Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16 (NRSV)
A Maskil of Asaph.
1 Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
3 things that we have heard and known,
that our ancestors have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children;
we will tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.
12 In the sight of their ancestors he worked marvels
in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan.
13 He divided the sea and let them pass through it,
and made the waters stand like a heap.
14 In the daytime he led them with a cloud,
and all night long with a fiery light.
15 He split rocks open in the wilderness,
and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.
16 He made streams come out of the rock,
and caused waters to flow down like rivers.
Psalm 78:1-4, 12=16 is a selection from a wisdom Psalm.
Psalm 78 begins like a wisdom Psalm, but the rest is a historical precis consisting of a reinterpretation of earlier biblical traditions. Thus, we might think of it as a didactic historical psalm, using a narrative about the past to teach about the present. The date is after the fall of Israel in 722/1. It may date from exilic times. This Psalm the second longest in the Psalter. “God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open.”[1] The lessons of life, faith, and history can be hard. We are difficult people for whom the lessons of life and history may have some difficulty penetrating us. Scholars often connect it with Deuteronomy 32, but it approaches history differently. The intent of the poem is not to give a chronological history. The community already knows this history. The poet addresses the public. Dahood sees an attempt to draw lessons from the history of Israel. The psalm recounts, in a didactic and pointed way, pivotal events from the sacred history of Israel to provide instruction for its contemporary hearers. Like Psalms 105-106 and 136 and others, Psalm 78 recounts the history of Israel to expound upon the providential care of God for Israel, on the one hand, and the persistent recalcitrance of Israel in responding to and living in the light of that care, on the other. The events narrated stretch from the time of the liberation of Israel from Egyptian bondage, the pivotal event in the sacred story of Israel, down to the time of David (a period of 250 years), when a new era began in the social and religious life of Israel. It offers justification for the destruction of the Northern Kingdom and praise for Davidic kingship centered in the chosen city of Zion. The diversity suggests it may have gone through a process of revision. Although the psalm bears clear marks of the wisdom tradition, it also is part of a program of biblical literature, found in several books, extolling the contributions of the Davidic dynasty to Israel’s history, and serving as an apologia for the reforms undertaken (and imposed) by David. The tribe of Joseph, witness to great miracles, has rebelled against God, so that God has now rejected them in favor of the Temple at Jerusalem, the Davidic covenant, and Judah. The selective use of events, as well as the abrupt transition from wilderness wandering to security in Zion, leaves the strong impression that one of the functions of the psalm was to justify the revolutionary and controversial reforms of the monarchic era of David and Solomon. The narrative as recounted in the psalm differs from that found in the Torah, since the focus of the psalm. Its basis is the non-Priestly narrative traditions, especially the J source, as well as traditions where were not canonized in the Jewish tradition.
The superscription describes it as “A Maskil (either a “skillful” or “artful” song or, less likely, a “didactic” song. It describes several psalms (e.g., Psalms 32, 42, 45, etc.) of Asaph.” Several psalms from Book Three of the Psalter (Psalms 73-89) are “of Asaph,” who was one of the chief musicians installed in the Jerusalem temple during the political, social, and religious reorganizations under King David (I Chronicles 6:39; 15:17; 16:5-7). According to the book of Chronicles, Asaph was responsible for playing the cymbals and leading the songs (or, more likely to modern ears, chants) of thanksgiving in the temple liturgy. The collection of psalms connected to Asaph are from a collection left by Asaph or his guild of musicians and were added to the canonical Psalter during the Persian period (6th-4th centuries B.C.E.), when the Psalter acquired its definitive form.[2]
Psalm 78:1-4, part of an introduction that extends to verse 8, are an introduction stressing the importance of handing down the traditions of how God is dealing with the people. In verses 1-4, the people of Israel are also uniquely the people of the Lord. 1 Give ear, O my people, referring to idealized Israel. It is a theological axiom of the religion of Israel that the people of Israel were God’s people and no one else. It is rare for anyone other than the divine to address Israel with the first-person singular possessive pronoun. In Esther 7:3, Esther refers to the Hebrews as “my people,” but the usage is purely ethnic, not theological. The only other instances of humans referring to Israel possessively in a theological context are Psalm 59:11 and Jeremiah 9:2. He wants them to listen to my teaching, a phrase that connects the psalm with the wisdom tradition in Israel, to the Temple, and Jerusalem. Teachers in Israel want to clarify the works of the Lord for now and for future generations. Although the precise relationship between the temple and the wisdom schools (or even circles) in ancient Israel is not known, it is certain that there was extensive interplay between the two ways of looking at the world. The religious tradition of Israel, centered on the recitation of sacred events in Israel’s mythic (i.e., sacro-historical) past, over time incorporated practical teachings from the wisdom circles that focused on timeless and general truths. We find evidence of this interplay not only in the biblical books identified as ’Wisdom Books’ (e.g., Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes), but also in various traces of wisdom influence scattered throughout much of the Hebrew Bible. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. 2 I will open my mouth in a parable. The mashal was a teaching, proverb, instruction, or parable. In Numbers 23:7, 18, 24:3, 15, etc., it translates as “oracle.” It denotes a gnomic instruction, meaning wisdom that is not immediately obvious. Since we have in this psalm a parable, the view of God presented in this psalm as angry, manic, and abusive may well soften the image. Yet, an honest reading of the behavior of God in the Old Testament can lead the skeptical reader down this path. I will utter dark sayings or riddles from of old, we see this meaning of parable here in its parallel to dark or obscure sayings or riddles from the past. The difficulty here is that the rest of the psalm seems straightforward as a narrative from the sacred history of Israel. What he will utter in this psalm are 3 things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us. 4 We will not hide them from their children, a curious switch from “my people” in verse 1; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. The poet will emphasize tradition that express praise for the deeds, the power, and the wonders of the Lord. Such a rationale for the preservation and transmission of the sacred history of Israel is as we find it in Deuteronomy 32:45-6.
In Psalm 78: 12-16, the starting point for the wisdom one can glean from the sacred history of Israel is the saving deeds of Moses, Reed Sea, and guidance and preservation in the wilderness. These verses are part of the opening historical section of the psalm. God treated the Israelites with love and kindness. It is a good thing to remind ourselves of the goodness of the Lord to us. 12 In the sight of their ancestors he worked marvels in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan. This part of the Nile delta is not mentioned in the Torah exodus tradition. In Exodus 14, 13 He divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap, quoting Exodus 15:8, suggesting the Son of the Sea was among the sources for the psalmist. In Exodus 13:17-22 (J), 14 In the daytime he led them with a cloud, and all night long with a fiery light. In verses 15-31, the traditions are like Exodus 17, water from the rock, and 16, manna and birds, but the poet reverses the order. In Numbers 20:2-13, 15 He split rocks open in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep. 16 He made streams come out of the rock, and caused waters to flow down like rivers. In the stages of the formation of a people, the Lord provided what the people needed to face their difficulties. It might be the sea, the need for guidance through the wilderness, or thirst, but the Lord was there was with them and providing a way to face the difficulty.
Ranchers in the American West have learned there is a significant difference between the behavior of buffalo and that of cattle when confronted with an oncoming storm. Left to themselves, the cattle will panic and attempt to run away. Many are lost to injuries, as the storm inevitably overtakes them. The buffalo, on the other hand, seem to know instinctively that the storm must be faced resolutely. They turn in the direction of the storm, heads downward, and walk slowly into the wind. Storm-related injuries or deaths for buffalo on the Great Plains are much less common than for cattle.
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