And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer.
Psalm 78 recounts the rich blessings God bestowed on His people and the poor response and return they made for those benefits. They sought God and returned and inquired early after Him and remembered Him as strength and rescue only after continued sinning and unbelief brought affliction, rebuke, chastisement, punishment and slaying upon them. This came after they distrusted Him to provide wholesome food for health, despised angels' food, lusted for meat, ate and were filled with their own desire, had His wrath come upon them to slay the fattest and strike down the chosen men, and had their days consumed in vanity and their years in trouble. Their remembering under judgment was of God as rock meaning strength and of the high God as redeemer meaning the Most High who could rescue them, the source of strength to be remembered in trial.
Their remembering was repentance under rebuke, chastisement and punishment for constantly working against a good God and bringing upon themselves by disobedience the troubled state that was the sure result of their own course. But it was not sincere, steadfast, wholehearted faith, for their hearts were not right with Him and were untrue to Him, they were not steadfast in His covenant, and they flattered Him with their mouth and lied to Him with their tongues. Their remembering did not last, for afterward they fell again under temptation and self-indulgence and self-gratification.
Even then, in full compassion He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them, many a time turning His anger away and not stirring up all His wrath, sparing them while remembering that they were frail and passing. The failure warns against complaining when trials come and forgetting the source of strength, as Israel did. Those in whom Christ abides and who fully receive truth of heavenly origin keep advancing in the divine life, become strong men and women in Christ and sanctified through the truth, and do not complain and forget God when trials come.
Psalm 78 recounts the rich blessings God bestowed on His people and the poor response and return they made for those benefits. They sought God and returned and inquired early after Him and remembered Him as strength and rescue only after continued sinning and unbelief brought affliction, rebuke, chastisement, punishment and slaying upon them. This came after they distrusted Him to provide wholesome food for health, despised angels' food, lusted for meat, ate and were filled with their own desire, had His wrath come upon them to slay the fattest and strike down the chosen men, and had their days consumed in vanity and their years in trouble. Their remembering under judgment was of God as rock meaning strength and of the high God as redeemer meaning the Most High who could rescue them, the source of strength to be remembered in trial.
Their remembering was repentance under rebuke, chastisement and punishment for constantly working against a good God and bringing upon themselves by disobedience the troubled state that was the sure result of their own course. But it was not sincere, steadfast, wholehearted faith, for their hearts were not right with Him and were untrue to Him, they were not steadfast in His covenant, and they flattered Him with their mouth and lied to Him with their tongues. Their remembering did not last, for afterward they fell again under temptation and self-indulgence and self-gratification.
Even then, in full compassion He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them, many a time turning His anger away and not stirring up all His wrath, sparing them while remembering that they were frail and passing. The failure warns against complaining when trials come and forgetting the source of strength, as Israel did. Those in whom Christ abides and who fully receive truth of heavenly origin keep advancing in the divine life, become strong men and women in Christ and sanctified through the truth, and do not complain and forget God when trials come.