Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 78

For the formal opening see Psalms 49:1, Note.

My people. —An expression pointing to a position of weight and authority.

My law. —Here, rather instruction, or doctrine.

I will open. — A difficulty arises from the fact that the psalm deals with history and is neither a proverb (mâshal) nor a riddle (chîdah). But the Divine rejection of the northern tribes may be the hidden meaning that the poet sees was wrapped up in all the ancient history. The word mâshal is also sometimes used in a wide, vague sense, embracing prophetic as well as proverbial poetry .

For dark sayings, literally, knotty points, see Numbers 12:8. In Habakkuk 2:6, the word seems to mean a sarcasm.

For the use of this passage in Matthew 13:35, see Note, New Testament Commentary.

For he ... —Better, taking the relative of time (Psalms 139:15), For he established (it as) a testimony in Jacob and (as) a law appointed (it) in Israel when he commanded our forefathers to make them (the “wonderful works” of last verse) known to their children. For the custom see reference in margin.

Stubborn. — Refractory.

That set not their heart aright. —Literally, did not establish their heart, which preserves the parallelism better.

Armed, and carrying bows. —Following Jeremiah 4:29, and by analogy with Jeremiah 44:9 (handle and bend the bow), a literal rendering of the Hebrew text here is drawing and shooting with the bow.

The Septuagint and Vulgate render it as “bending and shooting with the bow.” However, a close comparison of this verse with Psalms 78:57 of this psalm, and with Hosea 7:16, has suggested to a recent commentator a much more satisfactory explanation: The sons of Ephraim (are like men) drawing slack bowstrings which turn back in the day of battle.

As Burgess notes in his Notes on the Hebrew Psalms, “Both the disappointment on the day of battle and the cause of the disappointment, which are mentioned in the text, will be appreciated by the English reader who remembers that the result of the battle of Creçy was determined at the outset by a shower of rain which relaxed the strings of our enemy’s bows.”

This translation assumes that the original meaning of the verb râmah is was slack. Certainly, the root idea of the word (compare the cognate râphah and the meaning of its derivation in Proverbs 10:4 and Proverbs 12:24) seems to have been relaxation. That turned back, both here and in Psalms 78:57, refers to the recoil of a bow, seems indubitable.

By understanding this as a comparison of Ephraim’s general character to a bow with a relaxed string that fails when needed—a figure made more expressive because archery was a practice in which Ephraim excelled—we are freed from needing to conjecture a particular incident to account for this verse, which might otherwise seem to break the sequence of thought.

The entire historical review is intended to lead up to the rejection of the northern kingdom (represented by Ephraim). However, the poet is unable to hold back his climax and inserts it here almost parenthetically.