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Psalm 78 (LXX 77) - Tell the Coming Generation

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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, in its account of David, a sign pointing toward 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 Metadata

FieldNotes
NKJV / Masoretic numberingPsalm 78
Septuagint / Coptic numberingPsalm 77
Accepted authorA Psalm of instruction for Asaph, according to the superscription.
Period in author’s lifeNot tied to one moment in Asaph’s life. The superscription does not by itself settle the date or exact authorship of this liturgical instruction Psalm. It retells 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 useAnnual Liturgy and Fourth Sunday of Tubah Vespers witnesses preserve printed Psalm 78 references. A Kiyahk 23 David selection belongs to one Katameros cycle; date-resolved readings differ. Two editions of the funeral service for women who depart during delivery preserve different Psalm endpoints.
Numbering issueThis note embeds Brenton LXX Psalm 77. The lectionary references retain the numbering printed in their respective sources.

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.” Matthew applies this language to Christ’s parabolic teaching. The Church also reads the Psalm’s bread, sanctuary, and shepherding in the light of Christ, but the citation does not make every historical detail a direct prediction of Him. St Paul gives the wilderness history to Christians as a warning in 1 Corinthians 10: these 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 His works. This stands beside the Shema in Deuteronomy 6, where Israel is commanded to teach God’s words diligently to the children. The home, the assembly, and the feast all become schools of remembrance.

Augustine urges his readers not to hurry over the Psalm’s parables as though their meaning were self-evident.2 Theodoret connects the teaching of children with learning the reasons for the festivals: remembering God’s gifts can awaken gratitude.3 St Athanasius offers a wider pastoral frame for the Psalter: its words can become the singer’s own words of repentance, affliction, thanksgiving, and hope.4 Psalm 78 therefore trains memory as prayer, not as religious nostalgia.

St Gregory of Nyssa’s general theology of the Psalter fits this opening, though he is not giving verse-by-verse comment on this Psalm. He presents blessedness as the goal of a life shaped by virtue and likeness to God.5 Children do not automatically become faithful because they inherit a religious environment. They need to hear of God’s works, so that memory may 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. The verses that follow speak of covenant faithfulness: they would not walk in God’s law, and they forgot His benefits. The warning is addressed to the hearers of the Psalm, not to descendants as though failure were inherited in their blood.

The wilderness pattern is devastating. God splits the sea, guides by cloud and fire, opens the rock, and brings rivers from stone. The people acknowledge that water flowed, yet ask whether He can also provide bread. Theodoret sees more than a request for food here: he hears an accusation that God lacks the power to provide.6 Hunger itself is not sin, and neither is asking God or other people for help.

Christologically, the rock points beyond Moses. St Paul says, “that Rock was Christ” in 1 Corinthians 10:4. He receives the wilderness history as a warning for Christians, naming the testing in the wilderness as testing Christ. The table in the wilderness also opens toward the Eucharist. The Psalm warns that a person can stand near a gift and still resist the Giver, 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 compares the opening of heaven’s doors to the opening of a storehouse: God supplies miraculous food, yet the people pay a penalty for greed.7 The Gospel of John deepens the typology. In John 6 the crowd remembers the bread from heaven, but Christ directs them to the Father, who gives the true Bread coming down to give 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 invites us to receive God’s gifts with faith, repentance, and desire for God Himself.

The Psalm says the people’s years were consumed with anxiety, and then describes them seeking God after some were slain. This account is not a diagnosis of every anxious or suffering person. Anxiety and illness are not proof of unbelief; bring them to God and seek the care of others, including professional help when needed.

Then comes one of the Psalm’s most tender turns. God is compassionate: He forgives, repeatedly restrains His wrath, and remembers that His people are flesh. Against the contrast between their lips and their hearts, Augustine writes: “Therefore the heart is right with God, when it does seek God for the sake of God.”8 This is the difference between repentance and religious bargaining. We may rightly ask God for rescue and comfort, but His gifts are not substitutes for knowing and loving Him. The cure for a divided heart is not more religious performance. It is the return of the heart to God for God’s sake.

