Today we look at a paragraph of Psalm 78, considering the “fickleness” of the children of Israel. Her “wishy-washiness” toward God, anyway.
Israel, traveling through the desert, the wilderness, on the way to her Homeland in Canaan … consistently sinned then repented … then sinned and repented again … habitually repeating the process for years!
Here’s how Asaph recounts the history: “When he (God) slew them (the people of Israel), then they sought Him: and they returned and enquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer. Nevertheless they did flatter Him with their mouth, and they lied unto Him with their tongues. For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in His covenant. But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned He His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath. For He remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again. How oft did they provoke Him in the wilderness, and grieve Him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.” Psalm 78:34-41
Folks, this is absolutely one of the greatest records of the longsuffering, patience and grace of God I’ve ever read!
Yes, God indeed disciplined His people, “killing” some of them for flagrant rebellion, disobedience. But when they realized their wrongdoing, they repented and God “showed mercy” on them!
Still, Israel’s sorrow was insincere! They “flattered” God, apparently a synonym for “lying” to the Almighty! The Hebrew verb “to flatter” used here means “to open wide” one’s mouth! Jesus said it best in Matthew 15:8 … “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” So sad, yet true today in many places. BIG words … DIVIDED hearts!
They were not “steadfast,” the Hebrew word “amen,” meaning “faithful, believing, established.”
Look at the line above where God did not stir up “ALL” His wrath! Had He done so, none would have survived! He “tempered” his judgments!
Isaiah gives us a perfect illustration of God’s Wisdom in this matter of “graduated” discipline. “Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? 25 When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.” Isaiah 28:24-29, little grain is not threshed as heavily as the course grain!
God knows!
Then, lastly today, note the two verbs “provoked” and “grieved” They did both to their God, our God. “Provoke” translates “marah,” meaning “to be rebellious, contentious, disobedient.” And “grieve” is “atzsab,” meaning “to hurt, vex, cause sorrow!” These sound much like Paul’s two verbs about our mistreating the Holy Spirit in our lives, “grieving” and “quenching.”
Yet through all today’s Text, I repeat … God is kind, gracious and forgiving!
That’s His Nature.
Part of Nehemiah 9:17 tells us in sum, a prayer to the Lord: “Thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness ….”
Amen!
— Dr. Mike Bagwell