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Hear my teaching, my people.Turn your ears to the words of my mouth. +
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I will open my mouth in a parable.I will utter dark sayings of old,
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Which we have heard and known,and our fathers have told us. +
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We will not hide them from their children,telling to the
generation to come the praises of The LORD,his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done.
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For he established a
testimony in Jacob,and appointed a teaching in Israel,which he commanded our fathers,that they should make them known to their children;
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that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born;who should arise and tell their children,
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that they might set their hope in God,and not forget God's deeds,but keep his commandments,
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and might not be as their fathers,a stubborn and rebellious generation,a generation that didn't make their hearts loyal,whose
spirit was not steadfast with God.
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The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows,turned back in the day of battle. +
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They didn't keep God's covenant,and refused to walk in his law.
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They forgot his doings,his wondrous deeds that he had shown them.
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He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers,in the land of Egypt, in the
field of Zoan.
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He split the sea, and caused them to pass through.He made the waters stand as a heap.
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In the daytime he also led them with a cloud,and all night with a
light of fire.
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He split rocks in the wilderness,and gave them
drink abundantly as out of the depths.
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He brought streams also out of the rock,and caused waters to run down like rivers.
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Yet they still went on to sin against him,to rebel against the Most High in the desert. +
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They tempted God in their heartby asking food according to their desire. +
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Yes, they spoke against God.They said, "Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? +
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Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out,and streams overflowed.Can he give
bread also?Will he provide meat for his people?"
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Therefore the LORD heard, and was angry.A fire was kindled against Jacob,anger also went up against Israel, +
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because they didn't believe in God,and didn't trust in his salvation. +
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Yet he commanded the skies above,and opened the
doors of heaven.
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He rained down
manna on them to eat,and gave them food from the sky.
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Man ate the bread of angels.He sent them food to the full. +
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He caused the east wind to blow in the sky.By his power he guided the
south wind.
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He rained also meat on them as the dust;winged birds as the sand of the seas.
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He let them fall in the middle of their camp,around their habitations.
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So they ate, and were well filled.He gave them their own desire. +
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They didn't turn from their cravings.Their food was yet in their mouths, +
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when the
anger of God went up against them,killed some of their fattest,and struck down the young men of Israel.
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For all this they still sinned,and didn't believe in his wondrous works.
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Therefore he consumed their days in vanity,and their years in terror. +
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When he killed them, then they inquired after him.They returned and sought God earnestly.
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They remembered that God was their rock,the Most High God, their redeemer.
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But they flattered him with their mouth,and lied to him with their tongue. +
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For their
heart was not right with him,neither were they
faithful in his covenant.
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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.
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He remembered that they were but flesh,a wind that passes away, and doesn't come again. +
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How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness,and grieved him in the desert! +
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They turned again and tempted God,and provoked the Holy One of Israel. +
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They didn't remember his hand,nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary;
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how he set his signs in Egypt,his wonders in the field of Zoan, +
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he turned their rivers into blood,and their streams, so that they could not drink.
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He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them;and frogs, which destroyed them. +
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He gave also their increase to the caterpillar,and their labor to the locust. +
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He destroyed their vines with hail,their
sycamore fig trees with frost.
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He gave over their livestock also to the hail,and their flocks to hot thunderbolts. +
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He threw on them the fierceness of his anger,wrath, indignation, and trouble,and a band of
angels of evil.
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He made a path for his anger.He didn't spare their soul from death,but gave their life over to the pestilence, +
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and struck all the firstborn in Egypt,the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham. +
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But he led out his own people like sheep,and guided them in the
wilderness like a flock.
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He led them safely, so that they weren't afraid,but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
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He brought them to the border of his sanctuary,to this mountain, which his right hand had taken. +
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He also drove out the nations before them,allotted them for an inheritance by line,and made the tribes of
Israel to
dwell in their tents.
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Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God,and didn't keep his testimonies; +
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but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers.They were turned aside like a deceitful bow.
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For they provoked him to anger with their high places,and moved him to
jealousy with their engraved images.
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When God heard this, he was angry,and greatly abhorred Israel; +
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So that he abandoned the tent of Shiloh,the tent which he placed among men; +
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and delivered his strength into captivity,his
glory into the adversary's hand.
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He also gave his people over to the sword,and was angry with his inheritance. +
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Fire devoured their young men.Their virgins had no wedding song. +
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Their priests fell by the sword,and their
widows couldn't weep.
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Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep,like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine. +
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He struck his adversaries backward.He put them to a perpetual reproach. +
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Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph,and didn't choose the
tribe of Ephraim,
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But chose the tribe of Judah,Mount Zion which he loved.
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He built his
sanctuary like the heights,like the
earth which he has established forever.
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He also chose
David his servant,and took him from the sheepfolds;
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from following the ewes that have their young,he brought him to be the
shepherd of Jacob, his people,and Israel, his inheritance.
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So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart,and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.
Ps 78:1-72. This Psalm appears to have been occasioned by the removal of the sanctuary from Shiloh in the tribe of Ephraim to Zion in the tribe of Judah, and the coincident transfer of pre-eminence in Israel from the former to the latter tribe, as clearly evinced by David's settlement as the head of the Church and nation. Though this was the execution of God's purpose, the writer here shows that it also proceeded from the divine judgment on Ephraim, under whose leadership the people had manifested the same sinful and rebellious character which had distinguished their ancestors in Egypt.
1. my people . . . my law--the language of a religious teacher (Ps 78:2; La 3:14; Ro 2:16, 27; compare Ps 49:4). The history which follows was a "dark saying," or riddle, if left unexplained, and its right apprehension required wisdom and attention.