¹Listen … incline your ears … ^4btell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wondrous works that He has done.

From the beginning of creation, God has shown Himself to be gracious—which, among other things, sets Him apart from all other poor deity substitutes devised by humans. Our very existence is His gift to us, the air He exhales into us and the air we inhale every moment of our lives, the Garden, the animal sacrifices, everything. Our relationship with Him is based on His gratuity, of which we deserve nothing. We are entirely indebted to Him, and gratefully so.

Psalm 78 outlines the history of God’s dealings with Israel as a testimony of His trustworthiness to be gracious both now and in the future—even though they did not deserve it. We do well today to frequently review how God has done similarly with us, showing grace even though we fall far short of being faithful to Him.

Verses 1-4 call on God’s people to preserve for future generations the historical memory of their unworthiness and God’s gracious faithfulness. For the Jews, this history began with Jacob (which is often the epithet used to connect God’s people to their founding as a nation of 12 tribes (corresponding to the descendants of the 12 sons of Jacob). What makes the Jews unique in all of history is the identifying genealogical, ideological, and religious thread over the centuries that serves even to this day to set them apart as God’s chosen people. Future generations are to be taught their history so they never forget who they are, the chosen of God!

But, more so, the people of God must never forget that He is a gracious and forgiving God. Therefore, the history lesson must focus the record on Israel’s rebellion and sin, the backdrop to showcase God’s grace to be greater than all their sin (see Rom. 5:20-21). We dare never allow this truth to fade into irrelevance in our daily lives. God would be perfectly just in wiping us all out, but He does not. Why not? The answer is grace! So, the history of future generations of Israel has more to do with God’s overriding faithfulness to them. That is the motivation for them to keep God’s commandments (vss. 7-8).

The rest of this psalm delineates the low points of Israel’s continued unfaithfulness and the high points of God’s loving forgiveness. The writer first refers to Ephraim, which, at the time of this psalm’s writing, would bring to mind the northern tribes of Israel who rebelled against God and separated from Judah and the Lord’s appointed dynasty of King David. However, the net is cast wider, for the history includes the failures of all the tribes, all the descendants of the patriarch Jacob. The pattern is clear: no sooner had God done a miraculous thing for them than they quickly “forgot” and rebelled by disobeying God and going after false gods (vss. 9-11).

The story goes back to the Exodus, the defining period where God miraculously and graciously rescued (redeemed) His people from the tyranny of Egyptian slavery. Miracle after miracle, extending into the 40 years of desert wandering, God was constantly showing favor to Israel over all the other nations and people groups. Yet, His people continually “forgot” their Lord God (vss. 12-16). Against all logic and sensibility, they continued to show their unworthiness of God’s favor, as exemplified by this incident:

Yet they still continued to sin against Him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert. And in their heart they put God to the test by asking food according to their desire. (Ps. 78:17–18, see also vss. 19-20)

He was gracious and favorable, but His anger was not diluted (vs. 21). His anger was not meant to destroy them completely and finally, but it had the purpose of bringing them to repentance:

Therefore the Lord heard and was full of wrath; and a fire was kindled against Jacob and anger also mounted against Israel. (Ps. 78:21)

He continued to provide for them (with manna and quail) even when they lived selfishly (vss. 23-29), yet their bad attitude resulted in death, picturesquely described as “while their food was in their mouths” (vs. 30, also 31-33). God’s grace does not negate God’s anger; some people died for their rebellion.

However, God did not destroy the entire people group called Israel. In fact, the harsh judgment brought the remaining people to repentance:

When He killed them, then they sought Him, and returned and searched diligently for God; and they remembered that God was their rock, and the Most High God their Redeemer. (Ps. 78:34–35)

Yet, even so, they quickly rebelled again through their deception and gave way to an outward show of allegiance, but not from the heart. So, they continually fell into the pagan mindset of trying to appease God’s anger by religious acts rather than trusting fully in a gracious and forgiving God. They were developing a pattern of taking their Redeemer for granted.

While most of us mere mortals would give up on Israel, not so for God. To our astonishment, even in the face of such duplicity and shallowness, the Lord does not abandon His people:

But He, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them; and often He restrained His anger and did not arouse all His wrath. Thus, He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and does not return. (Ps. 78:38–39)

Lest Israel (or we) miss the point that we are all unworthy and that God is gracious, the psalm lists God’s grievances against them. We cannot ascend to understanding the heights of God’s grace without plumbing the depths of how undeserving we are. They rebelled against the Lord and grieved Him (vs. 40). They tempted Him (vs. 41a)—essentially, they were tempting Him to annihilate them as a nation and people group. They pained Him (vs. 41b). They purposely dis-remembered God’s mighty miracles, which the psalm itemizes in vss. 42-51).

He leveled His anger against the Egyptians in those exhibitions of power. In contrast, showing His favor to Israel: “He led forth His own people like sheep” (vs. 52); He guided them and protected them in the wilderness before they entered the Promised Land. He drove out the inhabitants of that land before them and gave them an “inheritance” of the land (vs. 54-56). Yet, even in the land to which God had brought them, they continued to tempt Him with their sinful, rebellious, unfaithful behavior. They resorted to bold-faced rejection of the God who had redeemed them and shepherded them with great favor, and instead set up worship to false gods in “their high places” (vss. 57-59).

Over time, God winnowed out the rebels and focused His attention on the people of the tribe of Judah (along with Benjamin and a remnant from some of the other tribes) and on the dynasty of King David, whom God appointed to be the shepherd of Israel (vss. 28-72).

He also chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds; from the care of the ewes with suckling lambs He brought him to shepherd Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance. So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them with his skillful hands. (Ps. 78:70–72)

We need to repeatedly remind ourselves, and those who come behind us, of the story of God’s grace. For Israel, that meant rehearsing the biblical history to themselves and their children. For us today, that means telling the story of God’s grace in our individual lives, clearly showing the wonder of His favor in redeeming us from our sin, despite our sin! Our testimony is not about our faithfulness but of God’s grace, even though we were not and often are not faithful. And we continue to fall short of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23). But the glory of God is that, in Christ, He continues to show His grace toward us and in us, despite our unworthiness and our sin. Jesus is our great Shepherd, and though we are unworthy and undeserving, we should be eternally grateful for all He has done for us. That is the testimony we need to pass on to those who come behind us.

Lord, not to me is any glory or credit, but to You alone. Thank You for Your grace in my life; I am continually discovering that it goes deeper than I ever imagined.