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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 78:38 - 78:38
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The second part of the Psalm now begins. God, notwithstanding, in His compassion restrains His anger; but Israel's God-tempting conduct was continued, even after the journey through the desert, in Canaan, and the miracles of judgment amidst which the deliverance out of Egypt had been effected were forgotten. With וְהוּא in Psa 78:38
(Note: According to B. Kiddushin 30a, this Psa 78:38 is the middle one of the 5896 פסוקין, στίχοι, of the Psalter. According to B. Maccoth 22b, Psa 78:38, and previously Deu 28:58-59; Deu 29:8 [9], were recited when the forty strokes of the lash save one, which according to 2Co 11:24 Paul received five times, were being counted out to the culprit.)
begins an adversative clause, which is of universal import as far as יַשְׁהִית, and then becomes historical. Psa 78:38 expands what lies in רַחוּם: He expiates iniquity and, by letting mercy instead of right take its course, arrests the destruction of the sinner. With וְהִרְבָּה (Ges. §§142, 2) this universal truth is supported out of the history of Israel. As this history shows, He has many a time called back His anger, i.e., checked it in its course, and not stirred up all His blowing anger (cf. Isa 42:13), i.e., His anger in all its fulness and intensity. We see that Psa 78:38 refers to His conduct towards Israel, then Psa 78:39 follows with the ground of the determination, and that in the form of an inference drawn from such conduct towards Israel. He moderated His anger against Israel, and consequently took human frailty and perishableness into consideration. The fact that man is flesh (which not merely affirms his physical fragility, but also his moral weakness, Gen 6:3, cf. Gen 8:21), and that, after a short life, he falls a prey to death, determines God to be long-suffering and kind; it was in fact sensuous desire and loathing by which Israel was beguiled time after time. The exclamation “how oft!” Psa 78:40, calls attention to the praiseworthiness of this undeserved forbearance.
But with Psa 78:41 the record of sins begins anew. There is nothing by which any reference of this Psa 78:41 to the last example of insubordination recorded in the Pentateuch, Num 35:1-9 (Hitzig), is indicated. The poet comes back one more to the provocations of God by the Israel of the wilderness in order to expose the impious ingratitude which revealed itself in this conduct. הִתְוָה is the causative of תָּוָה = Syriac tewā', תְּהָא, to repent, to be grieved, lxx παρώξυναν. The miracles of the tie of redemption are now brought before the mind in detail, ad exaggerandum crimen tentationis Deu cum summa ingratitudine conjunctum (Venema). The time of redemption is called יֹום, as in Gen 2:4 the hexahemeron. שִׂים אֹות (synon. עָשָׂה, נָתַן) is used as in Exo 10:2. We have already met with מִנִּי־צָר in Psa 44:11. The first of the plagues of Egypt (Exo 7:14-25), the turning of the waters into blood, forms the beginning in Psa 78:44. From this the poet takes a leap over to the fourth plague, the עָרֹב (lxx κυνόμυια), a grievous and destructive species of fly (Exo 8:20-32), and combines with it the frogs, the second plague (Exo 8:1-15). צְפַרְדֵּעַ is the lesser Egyptian frog, Rana Mosaica, which is even now called Arab. ḍfd‛, ḍofda. Next in Psa 78:46 he comes to the eighth plague, the locusts, חַסִיל (a more select name of the migratory locusts than אַרְבֶּה), Ex 10:1-20; the third plague, the gnats and midges, כִּנִּים, is left unmentioned in addition to the fourth, which is of a similar kind. For the chastisement by means of destructive living things is now closed, and in Psa 78:47 follows the smiting with hail, the seventh plague, Ex 9:13-35. חֲנָמַל (with pausal , not ā, cf. in Eze 8:2 the similarly formed הַֽחַשְׁמַלָה) in the signification hoar-frost (πάχνη, lxx, Vulgate, Saadia, and Abulwalîd), or locusts (Targum כַּזְוּבָא = חָגָב), or ants (J. D. Michaelis), does not harmonize with the history; also the hoar-frost is called כִּפוּר, the ant נְּמָלָה (collective in Arabic neml). Although only conjecturing from the context, we understand it, with Parchon and Kimchi, of hailstones or hail. With thick lumpy pieces of ice He smote down vines and sycamore-trees (Fayum was called in ancient Egyptian “the district of the sycamore”). הָרַג proceeds from the Biblical conception that the plant has a life of its own. The description of this plague is continued in Psa 78:48. Two MSS present לדֶּבֶר instead of לַבָּרָד; but even supposing that רְשָׁפִים might signify the fever-burnings of the pestilence (vid., on Hab 3:5), the mention of the pestilence follows in Psa 78:50, and the devastation which, according to Exo 9:19-22, the hail caused among the cattle of the Egyptians is in its right place here. Moreover it is expressly said in Exo 9:24 that there was conglomerate fire among the hail; רְשָׁפִים are therefore flaming, blazing lightnings.