Introduction: I normally try to rotate roughly seven days in Psalms, seven in an OT book and seven days in a NT book. Not thinking far enough ahead I’m caught in the middle of Psalm 78, which has a continuous thought woven into it so I’ll write until I finish the whole of Ps 78 which has 72 verses, I try to take about 10 verses. It won’t be next rotation, but what should I do when I get to PS 119, which has 172 verses in it? Basically the Psalm is Asaph expressing great concern at the Israelites forgetting to teach their children, and they themselves not practicing God’s law nor remembering God! Here he reminds them of the Goodness of God and draws a quick word picture of God releasing His people from slavery in Egypt. In Exodus chapters 6-13 we have the details of what God did at that time!
41 They tested God again and again
and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember his power
or the day when he redeemed them from the foe,
43 when he performed his signs in Egypt
and his marvels in the fields of Zoan.
44 He turned their rivers to blood,
so that they could not drink of their streams.
45 He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them,
and frogs, which destroyed them.
46 He gave their crops to the destroying locust
and the fruit of their labor to the locust.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail
and their sycamores with frost.
48 He gave over their cattle to the hail
and their flocks to thunderbolts.
49 He let loose on them his burning anger,
wrath, indignation, and distress,
a company of destroying angels.
50 He made a path for his anger;
he did not spare them from death,
but gave their lives over to the plague.
51 He struck down every firstborn in Egypt,
the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
Comment: I, personally, was surprised at the time taken for the Egyptians to let their slaves go. But then I got to thinking more deeply. Looking back into modern history – how long did it take for the the two world wars to be finished? Or the time taken for answers to be found to the Gaza-Israeli conflict? Has an answer really been found yet?Or think of the things US-Israel were requiring Iran to give up. God was asking a nation (Egypt) to give up what was seen as humungous. They were being asked to release their cheap workforce which allowed the privileged to live in the style to which they loved! Pharaoh’s delay did allow God to introduce the picture painted by ‘the Paschal Lamb’ to show how God was planning for believers in Jesus to escape their bondage to sin! I wonder if the Jews of Asaph’s day were much like people of today? I suppose an event (the plagues) which took a year or more, can in one’s mind be dismissed in a few quick moments.But it is easy to put thinking about one’s history a long way down the list of ‘to be done’ rather than serious thinking before going to bed! Scholars think that the plagues extended over at least one year! For how long and how often would it have been needed to take to explain a thousand years of history to a child? And what if your family had seven children?
Proverbs 4: 5 – Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.
Prayer: Help me to hide Your word in my heart that it might be the basis of my thinking, my speaking and my living.