Biblion Bible Commentary
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They Turned Back and Tested God
Psalms 78:32-55
32 For all this they still sinned, and didn’t believe in his wondrous works. · WEB
A cycle of disaster, repentance, flattery and relapse, interrupted by one verse about why God kept forgiving.
For all this they still sinned, and didn't believe in his wondrous works Psalms 78:32.
The psalm now describes a pattern rather than an episode, and the pattern is the least flattering thing in Scripture about religious behavior under pressure.
When he killed them, then they inquired after him. They returned and sought God earnestly. They remembered that God was their rock Psalms 78:34–35.
The repentance is real in the sense that it happened, and its trigger is stated plainly: it came when people started dying. Nothing else produced it.
But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue. For their heart was not right with him Psalms 78:36–37.
The verdict on the revival. Flattery is the word the twelfth psalm used of a corrupt society talking to itself; here it is used of a nation at prayer. What was said was orthodox, urgent and false — not because they were consciously deceiving, but because the heart underneath had not moved.
But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn't destroy them. Yes, many times he turned his anger away, and didn't stir up all his wrath Psalms 78:38.
The hinge of the entire psalm, and it comes immediately after the exposure of the flattery. He knew what the repentance was worth and forgave anyway, many times, and didn't stir up all his wrath — a phrase that admits there was more available and it was not used.
He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and doesn't come again Psalms 78:39.
The reason given for the mercy, and it is not their improvement. It is their fragility. God's memory of what human beings are made of is what stands between the nation and the end of it, and the same thought appears in the hundred and third psalm — he remembers that we are dust Psalms 103:14.
How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert! Psalms 78:40.
Grieved. The word says that this is not a matter of an offended sovereign but of someone hurt.
They didn't remember his hand, nor the day when he redeemed them Psalms 78:42.
The root failure named again, and the psalm answers it by listing the plagues in detail across nine verses Psalms 78:43–51 — blood, flies, frogs, locusts, hail, and the firstborn. It is a memory exercise: this is what you forgot.
But he led out his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. He led them safely, so that they weren't afraid Psalms 78:52–53.
Against the catalogue of judgments on Egypt, the treatment of Israel is described in one image, and it is a shepherd walking in front of animals that are not frightened.
settled What this mark means