Numbers 14:22(v41)because all those men who have seen my glory, and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten…
Judges 8:34(v42)The children of Israel didn’t remember Yahweh their God, who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies on every side;
Jeremiah 32:21(v42)and brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs, with wonders, with a strong hand, with an outstretched arm, and with…
Hebrews 3:8-11(v41)don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me and tried…
Exodus 14:12(v42)Isn’t this the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, ‘Leave us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians?’ For it would have been better…
Show all 38 cross-references
Psalms 78:11(v42)They forgot his doings, his wondrous deeds that he had shown them.
Acts 7:39(v41)to whom our fathers wouldn’t be obedient, but rejected him, and turned back in their hearts to Egypt,
Deuteronomy 6:16(v41)You shall not tempt Yahweh your God, as you tempted him in Massah.
Psalms 106:7-10(v42)Our fathers didn’t understand your wonders in Egypt. They didn’t remember the multitude of your loving kindnesses, but were rebellious at…
Psalms 136:10-15(v42)to him who struck down the Egyptian firstborn; for his loving kindness endures forever; and brought out Israel from among them; for his…
Exodus 13:9(v42)It shall be for a sign to you on your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes, that Yahweh’s law may be in your mouth; for with a strong…
Psalms 78:19-20(v41)Yes, they spoke against God. They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out,…
Ephesians 4:30(v40)Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Numbers 14:4(v41)They said to one another, “Let’s choose a leader, and let’s return into Egypt.”
2 Peter 2:21-22(v41)For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment…
Exodus 4:21(v43)Yahweh said to Moses, “When you go back into Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your hand, but I…
2 Kings 19:22(v41)Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of…
Psalms 95:8-10(v40)Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, tested me, and saw my…
Isaiah 11:11(v42)It will happen in that day that the Lord will set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people from…
Exodus 3:19-20(v43)I know that the king of Egypt won’t give you permission to go, no, not by a mighty hand. I will reach out my hand and strike Egypt with all…
Deuteronomy 6:22(v43)and Yahweh showed great and awesome signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his house, before our eyes;
Psalms 78:21-22(v42)Therefore Yahweh heard, and was angry. A fire was kindled against Jacob, anger also went up against Israel, because they didn’t believe in…
Psalms 89:18(v41)For our shield belongs to Yahweh, our king to the Holy One of Israel.
Isaiah 63:10(v40)But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. Therefore he turned and became their enemy, and he himself fought against them.
Mark 5:35-36(v41)While he was still speaking, people came from the synagogue ruler’s house saying, “Your daughter is dead. Why bother the Teacher any more?”…
Hebrews 3:15-17(v40)while it is said, “Today if you will hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion.” For who, when they heard, rebelled?…
Exodus 7:3(v43)I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 14:30-31(v42)Thus Yahweh saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great…
Numbers 14:11(v40)Yahweh said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? and how long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have…
Deuteronomy 4:34(v43)Or has God tried to go and take a nation for himself from among another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand,…
Deuteronomy 9:21-22(v40)I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as…
Nehemiah 9:10(v43)and showed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, and against all his servants, and against all the people of his land; for you knew that they…
Psalms 78:17(v40)Yet they still went on to sin against him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert.
Psalms 105:27-38(v43)They performed miracles among them, and wonders in the land of Ham. He sent darkness, and made it dark. They didn’t rebel against his…
Psalms 106:14-33(v40)but gave in to craving in the desert, and tested God in the wasteland. He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul. They…
Psalms 107:11(v40)because they rebelled against the words of God, and condemned the counsel of the Most High.
Psalms 135:9(v43)He sent signs and wonders into the middle of you, Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his servants.
Isaiah 7:13(v40)He said, “Listen now, house of David. Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God also?
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (18 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
John Calvin1540 · Public DomainOn vv40, 4240. How often did they provoke him in the…
40. How often did they provoke him in the desert? Here the preceding sentence is confirmed, it being declared that, as they had in so many instances provoked God in the wilderness, by the vast accumulation of their sins, they must of necessity have perished a thousand times, had not God as often shown himself favorable and merciful towards them. The interrogatory form of the sentence expresses more significantly that they continued sinning without intermission. The word wilderness includes in it the circumstance both of place and of time. By this it is intended, first, to reprove their ingratitude, in that the memory of God’s benefits, while still so fresh in their minds, and even the sight of them daily before their eyes, were not at least able to check them in their wickedness; and, secondly, to condemn their impetuous and infatuated recklessness, in heaping up such a multitude of sins within so short a period.
In the same sense it is added immediately after, (verse 41,) that they returned to their former ways, and tempted God. The word return does not here signify change, but a continued course of sinning. The heinous indignity which is done to God when men tempt him, is expressed by a beautiful metaphor. The Hebrew word תוה, tavah, signifies to mark out or describe. It is intimated, that when the people dared to limit the operations of God, according to their own pleasure, he was, as it were, shut up within bars of wood or iron, and his infinite power circumscribed within the narrow boundaries to which unbelief would confine it. And assuredly, whenever men do not go beyond their own understandings, it is as if they would measure God by their own small capacity, which is nothing else than to pull him down from his throne; for his Majesty must be brought into subjection to us, if we would have him to be regulated according to our own fancy.
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.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv41–42That is, they tempted him oft times.
That is, they tempted him oft times.
As they all do that measure the power of God by their capacity.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv40–43Psa 78:40 How oft did they provoke him in…
Psa 78:40 How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, [and] grieve him in the desert!
Ver. 40. How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness] Exclamatio pathetica. Ten times at least in the first two years, Num 16:1-50; Num 17:1-13; Num 18:1-32; Num 19:1-22 What, then, in all the rest? Quis fando possit enarrare tot rebelliones. From the very day they came out of Egypt they were always contending against the Lord, as Moses telleth them, when he was taking his leave of them, Deu 31:16-18.
Read full note →
And grieve him in the desert] Where they were at his mercy, and at his immediate finding.
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 Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv41–42They limited either,
They limited either,
1. God’s power, as above, Psa 78:19,20. Or,
Read full note →
2. God’s will, directing and prescribing to him what to do, and when, and in what manner, and murmuring at him if he did not always grant their particular and various desires.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn v40The matter and scope of this paragraph are the…
The matter and scope of this paragraph are the same with the former, showing what great mercies God had bestowed upon Israel, how provoking they had been, what judgments he had brought upon them for their sins, and yet how, in judgment, he remembered mercy at last. Let not those that receive mercy from God be thereby emboldened to sin, for the mercies they receive will aggravate their sin and hasten the punishment of it; yet let not those that are under divine rebukes for sin be discouraged from repentance, for their punishments are means of repentance, and shall not prevent the mercy God has yet in store for them. Observe,
I. The sins of Israel in the wilderness again reflected on, because written for our admonition (Psa 78:40, Psa 78:41): How often did they provoke him in the wilderness! Note once, nor twice, but many a time; and the repetition of the provocation was a great aggravation of it, as well as the place, Psa 78:17. God kept an account how often they provoked him, though they did not. Num 14:22, They have tempted me these ten times. By provoking him they did not so much anger him as grieve him, for he looked upon them as his children (Israel is my son, my first-born), and the undutiful disrespectful behaviour of children does more grieve than anger the tender parents; they lay it to heart, and take it unkindly, Isa 1:2. They grieved him because they put him under a necessity of afflicting them, which he did not willingly. After they had humbled themselves before him they turned back and tempted God, as before, and limited the Holy One of Israel, prescribing to him what proofs he should give of his power and presence with them and what methods he should take in leading them and providing for them. They limited him to their way and their time, as if he did not observe that they quarrelled with him. It is presumption for us to limit the Holy One of Israel; for, being the Holy One, he will do what is most for his own glory; and, being the Holy One of Israel, he will do what is most for their good; and we both impeach his wisdom and betray our own pride and folly if we go about to prescribe to him. That which occasioned their limiting God for the future was their forgetting his former favours (Psa 78:42): They remembered not his hand, how strong it is and how it had been stretched out for them, nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy, Pharaoh, that great enemy who sought their ruin. There are some days made remarkable by signal deliverances, which ought never to be forgotten; for the remembrance of them would encourage us in our greatest straits.
Read full note →
II. The mercies of God to Israel, which they were unmindful of when they tempted God and limited him; and this catalogue of the works of wonder which God wrought for them begins higher, and is carried down further, than that before, Psa 78:12, etc.
1. This begins with their deliverance out of Egypt, and the plagues with which God compelled the Egyptians to let them go: these were the signs God wrought in Egypt (Psa 78:43), the wonders he wrought in the field of Zoan, that is, in the country of Zoan, as we say, in Agro N., meaning in such a country.
