Psalm 78:1-72
Masʹkil.* Of Aʹsaph.+
78 Do give ear, O my people, to my law;+Incline YOUR ear to the sayings of my mouth.+
2 In a proverbial saying I will open my mouth;+I will cause riddles of long ago to bubble forth,+
3 Which we have heard and know,+And which our own fathers have related to us;+
4 Which we do not hide from their sons,+Relating [them] even to the generation to come,+The praises of Jehovah and his strength+And his wonderful things that he has done.+
5 And he proceeded to raise up a reminder in Jacob,+And a law he set in Israel,+Things that he commanded our forefathers,+To make them known to their sons;+
6 In order that the generation to come, the sons that were to be born, might know [them],+That they might rise up and relate [them] to their sons,+
7 And that they might set their confidence in God* himself+And not forget the practices of God*+ but observe his own commandments.+
8 And they should not become like their forefathers,+A generation stubborn and rebellious,+A generation who had not prepared their heart+And whose spirit was not trustworthy with God.*+
9 The sons of Eʹphra·im, though armed shooters of the bow,+Retreated in the day of fight.+
10 They did not keep the covenant of God,*+And in his law they refused to walk.+
11 They also began to forget his dealings+And his wonderful works that he caused them to see.+
12 In front of their forefathers he had done marvelously+In the land of Egypt,+ the field of Zoʹan.+
13 He split the sea, that he might let them pass over,+And he caused the waters to stand like a dam.+
14 And he continued to lead them with a cloud by day+And the whole night with a light of fire.+
15 He proceeded to split rocks in the wilderness,+That he might cause [them] to drink an abundance just like watery deeps.*+
16 And he went bringing forth streams out of a crag+And causing waters to descend just like rivers.+
17 And they kept sinning still more against him+By rebelling against the Most High in the waterless region;+
18 And they proceeded to test God* in their heart+By asking for something to eat for their soul.+
19 So they began to speak against God.*+They said: “Is God able to arrange a table in the wilderness?”+
20 Look! He struck a rock+That waters might flow and torrents themselves might flood forth.+“Is he able also to give bread itself,+Or can he prepare sustenance for his people?”+
21 That was why Jehovah heard and began to be furious;+And fire itself was kindled against Jacob,+And anger also ascended against Israel.+
22 For they did not put faith in God,+And they did not trust in salvation by him.+
23 And he proceeded to command the cloudy skies above,And he opened the very doors of heaven.+
24 And he kept raining upon them manna to eat,+And the grain of heaven he gave to them.+
25 Men* ate the very bread of powerful ones;*+Provisions he sent them to satisfaction.+
26 He began making an east wind burst forth in the heavens+And making a south wind blow by his own strength.+
27 And he proceeded to make sustenance rain upon them just like dust,+Even winged flying creatures just like the sand grains of the seas.+
28 And he kept making [them] fall in the middle of his camp,+All around his tabernacles.+
29 And they went eating and satisfying themselves very much,+And what they desired he proceeded to bring to them.+
30 They had not turned aside from their desire,While their food was yet in their mouth,+
31 When God’s wrath itself ascended against them.+And he went killing among their stout ones;+And the young men of Israel he made collapse.
32 Despite all this they sinned some more+And did not put faith in his wonderful works.+
33 So he brought their days to an end as if a mere exhalation,+And their years by the disturbance.
34 As often as he killed them, they also inquired for him,+And they returned and looked for God.*+
35 And they began to remember that God* was their Rock,+And that God the Most High was their Avenger.+
36 And they tried to fool him with their mouth;+And with their tongue they tried to lie to him.+
37 And their heart was not steadfast with him;+And they did not prove faithful in his covenant.+
38 But he was merciful;+ he would cover the error+ and not bring ruin.+And many times he made his anger turn back,+And he would not rouse up all his rage.
