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Psalm 78 (LXX 77) - Tell the Coming Generation

21 min read

Audio narration

Psalm 78 is not history for curiosity. It is history as spiritual medicine. The Psalm retells Israel’s memory so the children will set their hope on God, not repeat the sins of their fathers. It is a warning against forgetfulness, a revelation of divine patience, and a prophecy of the Shepherd who will guide God’s people in purity of heart.

The Psalm is long because forgetfulness is stubborn. Its structure repeats the same painful cycle: gift, forgetfulness, sin, chastening, mercy, and another gift. That repetition is not literary weakness. It is spiritual diagnosis. The Church also teaches by repetition through the liturgical year because the human heart does not learn once and remain healed forever.

Psalm 78 (LXX 77) - Tell the Coming Generation

Psalm Metadata

FieldNotes
NKJV / Masoretic numberingPsalm 78
Septuagint / Coptic numberingPsalm 77
Accepted authorA Psalm of instruction for Asaph.
Period in author’s lifeNot tied to one moment in Asaph’s life. It is a liturgical instruction Psalm, retelling sacred history for later generations.
Christ prophecy statusTypological and directly cited in the New Testament. Matthew 13:35 applies Psalm 78:2 to Christ’s parabolic teaching. The Psalm also points toward Christ as the true Bread, the true Shepherd, the fulfillment of the Law, and the Son of David.
Coptic lectionary/service useVerified local rows preserve printed Psalm 78 references in annual Liturgy rows, Sunday Vespers, Kiyahk Liturgy, and a special funeral-service index.
Numbering issueThis note embeds Brenton LXX Psalm 77. The local lectionary rows cited here preserve printed Psalm 78 references.

Historical and Scriptural Context

Psalm 78 surveys Israel’s history from the command to teach children, through Exodus and wilderness rebellion, into the land, Shiloh, Zion, and David. The point is not a complete chronology. The point is moral and liturgical memory: God remembers His people, but the people repeatedly forget God.

The New Testament gives the Psalm special weight. Matthew 13:35 cites the parable line: “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world.” This means the Church cannot read Psalm 78 as mere national history. Christ Himself takes up its voice and reveals the hidden things toward which Israel’s memory was always moving. St Paul makes the same point morally in 1 Corinthians 10: these wilderness events “became our examples” and were “written for our admonition.”

Geographical Significance ⛰️

The Psalm moves across salvation geography: Egypt, Tanis, the sea, wilderness, the mountain of His sanctuary, Shiloh, Judah, Zion, and David’s sheepfolds. Each place marks either a gift remembered or a gift betrayed. Egypt shows bondage and deliverance. The wilderness shows provision and unbelief. Shiloh shows sacred privilege lost through sin. Zion shows election and hope. The sheepfold shows God’s freedom to raise a shepherd from hidden places.

🕯️ Light from the Word

Psalm 77:1-8, instruction for the children

77:1 A Psalm of instruction for Asaph. Give heed, O my people, to my law: incline your ear to the words of my mouth. 77:2 I will open my mouth in parables: I will utter dark sayings which have been from the beginning. 77:3 All which we have heard and known, and our fathers have declared to us. 77:4 They were not hid from their children to a second generation; the fathers declaring the praises of the Lord, and his mighty acts, and his wonders which he wrought. 77:5 And he raised up a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, to make it known to their children: 77:6 that another generation might know, even the sons which should be born; and they should arise and declare them to their children. 77:7 That they might set their hope on God, and not forget the works of God, but diligently seek his commandments. 77:8 That they should not be as their fathers, a perverse and provoking generation; a generation which set not its heart aright, and its spirit was not steadfast with God.

The opening command is direct: listen. Sacred memory is not optional decoration. It is obedience. The purpose of teaching children is not mere cultural continuity. It is that they “might set their hope on God, and not forget the works of God.” This stands beside the Shema in Deuteronomy 6, where Israel is commanded to teach the words of God diligently to the children. The home, the assembly, and the feast all become schools of remembrance.

Augustine says the words require a reader who does not stop at “the voice which the surface utters,” but seeks the inward sense. He warns against rushing over parables as if they were self-evident. Theodoret says the Psalm teaches children the reason for the festivals so that, learning divine favors, they may become grateful. St Athanasius gives the deeper pastoral frame: the Psalms do not merely report the faith of others, but give the singer words that become his own, words for repentance, affliction, thanksgiving, and hope. Psalm 78 therefore trains memory as prayer, not as religious nostalgia.

