Psalm 78:4

The title calls the psalm “Maschil of Asaph”. The word maskîyl comes from a root meaning to be prudent or to understand, and it marks a psalm written to instruct, to make the hearer understand. Asaph was a Levite and one of David’s chief musicians, the leader of the temple singers, and his family line is given in 1 Chronicles 6:39. The title ties the psalm to him, whether as its author, its compiler or the one who set it to music.

Psalm 78 is one of the longest psalms, and it teaches through history. It follows Psalm 77, where the psalmist in his trouble looks back to God’s works of old, and it goes on to tell of God’s dealings with Israel from the deliverance out of Egypt (Exodus 12), through the wilderness, the conquest of Canaan and the days of the judges, to the reign of David (2 Samuel 5). Again and again God is faithful and patient, and Israel forgets him and rebels. These first eight verses are the preface, and they say why the story is told at all: so that the next generation learns both from God’s grace and from their ancestors’ failures.

The voice in these verses is the psalmist’s. He says “I will open my mouth” in verse 2 and speaks of “our fathers” in verse 3. What he calls “my law” is God’s instruction, and “my people” are the people God took for his own at Sinai, his “peculiar treasure” and “a kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:5–6). The address carries both the privilege of belonging to God and the responsibility that comes with it. So the teaching comes to Israel with God’s own authority, and the words of the teacher’s mouth carry God’s word to his people.

“Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.” The verb ʼâzan is formed from the noun for the ear, and it means to broaden out the ear, that is, to listen or give ear. The second line says the same thing again in other words, as Hebrew poetry often does. To incline the ear (nâṭâh, to stretch out or bend, and ʼôzen, ear) is to lean it toward the speaker, the posture of someone humble and eager to take in what is said. The doubled call sets the tone for a long and weighty lesson.

The word for law, tôwrâh, means teaching or instruction. It includes the commandments given at Sinai and reaches to all that God teaches his people for their life and good. Here it names the instruction the psalmist is about to give through Israel’s history. Moses set hearing God’s statutes beside living and going in to possess the land (Deuteronomy 4:1–2), and at the end of his song he told Israel to set their hearts on God’s words, because those words were their life (Deuteronomy 32:46–47).

Scripture calls for this listening from beginning to end. The father in Proverbs asks his son to attend to his words and incline his ear to his sayings (Proverbs 4:20), and the prophets kept summoning a deaf and rebellious people with “Hear the word of the LORD” (Isaiah 1:10). Hearing God’s instruction is the first step in a life that keeps it, and the rest of the psalm shows what happened when Israel stopped listening.

“I will open my mouth” (pâthach, to open, and peh, mouth) marks a formal and deliberate beginning, the way a teacher or prophet opens a weighty address. The word for parable, mâshâl, means a saying, proverb, byword, parable or oracle. The history that follows is a mâshâl in that sense: Israel’s story told as a lesson, so that its events teach. Psalm 49 opens in much the same way, with the psalmist inclining his ear to a parable (Psalm 49:4).

“Utter” is nâbaʻ, to gush forth or pour out, and so to speak freely and fully. “Dark sayings” translates chîydâh, a riddle or puzzle, a saying whose meaning takes thought to draw out. “Of old” is qedem, ancient. These sayings come from Israel’s distant past, the foundational events and lessons that generations before had received from God’s hand.

“Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.” Three verbs carry the verse. shâmaʻ, to hear, also means to listen with attention and often to obey, so hearing God’s word in Scripture regularly includes heeding it, as in the prophet’s call “Hear ye the word of the LORD” (Jeremiah 2:4). yâdaʻ, to know, is knowledge by acquaintance and experience. The same verb is used when Adam knew Eve his wife (Genesis 4:1), and God promises his people a heart to know him (Jeremiah 24:7). The psalmist’s generation had taken these things in and made them their own.

“Told” is çâphar, a verb whose root sense is to count or number. In the form used for speaking it means to recount, tell or declare, the way someone goes through a story from point to point. The same verb names the scribe elsewhere in Scripture. The fathers had told the story through, and their children had received it.

The psalmist rests all that follows on what God’s people have long known and handed down. Israel kept its story chiefly by telling it, at home and in the gathered community, and God built this telling into the nation’s life. The twelve stones taken from the Jordan were set up so that when children asked what they meant, their parents would tell them how the waters were cut off before the ark (Joshua 4:6–7). Joel told his hearers to tell their children what the LORD had done, and their children another generation (Joel 1:3). Another psalm calls God’s people to remember his marvellous works (Psalm 105:5). Each generation receives the faith from the one before and owes it to the one after.

