God heard, and was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel
Asaph's long retelling of Israel's story reaches its darkest turn here. God hears what His people have become in the land He gave them, and His answer is wrath and rejection — against the very nation He had brought out of Egypt. (Where the commentators below say "abhorred," the ESV says "utterly rejected.")
One writer sets the word "abhorred" beside an earlier line in Israel's history.
The Spirit of God has given us His commentary on this solemn time in Psalm 78:56-64. From this passage we learn that the secret of their low condition, and the defeat that followed at the hands of their enemies, is found in their disobedience and idolatry. They "did not keep His testimonies." "They provoked Him to anger with their high places, and moved Him to jealousy with their carved images." Then comes the solemn statement: "When God heard this, He was angry and greatly abhorred Israel." From 1 Samuel 2:17 we learn that "man abhorred the offering of the Lord"; now we learn that the Lord abhorred idolatrous Israel.
Another commentator asks why it was high places, and finds pride in the answer.
These were places of worship — supposedly the worship of God at first, but contrary to God. Why the high places? It speaks of people's proud desire to claim a higher position than others in their professed worship. They refuse the lowly place of unworthy but thankful worshippers of God. It is just like people today who are proud of the highest steeple they can put up on a so-called "church." They may say at first that it is really God they are worshipping, but they almost at once add the "carved images" spoken of in the same verse. This was idolatry, not the worship of God at all. Because of this God certainly had a right to be moved to jealousy, for they were robbing Him of His glory!
One writer marks where in Israel's history this failure came.
It is a very significant fact, and a word of warning to us, that the greatest failure of this nation came when they were in the land. That is a very solemn thing. Their greatest failure happened when they held all their God-given privileges, when they had divine power available to them, and when they were under God's appointed leadership in the land flowing with milk and honey.
God's anger took visible form. One writer follows what happened to Shiloh and to the ark.
Shiloh is given up, and the tent He had in wonderful loving-kindness pitched among men. He gave His strength — "the ark of His strength" (Psalm 132:8) — into captivity among the Philistines. He gave His beauty, or splendour, which is still the ark seen from another side, into the hand of Israel's oppressor. So God had left Israel in every visible sign of relationship, and "Ichabod" was written on the whole nation, just as the dying wife of Phinehas said. Every properly ordered link was snapped apart. God might still speak by a prophet, and in fact did so, for that depended on a grace that was sovereign with Him. But the established order of things was at an end.
Israel still had the ark and expected it to hold them up.
God will have reality. If Israel thought that the ark, which was the outward pledge of God's presence, could or would support them in their sinful state, they were greatly mistaken. God will be no party to what is not true and real, so He says, "I will let my ark go."
Another writer names what lay behind it: evil among God's people that no one judged.
"If we judged ourselves, we would not be judged by the Lord." Israel — yes, Eli too — failed to give glory to God in this way. So God had to vindicate His own glory, as we have seen, by delivering it into the enemy's hand… Such are the awful results of unjudged evil in the house, and among the people, of God.
The psalm does not end at verse 59. One writer shows what the ruin makes way for.
God has fully tested man — by His testimony, by His mighty works, by His dealings in government, and by His mercy. It was all in vain. Man ruins himself completely and forfeits every claim to blessing on the ground of carrying out his responsibilities. So it is plain that if man is to be blessed, everything must depend on God. Man's complete ruin makes way for God to show His love and power for His people. But if God steps in for a people who have hopelessly ruined themselves, it cannot be on the ground of what they are for God, but wholly because of what God is for the people.
- Heard. God's wrath answers what He heard: high places and carved images in the land He gave them.
- Abhorred. Men had treated the Lord's offering with contempt; now the Lord abhorred idolatrous Israel.
- Forsook. Shiloh given up, the ark in enemy hands, "Ichabod" written over the nation, every visible link snapped.
- Refused. God will have reality. He would not let a symbol prop up a sinful people, so He let the ark go.
- Chose. Man's ruin makes way for grace: blessing rests not on what Israel is for God, but on what God is for His people.