St Gregory of Nyssa’s theology of psalmody fits this opening well, though he is giving a general theology of the Psalter rather than verse-by-verse comment on this Psalm. He says, “The end of the life according to virtue is blessedness.” Psalm 78 teaches that virtue must be handed down. Children do not automatically become faithful because they inherit a religious environment. They must receive the memory of God’s works, and that memory must become hope, obedience, and worship.

Psalm 77:9-22, forgetting miracles and testing God

77:9 The children of Ephraim, bending and shooting with the bow, turned back in the day of battle. 77:10 They kept not the covenant of God, and would not walk in his law. 77:11 And they forgot his benefits, and his miracles which he had shewed them; 77:12 the miracles which he wrought before their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the plain of Tanes. 77:13 He clave the sea, and led them through: he made the waters to stand as in a bottle. 77:14 And he guided them with a cloud by day, and all the night with a light of fire. 77:15 He clave a rock in the wilderness, and made them drink as in a great deep. 77:16 And he brought water out of the rock, and caused waters to flow down as rivers. 77:17 And they sinned yet more against him; they provoked the Most High in the wilderness. 77:18 And they tempted God in their hearts, in asking meat for the desire of their souls. 77:19 They spoke also against God, and said, Will God be able to prepare a table in the wilderness? 77:20 Forasmuch as he smote the rock, and the waters flowed, and the torrents ran abundantly; will he be able also to give bread, or prepare a table for his people? 77:21 Therefore the Lord heard, and was provoked: and fire was kindled in Jacob, and wrath went up against Israel. 77:22 Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation.

The children of Ephraim have weapons but turn back. Their problem is not lack of equipment. It is lack of covenant faithfulness. They forget God’s benefits and miracles. Forgetfulness becomes cowardice, then rebellion.

The wilderness pattern is devastating. God splits the sea, guides by cloud and fire, opens the rock, and brings rivers from stone. Yet the people ask, “Will God be able to prepare a table in the wilderness?” The question is not innocent curiosity. It is memory refusing to trust.

Theodoret notes that the people did not ask simply for what was necessary. They accused God of powerlessness. Augustine sees the same spiritual disease when he says they “believed not in God, nor hoped in His saving health.” This is a warning for every believer who has received mercy but treats the next trial as if God has no history of faithfulness.

Christologically, the rock points beyond Moses. St Paul says, “that Rock was Christ” in 1 Corinthians 10:4. His whole argument in 1 Corinthians 10 receives Psalm 78 as Christian warning: “these things became our examples,” and Israel’s testing in the wilderness is named as testing Christ. The table in the wilderness also opens toward the Eucharist, but the Psalm warns that receiving gifts without faith can become judgment rather than life. A person can stand near miracle and still remain unconverted if memory does not become trust.

Psalm 77:23-39, bread of heaven and the mercy that remembers flesh

77:23 Yet he commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven, 77:24 and rained upon them manna to eat, and gave them the bread of heaven. 77:25 Man ate angels’ bread; he sent them provision to the full. 77:26 He removed the south wind from heaven; and by his might he brought in the south-west wind. 77:27 And he rained upon them flesh like dust, and feathered birds like the sand of the seas. 77:28 And they fell into the midst of their camp, round about their tents. 77:29 So they ate, and were completely filled; and he gave them their desire. 77:30 They were not disappointed of their desire: but when their food was yet in their mouth, 77:31 then the indignation of God rose up against them, and slew the fattest of them, and overthrew the choice men of Israel. 77:32 In the midst of all this they sinned yet more, and believed not his miracles. 77:33 And their days were consumed in vanity, and their years with anxiety. 77:34 When he slew them, they sought him: and they returned and called betimes upon God. 77:35 And they remembered that God was their helper, and the most high God was their redeemer. 77:36 Yet they loved him only with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue. 77:37 For their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant. 77:38 But he is compassionate, and will forgive their sins, and will not destroy them: yea, he will frequently turn away his wrath, and will not kindle all his anger. 77:39 And he remembered that they are flesh; a wind that passes away, and returns not.

God opens the doors of heaven and gives manna, “the bread of heaven.” The people eat angels’ bread, but desire remains disordered. Food is still in their mouth when judgment comes. Gifts do not heal greed automatically.

