God’s Guidance of His People in Spite of Their Unfaithfulness.

A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem, of Asaph.

1Listen, O my people, to my teaching;

Incline your ears to the words of my mouth [and be willing to learn].

2I will open my mouth in a parable [to instruct using examples];

I will utter dark and puzzling sayings of old [that contain important truth]--

3Which we have heard and known,

And our fathers have told us.

4We will not hide them from their children,

But [we will] tell to the generation to come the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD,

And [tell of] His great might and power and the wonderful works that He has done.

5For He established a testimony (a specific precept) in Jacob

And appointed a law in Israel,

Which He commanded our fathers

That they should teach to their children [the great facts of God’s transactions with Israel],

6That the generation to come might know them, that the children still to be born

May arise and recount them to their children,

7That they should place their confidence in God

And not forget the works of God,

But keep His commandments,

8And not be like their fathers--

A stubborn and rebellious generation,

A generation that did not prepare its heart to know and follow God,

And whose spirit was not faithful to God.

9The sons of Ephraim were armed as archers and carrying bows,

Yet they turned back in the day of battle.

10They did not keep the covenant of God

And refused to walk according to His law;

11And they forgot His [incredible] works

And His miraculous wonders that He had shown them.

12He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers

In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan [where Pharaoh resided].

13He divided the [Red] Sea and allowed them to pass through it,

And He made the waters stand up like [water behind] a dam.

14In the daytime He led them with a cloud

And all the night with a light of fire.

15He split rocks in the wilderness

And gave them abundant [water to] drink like the ocean depths.

16He brought streams also from the rock [at Rephidim and Kadesh]

And caused waters to run down like rivers.

17Yet they still continued to sin against Him

By rebelling against the Most High in the desert.

18And in their hearts they put God to the test

By asking for food according to their [selfish] appetite.

19Then they spoke against God;

They said, “Can God prepare [food for] a table in the wilderness?

20“Behold, He struck the rock so that waters gushed out

And the streams overflowed;

Can He give bread also?

Or will He provide meat for His people?”

21Therefore, when the LORD heard, He was full of wrath;

A fire was kindled against Jacob,

And His anger mounted up against Israel,

22Because they did not believe in God [they did not rely on Him, they did not adhere to Him],

And they did not trust in His salvation (His power to save).

23Yet He commanded the clouds from above

And opened the doors of heaven;

24And He rained down manna upon them to eat

And gave them the grain of heaven.

25Man ate the bread of angels;

God sent them provision in abundance.

26He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens

And by His [unlimited] power He guided the south wind.

27He rained meat upon them like the dust,

And winged birds (quail) like the sand of the seas.

28And He let them fall in the midst of their camp,

Around their tents.

29So they ate and were well filled,

He gave them what they craved.

30Before they had satisfied their desire,

And while their food was in their mouths,

31The wrath of God rose against them

And killed some of the strongest of them,

And subdued the choice young men of Israel.

32In spite of all this they still sinned,

For they did not believe in His wonderful and extraordinary works.

33Therefore He consumed their days like a breath [in emptiness and futility]

And their years in sudden terror.

34When He killed [some of] them, then those remaining sought Him,

And they returned [to Him] and searched diligently for God [for a time].

35And they remembered that God was their rock,

And the Most High God their Redeemer.

36Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouths

And lied to Him with their tongues.

37For their heart was not steadfast toward Him,

Nor were they faithful to His covenant.

38[a]But He, the source of compassion and lovingkindness, forgave their wickedness and did not destroy them;

Many times He restrained His anger

And did not stir up all His wrath.

39For He [graciously] remembered that they were mere [human] flesh,

A wind that goes and does not return.

40How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness

And grieved Him in the desert!

41Again and again they tempted God,

And distressed the Holy One of Israel.

42They did not remember [the miracles worked by] His [powerful] hand,

Nor the day when He redeemed them from the enemy,

43How He worked His miracles in Egypt

And His wonders in the field of Zoan [where Pharaoh resided],

44And turned their rivers into blood,

And their streams, so that they could not drink.

45He sent among them swarms of flies which devoured them,

And frogs which destroyed them.

46He also gave their crops to the grasshopper,

And the fruit of their labor to the locust.

47He destroyed their vines with [great] hailstones

And their sycamore trees with frost.

48He gave over their cattle also to the hailstones,

And their flocks and herds to thunderbolts.

49He sent upon them His burning anger,

His fury and indignation and distress,

A band of angels of destruction [among them].

50He leveled a path for His anger [to give it free run];

He did not spare their souls from death,

But turned over their lives to the plague.

51He killed all the firstborn in Egypt,

The first and best of their strength in the tents [of the land of the sons] of Ham.

52But God led His own people forward like sheep

And guided them in the wilderness like [a good shepherd with] a flock.

53He led them safely, so that they did not fear;

But the sea engulfed their enemies.

54So He brought them to His holy land,

To this mountain [Zion] which His right hand had acquired.

55He also drove out the nations before the sons of Israel

And allotted their land as an inheritance, measured out and partitioned;

And He had the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents [the tents of those who had been dispossessed].

56Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God

And did not keep His testimonies (laws).

57They turned back and acted unfaithfully like their fathers;

They were twisted like a warped bow [that will not respond to the archer’s aim].

58For they provoked Him to [righteous] anger with their high places [devoted to idol worship]

And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images [by denying Him the love, worship, and obedience that is rightfully and uniquely His].

59When God heard this, He was filled with [righteous] wrath;

And utterly rejected Israel, [greatly hating her ways],

60So that He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh,

The tent in which He had dwelled among men,

61And gave up His strength and power (the ark of the covenant) into captivity,

And His glory into the hand of the enemy (the Philistines).

62He also handed His people over to the sword,

And was infuriated with His inheritance (Israel).

63The fire [of war] devoured His young men,

And His [bereaved] virgins had no wedding songs.

64His priests [Hophni and Phinehas] fell by the sword,

And His widows could not weep.

65Then the Lord awakened as from sleep,

Like a [mighty] warrior who awakens from the sleep of wine [fully conscious of his power].

66He drove His enemies backward;

He subjected them to lasting shame and dishonor.

67Moreover, He rejected the tent of Joseph,

And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim [in which the tabernacle stood].

68But He chose the tribe of Judah [as Israel’s leader],

Mount Zion, which He loved [to replace Shiloh as His capital].

69And He built His sanctuary [exalted] like the heights [of the heavens],

Like the earth which He has established forever.

70He also chose David His servant

And took him from the sheepfolds;

71[b]From [c]tending the ewes with nursing young He brought him

To shepherd Jacob His people,

And Israel His inheritance.

72So David shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart;

And guided them with his skillful hands.

[a] 38 The ancient Sopherim, the Jewish scholars whose responsibility it was to do counts of all the letters, words, and verses of the OT, said that this verse marks the halfway point in Psalms.
[b] 71 The first impression one might receive from this passage is that God elevated David from the lowliest position in Israel to the highest. But the ancient rabbis said that God tested David’s skills and wisdom as a shepherd. For example, it is said that David held back the bigger sheep from the pasture and brought out the smaller ones first to graze on the tender grass. The rabbis represented God as saying, “He who knows how to shepherd the sheep, each one in proportion to its strength, shall come and shepherd My people.”
[c] 71 Lit following.