(1.) Several of the plagues of Egypt are here specified, which speak aloud the power of God and his favour to Israel, as well as terror to his and their enemies. As, [1.] The turning of the waters into blood; they had made themselves drunk with the bloods of God's people, even the infants, and now God gave them blood to drink, for they were worthy, Psa 78:44. [2.] The flies and frogs which infested them, mixtures of insects in swarms, in shoals, which devoured them, which destroyed them, Psa 78:45. For God can make the weakest and most despicable animals instruments of his wrath when he pleases; what they want in strength may be made up in number. [3.] The plague of locusts, which devoured their increase, and that which they had laboured for, Psa 78:46. They are called God's great army, Joe 2:25. [4.] The hail, which destroyed their trees, especially their vines, the weakest of trees (Psa 78:47), and their cattle, especially their flocks of sheep, the weakest of their cattle, which were killed with hot thunder-bolts (Psa 78:48), and the frost, or congealed rain (as the word signifies), was so violent that it destroyed even the sycamore-trees. [5.] The death of the first-born was the last and sorest of the plagues of Egypt, and that which perfected the deliverance of Israel; it was first in intention (Exo 4:23), but last in execution; for, if gentler methods would have done the work, this would have been prevented: but it is here largely described, Psa 78:49-51. First, The anger of God was the cause of it. Wrath had now come upon the Egyptians to the uttermost; Pharaoh's heart having been often hardened after less judgments had softened it, God now stirred up all his wrath; for he cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, anger in the highest degree, wrath and indignation the cause, and trouble (tribulation and anguish, Rom 2:8, Rom 2:9) the effect. This from on high he cast upon them and did not spare, and they could not flee out of his hands, Job 27:22. He made a way, or (as the word is) he weighed a path, to his anger. He did not cast it upon them uncertainly, but by weight. His anger was weighed with the greatest exactness in the balances of justice; for, in his greatest displeasure, he never did, nor ever will do, any wrong to any of his creatures: the path of his anger is always weighed. Secondly, The angels of God were the instruments employed in this execution: He sent evil angels among them, not evil in their own nature, but in respect to the errand upon which they were sent; they were destroying angels, or angels of punishment, which passed through all the land of Egypt, with orders, according to the weighed paths of God's anger, not to kill all, but the first-born only. Good angels become evil angels to sinners. Those that make the holy God their enemy must never expect the holy angels to be their friends. Thirdly, The execution itself was very severe: He spared not their soul from death, but suffered death to ride in triumph among them and gave their life over to the pestilence, which cut the thread of life off immediately; for he smote all the first-born in Egypt (Psa 78:51), the chief of their strength, the hopes of their respective families; children are the parents' strength, and the first-born the chief of their strength. Thus, because Israel was precious in God's sight, he gave men for them and people for their life, Isa 43:4.
(2.) By these plagues on the Egyptians God made a way for his own people to go forth like sheep, distinguishing between them and the Egyptians, as the shepherd divides between the sheep and the goats, having set his own mark on these sheep by the blood of the lamb sprinkled on their door-posts. He made them go forth like sheep, not knowing whither they went, and guided them in the wilderness, as a shepherd guides his flock, with all possible care and tenderness, Psa 78:52. He led them on safely, though in dangerous paths, so that they feared not, that is, they needed not to fear; they were indeed frightened at the Red Sea (Exo 14:10), but that was said to them, and done for them, which effectually silenced their fears. But the sea overwhelmed their enemies that ventured to pursue them into it, Psa 78:63. It was a lane to them, but a grave to their persecutors.
2. It is carried down as far as their settlement in Canaan (Psa 78:54): He brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to that land in the midst of which he set up his sanctuary, which was, as it were, the centre and metropolis, the crown and glory, of it. That is a happy land which is the border of God's sanctuary. It was the happiness of that land that there God was known, and there were his sanctuary and dwelling-place, Psa 76:1, Psa 76:2. The whole land in general, and Zion in particular, was the mountain which his right hand had purchased, which by his own power he had set apart for himself. See Psa 44:3. He made them to ride on the high places of the earth, Isa 58:14; Deu 32:13. They found the Canaanites in the full and quiet possession of that land, but God cast out the heathen before them, not only took away their title to it, as the Lord of the whole earth, but himself executed the judgment given against them, and, as Lord of hosts, turned them out of it, and made his people Israel tread upon their high places, dividing each tribe an inheritance by line, and making them to dwell in the houses of those whom they had destroyed. God could have turned the uninhabited uncultivated wilderness (which perhaps was nearly of the same extent as Canaan) into fruitful soil, and have planted them there; but the land he designed for them was to be a type of heaven, and therefore must be the glory of all lands; it must likewise be fought for, for the kingdom of heaven suffers violence.
III. The sins of Israel after they were settled in Canaan, Psa 78:56-58. The children were like their fathers, and brought their old corruptions into their new habitations. Though God had done so much for them, yet they tempted and provoked the most high God still. He gave them his testimonies, but they did not keep them; they began very promisingly, but they turned back, gave God good words, but dealt unfaithfully, and were like a deceitful bow, which seemed likely to send the arrow to the mark, but, when it is drawn, breaks, and drops the arrow at the archer's foot, or perhaps makes it recoil in his face. There was no hold of them, nor any confidence to be put in their promises or professions. They seemed sometimes devoted to God, but they presently turned aside, and provoked him to anger with their high places and their graven images. Idolatry was the sin that did most easily beset them, and which, though they often professed their repentance for, they as often relapsed into. It was spiritual adultery either to worship idols or to worship God by images, as if he had been an idol, and therefore by it they are said to move him to jealousy, Deu 32:16, Deu 32:21.
IV. The judgments God brought upon them for these sins. Their place in Canaan would no more secure them in a sinful way than their descent from Israel. You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you, Amo 3:2. Idolatry is winked at among the Gentiles, but not in Israel, 1. God was displeased with them (Psa 78:59): When God heard this, when he heard the cry of their iniquity, which came up before him, he was wroth, he took it very heinously, as well he might, and he greatly abhorred Israel, whom he had greatly loved and delighted in. Those that had been the people of his choice became the generation of his wrath. Presumptuous sins, idolatries especially, render even Israelites odious to God's holiness and obnoxious to his justice. 2. He deserted his tabernacle among them, and removed the defence which was upon that glory, Psa 78:60. God never leaves us till we leave him, never withdraws till we have driven him from us. His name is Jealous, and he is a jealous God; and therefore no marvel if a people whom he had betrothed to himself be loathed and rejected, and he refuse to cohabit with them any longer, when they have embraced the bosom of a stranger. The tabernacle at Shiloh was the tent God had placed among men, in which God would in very deed dwell with men upon the earth; but, when his people treacherously forsook it, he justly forsook it, and then all its glory departed. Israel has small joy of the tabernacle without the presence of God in it. 3. He gave up all into the hands of the enemy. Those whom God forsakes become an easy prey to the destroyer. The Philistines are sworn enemies to the Israel of God, and no less so to the God of Israel, and yet God will make use of them to be a scourge to his people. (1.) God permits them to take the ark prisoner, and carry it off as a trophy of their victory, to show that he had not only forsaken the tabernacle, but even the ark itself, which shall now be no longer a token of his presence (Psa 78:61): He delivered his strength into captivity, as if it had been weakened and overcome, and his glory fell under the disgrace of being abandoned into the enemy's hand. We have the story Sa1 4:11. When the ark has become as a stranger among Israelites, no marvel if it soon be made a prisoner among Philistines. (2.) He suffers the armies of Israel to be routed by the Philistines (Psa 78:62, Psa 78:63): He gave his people over unto the sword, to the sword of his own justice and of the enemy's rage, for he was wroth with his inheritance; and that wrath of his was the fire which consumed their young men, in the prime of their time, by the sword or sickness, and made such a devastation of them that their maidens were not praised, that is, were not given in marriage (which is honourable in all), because there were no young men for them to be given to, and because the distresses and calamities of Israel were so many and great that the joys of marriage-solemnities were judged unseasonable, and it was said, Blessed is the womb that beareth not. General destructions produce a scarcity of men. Isa 13:12, I will make a man more precious than fine gold, so that seven women shall take hold of one man, Isa 4:1; Isa 3:25. Yet this was not the worst: (3.) Even their priests, who attended the ark, fell by the sword, Hophni and Phinehas. Justly they fell, for they made themselves vile, and were sinners before the Lord exceedingly; and their priesthood was so far from being their protection that it aggravated their sin and hastened their fall. Justly did they fall by the sword, because they exposed themselves in the field of battle, without call or warrant. We throw ourselves out of God's protection when we go out of our place and out of the way of our duty. When the priests fell their widows made no lamentation, Psa 78:64. All the ceremonies of mourning were lost and buried in substantial grief; the widow of Phinehas, instead of lamenting her husband's death, died herself, when she had called her son Ichabod, Sa1 4:19, etc.
V. God's return, in mercy, to them, and his gracious appearances for them after this. We read not of their repentance and return to God, but God was grieved for the miseries of Israel (Jdg 10:16) and concerned for his own honour, fearing the wrath of the enemy, lest they should behave themselves strangely, Deu 32:27. And therefore then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep (Psa 78:65), and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine, not only like one that is raised out of sleep and recovers himself from the slumber which by drinking he was overcome with, who then regards that which before he seemed wholly to neglect, but like one that is refreshed with sleep, and whose heart is made glad by the sober and moderate use of wine, and is therefore the more lively and vigorous, and fit for business. When God had delivered the ark of his strength into captivity, as one jealous of his honour, he soon put forth the arm of his strength to rescue it, stirred up his strength to do great things for his people.
1. He plagued the Philistines who held the ark in captivity, Psa 78:66. He smote them with emerods in the hinder parts, wounded them behind, as if they were fleeing from him, even when they thought themselves more than conquerors. He put them to reproach, and they themselves helped to make it a perpetual reproach by the golden images of their emerods, which they returned with the ark for a trespass-offering (Sa1 6:5), to remain in perpetuam rei memoriam - as a perpetual memorial. Note, Sooner or later God will glorify himself by putting disgrace upon his enemies, even when they are most elevated with their successes.
2. He provided a new settlement for his ark after it had been some months in captivity and some years in obscurity. He did indeed refuse the tabernacle of Joseph; he never sent it back to Shiloh, in the tribe of Ephraim, Psa 78:67. The ruins of that place were standing monuments of divine justice. God, see what I did to Shiloh, Jer 7:12. But he did not wholly take away the glory from Israel; the moving of the ark is not the removing of it. Shiloh has lost it, but Israel has not. God will have a church in the world, and a kingdom among men, though this or that place may have its candlestick removed; nay, the rejection of Shiloh is the election of Zion, as, long after, the fall of the Jews was the riches of the Gentiles, Rom 11:12. When God chose not the tribe of Ephraim, of which tribe Joshua was, he chose the tribe of Judah (Psa 78:68), because of that tribe Jesus was to be, who is greater than Joshua. Kirjath-jearim, the place to which the ark was brought after its rescue out of the hands of the Philistines, was in the tribe of Judah. There it took possession of that tribe; but thence it was removed to Zion, the Mount Zion which he loved (Psa 78:68), which was beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth; there it was that he built his sanctuary like high palaces and like the earth, Psa 78:69. David indeed erected only a tent for the ark, but a temple was then designed and prepared for, and finished by his son; and that was, (1.) A very stately place. It was built like the palaces of princes, and the great men of the earth, nay, it excelled them all in splendour and magnificence. Solomon built it, and yet here it is said God built its, for his father had taught him, perhaps with reference to this undertaking, that except the Lord build the house those labour in vain that build it, Psa 127:1, which is a psalm for Solomon. (2.) A very stable place, like the earth, though not to continue as long as the earth, yet while it was to continue it was as firm as the earth, which God upholds by the word of his power, and it was not finally destroyed till the gospel temple was erected, which is to continue as long as the sun and moon endure (Psa 89:36, Psa 89:37) and against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.
