Psalm 78 — I Will Open My Mouth in Parables

Today’s Passage: Psalm 78

Asaph begins by asking us to give ear, and what he wants told is what God has done, handed down so that the next generation will know it. He walks back through the old wonders: the sea that split so the people could pass, the rock that gave them water, the manna that fell in the morning. And through all of it runs a sadder thread, for again and again they forgot. Yet the psalm keeps returning to the mercy that met their forgetting, because He was compassionate, and He remembered that they were only flesh. At the end He chooses David to shepherd them. None of this is a lesson dressed up as a story. These are things that truly happened, and the charge to teach our children is not a method to master but an invitation to walk back through the history itself.

As you read, hold this: They forgot. And yet He was compassionate.

Psalm 78:1-8 (BSB)

A Maskil of Asaph.

¹ Give ear, O my people, to my instruction; listen to the words of my mouth. ² I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the beginning, ³ that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us. ⁴ We will not hide them from their children but will declare to the next generation the praises of the LORD and His might and the wonders He has performed. ⁵ For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children, ⁶ that the coming generation would know them—even children yet to be born—to arise and tell their own children ⁷ that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments. ⁸ Then they will not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose heart was not loyal, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

Give ear, he says, and do not hide these things from the children, but open your mouth in parables (מָשָׁל) mashal, pronounced mah-SHAL. Strong's H4912, proverb, saying, parable. It is a saying shaped so that it will be remembered.

Here the history itself is the mashal. This is not a fable with a moral tucked inside it. The sea, the manna, the rock: those things truly happened, and Asaph lays them out so that they will be held onto and never let slip. and tell them what God has done. Notice where all of it is aimed. Not at a method to be followed but at a settled confidence in God Himself. And now the psalm turns to walk, one by one, through the very works the people were never meant to forget.

Psalm 78:9-16 (BSB)

⁹ The archers of Ephraim turned back on the day of battle. ¹⁰ They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law. ¹¹ They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them. ¹² He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan. ¹³ He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall. ¹⁴ He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night. ¹⁵ He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas. ¹⁶ He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers.

They forgot, the psalm says plainly, and then it names the very wonders they had let slip. There was Egypt and the region of Zoan, the sea splitting open, the waters standing upright like a wall, the cloud that led by day and the fire that led by night, and the water brought streaming out of the rock. These are real acts, each one named on purpose, so that no one can quietly wave them away.

Psalm 78:17-31 (BSB)

¹⁷ But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High. ¹⁸ They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved. ¹⁹ They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness? ²⁰ When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?” ²¹ Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel, ²² because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation. ²³ Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens. ²⁴ He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven. ²⁵ Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance. ²⁶ He stirred the east wind from the heavens and drove the south wind by His might. ²⁷ He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea. ²⁸ He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings. ²⁹ So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved. ³⁰ Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths, ³¹ God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.

Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness, they asked. And He answered them: He rained down manna, He rained down meat, and they ate their fill. Yet even then, with the food still in their mouths, His anger flared against them. All that provision, and still it did not create trust in them.

Psalm 78:32-39 (BSB)

³² In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe. ³³ So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror. ³⁴ When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God. ³⁵ And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer. ³⁶ But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues. ³⁷ Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant. ³⁸ And yet He was compassionate; He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. He often restrained His anger and did not unleash His full wrath. ³⁹ He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

They kept on sinning, and even when they turned back they lied to Him with their mouths. And yet He was compassionate. He forgave their iniquity, He held back His anger again and again, and He remembered that they were only flesh, a breath that passes and does not return. It was never their improving faithfulness that kept this story going. It was His mercy.

Psalm 78:40-55 (BSB)

⁴⁰ How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert! ⁴¹ Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel. ⁴² They did not remember His power—the day He redeemed them from the adversary, ⁴³ when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan. ⁴⁴ He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink. ⁴⁵ He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them. ⁴⁶ He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust. ⁴⁷ He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet. ⁴⁸ He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning. ⁴⁹ He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity—a band of destroying angels. ⁵⁰ He cleared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague. ⁵¹ He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham. ⁵² He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness. ⁵³ He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies. ⁵⁴ He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired. ⁵⁵ He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

The psalm circles back to Egypt once more: the rivers turned to blood, the swarms of flies and frogs, the locust and the hail, and at last the striking of the firstborn. Then He led His own people out like a flock, the sea closing over their enemies behind them, and He brought them safely to the land He had chosen. These saving acts are history, and the psalm will not let them soften into a mere tale.

Psalm 78:56-64 (BSB)

⁵⁶ But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees. ⁵⁷ They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow. ⁵⁸ They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols. ⁵⁹ On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely. ⁶⁰ He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men. ⁶¹ He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary. ⁶² He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage. ⁶³ Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs. ⁶⁴ His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.

Even so, they gave themselves over to their high places and their idols. God rejected Israel and abandoned the tent at Shiloh, His strength handed over to captivity, His priests falling by the sword, their widows left without even a song to lament them. The psalm does not soften how much was lost.

Psalm 78:65-72 (BSB)

⁶⁵ Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine. ⁶⁶ He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame. ⁶⁷ He rejected the tent of Joseph and refused the tribe of Ephraim. ⁶⁸ But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved. ⁶⁹ He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever. ⁷⁰ He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds; ⁷¹ from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance. ⁷² So David shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.

He chose the tribe of Judah, and He chose David, taking him straight from the sheepfolds. After all the forgetting and all the rebellion, what God gives His people is a shepherd, one who tended them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.

They forgot. And yet He was compassionate.