“We will not hide them from their children.” The verb kâchad means to hide, keep secret or withhold, whether by an act or by silence. The resolve here is to tell everything openly, and that includes the failures of the fathers. The rebellion of the wilderness generation at Kadesh (Numbers 14) is told plainly in the psalm as a warning. Moses gave Israel the same charge when he told them to keep their souls diligently, lest they forget what their eyes had seen, and to teach it to their sons and their sons’ sons (Deuteronomy 4:9), and another psalm pictures one generation praising God’s works to the next (Psalm 145:4).

“Shewing” is çâphar again, the verb of verse 3, so the children are to have told to them the same story the fathers told. The telling includes what the events mean as well as what happened, so that the next generation understands God’s deeds in their full glory and purpose. The telling has three subjects.

“The praises of the LORD” are his deeds and his character that call for worship: his holiness, justice, mercy and faithfulness, shown in all his dealings with his people. “His strength” is his power to deliver, to judge and to sustain, shown when Pharaoh’s army was overthrown and Israel was kept alive in the wilderness. “His wonderful works that he hath done” translates a noun, nip̄lāʾōt, from the verb pâlâʾ, which means to separate or distinguish, and so to be great, difficult or wonderful. These are deeds beyond any human power, such as the parting of the Red Sea and the manna, and they move those who hear of them to wonder, fear and praise.

This telling is how God keeps his covenant people rooted across the centuries. A generation that heard nothing of what God had done would have to find him all over again, and Israel’s history shows how quickly a people drifts into idolatry when it forgets.

Verse 5 opens with “For”, and it gives the reason for the resolve of verse 4: God himself commanded it. “He established a testimony in Jacob.” The verb qûwm means to rise or stand, and in the form used here it means to raise or set up. God took the initiative and set his testimony in place among his people. The word ʻêdûwth, testimony, comes from a root meaning to bear witness, and it means a witness, a reminder or a decree.

“And appointed a law in Israel” says the same thing again in the next line of the verse. “Appointed” is sûwm, to put or set, and law is tôwrâh, the word of verse 1, which comes from yârâh, to teach or guide. Jacob and Israel are the two names of the patriarch, and here both stand for the nation descended from him, so the whole people received this instruction together. God gave it at Sinai, where he gave Moses the tables of stone with the law and commandments he had written (Exodus 24:12). Psalm 19 praises the perfection and power of this law of the LORD (Psalm 19:7–11).

“Which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children.” “Make known” comes from yâdaʻ, the verb for “known” in verse 3, in a form that means to cause someone to know. God’s purpose in giving his law reached past the generation that received it. Moses had told them that the words God commanded were to be in their hearts, and “thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children” (Deuteronomy 6:6–7), talking of them at home and on the way, at bedtime and on rising.

“That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born.” The word dôwr means a generation, and also a period or age. Strong’s gives its root sense as “a revolution of time”, the turning of one generation into the next. “Children” is bên, son, used broadly for offspring and descendants. “Know” is yâdaʻ once more, so the goal is that the children will know God’s works and law as their fathers did, by acquaintance and experience.

“Them” gathers up the testimony and law of verse 5 and the praises, strength and wonderful works of verse 4. The verse looks ahead to children not yet born, “who should arise and declare them to their children.” To arise is to grow up and take one’s place, and these children will in turn become the teachers. “Declare” is çâphar, the verb of verses 3 and 4, so the same telling passes from fathers to children, to children yet unborn, and on to their children after them.

God gave Israel its feasts with this in view. At the Passover, when children asked what the service meant, parents were to explain that the LORD passed over their houses in Egypt (Exodus 12:26–27). The chain this verse pictures has no end set to it, and it matches the God who keeps covenant and mercy with them that love him to a thousand generations (Deuteronomy 7:9).

Verse 7 states the purpose of all this telling. “That they might set their hope in God.” The word keçel comes from a root meaning fatness, and it can mean the loins, the seat of strength. In a good sense it means confidence or trust. To set one’s hope in God is to rest the future and its security on his character and promises, and away from human strength, armies or changing circumstances. Coming to God begins with believing that he is and that he rewards those who diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6).

“And not forget the works of God.” The verb shâkach means to forget, and maʻălâl means a deed or act. God’s deeds in Israel’s history were concrete: the deliverance from Egypt, the manna, the giving of the law. The psalm shows at once what forgetting them led to, when the men of Ephraim turned back in the day of battle because they “forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them” (Psalm 78:9–11). Moses warned Israel that when they were full and settled in good houses, their hearts would be lifted up and they would forget the LORD who brought them out of Egypt (Deuteronomy 8:11–14). The wilderness generation forgot his wonders and refused to enter the land at Kadesh (Numbers 14).