The printed Funeral Prayers for women who depart during delivery gives an adapted selection from printed Psalm 78:38-39. A Reader-derived form of this particular service selects verse 39 alone.9 In grief, the Church can place before us the God who remembers human frailty, and the Savior who took flesh to save us. A mother’s death is not evidence that she or her family was being punished; those who mourn may weep and receive care.

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 failed to remember God’s delivering hand. The Psalm lists the signs in Egypt, not to satisfy historical curiosity but to expose forgetfulness. The plagues, the death of the firstborn, the shepherding of Israel, the sea covering enemies, and the entrance into the sanctuary all become part of the memory the people are called to keep.

The phrase “a message by evil angels” is difficult. Theodoret understands the messengers as called evil because of the punishment they bring, not because of malice in their nature or will. Augustine instead understands morally evil angels as agents whom God can use justly. These are different interpretations, not a single agreed explanation.10

The judgments in this sacred history give us no permission to despise Egyptians, Jews, or any people, to seek private revenge, or to declare a particular bereavement or illness God’s punishment. They summon the Church to remember God’s justice and examine her own heart.

For Orthodox reading, this section carries a Paschal pattern. Bondage, blood, water, death, deliverance, passage through the sea, and the mountain of holiness point us toward Christ. He is the Passover Lamb, the Redeemer 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 that a sound bow directs its arrow toward the aim, while a twisted one cannot; he applies the image to thinking bent away from a faithful response to God’s gifts.11 Shiloh is rejected, the ark is given over, priests fall, and the people suffer. Sacred things are not a substitute for turning to the God of the sacred things.

The sorrow reaches the ordinary bonds of mourning: the young women do not mourn, and the widows are not wept for. Augustine imagines the fear and confusion of defeat leaving no leisure even for lament; he recalls the widowed wife of Phinehas, who dies in childbirth in 1 Samuel 4.12 His explanation is one way of hearing the Psalm’s picture of grief interrupted, not a judgment on women who die in childbirth.

Proximity to holy things is not the same as holiness. Augustine says God can seem to sleep when His people are handed over to enemies and taunted about His absence. He hears the comparison partly from the perspective of those who mock a delay in God’s help.12 The image of awakening, like the comparison to a mighty man heated with wine, gives vivid force to the sudden intervention that follows. It does not mean that God literally sleeps, becomes intoxicated, or is overcome by passion. The next verse speaks of a real judgment on enemies, not merely a change in human feeling.

Yet the Psalm ends in election and shepherding. God chooses Judah, Zion, and David. Brenton’s description of the sanctuary “as the place of unicorns” is unfamiliar; its precise image is uncertain. The verse joins that image to God’s founding of the sanctuary forever. Theodoret, whose text compares the sanctuary to a unicorn, reads its single horn as an image of one temple dedicated to the one God.13 That is his interpretation, not a certain zoological explanation of Brenton’s phrase.

Theodoret also connects Judah with the expected shoot of Jesse and with Christ’s coming from that tribe.14 Ezekiel 34 fills out the promise: God Himself will seek His sheep and will set over them one shepherd, His servant David. John 10 reveals Christ as the Good Shepherd who gathers one flock.

David is taken from the sheepfolds. The Psalm praises innocence of heart and skill of hands. Theodoret relates this combination to Christ’s counsel to His disciples to be both wise and guileless.14 David himself was not without sin, but the shepherding praised here points beyond a leadership principle. 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 points us to the Lamb who opens not His mouth before slaughter.

The Church’s Voice in Worship 📖

Several annual Liturgy witnesses join printed Psalm 78:5 to Psalm 135:5. In a dated Abib 23 service, the Psalm begins by recalling that God established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel. It continues by declaring that the Lord is great and above all gods. The instruction to tell the children belongs to the wider Psalm; it is not all sung in this shortened selection. Its Liturgy Gospel is Mark 10:35-45, where Christ teaches that greatness is found in service.15

Fourth Sunday of Tubah Vespers prints Psalm 78:20 and 23, corresponding to Brenton 77:20 and 23. The dated service text also includes the intervening verses 21-22. Its Gospel is John 5:31-46, in which Jesus speaks of the witnesses to Him.16 In the season shaped by Theophany, the wilderness table and the opened doors of heaven can also lead us to ponder God’s provision and self-revelation.

