Psalm 78:41

Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(41) Limited.—A verb used in Ezekiel 9:4 for putting a mark on the forehead, which has been very variously explained. Some render branded or cast a stigma on—i.e., brought discredit on the Divine name. The LXX. and Vulg. have “exasperated,” and so some moderns “crossed,” “thwarted.” Grätz emends to “asked signs from,” but perhaps the ideas of marking something that has been tried, and that of trying or tempting are sufficiently near to allow us to render tempted.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 78:41-42. And limited the Holy One of Israel — Prescribing to him what proofs he should give of his power and presence with them, and what methods he should take in leading them and providing for them; directing him what to do, and when, and in what manner, to do it, and murmuring if he did not always grant their particular and various desires. They remembered not his hand — How strong it is, and how it had been stretched out for them; or the great and glorious works of his hand on their behalf. Nor the day — That remarkable and never to be forgotten day, that self-same day, as it is called, Exodus 12:41, which God had fixed four hundred years before, Genesis 15:13; when he delivered them from the enemy — Namely, from their greatest enemy, the tyrant Pharaoh, that zealously and unweariedly sought their ruin. There are some days, made remarkable by signal deliverances, which ought never to be forgotten; for the remembrance of them is calculated to encourage us in our greatest straits.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

78:40-55. Let not those that receive mercy from God, be thereby made bold to sin, for the mercies they receive will hasten its punishment; yet let not those who are under Divine rebukes for sin, be discouraged from repentance. The Holy One of Israel will do what is most for his own glory, and what is most for their good. Their forgetting former favours, led them to limit God for the future. God made his own people to go forth like sheep; and guided them in the wilderness, as a shepherd his flock, with all care and tenderness. Thus the true Joshua, even Jesus, brings his church out of the wilderness; but no earthly Canaan, no worldly advantages, should make us forget that the church is in the wilderness while in this world, and that there remaineth a far more glorious rest for the people of God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Yea, they turned back, and tempted God - They turned away from his service; they were disposed to return to Egypt, and to place themselves in the condition in which they were before they were delivered from bondage.

And limited the Holy One of Israel - The idea is, that they set a limit to the power of God; they fancied or alleged - (and this is a thing often done practically even by the professed people of God) - that there was a boundary in respect to power which he could not pass, or that there were things to be done which he had not the ability to perform. The original word - תוה tâvâh - occurs but three times in the Scriptures; in 1 Samuel 21:13, where it is rendered scrabbled (in the margin, made marks); in Ezekiel 9:4, where it is rendered set, that is, set a mark (margin, mark); and in the place before us. It is rendered here by the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, to provoke to anger. DeWette translates it troubled. Professor Alexander, "On the Holy One of Israel (they) set a mark." The idea in the word would seem to be that of making a mark for any purpose; and then it means to delineate; to scrawl; or to set a mark for a limit or boundary. Thus it might be applied to God - as if, in estimating his character or his power, they set limits or bounds to it, as one does in marking out a farm or a house-lot in a city or town. There was a limit, in their estimation, to the power of God, beyond which he could not act; or, in other words, his power was defined and bounded, so that beyond a certain point he could not aid them.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

41. limited—as in Ps 78:19, 20. Though some prefer "grieved" or "provoked." The retreat from Kadesh (De 1:19-23) is meant, whether—

turned—be for turning back, or to denote repetition of offense.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

They limited either,

1. God’s power, as above, Psalm 78:19,20. Or,

2. God’s will, directing and prescribing to him what to do, and when, and in what manner, and murmuring at him if he did not always grant their particular and various desires.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Yea, they turned back, and tempted God,.... They talked of going back to Egypt, and of choosing a captain to lead them back thither, Numbers 14:3, and they turned back from the Lord, and from his good ways, and chose their own ways, and followed after idols; or the sense is, they again tempted God, not only at Meribah, but elsewhere; they tempted him again and again, even ten times, as before observed:

and limited the Holy One of Israel; or "signed" (d) him; signed him with a sign, so the Targum; they tempted him by asking a sign of him, as Jarchi interprets it; insisting that a miracle be wrought, by which it might be known whether the Lord was among them or not, Exodus 17:7, with which compare Matthew 16:1, or they set bounds, so Kimchi; to his power and goodness, saying, this he could do, and the other he could not; see Psalm 78:19, and so men limit the Lord when they fix on a blessing they would have, even that, and not another; and the measure of it, to what degree it should be bestowed on them, as well as set the time when they would have it; whereas the blessing itself, and the degree of it, and the time of giving it, should be all left with the Lord; who knows which and what of it is most convenient for us, and when is the best time to bestow it on us.

(d) "signaverunt", Pagninus.

Geneva Study Bible

Yea, they {y} turned back and tempted God, and {z} limited the Holy One of Israel.

(y) That is, they often tempted him.

