Psalm 78:32

For all this they sinned still, and believed not for his wondrous works.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(32-33) For the allusion see Numbers 14:11-12; Numbers 14:28-35.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For all this they sinned still - Even this did not reclaim them, and prevent their sinning. Heavy judgments do not always restrain men from sin. Not unfrequently they take occasion from such judgments to sin the more.

And believed not for his wondrous works - They did not trust in His wondrous works; or, those works did not have the effect of producing faith. See Psalm 78:22-23. The same thing occurred in the life of the Saviour. John 12:37.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

31. slew … fattest—or, "among the fattest"; some of them—

chosen—the young and strong (Isa 40:31), and so none could resist.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For all this they sinned still,.... Those that survived, not being brought to repentance by mercies, nor by judgments; not by mercies, such as before mentioned, though they were great and many, and some of them continued, and of which they were very unworthy; the goodness of God should, but it does not always, lead persons to repentance; mercies, unless they are sanctified, often prove snares and temptations to sin yet more and more; nothing short of the grace of God will bring persons to repentance for sin, or keep them from it: nor by judgments, which were last mentioned, and seem chiefly designed; these have no more effect than the other, unless the power of divine grace goes along with them; see Amos 4:6 it could not be thought, nor was it expected, that they should, after all these mercies and judgments, have lived without sin, which no man does, or can do; but then they went on in a course of sin, and were continually repeating their transgressions, and were guilty of sins of a very heinous nature, many of which are on record; as Aaron and Miriam, by speaking against Moses, the faithful servant of the Lord, which brought upon the latter the plague of leprosy; the spies which were sent to search the land, and brought an evil report of it, which set the people a murmuring, and put them on thoughts of returning to Egypt; those that were concerned in the business of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who were swallowed up in the earth, or burnt with fire from heaven; the whole congregation which murmured at Kadesh, whom Moses called rebels, and who afterwards expressed their loathing of the manna, for which fiery serpents were sent among them, Numbers 12:1, Numbers 20:2 but their prevailing sin was unbelief, as follows:

and believed not for his wondrous works: not "in" them, though the words will bear to be so rendered; for they did believe in them when they were wrought, and that they were wrought by the Lord; though they soon forgot them, and fell into distrust and unbelief; but "by" them (r), or by means of them; though such wonderful things were done for them in providence, as before related, which should have engaged their faith and trust in the Lord; yet, notwithstanding these, they called in question his providence, power, and goodness.

(r) "per miracula ejus", Schmidt; so some in Gejerus.

Geneva Study Bible

For all this they {s} sinned still, and believed not for his wondrous works.

(s) Thus sin by continuance makes man insensible, so that by no plagues they can be amended.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

32. The further sin of murmuring and unbelief on the return of the spies, for which they were condemned to wander in the wilderness. See Numbers 14, esp. Psalm 78:22 ff.

for his wondrous works] I.e., because of. Better, as R.V., in.

32–39. These judgements failed to reform them, and further chastisements produced only temporary and superficial amendments. Yet in spite of all, God continued to shew them mercy.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 32. - For all this they sinned still. Neither gratitude for favours received (vers. 13-17), nor alarm at punishments inflicted (ver. 31), had any effect on the stiff-necked people; despite of both, they "sinned still" (comp. vers. 40, 41, 56-58). And believed not for his wondrous works. Unbelief was at the root of their contumacy. They could not deny God's mighty works in the past, but they did not accept them as any evidence of his power to do other mighty works in the future (see ver. 20). Psalm 78:32

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Passing over to the giving of the quails, the poet is thinking chiefly of the first occasion mentioned in Exodus 16, which directly preceded the giving of the manna. But the description follows the second: יסּע (He caused to depart, set out) after Numbers 11:31. "East" and "south" belong together: it was a south-east wind from the Aelanitic Gulf. "To rain down" is a figurative expression for a plentiful giving of dispensing from above. "Its camp, its tents," are those of Israel, Numbers 11:31, cf. Exodus 16:13. The תּעוה, occurring twice, Psalm 78:29-30 (of the object of strong desire, as in Psalm 21:3), points to Kibroth-hattaavah, the scene of this carnal lusting; הביא is the transitive of the בּוא in Proverbs 13:12. In Psalm 78:30-31 even in the construction the poet closely follows Numbers 11:33 (cf. also זרוּ with לזרא, aversion, loathing, Numbers 11:20). The Waw unites what takes place simultaneously; a construction which presents the advantage of being able to give special prominence to the subject. The wrath of God consisted in the breaking out of a sickness which was the result of immoderate indulgence, and to which even the best-nourished and most youthfully vigorous fell a prey. When the poet goes on in Psalm 78:32 to say that in spite of these visitations (בּכל־זאת) they went on sinning, he has chiefly before his mind the outbreak of "fat" rebelliousness after the return of the spies, cf. Psalm 78:32 with Numbers 14:11. And Psalm 78:33 refers to the judgment of death in the wilderness threatened at that time to all who had come out of Egypt from twenty years old and upward (Numbers 14:28-34). Their life devoted to death vanished from that time onwards בּהבל, in breath-like instability, and בּבּהלה, in undurable precipitancy; the mode of expression in Psalm 31:11; Job 36:1 suggests to the poet an expressive play of words. When now a special judgment suddenly and violently thinned the generation that otherwise was dying off, as in Numbers 21:6., then they inquired after Him, they again sought His favour, those who were still preserved in the midst of this dying again remembered the God who had proved Himself to be a "Rock" (Deuteronomy 32:15, Deuteronomy 32:18, Deuteronomy 32:37) and to be a "Redeemer" (Genesis 48:16) to them. And what next? Psalm 78:36-37

(Note: According to the reckoning of the Masora this Psalm 78:36 is the middle verse of the 2527 verses of the Psalter (Buxtorf, Tiberias, 1620, p. 133).)

tell us what effect they gave to this disposition to return to God. They appeased Him with their mouth, is meant to say: they sought to win Him over to themselves by fair speeches, inasmuch as they thus anthropopathically conceived of God, and with their tongue they played the hypocrite to Him; their heart, however, was not sincere towards Him (עם like את in Psalm 78:8), i.e., not directed straight towards Him, and they proved themselves not stedfast (πιστοί, or properly βέβαιοι) in their covenant-relationship to Him.