Theodoret says God supplied miraculous food as though opening heavenly storehouses, but the people paid the penalty for greed. The Gospel of John deepens the typology. In John 6 the crowd remembers the bread from heaven, but Christ corrects and fulfills the memory: it was not Moses who gave the true bread from heaven, and the Father now gives the Bread who comes down and gives life to the world. The fathers ate manna and died; the Eucharistic life Christ gives is communion with the One who dies no more. Psalm 78 therefore warns that sacramental gifts must be received with faith, repentance, and desire for God Himself.

Then comes one of the Psalm’s most tender lines: “But he is compassionate, and will forgive their sins, and will not destroy them.” God remembers that they are flesh. Augustine draws a major spiritual insight from verse 37: “Therefore the heart is right with God, when it does seek God for the sake of God.” This is the difference between repentance and religious bargaining. The people loved Him with their mouth and lied with their tongue because they wanted God’s benefits more than God Himself. This is the disease every ascetical tradition exposes: lips can sound pious while the heart remains elsewhere. The cure is not more religious performance. It is the return of the heart to God for God’s sake.

The funeral-service use of printed Psalm 78:38-39 is powerful here. The Church places before grief the mercy of God who remembers human frailty. This does not trivialize sin. It reveals the compassion of the Savior who knows that we are flesh, and who took flesh to save us. It also echoes the Coptic funeral prayers’ constant appeal to God as the Lover of Mankind: human mortality is met not by abstraction, but by divine compassion.

Psalm 77:40-55, the hand they refused to remember

77:40 How often did they provoke him in the wilderness, and anger him in a dry land! 77:41 Yea, they turned back, and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel. 77:42 They remembered not his hand, the day in which he delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. 77:43 How he had wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Tanes: 77:44 and had changed their rivers into blood; and their streams, that they should not drink. 77:45 He sent against them the dog-fly, and it devoured them; and the frog, and it spoiled them. 77:46 And he gave their fruit to the canker worm, and their labours to the locust. 77:47 He killed their vines with hail, and their sycamores with frost. 77:48 And he gave up their cattle to hail, and their substance to the fire. 77:49 He sent out against them the fury of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and affliction, a message by evil angels. 77:50 He made a way for his wrath; he spared not their souls from death, but consigned their cattle to death; 77:51 and smote every first-born in the land of Egypt; the first-fruits of their labours in the tents of Cham. 77:52 And he removed his people like sheep; he led them as a flock in the wilderness. 77:53 And he guided them with hope, and they feared not: but the sea covered their enemies. 77:54 And he brought them in to the mountain of his sanctuary, this mountain which his right hand had purchased. 77:55 And he cast out the nations from before them, and made them to inherit by a line of inheritance, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.

The core accusation is simple: “They remembered not his hand.” The Psalm lists the signs in Egypt, not to satisfy historical curiosity but to expose ingratitude. Blood, dog-fly, frog, locust, hail, death of the firstborn, the shepherding of Israel, the sea covering enemies, and the entrance into the sanctuary all become witnesses against forgetfulness.

Theodoret says the plagues and deliverance showed both the chastisement of the oppressors and the shepherding of God’s own people. He also comments on the difficult phrase “a message by evil angels,” explaining that the angels are called wicked not by nature or will, but because they serve retribution in punishment, much as Scripture can call a day of punishment an evil day. Augustine reads the sequence as grace delayed and judgment delayed, revealing both God’s patience and His seriousness.

For Orthodox reading, this section carries Paschal structure. Bondage, blood, water, death, deliverance, passage through the sea, and the mountain of holiness all point toward Christ. He is the Passover Lamb, the Redeemer with the strong arm, the One who brings His people not merely into land but into the sanctuary of the Kingdom.

