John Calvin Commentary Psalms 78:67

"Moreover he refused the tent of Joseph, And chose not the tribe of Ephraim," — Psalms 78:67 (ASV)

And he rejected the tabernacle of Joseph. Some believe that the word enemies in verse 66 applies to the Israelites. They connect these verses with the preceding ones and suppose the meaning to be that the wound God had inflicted upon them was incurable. However, I prefer the other opinion, which regards the Philistines as being spoken of. The scope, then, is that God, in punishing them so severely, clearly showed that the covenant he had made with his people was not annulled, since he had avenged himself in such a dreadful manner upon their enemies. The explanation I would rather give is that this is added by way of correction, as if it had been said that God was not yet fully reconciled to his people who had wickedly rebelled against him. As evidence of this, some traces of the punishment with which he had afflicted them remained among them.

The meaning of the text, therefore, is this: when the ark was taken by the Philistines, God was, so to speak, asleep, having been made drunk by the sins of his people, so that he could no longer keep watch for their defense as he was accustomed to do. Yet, he did not continue long sunk in sleep. Whenever he saw the ungodly Philistines treating the glory of his majesty with mockery, this heinous insult awakened and provoked him, just as if a giant, having supped well, had awakened from his first sleep before recovering from the exciting effects of his wine. At the same time, his anger had not been so provoked against this heathen and uncircumcised nation as to prevent him from exhibiting some signs of the chastisement he had inflicted upon the wicked and ungrateful Israelites, even to the end.

The rejection spoken of amounts to this: when God permitted his ark to be carried away to another place, the Israelites were thereby deprived of the honor with which, by special privilege, they had previously been distinguished.

There are two principal points that should be particularly attended to here. First, when the Philistines were afflicted with unsightly ulcers, the clearest evidence was given that when the Israelites were conquered by them, this happened solely because God willed it to be so. He did not recover new strength, or gather a new army to invade the victorious Philistines a short time later, nor did he resort to foreign aid in doing this.

The other point is that although God stretched forth his hand against the Philistines to show that he still had some remembrance of his covenant and some care for the people he had chosen, yet in restoring the Israelites in some measure to their former state, he made the rejection of Shiloh a perpetual monument of his wrath.

Therefore, He rejected the tribe of Ephraim; not that he cast them off forever, or completely severed them from the rest of the body of the Church, but he would not permit the ark of his covenant to reside any longer within the boundaries of that tribe. To the tribe of Ephraim is here contrasted the tribe of Judah, in which God afterwards chose a dwelling-place for himself.

Thus the prophet proceeds to show that when the ark of the covenant had a resting-place assigned to it on Mount Zion, the people were in a way renewed; and this symbol of reconciliation being restored to them, they were restored to the favor of God from which they had fallen.

Since God had, so to speak, been banished from the kingdom, and his strength led into captivity through the sins of the Israelites, they needed to be taught by this memorial that God had been so highly displeased with their wickedness that he could not bear to look upon the place in which he had previously dwelt. After this separation, although, to teach the people to be more on their guard in the future, there was not a full and perfect restoration, God again chose a fixed residence for his ark. This was a manifestation of wonderful goodness and mercy on his part.

The ark, after its return, was carried from one place to another, such as to Gath, Ekron, and other places, until Mount Zion was pointed out by an oracle as its fixed abode. However, this intervening period is not mentioned by the prophet, because his purpose was only to impress upon the memory both the example of the punishment and the grace of God, which was greater than any could have ventured to hope for. What is often repeated by Moses should also be remembered:

But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come, etc. (Deuteronomy 12:5).

Shiloh having acquired this renown because the ark had dwelt there for a long time, when the ark was carried away into the country of Israel’s enemies, people were strangely perplexed until they knew the place God had chosen for its future residence.

The ten tribes were not rejected at that time, and they had an equal interest in the kingdom and the priesthood with the tribe of Judah; but in the course of time, their own rebellion cut them off. This is why the prophet says, in scorn, that the tribe of Ephraim was rejected, and that the tribe of Joseph, from whom it sprang, was not chosen.