3. He set a good government over them, a monarchy, and a monarch after his own heart: He chose David his servant out of all the thousands of Israel, and put the sceptre into his hand, out of whose loins Christ was to come, and who was to be a type of him, Psa 78:70. Concerning David observe here, (1.) The meanness of his beginning. His extraction indeed was great, for he descended from the prince of the tribe of Judah, but his education was poor. He was bred not a scholar, not a soldier, but a shepherd. He was taken from the sheep-folds, as Moses was; for God delights to put honour upon the humble and diligent, to raise the poor out of the dust and to set them among princes; and sometimes he finds those most fit for public action that have spent the beginning of their time in solitude and contemplation. The Son of David was upbraided with the obscurity of his original: Is not this the carpenter? David was taken, he does not say from leading the rams, but from following the ewes, especially those great with young, which intimated that of all the good properties of a shepherd he was most remarkable for his tenderness and compassion to those of his flock that most needed his care. This temper of mind fitted him for government, and made him a type of Christ, who, when he feeds his flock like a shepherd, does with a particular care gently lead those that are with young, Isa 40:11. (2.) The greatness of his advancement. God preferred him to feed Jacob his people, Psa 78:71. It was a great honour that God put upon him, in advancing him to be a king, especially to be king over Jacob and Israel, God's peculiar people, near and dear to him; but withal it was a great trust reposed in him when he was charged with the government of those that were God's own inheritance. God advanced him to the throne that he might feed them, not that he might feed himself, that he might do good, not that he might make his family great. It is the charge given to all the under-shepherds, both magistrates and ministers, that they feed the flock of God. (3.) The happiness of his management. David, having so great a trust put into his hands, obtained mercy of the Lord to be found both skilful and faithful in the discharge of it (Psa 78:72): So he fed them; he ruled them and taught them, guided and protected them, [1.] Very honestly; he did it according to the integrity of his heart, aiming at nothing but the glory of God and the good of the people committed to his charge; the principles of his religion were the maxims of his government, which he administered, not with carnal policy, but with godly sincerity, by the grace of God. In every thing he did he meant well and had no by-end in view. [2.] Very discreetly; he did it by the skilfulness of his hands. He was not only very sincere in what he designed, but very prudent in what he did, and chose out the most proper means in pursuit of his end, for his God did instruct him to discretion. Happy the people that are under such a government! With good reason does the psalmist make this the finishing crowning instance of God's favour to Israel, for David was a type of Christ the great and good Shepherd, who was humbled first and then exalted, and of whom it was foretold that he should be filled with the spirit of wisdom and understanding and should judge and reprove with equity, Isa 11:3, Isa 11:4. On the integrity of his heart and the skilfulness of his hands all his subjects may entirely rely, and of the increase of his government and people there shall be no end.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv40–43Yea, they turned back, and tempted God,.... They talked…
Yea, they turned back, and tempted God,.... They talked of going back to Egypt, and of choosing a captain to lead them back thither, Num 14:3, and they turned back from the Lord, and from his good ways, and chose their own ways, and followed after idols; or the sense is, they again tempted God, not only at Meribah, but elsewhere; they tempted him again and again, even ten times, as before observed:
and limited the Holy One of Israel; or "signed" (d) him; signed him with a sign, so the Targum; they tempted him by asking a sign of him, as Jarchi interprets it; insisting that a miracle be wrought, by which it might be known whether the Lord was among them or not, Exo 17:7, with which compare Mat 16:1, or they set bounds, so Kimchi; to his power and goodness, saying, this he could do, and the other he could not; see Psa 78:19, and so men limit the Lord when they fix on a blessing they would have, even that, and not another; and the measure of it, to what degree it should be bestowed on them, as well as set the time when they would have it; whereas the blessing itself, and the degree of it, and the time of giving it, should be all left with the Lord; who knows which and what of it is most convenient for us, and when is the best time to bestow it on us.
Read full note →
(d) "signaverunt", Pagninus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn v42Hand - The glorious works of his hand. Enemy…
Hand - The glorious works of his hand. Enemy - That remarkable day, in which God delivered them from their greatest enemy, Pharaoh.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn v41Verse 41. Limited the Holy One of Israel.] The…
Verse 41. Limited the Holy One of Israel.] The Chaldee translates, "And the Holy One of Israel they signed with a sign." The Hebrew word התוו hithvu is supposed to come from the root תוה tavah, which signifies to mark; and hence the letter ת tau, which in the ancient Hebrew character had the form of a cross X, had its name probably because it was used as a mark. Mr. Bate observes that in hithpael it signifies to challenge or accuse; as one who gives his mark or pledge upon a trial, and causes his adversary to do the same. Here it most obviously means an insult offered to God.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv41, 43Psa 78:41-42. And limited the Holy One of Israel…
Psa 78:41-42. And limited the Holy One of Israel — Prescribing to him what proofs he should give of his power and presence with them, and what methods he should take in leading them and providing for them; directing him what to do, and when, and in what manner, to do it, and murmuring if he did not always grant their particular and various desires. They remembered not his hand — How strong it is, and how it had been stretched out for them; or the great and glorious works of his hand on their behalf. Nor the day — That remarkable and never to be forgotten day, that self-same day, as it is called, Exo 12:41, which God had fixed four hundred years before, Gen 15:13; when he delivered them from the enemy — Namely, from their greatest enemy, the tyrant Pharaoh, that zealously and unweariedly sought their ruin. There are some days, made remarkable by signal deliverances, which ought never to be forgotten; for the remembrance of them is calculated to encourage us in our greatest straits.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv40–43How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness…
How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness - Margin, Or, rebel against him. The Hebrew word may have the signification in the margin. The idea is, that they were perverse and rebellious; that they excited his displeasure, and gave occasion for his anger. See Psa 78:17.
And grieve him in the desert - The word here rendered grieve means
Read full note →
(1) to work, to fashion;
(2) to suffer pain, to travail, to be afflicted; and then,
(3) to cause one to suffer pain, or to afflict.
The meaning here is that the conduct of the Hebrews was such as was suited to cause pain - as the conduct of a disobedient and rebellious child is.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv41, 4341. Limited—See on Psa_78:18-19. They either questioned God’s power,…
41. Limited—See on Psa_78:18-19. They either questioned God’s power, or prescribed to him what to do and what not to do.
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 Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv40–4340, 41. An emphatic repetition of Psa_78:17-18.
40, 41. An emphatic repetition of Psa_78:17-18.
provoke him] Rather, as in Psa_78:8; Psa_78:17; Psa_78:56, rebel against him. Both words, rebel against and grieve, occur together in Isa_63:10.
Read full note →
40–55. But as God multiplied His mercies, Israel multiplied its acts of rebellion: and in order to set the heinousness of their ingratitude in a still stronger light, the Psalmist goes back to recount the miracles which preceded and prepared for the Exodus.
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.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv40–42(40) How oft.—Ten instances of murmuring are actually recorded…
(40) How oft.—Ten instances of murmuring are actually recorded in Exodus and Numbers.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv40–43How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness,…
How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert!. (comp. Deu_31:27 Deu_32:15-18 Act_7:30-43, etc.) That God is "grieved" at man"s sins appears, not only from this passage, but also from Gen_6:6 Psa_95:10 Eph_4:30 Heb_3:17.
Provoking God.
Read full note →
Israel did this, and notwithstanding every inducement to do otherwise. We note
I MANY PEOPLE DO THE LIKE STILL. God speaks plainly, loudly, persistently, by his Spirit, his providence, his Word, his judgments, and yet, etc.
II AND THEY WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO UNLESS
(1) they be willing to give up their sin; and
(2) set themselves to seek the Lord.
III HAVE WE DONE SO? Then:
1. Truly repent.
2. Trust Christ.
3. Be filled with the Spirit. S.C.
How oft did they provoke.
I ANSWER THE QUESTION. This long psalm supplies a sample of Israel"s sin. Their provokings were so frequent that the whole history of the people, stretching over many generations and long centuries, seemed to be all of a piece, and is called "the day of provocation.
II INQUIRE HOW THEY PROVOKED GOD? By the perpetual repetition of the wretched round of sin, and then repentance. If they had done nothing else but sin, they would quickly have perished; it" they had sinned once, and done with it, their history would have been a far happier one; but it was this perpetual backsliding which provoked God.
III WHY WAS IT? There was:
1. The force of example; all the nations round, the greatest and most glorious of them included, worshipped idols.
2. Then the indulgence which idolatry gave to sin; it was such an easy religion.
3. The difficulty of realizing the unseen, of living by faith.
4. The cravings of a corrupt nature.
IV WHAT MADE THEIR CONDUCT SO WICKED?
1. It was such madness. Nothing but evil had ever come of their sin, and yet they went after it again.
2. Such ingratitude to God. What had he not done for them?
3. The terrible harm they did to their children and to the whole world.
V WHAT CAME OF IT? What always must come repeated and terrible chastisement, and rejection at the last. S.C.
