Psalm 78:1-16 - A History of Israel

Write Psalm 73:28 in your journal from memory.  Pray and ask God for understanding as we study Psalm 78. 

Asaph offers us here another Psalm written with rhyming thoughts.  It is a beautiful picture of God’s dealing with His people.  They continually broke His laws yet He had a plan for their salvation. 

The purpose of the Psalm is made immediately clear in the first three verses.  It is intended for teaching.  Yet it is also prophetic of our Lord Jesus, as He Himself declares in Matthew 13:34-35.  Why did Jesus teach in parables?  Read His explanation in Matthew 13:10-17. 

Meditate on verses 2-5 for a moment as you think about what types of things Jesus teaches His children and the things the Israelites are told to teach to their children.  Browsing verses 6-8, record in your journal reasons we are to teach our children about the Lord.  Now record what we can learn about teaching the things of God from the following Scripture references:  Deuteronomy 4:9-10, 11:18-21, 32:7, Psalm 22:30-21, Proverbs 1:8-9, 6:20-23, 13:13-14.

In verse 8, we are told that teaching the children about the Lord would keep them from being like their forefathers.  It was important for them not to follow in their footsteps since the nation of Israel had a long history of disobedience to God.  Thus, Asaph begins a list of indictments against them. 

Verses 9 and 10 speak of the men of Ephraim and how they did not trust God on the day of battle.  This was a violation of God’s commandment to them.  Read Deuteronomy 20:17-18 and Joshua 16:10.  What caused them to commit this sin?  Verse 11 tells us it was because they had forgotten the things God had done for Israel.  Asaph takes a step aside for a moment to list some of those works of God forgotten by Ephraim.  Familiarize yourself with these works by browsing the following references:

            v12 – Exodus 7-10

            v13 – Exodus 14

            v14 – Exodus 13:20-22

            v15 – Exodus 17:1-7

            v16 - Numbers 20:1-13

Think about lessons you have learned from your past mistakes or the mistakes of others.  How have you tried to teach them to your children?  Do you think that is important?  God does.

Responding to God:  Look into your heart and ask yourself whether you have been faithful to teach your children and grandchildren as the Lord would require of you.  Ask God to help you be bold in teaching your children and to help you recognize good opportunities to share His good works with them.  Pray now that He will help you to be more trusting of His ways and for wisdom to recognize those who may be bad examples for you in your Christian walk. 

 

 

Further Research:  If you would like to learn more about putting your trust in God, use a concordance or online Bible to locate verses with the word trust.