They didn’t keep God’s covenant, and refused to walk in his law.
Parallel Translations
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They didn’t keep God’s covenant, and refused to walk in his law.
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They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law;
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They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in His law;
Cross-references (6)
Passages linked to Psalms 78:10 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Deuteronomy 31:20 For when I have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they have eaten and filled themselves, and grown fat, then they will turn to other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant.
- Deuteronomy 31:16 Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers. This people will rise up and play the prostitute after the strange gods of the land where they go to be among them, and will forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them.
- Judges 2:10-12 After all that generation were gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who didn’t know Yahweh, nor the work which he had done for Israel. The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals. They abandoned Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; and they provoked Yahweh to anger.
- Nehemiah 9:26-29 “Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, cast your law behind their back, killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies. Therefore you delivered them into the hand of their adversaries, who distressed them. In the time of their trouble, when they cried to you, you heard from heaven; and according to your manifold mercies you gave them saviors who saved them out of the hands of their adversaries. But after they had rest, they did evil again before you; therefore you left them in the hands of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them; yet when they returned, and cried to you, you heard from heaven; and many times you delivered them according to your mercies, and testified against them, that you might bring them again to your law. Yet they were arrogant, and didn’t listen to your commandments, but sinned against your ordinances (which if a man does, he shall live in them), turned their backs, stiffened their neck, and would not hear.
- 2 Kings 17:14-15 Notwithstanding, they would not listen, but hardened their neck, like the neck of their fathers, who didn’t believe in Yahweh their God. They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them.
- Jeremiah 31:32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says Yahweh.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 10. They kept not the covenant of God. This…
10. They kept not the covenant of God. This is the reason assigned for the Ephraimites turning their backs in the day of battle; and it explains why the divine assistance was withheld from them. Others, it is true, were guilty in this respect as well as they, but the vengeance of God executed on that tribe, which by its influence had corrupted almost the whole kingdom, is purposely brought forward as a general warning. Since then the tribe of Ephraim, in consequence of its splendor and dignity, when it threw off the yoke, encouraged and became as it were a standard of shameful revolt to all the other tribes, the prophet intended to put people on their guard, that they might not suffer themselves in their simplicity to be again deceived in the same manner. It is no light charge which he brings against the sons of Ephraim: he upbraids them on account of their perfidiousness in despising the whole law and in violating the covenant. Although he employs these two words, law and covenant, in the same sense; yet, in placing the covenant first, he clearly shows that he is speaking not only of the moral law, the all-perfect rule of life, but of the whole service of God, of the truth and faithfulness of the divine promises, and of the trust which ought to be reposed in them, of invocation, and of the doctrine of true religion, the foundation whereof was the adoption. He therefore calls them covenant-breakers, because they had fallen from their trust in the promises, by which God had entered into covenant with them to be their Father. Yet he afterwards very properly adds the law, in which the covenant was sealed up, as it were, in public records. He aggravates the enormity of their guilt by the word refuse, which intimates that they were not simply carried away by a kind of thoughtless or inconsiderate recklessness, and thus sinned through giddiness, want of knowledge or foresight, but that they had purposely, and with deliberate obstinacy, violated the holy covenant of God.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 78:10 They kept not the covenant of God,…
Psa 78:10 They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law;
Ver. 10. They kept not the covenant, &c.] And so betrayed themselves into the hands of divine justice, they were worthily worsted. See 2Ch 15:2.
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And refused to walk in his law] They were set upon it, and would not be ruled by their father Ephraim, or any other that counselled them to the contrary; and haply said the like to them that Archidamus did to his too daring son, Aut viribus adde aut animis adime, Either add to thy forces or abate of thy courage.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Their disobedience was accompanied with obstinacy and contempt of…
Their disobedience was accompanied with obstinacy and contempt of God’s laws.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain They kept not the covenant of God,.... Either the…
They kept not the covenant of God,.... Either the covenant of circumcision, which was neglected during their travels through the wilderness, Jos 5:5 or the covenant made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai, Exo 24:7 and this is to be understood not of the children of Ephraim only, but of the Israelites in general, who in many instances broke the covenant, and were not steadfast in it, Psa 78:37; see Gill on Jer 31:32.
and refused to walk in his law; the law of God, which was given forth by him, by the disposition of angels, through the hands of a mediator, Moses, as a rule of their walk and conversation; but they refused to order their conversation according to it, being unwilling to be subject to it, but despised and cast it away; a sad instance of the corruption of human nature, and the depravity of man's will, boasted of for its freedom, yet what is common, and to be observed in all mankind.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 10. They kept not the covenant of God]…
Verse 10. They kept not the covenant of God] They abandoned his worship, both moral and ritual. They acted like the Ephraimites in the above case, who threw down their bows and arrows, and ran away.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 78:10-11. They kept not the covenant of God…
Psa 78:10-11. They kept not the covenant of God — Their cowardice was the effect of their unbelief and disobedience; and refused to walk in his law — Their disobedience was accompanied with obstinacy and contempt of God’s laws. And forgat his works — Not historically, but practically. They did not so remember them as to love, and serve, and trust in that God, of whose infinite power and goodness they had had such ample experience.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain They kept not the covenant of God - The…
They kept not the covenant of God - The covenant which God had made with the entire Hebrew people. They did not maintain their allegiance to Yahweh. Compare Deu 4:13, Deu 4:23; Deu 17:2.
And refused to walk in his law - Refused to obey his law. They rebelled against him.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 10. They kept not the covenant of God—As already…
10. They kept not the covenant of God—As already stated, they had forsaken God, and God had now forsaken them, and this was the real cause of their cowardice, which is here set down as crime. We must understand Ephraim, not exclusively, but as the leading tribe, and responsible for the day’s disasters, especially for the capture of the ark, which had been taken from Shiloh contrary to the will of God.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 10. the covenant of God] See Exo_19:5; Exo_24:3; Exo_24:7-8.
10. the covenant of God] See Exo_19:5; Exo_24:3; Exo_24:7-8.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain They kept not the covenant of God. (comp. Deu_29:25…
They kept not the covenant of God. (comp. Deu_29:25 Deu_31:20 1Ki_19:10, 1Ki_19:14, etc.) And refused to walk in his law. (see Jud 2:11-13 8:33 10:10)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 10. They kept not the covenant of God.…
Ver. 10. They kept not the covenant of God. Vows and promises were broken, idols were set up, and the living God was forsaken. They were brought out of Egypt in order to be a people separated unto the Lord, but they fell into the sins of other nations, and did not maintain a pure testimony for the one only true God.
And refused to walk in his law. They gave way to fornication, and idolatry, and other violations of the decalogue, and were often in a state of rebellion against the benign theocracy under which they lived. They had pledged themselves at Sinai to keep the law, and then they wilfully disobeyed it, and so became covenant breakers.
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Ver. 10. Walk in his law. Note, we must walk in the law of God, this is that narrow and sacred way which Christ traces before us. At Athens there was iera odov, the sacred way, by which, as Harpocratio relates, the priests of the mysteries travelled to Elusin. At Rome also there was a way which was called Via Sacra. To us also there is a way to the skies, consecrated by the footsteps of the saints. It behooves us therefore not to loiter, but to be ever on the march. Thomas Le Blanc.
Ver. 10-11. The gradations of sin: neglecting, rejecting, forgetting God. C. D.
Psalms 78:11*
Ver. 10-11. The gradations of sin: neglecting, rejecting, forgetting God. C. D.
Psalms 78:12*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.