“But keep his commandments.” The word mitsvâh means a commandment or precept, God’s instruction for living in covenant with him. The three aims belong together. Trust that rests on God, kept alive by remembering what he has done, shows itself in obedience, the glad response of a heart that knows him. Jesus joined love for him with keeping his commandments (John 14:15), and John writes that we know that we know God if we keep his commandments (1 John 2:3–6).

“And might not be as their fathers.” The fathers here are above all the generation that came out of Egypt and wandered in the wilderness. They had seen the manna and quail (Exodus 16) and the water from the rock (Exodus 17), and still they made the golden calf (Exodus 32), complained for meat (Numbers 11) and refused to go into the land (Numbers 14). Moses told Israel to remember how they had provoked the LORD in the wilderness from the day they left Egypt (Deuteronomy 9:7). The verse names what went wrong with them in four phrases.

“A stubborn and rebellious generation.” “Stubborn” is çârar, to turn away, to be refractory or wayward, the stubbornness of an ox that will take no direction or a son who will take no correction. “Rebellious” is mârâh, to rebel or disobey. Strong’s gives its root sense as to be bitter or unpleasant, with rebellion as its figurative use. Together the two words picture a people who resisted God within and defied him in what they did.

“A generation that set not their heart aright.” “Set aright” is kûwn, to prepare, fix or establish, and “heart” is lêb, which in Hebrew takes in the mind, the will and the affections. Their inner life was never made ready for God or settled on him. Their outward rebellion came from a heart that was unprepared and unfixed.

“And whose spirit was not stedfast with God.” “Spirit” is rûwach, which means wind, breath or spirit, here the inner disposition and resolve. “Stedfast” is ʼâman, a verb that in its simplest form means to support or nurture, as a nurse or foster-parent does, and in the form behind “stedfast” means to be firm, established or faithful. “Amen” comes from the same root. Their loyalty to God wavered, and their trust gave way at each new trial, while God’s own faithfulness held firm the whole way through.

Hebrews takes up this generation as a warning to Christians, citing the psalm that tells how they hardened their hearts in the wilderness and so failed to enter God’s rest (Hebrews 3:7–11). Jeremiah says that the heart is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9). God’s answer to the unsteady heart is his own promise: to put his law in his people’s inward parts and write it on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33), and to give them a new heart and a new spirit and cause them to walk in his statutes (Ezekiel 36:26–27).

The call to “give ear” to God’s law reaches its fullest meaning in Jesus Christ. God, who spoke in times past by the prophets, has spoken to us by his Son (Hebrews 1:1–2). The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), grace and truth came by him (John 1:17), and the only begotten Son has declared the Father (John 1:18), so that “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). He is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), his words are spirit and life (John 6:63), and his sheep hear his voice and follow him (John 10:27). He came to fulfil the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17), so to give ear to God’s instruction today is above all to listen to Christ and obey him.

The wonderful works the psalm wants told reach their height in him. He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8). By his own blood he entered once into the holy place and obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12). God commended his love toward us in that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8), he was raised again for our justification (Romans 4:25), and on the cross he triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15). This is the gospel that is now passed on: that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and all the promises of God are yea and Amen in him (2 Corinthians 1:20). Our hope is set in God through a living hope, born of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead (1 Peter 1:3–4).

Where the wilderness generation wavered, Christ stood firm. He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15), and his heart was always set on his Father’s will. Through him God has made a better covenant on better promises (Hebrews 8:6), and its promise is the one Jeremiah gave, of laws written on the heart (Hebrews 8:10). So the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk after the Spirit (Romans 8:4), and anyone in Christ is a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17). The charge to make God’s works known to the children widens in the risen Christ’s command to make disciples of all nations and teach them all he commanded, with his promise to be with us always (Matthew 28:19–20).

These verses show us a God who speaks and teaches, who did wonders worth telling, and who planned from the start that his works would pass from parent to child. He set up his testimony himself and gave the command to hand it on, so the faith that reaches each new generation reaches it by his design. The psalm also shows his patience. The fathers’ spirit wavered, yet God kept his covenant and kept giving his people teachers, and the long history that follows these verses is a history of his faithfulness.

What the psalm hopes for every generation is hope in God, memory of his works and a heart that keeps his commandments. In Christ God has given what the wilderness generation lacked, a new heart and the Spirit to make it steadfast. The story Asaph told is now joined to the story of the cross and the empty tomb, and the call of verse 4 still stands for every household and church that has heard it: “shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.”