Chapter
78
(A contemplation by Asaph.) Hear my teaching, my people. Turn your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old,
Which we have heard and known, and our mothers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh, her strength, and her wondrous works that she has done.
For she established a testimony in Jacoba, and appointed a teaching in Israel, which she commanded our mothers, that they should make them known to their children;
that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born; who should arise and tell their children,
that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep her commandments,
and might not be as their mothers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn't make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God.
The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.
They didn't keep God's covenant, and refused to walk in her law.
They forgot her doings, her wondrous works that she had shown them.
She did marvelous things in the sight of their mothers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
She split the sea, and caused them to pass through. She made the waters stand as a heap.
In the daytime she also led them with a cloud, and all night with a light of fire.
She split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths.
She brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.
Yet they still went on to sin against her, to rebel against the Most High in the desert.
They tempted God in their heart by asking food according to their desire.
Yes, they spoke against God. They said, "Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
Behold, she struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, and streams overflowed. Can she give bread also? Will she provide flesh for her people?"
Therefore Yahweh heard, and was angry. A fire was kindled against Jacoba, anger also went up against Israel,
because they didn't believe in God, and didn't trust in her salvation.
Yet she commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven.
She rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them food from the sky.
Woman ate the bread of angels. She sent them food to the full.
She caused the east wind to blow in the sky. By her power she guided the south wind.
She rained also flesh on them as the dust; winged birds as the sand of the seas.
She let them fall in the midst of their camp, around their habitations.
So they ate, and were well filled. She gave them their own desire.
They didn't turn from their cravings. Their food was yet in their mouths,
when the anger of God went up against them, killed some of the fattest of them, and struck down the young women of Israel.
For all this they still sinned, and didn't believe in her wondrous works.
Therefore she consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.
When she killed them, then they inquired after her. They returned and sought God earnestly.
They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their redeemer.
But they flattered her with their mouth, and lied to her with their tongue.
For their heart was not right with her, neither were they faithful in her covenant.
But she, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn't destroy them. Yes, many times she turned her anger away, and didn't stir up all her wrath.
She remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and doesn't come again.
How often they rebelled against her in the wilderness, and grieved her in the desert!
They turned again and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
They didn't remember her hand, nor the day when she redeemed them from the adversary;
how she set her signs in Egypt, her wonders in the field of Zoan,
she turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, so that they could not drink.
She sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them.
She gave also their increase to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust.
She destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost.
She gave over their livestock also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.
She threw on them the fierceness of her anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil.
She made a path for her anger. She didn't spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence,
and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.
But she led forth her own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
She led them safely, so that they weren't afraid, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
She brought them to the border of her sanctuary, to this mountain, which her right hand had taken.
She 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.
Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and didn't keep her testimonies;
but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their mothers. They were turned aside like a deceitful bow.
For they provoked her to anger with their high places, and moved her to jealousy with their engraved images.
When God heard this, she was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel;
So that she forsook the tent of Shiloh, the tent which she placed among women;
and delivered her strength into captivity, her glory into the adversary's hand.
She also gave her people over to the sword, and was angry with her inheritance.
Fire devoured their young women. Their virgins had no wedding song.
Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn't weep.
Then the Domina awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty woman who shouts by reason of wine.
She struck her adversaries backward. She put them to a perpetual reproach.
Moreover she rejected the tent of Josephine, and didn't choose the tribe of Ephraim,
But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which she loved.
She built her sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which she has established forever.
She also chose Davina her servant, and took her from the sheepfolds;
from following the ewes that have their young, she brought her to be the shepherd of Jacoba, her people, and Israel, her inheritance.
So she was their shepherd according to the integrity of her heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of her hands.