Psalms 78:10

78:9-39. Sin dispirits men, and takes away the heart. Forgetfulness of God's works is the cause of disobedience to his laws. This narrative relates a struggle between God's goodness and man's badness. The Lord hears all our murmurings and distrusts, and is much displeased. Those that will not believe the power of God's mercy, shall feel the fire of his indignation. Those cannot be said to trust in God's salvation as their happiness at last, who can not trust his providence in the way to it. To all that by faith and prayer, ask, seek, and knock, these doors of heaven shall at any time be opened; and our distrust of God is a great aggravation of our sins. He expressed his resentment of their provocation; not in denying what they sinfully lusted after, but in granting it to them. Lust is contented with nothing. Those that indulge their lust, will never be estranged from it. Those hearts are hard indeed, that will neither be melted by the mercies of the Lord, nor broken by his judgments. Those that sin still, must expect to be in trouble still. And the reason why we live with so little comfort, and to so little purpose, is, because we do not live by faith. Under these rebukes they professed repentance, but they were not sincere, for they were not constant. In Israel's history we have a picture of our own hearts and lives. God's patience, and warnings, and mercies, imbolden them to harden their hearts against his word. And the history of kingdoms is much the same.

Judgments and mercies have been little attended to, until the measure of their sins has been full. And higher advantages have not kept churches from declining from the commandments of God. Even true believers recollect, that for many a year they abused the kindness of Providence. When they come to heaven, how will they admire the Lord's patience and mercy in bringing them to his kingdom!

They kept not the covenant of God,.... Either the covenant of circumcision, which was neglected during their travels through the wilderness, Joshua 5:5 or the covenant made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai, Exodus 24:7 and this is to be understood not of the children of Ephraim only, but of the Israelites in general, who in many instances broke the covenant, and were not steadfast in it, Psalm 78:37 ; see Gill on Jeremiah 31:32 . and refused to walk in his law; the law of God, which was given forth by him, by the disposition of angels, through the hands of a mediator, Moses, as a rule of their walk and conversation; but they refused to order their conversation according to it, being unwilling to be subject to it, but despised and cast it away; a sad instance of the corruption of human nature, and the depravity of man's will, boasted of for its freedom, yet what is common, and to be observed in all mankind.

Psalm 78:10-11 . They kept not the covenant of God — Their cowardice was the effect of their unbelief and disobedience; and refused to walk in his law — Their disobedience was accompanied with obstinacy and contempt of God’s laws. And forgat his works — Not historically, but practically. They did not so remember them as to love, and serve, and trust in that God, of whose infinite power and goodness they had had such ample experience.

9-11. The privileges of the first-born which belonged to Joseph (1Ch 5:1, 2) were assigned to Ephraim by Jacob (Ge 48:1). The supremacy of the tribe thus intimated was recognized by its position (in the marching of the nation to Canaan) next to the ark (Nu 2:18-24), by the selection of the first permanent locality for the ark within its borders at Shiloh, and by the extensive and fertile province given for its possession. Traces of this prominence remained after the schism under Rehoboam, in the use, by later writers, of Ephraim for Israel (compare Ho 5:3-14; 11:3-12). Though a strong, well-armed tribe, and, from an early period, emulous and haughty (compare Jos 17:14; Jud 8:1-3; 2Sa 19:41), it appears, in this place, that it had rather led the rest in cowardice than courage; and had incurred God's displeasure, because, diffident of His promise, though often heretofore fulfilled, it had failed as a leader to carry out the terms of the covenant, by not driving out the heathen (Ex 23:24; De 31:16; 2Ki 17:15).

They kept not the covenant of God - The covenant which God had made with the entire Hebrew people. They did not maintain their allegiance to Yahweh. Compare Deuteronomy 4:13 , Deuteronomy 4:23 ; Deuteronomy 17:2 . And refused to walk in his law - Refused to obey his law. They rebelled against him.

Psalm 78:9 , which comes in now in the midst of this description, is awkward and unintelligible. The supposition that "the sons of Ephraim" is an appellation for the whole of Israel is refuted by Psalm 78:67 . The rejection of Ephraim and the election of Judah is the point into which the historical retrospect runs out; how then can "the sons of Ephraim" denote Israel as a whole? And yet what is here said of the Ephraimites also holds good of the Israelites in general, as Psalm 78:57 shows. The fact, however, that the Ephraimites are made specially conspicuous out of the "generation" of all Israel, is intelligible from the special interest which the Psalms of Asaph take in the tribes of Joseph, and here particularly from the purpose of practically preparing the way for the rejection of Shiloh and Ephraim related further on. In Psalm 78:10 and Psalm 78:11 the Ephraimites are also still spoken of; and it is not until Psalm 78:12 , with the words "in sight of their fathers," that we come back again to the nation at large. The Ephraimites are called נושׁקי רומי־קשׁת in the sense of נושׁקי קשׁת רומי קשׁת; the two participial construct forms do not stand in subordination but in co-ordination, as in Jeremiah 46:9 ; Deuteronomy 33:19 ; 2 Samuel 20:19 , just as in other instances also two substantives, of which one is the explanation of the other, are combined by means of the construct, Job 20:17 , cf. 2 Kings 17:13 Ker.

It is therefore: those who prepare the bow, i.e., those arming themselves therewith (נשׁק as in 1 Chronicles 12:2 ; 2 Chronicles 17:17 ), those who cast the vow, i.e., those shooting arrows from the bow ( Jeremiah 4:29 ), cf. Bttcher, 728. What is predicated of them, viz., "they turned round" (הפך as in Judges 20:39 , Judges 20:41 ), stands in contrast with this their ability to bear arms and to defend themselves, as a disappointed expectation. Is what is meant thereby, that the powerful warlike tribe of Ephraim grew weary in the work of the conquest of Canaan ( Judges 1 ), and did not render the services which might have been expected from it? Since the historical retrospect does not enter into details until Psalm 78:12 onwards, this especial historical reference would come too early here; the statement consequently must be understood more generally and, according to Psalm 78:57 , figuratively: Ephraim proved itself unstable and faint-hearted in defending and in conducting the cause of God, it gave it up, it abandoned it. They did not act as the covenant of God required of them, they refused to walk (ללכת, cf. ללכת, Ecclesiastes 1:7 ) within the limit and track of His Tra, and forgot the deeds of God of which they had been eye-witnesses under Moses and under Joshua, their comrades of the same family.