39 And he kept remembering that they were flesh,+That the spirit* is going forth and does not come back.+
40 How often they would rebel against him in the wilderness,+They would make him feel hurt in the desert!+
41 And again and again they would put God* to the test,+And they pained even the Holy One of Israel.+
42 They did not remember his hand,+The day that he redeemed them from the adversary,+
43 How he put his signs in Egypt itself+And his miracles in the field of Zoʹan;+
44 And how he began changing to blood their Nile canals,+So that they could not drink from their own streams.+
45 He proceeded to send upon them gadflies, that these might eat them up;+And frogs, that these might bring them to ruin.+
46 And he began to give to the cockroaches their yield,And their toil to the locusts.+
47 He went killing their vine even by the hail+And their sycamore trees by hailstones.+
48 And he proceeded to hand over their beasts of burden even to the hail+And their livestock to the flaming fever.
49 He went sending upon them his burning anger,+Fury and denunciation and distress,+Deputations of angels bringing calamity.+
50 He proceeded to prepare a pathway for his anger.+He did not hold back their soul from death itself;And their life he handed over even to the pestilence.*+
51 Finally he struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,+The beginning of their generative power* in the tents of Ham.+
52 Afterward he caused his people to depart just like a flock,+And conducted them like a drove in the wilderness.+
53 And he kept leading them in security, and they felt no dread;+And the sea covered their enemies themselves.+
54 And he proceeded to bring them to his holy territory,+This mountainous region that his right hand acquired.+
55 And because of them he gradually drove out the nations,+And by the measuring line he went allotting them an inheritance,+So that he caused the tribes of Israel to reside in their own homes.*+
56 And they began to test and rebel against God the Most High,+And his reminders they did not keep.+
57 They also kept turning back and acting treacherously like their forefathers;+They turned around like a loose bow.+
58 And they kept offending him with their high places,+And with their graven images they kept inciting him to jealousy.+
59 God heard+ and got to be furious,+And so he contemned Israel very much.+
60 And he finally forsook the tabernacle of Shiʹloh,+The tent in which he resided among earthling men.+
61 And he proceeded to give his strength even to captivity+And his beauty into the hand of the adversary.+
62 And he kept handing over his people to the sword itself,+And against his inheritance he became furious.+
63 His young men a fire ate up,And his virgins were not praised.*+
64 As for his priests, they fell by the very sword,+And their* own widows did not give way to weeping.+
65 Then Jehovah* began to awake as from sleeping,+Like a mighty one sobering up from wine.+
66 And he went striking down his adversaries from behind;+A reproach of indefinite duration he gave to them.+
67 And he proceeded to reject the tent of Joseph;+And the tribe of Eʹphra·im he did not choose.+
68 But he chose the tribe of Judah,+Mount Zion, which he loved.+
69 And he began to build his sanctuary just like the heights,+Like the earth that he has founded to time indefinite.+
70 And so he chose David his servant+And took him from the pens of the flock.+
71 From following the females giving suck+He brought him in to be a shepherd over Jacob his people+And over Israel his inheritance.+
72 And he began to shepherd them according to the integrity of his heart,+And with the skillfulness of his hands he began leading them.+
Footnotes
^ See 32:Sup ftn.
^ “In God.” Heb., vEʼ·lo·himʹ.
^ “God.” Heb., ʼEl.
^ “God.” Heb., ʼEl.
^ “God.” Heb., ʼElo·himʹ.
^ Or, “just like surging waters.” Heb., kith·ho·mohthʹ. See 33:7 ftn, “Waters.”
^ “God.” Heb., ʼEl.
^ “Against God.” Heb., bEʼ·lo·himʹ.
^ “Men.” Heb., ʼish.
^ “Powerful ones,” that is, superhuman ones. Heb., ʼab·bi·rimʹ; LXXSyVg, “angels”; T, “(that descended from) the habitation of angels.”
^ “God.” Heb., ʼEl.
^ “God.” Heb., ʼElo·himʹ.
^ Or, “a wind.” Heb., ruʹach.
^ “God.” Heb., ʼEl.
^ Or, “(bubonic) plague.”
^ Lit., “of generative powers,” M; Sy, “of their offspring”; TLXXVg, “of their labor(s).”
^ Lit., “tents.”
^ “Praised,” that is, in wedding songs.
^ “Their,” LXXSyVg; MT, “his.”
^ One of 134 scribal changes from YHWH to ʼAdho·naiʹ. See App 1B.