And he forsook the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent where he had dwelt among men,
For centuries after Israel entered the land, the tabernacle stood at Shiloh. This verse records the moment God walked away from a tent He Himself had pitched among people — so why would He leave the home He chose?
The words point back to a remarkable act of kindness before they announce a judgment. God had come down to live in a tent among His people. Every visible sign that tied Him to them was bound up in that one place.
God's repayment follows in the next two sections of the psalm. First He removes the defiled sanctuary. He gives up Shiloh, and the tent He had pitched among men in wonderful loving-kindness. And He gave His strength — "the ark of His strength" (Ps. 132:8) — into captivity among the Philistines. He gave His beauty, or splendour — still the ark, but seen from another side — into the hand of Israel's oppressor. So in every visible sign of relationship, God had departed from Israel.
Israel expected to win their battle because they had the ark. Instead God let the ark go, and one writer explains why.
Israel hoped the Philistines would be defeated, and the Philistines feared the same. The very opposite happened. As a Psalm says, God "forsook His dwelling at Shiloh, the tent where He dwelt among mankind, and delivered His power to captivity, His glory to the hand of the foe" (Ps. 78:60-61). Do you know why that was? God will have reality. If Israel thought that the Ark, which was the external pledge of God's presence, could or would support them in their sinful state, they were badly mistaken.
Eli was the priest at Shiloh. One writer traces the whole disaster back to sin that nobody there dealt with.
Israel — and Eli in particular — failed to judge themselves, and so failed to give glory to God. That is why God had to vindicate His own glory, as we have seen, by delivering it into the enemy's hand. Such are the terrible results of unjudged evil in the house and among the people of God.
The word "forsook" is final. Israel got the ark back from the Philistines, but Shiloh never got it back.
In the words of Psalm 78, "He forsook His dwelling at Shiloh, the tent where He dwelt among mankind." To that tent He never returns. The ark stays at Kiriath-jearim, in the house of Abinadab, all through the days of Samuel and Saul. We find the tabernacle later at Gibeon, but it is empty.
Centuries later God told His people to go and look at the ruin of Shiloh.
The ruins of Shiloh show that Jehovah's holiness never changes. That empty place is powerful proof of God's displeasure when people turn away from Him. "Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel" (Jer. 7:12). Yet the ark stayed there for more than three hundred and fifty years. Every one of those years declares the Lord's great patience with His rebellious people! God will always keep His truth, but He has put it in the care of His people. If they dishonour Him, He will scatter them, and they will lose their place of trust.
The ruin was not the end of the story. What came next rested on God's own grace, not on Israel keeping its side.
Israel's responsibility, even under the mercy declared through Moses, ended when the Philistines captured the ark. There could be no day of atonement, no blood on the mercy-seat. One word now marked everything: Ichabod, "the glory has departed." God had delivered His strength into captivity, His glory into the enemies' hands. Sovereign grace raised up Samuel the prophet, and then David. David did not bring the ark into the tabernacle at all. He brought it to Mount Zion, which in this way became the seat of sovereign grace in power, in contrast with Sinai.
- Gift — God pitched a tent among people at Shiloh in loving-kindness. The privilege came before the loss.
- Cause — evil left unjudged in God's own house forced Him to vindicate His glory by handing it to the enemy.
- Reality — the outward pledge of His presence will not prop up a people whose state contradicts it.
- Finality — He never returned to that tent; the ark stayed away, and the tabernacle at Gibeon stood empty.
- Grace — Israel's failure closed one door, and God's own grace opened another: Samuel, David, and Zion instead of Shiloh.
And gave his strength into captivity, and his glory into the hand of the oppressor;
Psalm 78 retells Israel's whole story as a lesson. Here the story hits bottom: God lets the ark — the sign of His own presence among His people — fall into enemy hands. Why would God hand over His own glory? And what can follow that?
Both phrases in this verse name one object. One writer traces each word back to the ark, and shows what the loss cost and how long it lasted.
He gave His strength — "the ark of His strength" (Ps. 132:8) — into captivity among the Philistines. He gave His beauty (or splendour) into the hand of the oppressor of Israel. That is still the ark, seen from another side. So God, in every visible sign of relationship, had departed from Israel. God might still speak by a prophet, and He did, because that rested on a grace that was sovereign with Him. But the established order of things was at an end. The ark did not return to its place until David's time (1 Chron. 13:3; Ps. 132:6).
