Context No. 3285 of 4322 · Psalms

Psalms 78:1-16: in context

1Hear my teaching, my people. Turn your ears to the words of my mouth. 2I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, 3which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. 4We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done. 5For he established a covenant in Jacob, and appointed a teaching in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; 6that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born; who should arise and tell their children, 7that they might set their hope in God, and not forget God’s deeds, but keep his commandments, 8and might not be as their fathers— a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God. 9The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. 10They didn’t keep God’s covenant, and refused to walk in his law. 11They forgot his doings, his wondrous deeds that he had shown them. 12He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. 13He split the sea, and caused them to pass through. He made the waters stand as a heap. 14In the daytime he also led them with a cloud, and all night with a light of fire. 15He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths. 16He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.

This teaching psalm is about handing faith down. We will not hide them from their children, the psalmist says, telling to the coming generation the praises of the LORD, his strength, and the wonders he has done, so that they might set their hope in God and not forget his works, but keep his commandments.

Each generation has a duty: to tell the next what God has done, so their children set their hope in him. And the psalm names the danger of failing at this. The fathers who forgot God's deeds became a stubborn, disloyal generation, armed for battle yet turning back in the day of testing, because they did not keep his covenant. Faith is not inherited automatically; it must be told, remembered, and retold, or it is lost. Where the story of God's works goes untold, hope withers and loyalty fails. Telling the next generation what God has done is not optional sentiment; it is how hope survives from one generation to the next.

Am I telling those who come after me what God has done, so that they might set their hope in him, or am I letting the story go untold?

Sources

Psalm 78:4: "We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD... and his wondrous deeds."
Psalm 78:7: "That they might set their hope in God, and not forget God's deeds, but keep his commandments."
Deuteronomy 6:7: "You shall teach them diligently to your children."