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. Spurgeon1885 · Public DomainOn vv40–43Ver. 40. How oft did they provoke him in…
Ver. 40. How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness. Times enough did they rebel: they were as constant in provocation as he was in his patience. In our own case, who can count his errors? In what book could all our perverse rebellions be recorded? The wilderness was a place of manifest dependence, where the tribes were helpless without divine supplies, yet they wounded the hand which fed them while it was in the act of feeding them. Is there no likeness between us and them? Does it bring no tears into our eyes, while as in a glass, we see our own selves?
And grieve him in the desert. Their provocations had an effect; God was not insensible to them, he is said to have been grieved. His holiness could not find pleasure in their sin, his justice in their unjust treatment, or his truth in their falsehood. What must it be to grieve the Lord of love! Yet we also have vexed the Holy Spirit, and he would long ago have withdrawn himself from us, were it not that he is God and not man. We are in the desert where we need our God, let us not make it a wilderness of sin by grieving him.
Read full note →
Ver. 40. How oft did they provoke, etc. They provoked God at least ten times (Nu 14:22) during the first two years of their journey through the wilderness: (1) at the Red Sea (Ex 14:11-12): (2) at the waters of Marah (Ex 15:24): (3) in the wilderness of Sin (Ex 16:2): (4) when they kept the manna until the following day (Ex 16:10): (5) when the manna was collected on the Sabbath (Ex 16:27): (6) in Rephidim, where there was no water (Nu 20:2, 13): (7) at Horeb when a molten calf was made (Ex 22:1 &c.): (8) at Taberah (Nu 11:1-3): (9) when they lusted for flesh (Nu 11:4): (10) when they murmured at the news brought by the men, who had been sent to search the land (Nu 14:1, &c.) Daniel Cresswell.
Ver. 40. How oft. God kept an account how oft they provoked him, though they did not, Nu 14:22: "They have tempted me these ten times." Matthew Henry.
None.
Psalms 78:41*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn v41Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited…
Psa_78:41
Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel
Read full note →
Limiting God
I.
We limit the Holy One of Israel by dictating to him. Shall mortal dare to dictate to his Creator? Shall it be possible that man shall lay down his commands, and expect the King of heaven to pay homage to his arrogance? Will a mortal impiously say, Not Thy will but mine be done?
1. O heir of heaven, be ashamed, and be confounded, while I remind thee that thou hast dared to dictate to God! How often have we in our prayers not simply wrestled with God for a blessing--for that was allowable--but we have imperiously demanded it. Christ will have nothing to do with dictatorial prayers, He will not be a partaker with us in the sin of limiting the Holy One of Israel. Oftentimes, too, I think, we dictate to God with regard to the measure of our blessing. We ask the Lord that we might grow in the enjoyment of His presence, instead of that He gives us to see the hidden depravity of our heart. The blessing comes to us, but it is in another shape from what we expected. We go again to our knees, and we complain of God that He has not answered us. You must leave the measuring of your mercies with Him who measures the rain and weighs the clouds of heaven. Beggars must not be choosers, and especially they must not be choosers when they have to deal with infinite wisdom and sovereignty. And yet further, I fear that we have often dictated to God with regard to the time. We pray again and again, and at last we begin to faint. And why is this? Simply because that in our hearts we have been setting a date and a time to God.
2. I will address myself now to those who cannot call themselves the children of God, but who lately have been stirred up to seek salvation. There are many of you who are not hardened and careless now. Sinner, what hast thou been doing, while thou hast Said, I will restrain prayer because God has not as yet answered me? Hast thou not been stipulating with God as to the day when He shall save thee? Suppose it is written in the book of Gods decree, I will save that man and give him peace after he has prayed seven years, would that be hard upon thee? Is not the blessing of Divine mercy worth waiting for?
II. We limit the Holy One of Israel by distrust.
1. Children of God, purchased by blood and regenerated by the Spirit, you are guilty here; for by your distrust and fear you have often limited the Holy One of Israel, and have said in effect, that His ear is heavy that it cannot hear, and that His arm is shortened that it cannot save. In your trials you have done this. You have looked upon your troubles, you have seen them roll like mountain waves; you have hearkened to your fears, and they have howled in your ears like tempestuous winds, and you have said, My hark is but a feeble one, and it will soon be shipwrecked. It is true that God has said that through tempests and teasings He will bring me to my desired haven. But alas! such a state as this was never contemplated in His promise; I shall sink at last and never see His face with joy. What hast thou done, fearful one? O thou of little faith, dost thou know what sin thou hast committed? Thou hast judged the omnipotence of God to be finite. Thou hast said that thy troubles are greater than His power, that thy woes are more terrible than His might. I say retract that thought; drown it and thou shalt not be drowned thyself. Give it to the winds, and rest thou assured that out of all thy troubles He will surely bring thee, and in thy deepest distress He will not forsake thee.
2. And now I turn to the poor troubled heart, and although I accuse of sin, yet I doubt not the Spirit shall bear witness with the conscience, and leading to Christ, shall this morning deliver from its galling yoke. Poor troubled one, thou hast said in thy heart, My sins are too many to be forgiven. What hast thou done? Repent thee, and let the tear roll down thy cheek. Thou hast limited the Holy One of Israel. Thou hast put thy sins above His grace. Thou hast considered that thy guilt is more omnipotent than omnipotence itself. He is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Christ. Thou canst not have exceeded the boundlessness of His grace. Be thy sins ever so many, the blood of Christ can put them all away; and if thou doubtest this, thou art limiting the Holy One of Israel. Another says, I do not doubt His power to save, but what I doubt is His willingness. What hast thou done in this? Thou hast limited the love, the boundless love of the Holy One of Israel.
3. If you will now consider how faithful God has been to His children, and how true He has been to all His promises, I think that saint and sinner may stand together and make a common confession and utter a common prayer: Lord, we have been guilty of doubting Thee; we pray that we may limit Thee no longer. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Limiting the Holy One
I. Men do it in their intellectual theories. In their theories they limit Him--
1. In the sphere of His agency.
2. In the range of His mercy.
3. In the sovereignty of His action.
II. Men do it in their religious formalities.
1. In their prostration before material representations of Him.
2. In stereotyped forms of worship of Him.
3. In specially identifying Him with certain places of worship.
III. Men do it in their moral habitudes.
1. By their sins they exclude Him from the temple of their nature.
2. By their sins they obstruct His influence upon their sphere. (Homilist.)
Unbelief limiting God
I. In what way we may limit the Holy One of Israel. To limit is to set bounds to His operations; to circumscribe or confine Him in His ability to effect certain purposes or works, Now, God is often limited--
1. In the extent and freeness of His mercy. The Jews could not conceive of publicans and sinners being interested in Messiahs regards.
2. The penitent sinner often does this as to the ability and willingness of God to save.
3. The believer in trouble often does this in confining God to a certain mode of deliverance.
4. We often do this in the contractedness of our prayers.
II. The evil of limiting the Holy One of Israel. To limit the Holy One of Israel is--
1. To bring down the Creator to the standard of the creature.
2. Disbelieving His Holy Word.
3. Ungrateful reflection upon Him for past mercies.
4. To limit our mercies and enjoyments. He says, Be it unto you according unto your faith. (J. Burns, D. D.)
Limiting the Holy One of Israel
I. This is the crime of idolatry and heathenism. Let us beware how we create an image of God in our minds, dishonourable to Him, and, by its limitation to our poor faculty, become the means of limiting the Holy One of Israel.
II. Idolatry is the growth of a seed deeper than itself, and that seed is sin. Sin limits the Holy One of Israel: the corrupt influence in the mind--in the heart, the perverted imagination, the perverted will. Sin closes the avenues by which God enters the human soul, and narrows the Divine Being in the conception. How dreadful does it seem, that man should build for himself a prison in which he shelters himself from the Almighty! Here at least the Almighty cannot come, hither He cannot penetrate; into the malignity of this heart, into the impurity of the world, He cannot descend.
III. By unbelief, or doubt, we limit the Holy One of Israel. Doubt is constantly taking the circumference of God with the compasses of man, and measuring His movements by earthly motheds and estimating His force and His ages by our notations and mechanics. How frequently men, Christian men, walk amidst the very mysteries and eternities of Godhead only to limit the Holy One of Israel. You talk of the boundlessness of His being--they run to and fro with a measuring line to take the dimensions of it. They limit the Holy One of Israel.
IV. There is a disposition in some philosophers to limit the Holy One of Israel even in the operations of nature. Night, it has been eloquently said, has had three daughters, Religion, Superstition, and Atheism. The firstborn, the eldest and loveliest, is Religion; it is through her guiding that all the stars are heard to sing together, and it is her voice which proclaims, The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmaments show His handiwork. But Superstition was early born of the visions of the night; she named the Zodiac--she named the longest known of the planets--she hung over them the veil of fate, and made them the arbitrary mistresses and ministers of Destiny. But these latter ages have given birth to the third daughter of the dark hours--Atheism. (E. P. Hood.)
The sin of limiting God
I. The Being against whom the sin is committed. It is no one less than God Himself. He is here called the Holy One. God is essentially holy. He is holy in His law--as poor thoughtless sinners, that trifle with His law and disregarding all the claims of conscience, shall find either in this world or the next. He is still more manifestly holy in the Gospel; in which every doctrine, every promise, every precept, is but one glorious manifestation of His holiness. Now, that there should be even in the true Israel a proneness to limit the Holy One--that when they come into some new trial, into some new emergency, into some untried state--when they come to that stage in their journey that they have never travelled before, then there should be a proneness to limit the Holy One--oh! it marketh out that which should cause you and me to lay our mouths in the lowest dust.
II. The sin (Psa_78:19-20).
1. To limit God is to limit His power; and He is omnipotent. There is nothing difficult with God; alike easy were it, to utter a promise or create a world. To limit the Omnipotent is another word for denying Him to be God.
