Biblion Bible Commentary
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He Chose David His Servant
Psalms 78:56-72
56 Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and didn’t keep his testimonies, · WEB
God abandons his own sanctuary, lets the ark be captured, and then starts again with a shepherd.
Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God... They were twisted like a deceitful bow Psalms 78:56–57.
The image answers the psalm's opening. It began with the armed men of Ephraim who turned back in battle Psalms 78:9; here the nation is the weapon itself, warped so that it will not shoot where it is aimed.
For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images Psalms 78:58.
In the land now, and the failure has changed shape. In the wilderness it was distrust; here it is images, which is the failure the second commandment addressed.
So that he abandoned the tent of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men, and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the adversary's hand Psalms 78:60–61.
The most severe statement in the psalm. Shiloh held the tabernacle for generations, and God left it — and the ark, called here his strength and his glory, was carried off by the Philistines 1 Samuel 4:11. The psalm is stating that God permitted his own sanctuary to be emptied rather than remain in it on those terms.
Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn't weep Psalms 78:64.
The last clause is the bleakest in the psalm. There were too many dead, or too few left, for the funeral customs to be kept. Even the mourning did not happen.
Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine Psalms 78:65.
A startling image and the psalm does not flinch from it. The seventy-eighth psalm's answer to the accusation of the forty-fourth — why do you sleep, Lord? Psalms 44:23 — is to grant the picture and then have him wake up.
Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph, and didn't choose the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he loved Psalms 78:67–68.
The restart is a change of address. The northern sanctuary is finished; the choice moves south, and the psalm's whole historical argument has been building to this — it explains why the temple is where it is.
He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob Psalms 78:70–71.
The detail is precise and it is not decoration. He was taken from following the nursing ewes — the slowest, most demanding animals in a flock, the ones that set the pace for everyone. That is the qualification the psalm records.
So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands Psalms 78:72.
Heart and hands, and both are needed. The psalm that began by promising to tell children the truth ends with a shepherd, having concealed nothing about the flock.
settled What this mark means