(z) As they all do who measure the power of God by their capacity.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

41. And they turned again and tempted God,

And provoked the Holy One of Israel.

limited (A.V.) would mean “entertained mean and circumscribed notions of His power and goodness and faithfulness” (Kay), or ‘hindered His action by their unbelief’ (Matthew 13:58). But more probably the word means provoked (LXX, Syr., Jer.).

the Holy One of Israel] A title characteristic of the Book of Isaiah, and found in the Psalter only here and in Psalm 71:22, Psalm 89:18. It denotes that it was in His character of a Holy God that Jehovah had become the God of Israel. Though the title is not used in the Pentateuch, the thought is expressed there. In the chastisements of His people Jehovah proved Himself to be a Holy God, Who could not tolerate sin; and it was because Moses and Aaron failed to acknowledge that holiness, that they were punished by exclusion from Canaan (Numbers 20:12-13).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 41. - Yea, they turned back and tempted God; rather, again and again they tempted God (Hengstenberg, Kay, Cheyne); see Exodus 17:2, 7; Deuteronomy 6:16. And limited the Holy One of Israel (comp. Numbers 34:7, 8). This may mean either "they set limits to his power in their own minds" (see ver. 20), or "they actually limited his power to help and succour them by their want of faith" (comp. Mark 6:5, "He could there do no mighty work," explained in Matthew 13:58 to have been "because of their unbelief"). The other meanings suggested - "disgraced" and" provoked" - are less probable. Psalm 78:41

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The second part of the Psalm now begins. God, notwithstanding, in His compassion restrains His anger; but Israel's God-tempting conduct was continued, even after the journey through the desert, in Canaan, and the miracles of judgment amidst which the deliverance out of Egypt had been effected were forgotten. With והוּא in Psalm 78:38

(Note: According to B. Kiddushin 30a, this Psalm 78:38 is the middle one of the 5896 פסוקין, στίχοι, of the Psalter. According to B. Maccoth 22b, Psalm 78:38, and previously Deuteronomy 28:58-59; Deuteronomy 29:8 [9], were recited when the forty strokes of the lash save one, which according to 2 Corinthians 11:24 Paul received five times, were being counted out to the culprit.)

begins an adversative clause, which is of universal import as far as ישׁהית, and then becomes historical. Psalm 78:38 expands what lies in רחוּם: He expiates iniquity and, by letting mercy instead of right take its course, arrests the destruction of the sinner. With והרבּה (Ges. ֗֗142, 2) this universal truth is supported out of the history of Israel. As this history shows, He has many a time called back His anger, i.e., checked it in its course, and not stirred up all His blowing anger (cf. Isaiah 42:13), i.e., His anger in all its fulness and intensity. We see that Psalm 78:38 refers to His conduct towards Israel, then Psalm 78:39 follows with the ground of the determination, and that in the form of an inference drawn from such conduct towards Israel. He moderated His anger against Israel, and consequently took human frailty and perishableness into consideration. The fact that man is flesh (which not merely affirms his physical fragility, but also his moral weakness, Genesis 6:3, cf. Genesis 8:21), and that, after a short life, he falls a prey to death, determines God to be long-suffering and kind; it was in fact sensuous desire and loathing by which Israel was beguiled time after time. The exclamation "how oft!" Psalm 78:40, calls attention to the praiseworthiness of this undeserved forbearance.

But with Psalm 78:41 the record of sins begins anew. There is nothing by which any reference of this Psalm 78:41 to the last example of insubordination recorded in the Pentateuch, Numbers 35:1-9 (Hitzig), is indicated. The poet comes back one more to the provocations of God by the Israel of the wilderness in order to expose the impious ingratitude which revealed itself in this conduct. התוה is the causative of תּוה equals Syriac tewā', תּהא, to repent, to be grieved, lxx παρώξυναν. The miracles of the tie of redemption are now brought before the mind in detail, ad exaggerandum crimen tentationis Deu cum summa ingratitudine conjunctum (Venema). The time of redemption is called יום, as in Genesis 2:4 the hexahemeron. שׂים אות (synon. עשׂה, נתן) is used as in Exodus 10:2. We have already met with מנּי־צר in Psalm 44:11. The first of the plagues of Egypt (Exodus 7:14-25), the turning of the waters into blood, forms the beginning in Psalm 78:44. From this the poet takes a leap over to the fourth plague, the ערב (lxx κυνόμυια), a grievous and destructive species of fly (Exodus 8:20-32), and combines with it the frogs, the second plague (Exodus 8:1-15). צפרדּע is the lesser Egyptian frog, Rana Mosaica, which is even now called Arab. ḍfd‛, ḍofda. Next in Psalm 78:46 he comes to the eighth plague, the locusts, חסיל (a more select name of the migratory locusts than ארבּה), Exodus 10:1-20; the third plague, the gnats and midges, כּנּים, is left unmentioned in addition to the fourth, which is of a similar kind. For the chastisement by means of destructive living things is now closed, and in Psalm 78:47 follows the smiting with hail, the seventh plague, Exodus 9:13-35. חנמל (with pausal , not ā, cf. in Ezekiel 8:2 the similarly formed החשׁמלה) in the signification hoar-frost (πάχνη, lxx, Vulgate, Saadia, and Abulwald), or locusts (Targum כּזוּבא equals חגב), or ants (J. D. Michaelis), does not harmonize with the history; also the hoar-frost is called כּפוּר, the ant נּמלה (collective in Arabic neml). Although only conjecturing from the context, we understand it, with Parchon and Kimchi, of hailstones or hail. With thick lumpy pieces of ice He smote down vines and sycamore-trees (Fayum was called in ancient Egyptian "the district of the sycamore"). הרג proceeds from the Biblical conception that the plant has a life of its own. The description of this plague is continued in Psalm 78:48. Two MSS present לדּבר instead of לבּרד; but even supposing that רשׁפים might signify the fever-burnings of the pestilence (vid., on Habakkuk 3:5), the mention of the pestilence follows in Psalm 78:50, and the devastation which, according to Exodus 9:19-22, the hail caused among the cattle of the Egyptians is in its right place here. Moreover it is expressly said in Exodus 9:24 that there was conglomerate fire among the hail; רשׁפים are therefore flaming, blazing lightnings.