2. To limit Jehovah is to limit His wisdom; and He is omniscient. He knows every thought, every desire, every misgiving, every infirmity, every sinking of heart; He knows it all. But this is to deny Him, as such.
3. We limit Him when we have misgivings as to His faithfulness. He has given a promise; and how seldom can you and I say, I believe it simply because God says it; I do not take it now on the testimony of saints, I take it simply because God says it; God declares it, and I believe it! But when we do not so, how is there a secret limiting of the faithfulness that is truth!--for He cannot deny Himself; He not only does not, but He cannot.
4. We limit Him when we mark out a line for His sovereignty, whereas He gives no account of any of His matters.
5. And if we are brought into the region of a dark Providence, when everything seems against us, when our most favourite desires seem to be blasted, when we are touched the most sensibly where we the least desired it--because the Lord seems to thwart one, one seems to limit His goodness. As if there could be an unkind thought in God; as if there could be any want of willingness in God to bless His child; as if He could withhold any good thing.
III. The cause. They remembered not His hand. The immediate cause of their limiting the Holy One of Israel was, no doubt, their unbelief; but this their unbelief seemed to have a cause, and that cause was their forgetfulness of Gods mercies. They remembered not His hand--the outstretched hand. What! when the poor soul first felt its weight and burden of sin--when the secrets within were developed--when the man began to see himself a sinner--and when there was the outstretched hand, and Come unto me, and Him that cometh I will in no wise cast out!--the hand that still sustains I that tender hand, that gentle hand, that strong hand, that broad hand, enough to cover us amidst the storm and the tempest. Oh! it is no small sin not to remember the hand of our God. We thereby grieve the Spirit; we thereby strengthen unbelief; we thereby weaken faith; we thereby displease our Heavenly Father. (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On v42General Information:
General Information:
The writer speaks of how God had rescued the Israelites.
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv40, 42 40. How often did they provoke him in the…
40. How often did they provoke him in the desert? Here the preceding sentence is confirmed, it being declared that, as they had in so many instances provoked God in the wilderness, by the vast accumulation of their sins, they must of necessity have perished a thousand times, had not God as often shown himself favorable and merciful towards them. The interrogatory form of the sentence expresses more significantly that they continued sinning without intermission. The word wilderness includes in it the circumstance both of place and of time. By this it is intended, first, to reprove their ingratitude, in that the memory of God’s benefits, while still so fresh in their minds, and even the sight of them daily before their eyes, were not at least able to check them in their wickedness; and, secondly, to condemn their impetuous and infatuated recklessness, in heaping up such a multitude of sins within so short a period.
In the same sense it is added immediately after, (verse 41,) that they returned to their former ways, and tempted God. The word return does not here signify change, but a continued course of sinning. The heinous indignity which is done to God when men tempt him, is expressed by a beautiful metaphor. The Hebrew word תוה, tavah, signifies to mark out or describe. It is intimated, that when the people dared to limit the operations of God, according to their own pleasure, he was, as it were, shut up within bars of wood or iron, and his infinite power circumscribed within the narrow boundaries to which unbelief would confine it. And assuredly, whenever men do not go beyond their own understandings, it is as if they would measure God by their own small capacity, which is nothing else than to pull him down from his throne; for his Majesty must be brought into subjection to us, if we would have him to be regulated according to our own fancy.
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.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv41–42 That is, they tempted him oft times.
That is, they tempted him oft times.
As they all do that measure the power of God by their capacity.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv40–43 Psa 78:40 How oft did they provoke him in…
Psa 78:40 How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, [and] grieve him in the desert!
Ver. 40. How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness] Exclamatio pathetica. Ten times at least in the first two years, Num 16:1-50; Num 17:1-13; Num 18:1-32; Num 19:1-22 What, then, in all the rest? Quis fando possit enarrare tot rebelliones. From the very day they came out of Egypt they were always contending against the Lord, as Moses telleth them, when he was taking his leave of them, Deu 31:16-18.
Read full note →
And grieve him in the desert] Where they were at his mercy, and at his immediate finding.
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 On vv41–42 They limited either,
They limited either,
1. God’s power, as above, Psa 78:19,20. Or,
Read full note →
2. God’s will, directing and prescribing to him what to do, and when, and in what manner, and murmuring at him if he did not always grant their particular and various desires.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v40 The matter and scope of this paragraph are the…
The matter and scope of this paragraph are the same with the former, showing what great mercies God had bestowed upon Israel, how provoking they had been, what judgments he had brought upon them for their sins, and yet how, in judgment, he remembered mercy at last. Let not those that receive mercy from God be thereby emboldened to sin, for the mercies they receive will aggravate their sin and hasten the punishment of it; yet let not those that are under divine rebukes for sin be discouraged from repentance, for their punishments are means of repentance, and shall not prevent the mercy God has yet in store for them. Observe,
I. The sins of Israel in the wilderness again reflected on, because written for our admonition (Psa 78:40, Psa 78:41): How often did they provoke him in the wilderness! Note once, nor twice, but many a time; and the repetition of the provocation was a great aggravation of it, as well as the place, Psa 78:17. God kept an account how often they provoked him, though they did not. Num 14:22, They have tempted me these ten times. By provoking him they did not so much anger him as grieve him, for he looked upon them as his children (Israel is my son, my first-born), and the undutiful disrespectful behaviour of children does more grieve than anger the tender parents; they lay it to heart, and take it unkindly, Isa 1:2. They grieved him because they put him under a necessity of afflicting them, which he did not willingly. After they had humbled themselves before him they turned back and tempted God, as before, and limited the Holy One of Israel, prescribing to him what proofs he should give of his power and presence with them and what methods he should take in leading them and providing for them. They limited him to their way and their time, as if he did not observe that they quarrelled with him. It is presumption for us to limit the Holy One of Israel; for, being the Holy One, he will do what is most for his own glory; and, being the Holy One of Israel, he will do what is most for their good; and we both impeach his wisdom and betray our own pride and folly if we go about to prescribe to him. That which occasioned their limiting God for the future was their forgetting his former favours (Psa 78:42): They remembered not his hand, how strong it is and how it had been stretched out for them, nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy, Pharaoh, that great enemy who sought their ruin. There are some days made remarkable by signal deliverances, which ought never to be forgotten; for the remembrance of them would encourage us in our greatest straits.
Read full note →
II. The mercies of God to Israel, which they were unmindful of when they tempted God and limited him; and this catalogue of the works of wonder which God wrought for them begins higher, and is carried down further, than that before, Psa 78:12, etc.
1. This begins with their deliverance out of Egypt, and the plagues with which God compelled the Egyptians to let them go: these were the signs God wrought in Egypt (Psa 78:43), the wonders he wrought in the field of Zoan, that is, in the country of Zoan, as we say, in Agro N., meaning in such a country.
(1.) Several of the plagues of Egypt are here specified, which speak aloud the power of God and his favour to Israel, as well as terror to his and their enemies. As, [1.] The turning of the waters into blood; they had made themselves drunk with the bloods of God's people, even the infants, and now God gave them blood to drink, for they were worthy, Psa 78:44. [2.] The flies and frogs which infested them, mixtures of insects in swarms, in shoals, which devoured them, which destroyed them, Psa 78:45. For God can make the weakest and most despicable animals instruments of his wrath when he pleases; what they want in strength may be made up in number. [3.] The plague of locusts, which devoured their increase, and that which they had laboured for, Psa 78:46. They are called God's great army, Joe 2:25. [4.] The hail, which destroyed their trees, especially their vines, the weakest of trees (Psa 78:47), and their cattle, especially their flocks of sheep, the weakest of their cattle, which were killed with hot thunder-bolts (Psa 78:48), and the frost, or congealed rain (as the word signifies), was so violent that it destroyed even the sycamore-trees. [5.] The death of the first-born was the last and sorest of the plagues of Egypt, and that which perfected the deliverance of Israel; it was first in intention (Exo 4:23), but last in execution; for, if gentler methods would have done the work, this would have been prevented: but it is here largely described, Psa 78:49-51. First, The anger of God was the cause of it. Wrath had now come upon the Egyptians to the uttermost; Pharaoh's heart having been often hardened after less judgments had softened it, God now stirred up all his wrath; for he cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, anger in the highest degree, wrath and indignation the cause, and trouble (tribulation and anguish, Rom 2:8, Rom 2:9) the effect. This from on high he cast upon them and did not spare, and they could not flee out of his hands, Job 27:22. He made a way, or (as the word is) he weighed a path, to his anger. He did not cast it upon them uncertainly, but by weight. His anger was weighed with the greatest exactness in the balances of justice; for, in his greatest displeasure, he never did, nor ever will do, any wrong to any of his creatures: the path of his anger is always weighed. Secondly, The angels of God were the instruments employed in this execution: He sent evil angels among them, not evil in their own nature, but in respect to the errand upon which they were sent; they were destroying angels, or angels of punishment, which passed through all the land of Egypt, with orders, according to the weighed paths of God's anger, not to kill all, but the first-born only. Good angels become evil angels to sinners. Those that make the holy God their enemy must never expect the holy angels to be their friends. Thirdly, The execution itself was very severe: He spared not their soul from death, but suffered death to ride in triumph among them and gave their life over to the pestilence, which cut the thread of life off immediately; for he smote all the first-born in Egypt (Psa 78:51), the chief of their strength, the hopes of their respective families; children are the parents' strength, and the first-born the chief of their strength. Thus, because Israel was precious in God's sight, he gave men for them and people for their life, Isa 43:4.
(2.) By these plagues on the Egyptians God made a way for his own people to go forth like sheep, distinguishing between them and the Egyptians, as the shepherd divides between the sheep and the goats, having set his own mark on these sheep by the blood of the lamb sprinkled on their door-posts. He made them go forth like sheep, not knowing whither they went, and guided them in the wilderness, as a shepherd guides his flock, with all possible care and tenderness, Psa 78:52. He led them on safely, though in dangerous paths, so that they feared not, that is, they needed not to fear; they were indeed frightened at the Red Sea (Exo 14:10), but that was said to them, and done for them, which effectually silenced their fears. But the sea overwhelmed their enemies that ventured to pursue them into it, Psa 78:63. It was a lane to them, but a grave to their persecutors.
