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Context No. 426 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 78:49-64: in context

49He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil. 50He made a path for his anger. He didn’t spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence, 51and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham. 52But he led out his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. 53He led them safely, so that they weren’t afraid, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. 54He brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to this mountain, which his right hand had taken. 55He also drove out the nations before them, allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents. 56Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and didn’t keep his testimonies, 57but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were twisted like a deceitful bow. 58For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images. 59When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel, 60so that he abandoned the tent of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men, 61and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the adversary’s hand. 62He also gave his people over to the sword, and was angry with his inheritance. 63Fire devoured their young men. Their virgins had no wedding song. 64Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn’t weep.

Psalm 78 is a long retelling of Israel's history, written to teach the next generation, and it does not flatter anyone. This section recounts the great mercies first: the plagues that broke Egypt, God leading his people out like a shepherd guiding a flock, bringing them safely through the wilderness, driving out the nations to give them the land. And then, the crushing pivot. Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High, the psalm says, they turned back and dealt treacherously like their fathers, they were twisted like a deceitful bow, a bow that looks aimed straight but sends every arrow crooked. Their hearts appeared to point at God and veered off every time.

And then comes the line that would have been almost unthinkable to Israel. When God heard their idolatry, he was angry, and he abandoned the tent of Shiloh, the very tent where he had dwelt among them, and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the enemy's hand. That is the capture of the ark by the Philistines, the symbol of God's own presence carried off as a war trophy, God permitting his own dwelling place to be taken. Israel had come to treat Shiloh and the ark as a guarantee, a possession that made them invincible no matter how their hearts drifted, and God let it be captured precisely to shatter that presumption. His presence was never a token to be owned while ignoring him. And the psalm reports the horror that followed plainly, the young men consumed, the priests fallen, the widows too stunned to weep. It tells the truth about what the drift cost.

That is a hard and clarifying warning. It is possible to hold the outward signs of God's presence, the heritage, the sacraments, the belonging, the religion, and to treat them as a guarantee while the heart quietly becomes a deceitful bow. God was willing to give up even Shiloh to prove that his presence cannot be possessed apart from a faithful heart. Am I presuming on the outward signs and tokens of God, treating them as security, while my own aim has quietly gone crooked?

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