The road of life can be tough, but don’t make it harder by exiting at Transgressor Way (Prov 13:15).
Psalm 78 is the first and longest of the Historical Psalms (with Ps 105–107, 114, and 135–136). In these psalms, the author’s intention is to glorify God for His wonderful ways and to warn future generations of the pitfalls of the past. Philosopher George Santayana is credited with the saying, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” But Asaph was way ahead of George. This is his point in recounting Israel’s history. The past speaks to the present in order to change the future. We do well to listen. We’ve said it before; we’ll say it again: No one is absolutely useless—you can always be a bad example! This is the sad plight of their “fathers” who were “a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright, and whose spirit was not faithful to God” (Ps 78:8). The psalm oscillates between recounting God’s goodness to His people and their sinfulness in return. In beginning (vv 1-11), Asaph starts at the end, describing how they were routed in battle because they abandoned the Lord and the covenant, “and forgot His works and His wonders that He had shown them” (v 11). He uses the code word “the children of Ephraim” (v 9) to stand for the fractured northern ten tribes because he wants to use the term “Israel” (v 21) for the whole nation. How did the people of God end up in such a state? That’s the rest of the story! After the introduction, we see three main divisions: the Wandering in the Wilderness (vv 12-42), the Exodus out of Egypt (vv 43-53), and the Conquest through Canaan (vv 54-72). You can see right away that Asaph’s design is not chronological but logical, and he is building a case for future generations to learn the terrible mistakes of their fathers.