2. It is carried down as far as their settlement in Canaan (Psa 78:54): He brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to that land in the midst of which he set up his sanctuary, which was, as it were, the centre and metropolis, the crown and glory, of it. That is a happy land which is the border of God's sanctuary. It was the happiness of that land that there God was known, and there were his sanctuary and dwelling-place, Psa 76:1, Psa 76:2. The whole land in general, and Zion in particular, was the mountain which his right hand had purchased, which by his own power he had set apart for himself. See Psa 44:3. He made them to ride on the high places of the earth, Isa 58:14; Deu 32:13. They found the Canaanites in the full and quiet possession of that land, but God cast out the heathen before them, not only took away their title to it, as the Lord of the whole earth, but himself executed the judgment given against them, and, as Lord of hosts, turned them out of it, and made his people Israel tread upon their high places, dividing each tribe an inheritance by line, and making them to dwell in the houses of those whom they had destroyed. God could have turned the uninhabited uncultivated wilderness (which perhaps was nearly of the same extent as Canaan) into fruitful soil, and have planted them there; but the land he designed for them was to be a type of heaven, and therefore must be the glory of all lands; it must likewise be fought for, for the kingdom of heaven suffers violence.
III. The sins of Israel after they were settled in Canaan, Psa 78:56-58. The children were like their fathers, and brought their old corruptions into their new habitations. Though God had done so much for them, yet they tempted and provoked the most high God still. He gave them his testimonies, but they did not keep them; they began very promisingly, but they turned back, gave God good words, but dealt unfaithfully, and were like a deceitful bow, which seemed likely to send the arrow to the mark, but, when it is drawn, breaks, and drops the arrow at the archer's foot, or perhaps makes it recoil in his face. There was no hold of them, nor any confidence to be put in their promises or professions. They seemed sometimes devoted to God, but they presently turned aside, and provoked him to anger with their high places and their graven images. Idolatry was the sin that did most easily beset them, and which, though they often professed their repentance for, they as often relapsed into. It was spiritual adultery either to worship idols or to worship God by images, as if he had been an idol, and therefore by it they are said to move him to jealousy, Deu 32:16, Deu 32:21.
IV. The judgments God brought upon them for these sins. Their place in Canaan would no more secure them in a sinful way than their descent from Israel. You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you, Amo 3:2. Idolatry is winked at among the Gentiles, but not in Israel, 1. God was displeased with them (Psa 78:59): When God heard this, when he heard the cry of their iniquity, which came up before him, he was wroth, he took it very heinously, as well he might, and he greatly abhorred Israel, whom he had greatly loved and delighted in. Those that had been the people of his choice became the generation of his wrath. Presumptuous sins, idolatries especially, render even Israelites odious to God's holiness and obnoxious to his justice. 2. He deserted his tabernacle among them, and removed the defence which was upon that glory, Psa 78:60. God never leaves us till we leave him, never withdraws till we have driven him from us. His name is Jealous, and he is a jealous God; and therefore no marvel if a people whom he had betrothed to himself be loathed and rejected, and he refuse to cohabit with them any longer, when they have embraced the bosom of a stranger. The tabernacle at Shiloh was the tent God had placed among men, in which God would in very deed dwell with men upon the earth; but, when his people treacherously forsook it, he justly forsook it, and then all its glory departed. Israel has small joy of the tabernacle without the presence of God in it. 3. He gave up all into the hands of the enemy. Those whom God forsakes become an easy prey to the destroyer. The Philistines are sworn enemies to the Israel of God, and no less so to the God of Israel, and yet God will make use of them to be a scourge to his people. (1.) God permits them to take the ark prisoner, and carry it off as a trophy of their victory, to show that he had not only forsaken the tabernacle, but even the ark itself, which shall now be no longer a token of his presence (Psa 78:61): He delivered his strength into captivity, as if it had been weakened and overcome, and his glory fell under the disgrace of being abandoned into the enemy's hand. We have the story Sa1 4:11. When the ark has become as a stranger among Israelites, no marvel if it soon be made a prisoner among Philistines. (2.) He suffers the armies of Israel to be routed by the Philistines (Psa 78:62, Psa 78:63): He gave his people over unto the sword, to the sword of his own justice and of the enemy's rage, for he was wroth with his inheritance; and that wrath of his was the fire which consumed their young men, in the prime of their time, by the sword or sickness, and made such a devastation of them that their maidens were not praised, that is, were not given in marriage (which is honourable in all), because there were no young men for them to be given to, and because the distresses and calamities of Israel were so many and great that the joys of marriage-solemnities were judged unseasonable, and it was said, Blessed is the womb that beareth not. General destructions produce a scarcity of men. Isa 13:12, I will make a man more precious than fine gold, so that seven women shall take hold of one man, Isa 4:1; Isa 3:25. Yet this was not the worst: (3.) Even their priests, who attended the ark, fell by the sword, Hophni and Phinehas. Justly they fell, for they made themselves vile, and were sinners before the Lord exceedingly; and their priesthood was so far from being their protection that it aggravated their sin and hastened their fall. Justly did they fall by the sword, because they exposed themselves in the field of battle, without call or warrant. We throw ourselves out of God's protection when we go out of our place and out of the way of our duty. When the priests fell their widows made no lamentation, Psa 78:64. All the ceremonies of mourning were lost and buried in substantial grief; the widow of Phinehas, instead of lamenting her husband's death, died herself, when she had called her son Ichabod, Sa1 4:19, etc.
V. God's return, in mercy, to them, and his gracious appearances for them after this. We read not of their repentance and return to God, but God was grieved for the miseries of Israel (Jdg 10:16) and concerned for his own honour, fearing the wrath of the enemy, lest they should behave themselves strangely, Deu 32:27. And therefore then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep (Psa 78:65), and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine, not only like one that is raised out of sleep and recovers himself from the slumber which by drinking he was overcome with, who then regards that which before he seemed wholly to neglect, but like one that is refreshed with sleep, and whose heart is made glad by the sober and moderate use of wine, and is therefore the more lively and vigorous, and fit for business. When God had delivered the ark of his strength into captivity, as one jealous of his honour, he soon put forth the arm of his strength to rescue it, stirred up his strength to do great things for his people.
1. He plagued the Philistines who held the ark in captivity, Psa 78:66. He smote them with emerods in the hinder parts, wounded them behind, as if they were fleeing from him, even when they thought themselves more than conquerors. He put them to reproach, and they themselves helped to make it a perpetual reproach by the golden images of their emerods, which they returned with the ark for a trespass-offering (Sa1 6:5), to remain in perpetuam rei memoriam - as a perpetual memorial. Note, Sooner or later God will glorify himself by putting disgrace upon his enemies, even when they are most elevated with their successes.
2. He provided a new settlement for his ark after it had been some months in captivity and some years in obscurity. He did indeed refuse the tabernacle of Joseph; he never sent it back to Shiloh, in the tribe of Ephraim, Psa 78:67. The ruins of that place were standing monuments of divine justice. God, see what I did to Shiloh, Jer 7:12. But he did not wholly take away the glory from Israel; the moving of the ark is not the removing of it. Shiloh has lost it, but Israel has not. God will have a church in the world, and a kingdom among men, though this or that place may have its candlestick removed; nay, the rejection of Shiloh is the election of Zion, as, long after, the fall of the Jews was the riches of the Gentiles, Rom 11:12. When God chose not the tribe of Ephraim, of which tribe Joshua was, he chose the tribe of Judah (Psa 78:68), because of that tribe Jesus was to be, who is greater than Joshua. Kirjath-jearim, the place to which the ark was brought after its rescue out of the hands of the Philistines, was in the tribe of Judah. There it took possession of that tribe; but thence it was removed to Zion, the Mount Zion which he loved (Psa 78:68), which was beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth; there it was that he built his sanctuary like high palaces and like the earth, Psa 78:69. David indeed erected only a tent for the ark, but a temple was then designed and prepared for, and finished by his son; and that was, (1.) A very stately place. It was built like the palaces of princes, and the great men of the earth, nay, it excelled them all in splendour and magnificence. Solomon built it, and yet here it is said God built its, for his father had taught him, perhaps with reference to this undertaking, that except the Lord build the house those labour in vain that build it, Psa 127:1, which is a psalm for Solomon. (2.) A very stable place, like the earth, though not to continue as long as the earth, yet while it was to continue it was as firm as the earth, which God upholds by the word of his power, and it was not finally destroyed till the gospel temple was erected, which is to continue as long as the sun and moon endure (Psa 89:36, Psa 89:37) and against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.