Psalm 77:56-72, Shiloh, Zion, and the shepherd from the sheepfolds

77:56 Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his testimonies. 77:57 And they turned back, and broke covenant, even as also their fathers: they became like a crooked bow. 77:58 And they provoked him with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images. 77:59 God heard and lightly regarded them, and greatly despised Israel. 77:60 And he rejected the tabernacle of Selom, his tent where he dwelt among men. 77:61 And he gave their strength into captivity, and their beauty into the enemy’s hand. 77:62 And he gave his people to the sword; and disdained his inheritance. 77:63 Fire devoured their young men; and their virgins mourned not. 77:64 Their priests fell by the sword; and their widows shall not be wept for. 77:65 So the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, and as a mighty man who has been heated with wine. 77:66 And he smote his enemies in the hinder parts: he brought on them a perpetual reproach. 77:67 And he rejected the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim; 77:68 but chose the tribe of Juda, the mount Sion which he loved. 77:69 And he built his sanctuary as the place of unicorns; he founded it for ever on the earth. 77:70 He chose David also his servant, and took him up from the flocks of sheep. 77:71 He took him from following the ewes great with young, to be the shepherd of Jacob his servant, and Israel his inheritance. 77:72 So he tended them in the innocency of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.

Israel sins again in the land. Privilege does not prevent apostasy. The people become like a crooked bow. Theodoret explains the image with precision: a well-made bow sends the arrow according to the aim, but a twisted bow cannot direct what it shoots. So too, when thinking is bent, even divine benefits become occasions for harm. Shiloh is rejected, the ark is given over, priests fall, and the people suffer. The Psalm is severe because sacred things do not protect those who despise the God of the sacred things.

Theodoret says Hophni and Phinehas learned by experience that those living lawlessly should not expect divine care merely because they carry the ark. That is a serious warning for every liturgical Christian. Proximity to holy things is not the same as holiness. Augustine adds that the Lord “seems to sleep” when He gives His people into the hands of enemies and does not help as quickly as men expect. This is not weakness in God. It is long-suffering, hidden judgment, and a summons to repentance.

Yet the Psalm ends in election and shepherding. God chooses Judah, Zion, and David. Theodoret connects the tribe of Judah with the expected rod of Jesse and cites Hebrews 7:14, “our Lord Jesus Christ sprang from Judah.” Ezekiel 34 fills out the promise: God Himself will seek His sheep and will set over them one shepherd, His servant David. John 10 then reveals the fulfillment in Christ, the Good Shepherd who gathers one flock.

David is taken from the sheepfolds. The Psalm praises innocence of heart and skill of hands. Theodoret connects this to Christ’s command to be wise as serpents and simple as doves. This is not only a leadership principle. It is Christological. Christ is the Son of David and the Good Shepherd, who guides not merely with skill but with pierced hands. The shepherd with an innocent heart becomes the Lamb who opens not His mouth before slaughter.

The Church’s Voice in Worship 📖

The Coptic Orthodox lectionary preserves many printed Psalm 78 references. Psalm 78:5 appears in several annual Liturgy rows, fitting the theme of testimony and law handed to the children. Psalm 78:20 and 23 appear on the Fourth Sunday of Tubah Vespers. Tubah is the month shaped by Theophany, so the wilderness table and the opened doors of heaven resonate with divine manifestation through water, creation, and provision. Psalm 78:70-72 appears on Kiyahk 23 Liturgy. Kiyahk is the Coptic Advent season, and the selection of David from the sheepfolds near Nativity preparation invites the congregation to hear the coming Son of David, born in Bethlehem, as the Shepherd who takes flesh for His flock. A special funeral-service index preserves Psalm 78:38-39, which is pastorally fitting because it proclaims God’s compassion and His remembrance that we are flesh.

The lectionary uses the Psalm in a very Orthodox way. It does not isolate one doctrine. It teaches memory: instruction, provision, mercy, repentance, and shepherding.

Iconography Connection 🖼️

Psalm 78 connects to icons of the Exodus, manna in the wilderness, Moses striking the rock, the Ark, David the shepherd, and Christ the Good Shepherd. The iconographic movement is from memory to fulfillment. The manna points toward the Eucharist. The rock points toward Christ. David with the flock points toward the Shepherd-King born in Bethlehem.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

  1. Teach the next generation God’s works, not just rules. Children need commandments, but they also need the memory of mercy that makes obedience intelligible.

  2. Do not let yesterday’s miracle become today’s entitlement. Israel saw the sea and still questioned the table. Gratitude must be renewed.

  3. Seek God for His own sake. Augustine’s test is sharp. A heart is right when it seeks God for God, not only for rescue, comfort, or advantage.

  4. Do not confuse sacred proximity with conversion. Shiloh and the ark did not protect lawless hearts.

  5. Let Christ shepherd the whole memory of your life. He does not erase the failures, but He gathers them into repentance and hope.

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