A retained Katameros cycle assigns printed Psalm 78:70-72 to Kiyahk 23 Liturgy with Matthew 22:35-46. Near the Nativity, David’s selection from the sheepfolds sits beside the Gospel’s question about the Son of David. But date-resolved Kiyahk 23 readings for 2026 and 2027 instead select Psalm 99:6-7 and Matthew 23:13-36. A Sunday selection accounts for the different 2028 date, not for the non-Sunday difference; its reason remains unresolved.17

As noted above, the particular funeral service for women who depart during delivery brings the Psalm’s remembrance of frailty into prayer. The lectionary and service witnesses do not isolate one theme. They teach 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.

Footnotes

  1. Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on Psalm 78, section 5, in Commentary on the Psalms, 73–150, translated by Robert C. Hill, pp. 30–31. ↩

  2. Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 78, section 1, New Advent revised English, newadvent.org. ↩

  3. Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on Psalm 78, introduction and sections 2–4, translated by Robert C. Hill, pp. 29–30. ↩

  4. Athanasius of Alexandria, Letter to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms, discussion of the Psalms as words the singer can make his own. ↩

  5. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Inscriptions of the Psalms, Part One, chapter 1, J.25–26, translated by Richard (Casimir) McCambly. ↩

  6. Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on Psalm 78, section 7, translated by Robert C. Hill, p. 32. ↩

  7. Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on Psalm 78, sections 8–10, translated by Robert C. Hill, pp. 32–33. ↩

  8. Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 78, section 19, New Advent revised English, newadvent.org. ↩

  9. The Funeral Prayers, Part 3, pp. 103 and 119, prints an adapted Psalm (77) 78:38-39. The Coptic Reader form retained for the same service selects Psalm 78:39. Its indexed Part 3 readings are Isaiah 26:9-20, Romans 5:1-16, Psalm 78:39, and John 16:20-23; these are not the whole rite. The printed book gives Romans 5:1-15. The printed Psalm and Pauline entries are separate historical witnesses, superseded in the current index by the Reader-derived entries. ↩

  10. Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on Psalm 78, section 15, translated by Robert C. Hill, pp. 35–36; Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 78, sections 26–28, newadvent.org. ↩

  11. Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on Psalm 78, sections 18–20, translated by Robert C. Hill, pp. 36–38. ↩

  12. Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 78, section 32, newadvent.org. ↩ ↩2

  13. Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on Psalm 78, section 23, translated by Robert C. Hill, p. 39. ↩

  14. Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on Psalm 78, sections 22 and 24, translated by Robert C. Hill, pp. 38–40. ↩ ↩2

  15. CopticChurch.net, Abib 23 Liturgy, July 30, 2024. The indexed reading group includes Galatians 1:1-19, James 1:1-12, Acts 15:13-21, Psalms 78:5 and 135:5, and Mark 10:35-45. For this date the matching Katameros-cycle entries are retained for provenance, while the date-resolved entries are preferred. ↩

  16. CopticChurch.net, Fourth Sunday of Tubah, Vespers, February 5, 2023. The indexed Vespers reading group is printed Psalm 78:20,23 and John 5:31-46; the dated Psalm text also renders verses 21-22. The separate cycle entries for the same slot are retained for provenance and superseded in the index by the date-resolved reference. ↩

  17. Katameros annual cycle, Kiyahk 23 Liturgy: Hebrews 11:32-40, James 5:7-13, Acts 2:22-36, Psalm 78:70-72, and Matthew 22:35-46. No rendered cycle-service transcript is established here. The date-resolved Liturgy group for both January 1, 2026 and January 1, 2027 instead lists Hebrews 11:17-27, 2 Peter 1:19–2:8, Acts 15:21-29, Psalm 99:6-7, and Matthew 23:13-36. These dates represent the same date-resolved source family, not independent witnesses. ↩

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