3. He set a good government over them, a monarchy, and a monarch after his own heart: He chose David his servant out of all the thousands of Israel, and put the sceptre into his hand, out of whose loins Christ was to come, and who was to be a type of him, Psa 78:70. Concerning David observe here, (1.) The meanness of his beginning. His extraction indeed was great, for he descended from the prince of the tribe of Judah, but his education was poor. He was bred not a scholar, not a soldier, but a shepherd. He was taken from the sheep-folds, as Moses was; for God delights to put honour upon the humble and diligent, to raise the poor out of the dust and to set them among princes; and sometimes he finds those most fit for public action that have spent the beginning of their time in solitude and contemplation. The Son of David was upbraided with the obscurity of his original: Is not this the carpenter? David was taken, he does not say from leading the rams, but from following the ewes, especially those great with young, which intimated that of all the good properties of a shepherd he was most remarkable for his tenderness and compassion to those of his flock that most needed his care. This temper of mind fitted him for government, and made him a type of Christ, who, when he feeds his flock like a shepherd, does with a particular care gently lead those that are with young, Isa 40:11. (2.) The greatness of his advancement. God preferred him to feed Jacob his people, Psa 78:71. It was a great honour that God put upon him, in advancing him to be a king, especially to be king over Jacob and Israel, God's peculiar people, near and dear to him; but withal it was a great trust reposed in him when he was charged with the government of those that were God's own inheritance. God advanced him to the throne that he might feed them, not that he might feed himself, that he might do good, not that he might make his family great. It is the charge given to all the under-shepherds, both magistrates and ministers, that they feed the flock of God. (3.) The happiness of his management. David, having so great a trust put into his hands, obtained mercy of the Lord to be found both skilful and faithful in the discharge of it (Psa 78:72): So he fed them; he ruled them and taught them, guided and protected them, [1.] Very honestly; he did it according to the integrity of his heart, aiming at nothing but the glory of God and the good of the people committed to his charge; the principles of his religion were the maxims of his government, which he administered, not with carnal policy, but with godly sincerity, by the grace of God. In every thing he did he meant well and had no by-end in view. [2.] Very discreetly; he did it by the skilfulness of his hands. He was not only very sincere in what he designed, but very prudent in what he did, and chose out the most proper means in pursuit of his end, for his God did instruct him to discretion. Happy the people that are under such a government! With good reason does the psalmist make this the finishing crowning instance of God's favour to Israel, for David was a type of Christ the great and good Shepherd, who was humbled first and then exalted, and of whom it was foretold that he should be filled with the spirit of wisdom and understanding and should judge and reprove with equity, Isa 11:3, Isa 11:4. On the integrity of his heart and the skilfulness of his hands all his subjects may entirely rely, and of the increase of his government and people there shall be no end.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv40–43 Yea, they turned back, and tempted God,.... They talked…
Yea, they turned back, and tempted God,.... They talked of going back to Egypt, and of choosing a captain to lead them back thither, Num 14:3, and they turned back from the Lord, and from his good ways, and chose their own ways, and followed after idols; or the sense is, they again tempted God, not only at Meribah, but elsewhere; they tempted him again and again, even ten times, as before observed:
and limited the Holy One of Israel; or "signed" (d) him; signed him with a sign, so the Targum; they tempted him by asking a sign of him, as Jarchi interprets it; insisting that a miracle be wrought, by which it might be known whether the Lord was among them or not, Exo 17:7, with which compare Mat 16:1, or they set bounds, so Kimchi; to his power and goodness, saying, this he could do, and the other he could not; see Psa 78:19, and so men limit the Lord when they fix on a blessing they would have, even that, and not another; and the measure of it, to what degree it should be bestowed on them, as well as set the time when they would have it; whereas the blessing itself, and the degree of it, and the time of giving it, should be all left with the Lord; who knows which and what of it is most convenient for us, and when is the best time to bestow it on us.
Read full note →
(d) "signaverunt", Pagninus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On v42 Hand - The glorious works of his hand. Enemy…
Hand - The glorious works of his hand. Enemy - That remarkable day, in which God delivered them from their greatest enemy, Pharaoh.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On v41 Verse 41. Limited the Holy One of Israel.] The…
Verse 41. Limited the Holy One of Israel.] The Chaldee translates, "And the Holy One of Israel they signed with a sign." The Hebrew word התוו hithvu is supposed to come from the root תוה tavah, which signifies to mark; and hence the letter ת tau, which in the ancient Hebrew character had the form of a cross X, had its name probably because it was used as a mark. Mr. Bate observes that in hithpael it signifies to challenge or accuse; as one who gives his mark or pledge upon a trial, and causes his adversary to do the same. Here it most obviously means an insult offered to God.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv41, 43 Psa 78:41-42. And limited the Holy One of Israel…
Psa 78:41-42. And limited the Holy One of Israel — Prescribing to him what proofs he should give of his power and presence with them, and what methods he should take in leading them and providing for them; directing him what to do, and when, and in what manner, to do it, and murmuring if he did not always grant their particular and various desires. They remembered not his hand — How strong it is, and how it had been stretched out for them; or the great and glorious works of his hand on their behalf. Nor the day — That remarkable and never to be forgotten day, that self-same day, as it is called, Exo 12:41, which God had fixed four hundred years before, Gen 15:13; when he delivered them from the enemy — Namely, from their greatest enemy, the tyrant Pharaoh, that zealously and unweariedly sought their ruin. There are some days, made remarkable by signal deliverances, which ought never to be forgotten; for the remembrance of them is calculated to encourage us in our greatest straits.
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 On vv40–43 How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness…
How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness - Margin, Or, rebel against him. The Hebrew word may have the signification in the margin. The idea is, that they were perverse and rebellious; that they excited his displeasure, and gave occasion for his anger. See Psa 78:17.
And grieve him in the desert - The word here rendered grieve means
Read full note →
(1) to work, to fashion;
(2) to suffer pain, to travail, to be afflicted; and then,
(3) to cause one to suffer pain, or to afflict.
The meaning here is that the conduct of the Hebrews was such as was suited to cause pain - as the conduct of a disobedient and rebellious child is.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv41, 43 41. Limited—See on Psa_78:18-19. They either questioned God’s power,…
41. Limited—See on Psa_78:18-19. They either questioned God’s power, or prescribed to him what to do and what not to do.
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 On vv40–43 40, 41. An emphatic repetition of Psa_78:17-18.
40, 41. An emphatic repetition of Psa_78:17-18.
provoke him] Rather, as in Psa_78:8; Psa_78:17; Psa_78:56, rebel against him. Both words, rebel against and grieve, occur together in Isa_63:10.
Read full note →
40–55. But as God multiplied His mercies, Israel multiplied its acts of rebellion: and in order to set the heinousness of their ingratitude in a still stronger light, the Psalmist goes back to recount the miracles which preceded and prepared for the Exodus.
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.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv40–42 (40) How oft.—Ten instances of murmuring are actually recorded…
(40) How oft.—Ten instances of murmuring are actually recorded in Exodus and Numbers.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv40–43 How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness,…
How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert!. (comp. Deu_31:27 Deu_32:15-18 Act_7:30-43, etc.) That God is "grieved" at man"s sins appears, not only from this passage, but also from Gen_6:6 Psa_95:10 Eph_4:30 Heb_3:17.
Provoking God.
Read full note →
Israel did this, and notwithstanding every inducement to do otherwise. We note
I MANY PEOPLE DO THE LIKE STILL. God speaks plainly, loudly, persistently, by his Spirit, his providence, his Word, his judgments, and yet, etc.
II AND THEY WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO UNLESS
(1) they be willing to give up their sin; and
(2) set themselves to seek the Lord.
III HAVE WE DONE SO? Then:
1. Truly repent.
2. Trust Christ.
3. Be filled with the Spirit. S.C.
How oft did they provoke.
I ANSWER THE QUESTION. This long psalm supplies a sample of Israel"s sin. Their provokings were so frequent that the whole history of the people, stretching over many generations and long centuries, seemed to be all of a piece, and is called "the day of provocation.
II INQUIRE HOW THEY PROVOKED GOD? By the perpetual repetition of the wretched round of sin, and then repentance. If they had done nothing else but sin, they would quickly have perished; it" they had sinned once, and done with it, their history would have been a far happier one; but it was this perpetual backsliding which provoked God.
III WHY WAS IT? There was:
1. The force of example; all the nations round, the greatest and most glorious of them included, worshipped idols.
2. Then the indulgence which idolatry gave to sin; it was such an easy religion.
3. The difficulty of realizing the unseen, of living by faith.
4. The cravings of a corrupt nature.
IV WHAT MADE THEIR CONDUCT SO WICKED?
1. It was such madness. Nothing but evil had ever come of their sin, and yet they went after it again.
2. Such ingratitude to God. What had he not done for them?
3. The terrible harm they did to their children and to the whole world.
V WHAT CAME OF IT? What always must come repeated and terrible chastisement, and rejection at the last. S.C.
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 On vv40–43 Ver. 40. How oft did they provoke him in…
Ver. 40. How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness. Times enough did they rebel: they were as constant in provocation as he was in his patience. In our own case, who can count his errors? In what book could all our perverse rebellions be recorded? The wilderness was a place of manifest dependence, where the tribes were helpless without divine supplies, yet they wounded the hand which fed them while it was in the act of feeding them. Is there no likeness between us and them? Does it bring no tears into our eyes, while as in a glass, we see our own selves?
And grieve him in the desert. Their provocations had an effect; God was not insensible to them, he is said to have been grieved. His holiness could not find pleasure in their sin, his justice in their unjust treatment, or his truth in their falsehood. What must it be to grieve the Lord of love! Yet we also have vexed the Holy Spirit, and he would long ago have withdrawn himself from us, were it not that he is God and not man. We are in the desert where we need our God, let us not make it a wilderness of sin by grieving him.
Read full note →
Ver. 40. How oft did they provoke, etc. They provoked God at least ten times (Nu 14:22) during the first two years of their journey through the wilderness: (1) at the Red Sea (Ex 14:11-12): (2) at the waters of Marah (Ex 15:24): (3) in the wilderness of Sin (Ex 16:2): (4) when they kept the manna until the following day (Ex 16:10): (5) when the manna was collected on the Sabbath (Ex 16:27): (6) in Rephidim, where there was no water (Nu 20:2, 13): (7) at Horeb when a molten calf was made (Ex 22:1 &c.): (8) at Taberah (Nu 11:1-3): (9) when they lusted for flesh (Nu 11:4): (10) when they murmured at the news brought by the men, who had been sent to search the land (Nu 14:1, &c.) Daniel Cresswell.
Ver. 40. How oft. God kept an account how oft they provoked him, though they did not, Nu 14:22: "They have tempted me these ten times." Matthew Henry.
None.
Psalms 78:41*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v41 Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited…
Psa_78:41
Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel
Read full note →
Limiting God
I.
