Psalms · 72 verses

Psalms 78

Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.

The chapter

What happens here

Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.

The people are given exactly what they crave, eat until they are full, and are struck down before the desire has quite finished—with the food still in their mouths.

A lesson meant to outlive its listenersvv. 1–8

Asaph opens with an instruction passed down through the family: fathers tell children, children tell children yet unborn, and the old wonders are not to be hidden away. The point is sharply put by the contrast with the previous generation, whose heart was not loyal and whose spirit was not faithful. A sermon with a family tree attached, and rather a stern one.

Bread from heaven, meat from the skyvv. 9–39

Ephraim’s archers turn back, and the old pattern begins again: wonders are performed, then forgotten; water comes from rock, then the people demand bread and meat as though heaven had not already been making a considerable effort. The request is granted extravagantly. Manna falls, birds arrive like dust, and the people eat until full—only for anger to overtake them before the craving has finished its work. They repent when death comes near, speak piously for a moment, and then deceive with their tongues. The passage leaves the mercy standing beside the failure: they are disloyal, yet they are also flesh, a passing breeze.

From Egypt to the chosen shepherdvv. 40–72

The tale broadens into a catalogue of remembered wonders: rivers become blood, flies and frogs arrive, crops vanish under insects, hail strikes vines and cattle, and the firstborn of Egypt are struck. Israel is then led out safely, brought to the holy land, and settled—whereupon the old disobedience resumes. The tabernacle of Shiloh is abandoned, the priests fall, and their widows cannot lament; the text offers no explanation, which is one of its starkest silences. Then comes the startling awakening: the Lord rises like a warrior roused from wine, rejects Joseph and Ephraim, chooses Judah and Mount Zion, and finally takes David from the sheepfolds. The last image is wonderfully pastoral: a nation shepherded by the man who had been tending ewes.

The text

Read it

Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.

Ps 78:1A Maskil of Asaph. Give ear, O my people, to my instruction; listen to the words of my mouth.
Ps 78:2I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the beginning,
Ps 78:3that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.
Ps 78:4We 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.
Ps 78:5For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children,
Ps 78:6that the coming generation would know them—even children yet to be born—to arise and tell their own children
Ps 78:7that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments.
Ps 78:8Then they will not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose heart was not loyal, whose spirit was not faithful to God.
Ps 78:9The archers of Ephraim turned back on the day of battle.
Ps 78:10They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.
Ps 78:11They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.
Ps 78:12He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.
Ps 78:13He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.
Ps 78:14He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night.
Ps 78:15He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.
Ps 78:16He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers.
Ps 78:17But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.
Ps 78:18They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.
Ps 78:19They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?
Ps 78:20When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?”
Ps 78:21Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel,
Ps 78:22because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.
Ps 78:23Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens.
Ps 78:24He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.
Ps 78:25Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.
Ps 78:26He stirred the east wind from the heavens and drove the south wind by His might.
Ps 78:27He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea.
Ps 78:28He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.
Ps 78:29So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved.
Ps 78:30Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,
Ps 78:31God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.
Ps 78:32In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.
Ps 78:33So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror.
Ps 78:34When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.
Ps 78:35And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.
Ps 78:36But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues.
Ps 78:37Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.
Ps 78:38And 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.
Ps 78:39He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.
Ps 78:40How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!
Ps 78:41Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
Ps 78:42They did not remember His power—the day He redeemed them from the adversary,
Ps 78:43when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.
Ps 78:44He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink.
Ps 78:45He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.
Ps 78:46He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust.
Ps 78:47He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet.
Ps 78:48He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.
Ps 78:49He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity—a band of destroying angels.
Ps 78:50He cleared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague.
Ps 78:51He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham.
Ps 78:52He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.
Ps 78:53He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.
Ps 78:54He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired.
Ps 78:55He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
Ps 78:56But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees.
Ps 78:57They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.
Ps 78:58They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.
Ps 78:59On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.
Ps 78:60He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men.
Ps 78:61He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.
Ps 78:62He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage.
Ps 78:63Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs.
Ps 78:64His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.
Ps 78:65Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.
Ps 78:66He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame.
Ps 78:67He rejected the tent of Joseph and refused the tribe of Ephraim.
Ps 78:68But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.
Ps 78:69He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever.
Ps 78:70He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds;
Ps 78:71from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance.
Ps 78:72So David shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.

01 — Also here

Who else the chapter reaches

Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.

Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.

Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.

02 — Read alongside

Where this is echoed

Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 622 passages were voted onto 70 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.

4 Deuteronomy 11:19Teach them to your children, speaking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
2 Matthew 13:34–35Jesus spoke all these things to the crowds in parables. He did not tell them anything without using a parable.
4 Deuteronomy 4:9Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and so that they do not slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and grandchildren.
7 Deuteronomy 5:29If only they had such a heart to fear Me and keep all My commandments always, so that it might be well with them and with their children forever.
4 Joel 1:3Tell it to your children; let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.
4 Psalms 145:4–6One generation will commend Your works to the next, and will proclaim Your mighty acts—
1 Isaiah 51:4Pay attention to Me, My people, and listen to Me, My nation; for a law will go out from Me, and My justice will become a light to the nations; I will bring it about quickly.
7 Revelation 14:12Here is a call for the perseverance of the saints, who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
41 Numbers 14:22not one of the men who have seen My glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness—yet have tested Me and disobeyed Me these ten times—
42 Judges 8:34The Israelites failed to remember the LORD their God who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.
1 Isaiah 55:3Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, so that your soul may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant—My loving devotion promised to David.
2 Mark 4:34He did not tell them anything without using a parable. But privately He explained everything to His own disciples.
2 Matthew 13:11–13He replied, “The knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.
4 Deuteronomy 6:7And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
15 Exodus 17:6Behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. And when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.
41 Hebrews 3:8–11do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness,

Onward

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