Bible Commentaries

Psalm 78:7

In its original application this verse is simply a statement of God's purpose in giving to Israel the Law, and such a history of deliverance. Psalm 78:15

The Psalmist is here reviewing the providence of God that sustained the children of Israel in the desert. That providence had made a deep impression on him, and he delights to dwell upon its wonders. Take, for example, the water from the rock of which the Psalmist is speaking in our text. It comes to him in a flash as the great wonder of it that God gave them drink out of the great depths. What the people came for is a draught of water, and God in His mercy gives them their desire. On that thought I wish to dwell—carrying it through some of the activities of God.

I. Think then for a moment of the world of nature as it unfolds itself in all its beauty round us. There is not a bird or beast, there is not a tree or flower, but is ministered to in the way our text describes. I take the tiniest weed that roots among the stones, the flower in the crannied wall of which the poet speaks, and I ask what does it need to live? It needs a little warmth; it needs an occasional moistening with rain. Now in a certain measure this is true, but you can never stop there in this mysterious universe. Try to explain the light that a rose needs, and you are canned into the depths of solar energy.

II. Again, think of our senses for a moment, think of our sight and hearing for examples. To one Psalm 78:21-22

I. Unbelief is malignant when it is a product of the flesh and its tyrannous appetites. Of that we have an instructive example in the text. That was not a guiding angel, a ministering presence, a guardian providence altogether to their minds, which brought them through the depths of the sea and forgot coupons for the banquets that should have been arranged for them at different stages of their journey. In the midst of their toils and privations the fretful descendants of Abraham were having the best possible training for prowess, sovereignty, full salvation.

II. There are men who are unbelievers because their vanity has been vexed and their ambition thwarted, and in the scheme of things which would win them faith and approval, others must needs be found bowing at their feet. God's programme of life and salvation differs from ours, and this tempts us to be unbelieving. Some of us make it a condition of the trust God asks from us that we shall first get all we want.

III. Another sign of malignant unbelief is that it thwarted men in working out the appointed problems of life and salvation. The mind trained to methods of historical research is exasperated to contempt by the uncritical methods of pietists who do not grasp the human part in Psalm 78:24-25

What do you live upon? How many lives have you? Who is the sustainer of your life? In what direction do you look for daily sustenance? Surely here in these two texts, which are in reality one text, we find exactly what man needs at his best estate—"corn of heaven, angels" food". Is such sustenance available? Yes. Are there any invitations to partake of this food? Certainly; invitations given as with the blast of trumpets to come and eat, to come buy wine and milk without money and without price.

I. What do we live upon? Here is com from heaven, here is angels" food, and we may perhaps never touch it. Let it not be supposed that God is responsible for our self-impoverishment; He never meant us to impoverish ourselves, He never meant us to attempt to satisfy our hunger with the husks that the swine do eat.

II. This wonderful Psalm shows the absolute futility of mere miracles. God seems to have worked all His miracles in this78th Psalm; it is as full of miracles as the Lord's sermons were full of parables. Yet all ended in a deeper atheism; not an atheism as we understand the word, a term emptied of God, but a term so filled with gods as to dethrone God.

These people in the wilderness tempted God to do another miracle, and then another, and at last miracles became commonplaces to them, ceasing to be miracles and sinking below mere anecdotes or transient circumstances. Let us get back to the idea that God is the sustainer of Psalm 78:69

All ye who take part in the building of a church know that you have been admitted to the truest symbol of God's eternity. You have built what may be destined to have no end but in Christ's coming. Cast your thoughts back on the time when our ancient buildings were first reared. Consider the churches all around us; how many generations have passed since stone was put upon stone till the whole edifice was finished! The first movers and instruments of its erection, the minds that planned it, and the limbs that wrought at it, the pious hands that contributed to it, and the holy lips that consecrated it, have long, long ago, been taken away; yet we benefit by their good deed. Does it not seem a very strange thing that we should be fed, and lodged, and clothed in spiritual things by persons we never saw or heard of, and who never saw us, or could think of us, hundreds of years ago? Does it not seem strange that men should be able, not merely by acting on others, not by a continued influence carried on through many minds in a long succession, but by one simple and direct Acts , to come into contact with us, and as if with their own hand to benefit us, who live centuries later? What a visible, palpable specimen this, of the communion of saints! What a privilege thus to be immediately interested in the deeds of our forefathers! And what a call upon us, in like manner, to reach out our own hands towards our posterity! Freely we have received; let us freely give.

—J. H. Newman.