We limit the Holy One of Israel by dictating to him. Shall mortal dare to dictate to his Creator? Shall it be possible that man shall lay down his commands, and expect the King of heaven to pay homage to his arrogance? Will a mortal impiously say, Not Thy will but mine be done?
1. O heir of heaven, be ashamed, and be confounded, while I remind thee that thou hast dared to dictate to God! How often have we in our prayers not simply wrestled with God for a blessing--for that was allowable--but we have imperiously demanded it. Christ will have nothing to do with dictatorial prayers, He will not be a partaker with us in the sin of limiting the Holy One of Israel. Oftentimes, too, I think, we dictate to God with regard to the measure of our blessing. We ask the Lord that we might grow in the enjoyment of His presence, instead of that He gives us to see the hidden depravity of our heart. The blessing comes to us, but it is in another shape from what we expected. We go again to our knees, and we complain of God that He has not answered us. You must leave the measuring of your mercies with Him who measures the rain and weighs the clouds of heaven. Beggars must not be choosers, and especially they must not be choosers when they have to deal with infinite wisdom and sovereignty. And yet further, I fear that we have often dictated to God with regard to the time. We pray again and again, and at last we begin to faint. And why is this? Simply because that in our hearts we have been setting a date and a time to God.
2. I will address myself now to those who cannot call themselves the children of God, but who lately have been stirred up to seek salvation. There are many of you who are not hardened and careless now. Sinner, what hast thou been doing, while thou hast Said, I will restrain prayer because God has not as yet answered me? Hast thou not been stipulating with God as to the day when He shall save thee? Suppose it is written in the book of Gods decree, I will save that man and give him peace after he has prayed seven years, would that be hard upon thee? Is not the blessing of Divine mercy worth waiting for?
II. We limit the Holy One of Israel by distrust.
1. Children of God, purchased by blood and regenerated by the Spirit, you are guilty here; for by your distrust and fear you have often limited the Holy One of Israel, and have said in effect, that His ear is heavy that it cannot hear, and that His arm is shortened that it cannot save. In your trials you have done this. You have looked upon your troubles, you have seen them roll like mountain waves; you have hearkened to your fears, and they have howled in your ears like tempestuous winds, and you have said, My hark is but a feeble one, and it will soon be shipwrecked. It is true that God has said that through tempests and teasings He will bring me to my desired haven. But alas! such a state as this was never contemplated in His promise; I shall sink at last and never see His face with joy. What hast thou done, fearful one? O thou of little faith, dost thou know what sin thou hast committed? Thou hast judged the omnipotence of God to be finite. Thou hast said that thy troubles are greater than His power, that thy woes are more terrible than His might. I say retract that thought; drown it and thou shalt not be drowned thyself. Give it to the winds, and rest thou assured that out of all thy troubles He will surely bring thee, and in thy deepest distress He will not forsake thee.
2. And now I turn to the poor troubled heart, and although I accuse of sin, yet I doubt not the Spirit shall bear witness with the conscience, and leading to Christ, shall this morning deliver from its galling yoke. Poor troubled one, thou hast said in thy heart, My sins are too many to be forgiven. What hast thou done? Repent thee, and let the tear roll down thy cheek. Thou hast limited the Holy One of Israel. Thou hast put thy sins above His grace. Thou hast considered that thy guilt is more omnipotent than omnipotence itself. He is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Christ. Thou canst not have exceeded the boundlessness of His grace. Be thy sins ever so many, the blood of Christ can put them all away; and if thou doubtest this, thou art limiting the Holy One of Israel. Another says, I do not doubt His power to save, but what I doubt is His willingness. What hast thou done in this? Thou hast limited the love, the boundless love of the Holy One of Israel.
3. If you will now consider how faithful God has been to His children, and how true He has been to all His promises, I think that saint and sinner may stand together and make a common confession and utter a common prayer: Lord, we have been guilty of doubting Thee; we pray that we may limit Thee no longer. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Limiting the Holy One
I. Men do it in their intellectual theories. In their theories they limit Him--
1. In the sphere of His agency.
2. In the range of His mercy.
3. In the sovereignty of His action.
II. Men do it in their religious formalities.
1. In their prostration before material representations of Him.
2. In stereotyped forms of worship of Him.
3. In specially identifying Him with certain places of worship.
III. Men do it in their moral habitudes.
1. By their sins they exclude Him from the temple of their nature.
2. By their sins they obstruct His influence upon their sphere. (Homilist.)
Unbelief limiting God
I. In what way we may limit the Holy One of Israel. To limit is to set bounds to His operations; to circumscribe or confine Him in His ability to effect certain purposes or works, Now, God is often limited--
1. In the extent and freeness of His mercy. The Jews could not conceive of publicans and sinners being interested in Messiahs regards.
2. The penitent sinner often does this as to the ability and willingness of God to save.
3. The believer in trouble often does this in confining God to a certain mode of deliverance.
4. We often do this in the contractedness of our prayers.
II. The evil of limiting the Holy One of Israel. To limit the Holy One of Israel is--
1. To bring down the Creator to the standard of the creature.
2. Disbelieving His Holy Word.
3. Ungrateful reflection upon Him for past mercies.
4. To limit our mercies and enjoyments. He says, Be it unto you according unto your faith. (J. Burns, D. D.)
Limiting the Holy One of Israel
I. This is the crime of idolatry and heathenism. Let us beware how we create an image of God in our minds, dishonourable to Him, and, by its limitation to our poor faculty, become the means of limiting the Holy One of Israel.
II. Idolatry is the growth of a seed deeper than itself, and that seed is sin. Sin limits the Holy One of Israel: the corrupt influence in the mind--in the heart, the perverted imagination, the perverted will. Sin closes the avenues by which God enters the human soul, and narrows the Divine Being in the conception. How dreadful does it seem, that man should build for himself a prison in which he shelters himself from the Almighty! Here at least the Almighty cannot come, hither He cannot penetrate; into the malignity of this heart, into the impurity of the world, He cannot descend.
III. By unbelief, or doubt, we limit the Holy One of Israel. Doubt is constantly taking the circumference of God with the compasses of man, and measuring His movements by earthly motheds and estimating His force and His ages by our notations and mechanics. How frequently men, Christian men, walk amidst the very mysteries and eternities of Godhead only to limit the Holy One of Israel. You talk of the boundlessness of His being--they run to and fro with a measuring line to take the dimensions of it. They limit the Holy One of Israel.
IV. There is a disposition in some philosophers to limit the Holy One of Israel even in the operations of nature. Night, it has been eloquently said, has had three daughters, Religion, Superstition, and Atheism. The firstborn, the eldest and loveliest, is Religion; it is through her guiding that all the stars are heard to sing together, and it is her voice which proclaims, The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmaments show His handiwork. But Superstition was early born of the visions of the night; she named the Zodiac--she named the longest known of the planets--she hung over them the veil of fate, and made them the arbitrary mistresses and ministers of Destiny. But these latter ages have given birth to the third daughter of the dark hours--Atheism. (E. P. Hood.)
The sin of limiting God
I. The Being against whom the sin is committed. It is no one less than God Himself. He is here called the Holy One. God is essentially holy. He is holy in His law--as poor thoughtless sinners, that trifle with His law and disregarding all the claims of conscience, shall find either in this world or the next. He is still more manifestly holy in the Gospel; in which every doctrine, every promise, every precept, is but one glorious manifestation of His holiness. Now, that there should be even in the true Israel a proneness to limit the Holy One--that when they come into some new trial, into some new emergency, into some untried state--when they come to that stage in their journey that they have never travelled before, then there should be a proneness to limit the Holy One--oh! it marketh out that which should cause you and me to lay our mouths in the lowest dust.
II. The sin (Psa_78:19-20).
1. To limit God is to limit His power; and He is omnipotent. There is nothing difficult with God; alike easy were it, to utter a promise or create a world. To limit the Omnipotent is another word for denying Him to be God.
2. To limit Jehovah is to limit His wisdom; and He is omniscient. He knows every thought, every desire, every misgiving, every infirmity, every sinking of heart; He knows it all. But this is to deny Him, as such.
3. We limit Him when we have misgivings as to His faithfulness. He has given a promise; and how seldom can you and I say, I believe it simply because God says it; I do not take it now on the testimony of saints, I take it simply because God says it; God declares it, and I believe it! But when we do not so, how is there a secret limiting of the faithfulness that is truth!--for He cannot deny Himself; He not only does not, but He cannot.
4. We limit Him when we mark out a line for His sovereignty, whereas He gives no account of any of His matters.
5. And if we are brought into the region of a dark Providence, when everything seems against us, when our most favourite desires seem to be blasted, when we are touched the most sensibly where we the least desired it--because the Lord seems to thwart one, one seems to limit His goodness. As if there could be an unkind thought in God; as if there could be any want of willingness in God to bless His child; as if He could withhold any good thing.
III. The cause. They remembered not His hand. The immediate cause of their limiting the Holy One of Israel was, no doubt, their unbelief; but this their unbelief seemed to have a cause, and that cause was their forgetfulness of Gods mercies. They remembered not His hand--the outstretched hand. What! when the poor soul first felt its weight and burden of sin--when the secrets within were developed--when the man began to see himself a sinner--and when there was the outstretched hand, and Come unto me, and Him that cometh I will in no wise cast out!--the hand that still sustains I that tender hand, that gentle hand, that strong hand, that broad hand, enough to cover us amidst the storm and the tempest. Oh! it is no small sin not to remember the hand of our God. We thereby grieve the Spirit; we thereby strengthen unbelief; we thereby weaken faith; we thereby displease our Heavenly Father. (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v42 General Information:
General Information:
The writer speaks of how God had rescued the Israelites.
Read full note →
Zoan
a city in Egypt (See: How to Translate Names)
translationWords
power
terror
sign
Egypt
miracle
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v40 78:40-55 The Israelites rebelled even though the Lord had…
78:40-55 The Israelites rebelled even though the Lord had rescued them from powerful plagues.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.