Psalms 78:56) 5. His sovereign grace in choosing David (Psalms 78:65) This historical retrospect needs no further comment. It is God speaking to the hearts of His people through their own history from Egypt to Da

LXXVIII. THE LESSON OF ISRAEL'S HISTORY. The northern tribes have been perverse from the first. Their wickedness has culminated in the schismatical religion of the Samaritans. God, on the contrary, has chosen Zion, the sanctuary of Judah. The Ps. must have been written before John Hyrcanus (134 B.C.) destroyed the Samaritan shrine on Mt. Gerizim (p. 608). PSALMS 78:1. Introduction. PSALMS 78:2. PARABLE: rather poem. DARK SAYINGS: rather enigmas in the history of Israel and Judah which the Psalmist explains. Psalms 78:4. Point with LXX, It was not hid from their children: they told it for the generation that was, etc....

MADE. pondered, or weighed. Compare Proverbs 4:26; Proverbs 5:6; Proverbs 5:21. Contrast Isaiah 26:7. SOUL. Hebrew. _n_ ephesh. App-13....