(The ESV reads "his glory" where this older version reads "beauty" or "splendour".)
The psalm does not say the Philistines seized the ark; it says God delivered it. A commentator links that act to sin God's people refused to judge in themselves.
It was because Israel — yes, because Eli — failed to give glory to God, that God had to vindicate His own glory, as we have seen: to vindicate it by delivering it into the enemy's hand. … Such are the terrible results of evil left unjudged in the house, and among the people of God.
Israel expected the ark to carry them to victory. One writer explains why it did not.
Israel hoped to defeat the Philistines, and the Philistines feared the same. The very opposite happened. God will have reality. If Israel thought that the ark, which was the outward pledge of God's presence, could or would support them in their sinful state, they were completely wrong. God will be no party to what is not true and real, so He says, "I will let my ark go."
Losing the ark was not losing a piece of furniture. It left the people with no way to approach God at all.
Israel was corrupt in all their ways. They were reckless in their dealings with God, because they had forgotten His majesty and His holiness. They try to make the Lord one with them in their unfaithful condition, as He had been when they were in their original state. They do not come before Him to learn why He had forsaken His people. God will neither acknowledge nor help them. On the contrary, the enemy takes the ark of the covenant, the sign and the seat of His relationship with the people. His throne no longer stands among the people. His tabernacle is empty. Every ordered tie with Him stops. Where can they offer sacrifice? Where can they draw near to the Lord their God?
Handing the ark over was not God losing control of His reputation. Here a writer sees Him gaining two ends at once, and asks whether the church's story has run the same way.
God never allowed the ark to return to Shiloh; it was His judgment on the nation, and on the house of Eli. Has it not been the same with the church of God? The church fell into ruin and decay, because it left its first love. God did not let it return to the unity and power that marked it at the beginning, and He has not let it return since. In allowing the ark to fall into the enemy's hands, God secured His glory in the judgment of His people, and also of their enemies.
The psalm does not end at verse 61. After the collapse God acts, and a commentator names the only ground He acts on.
Sovereign grace is the only resource of God, if He is to bless man. All His dealings, however gracious, fail of their object. He loves His people, but He has no resource for blessing them except His own grace. If He acted on the effect of His dealings, He gives them up; they only turned aside like a deceitful bow. So it always is. But when everything was at its worst, He wakes in His love to His people, because of their misery and His love to them. Then He accomplishes the purpose of His own grace in His own way. He "chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion, which he loved… he chose David his servant."
- Glory named. "His strength" and "His glory" both mean the ark. When it went, every visible sign of God's relationship with Israel went with it.
- Glory surrendered. God Himself handed it over, because evil among His people and in Eli's house went unjudged.
- Glory refused. Carrying the symbol into battle while living in sin could not work — God will have reality, not a charm.
- Glory guarded. Even in enemy hands, God secured His own glory. He judged His people and their enemies alike, and the ark never went back to Shiloh.
- Glory regained. After total ruin God woke in love and chose Judah, Zion and David. Sovereign grace is His only resource for blessing anyone.
And delivered up his people unto the sword, and was very wroth with his inheritance
Psalm 78 retells Israel's story: God kept showing kindness, and the people kept rebelling. Here His anger falls on Israel itself, not on Israel's enemies. Two things make the words hard. God hands the sword to the enemy, and the people it strikes are the portion He calls His own.
Israel called the land God gave them their inheritance. Commentators note that God uses the same word of the people themselves.
The Bible again and again calls the land of promise the inheritance of Israel. God gave them that land flowing with milk and honey. Deut. 4:21; Ps. 105:11, etc. ... Along with this, God calls Israel His inheritance: He has chosen them for His own inheritance. Ps. 33:12; Ps. 78:62, etc.
So the shock is deliberate. His anger falls on what belongs to Him.
One writer traces the sequence: idolatry, then the abandoned sanctuary, then the people struck down.
When Israel openly practised idolatry, God's fury woke. So we read the terrible words: He "utterly rejected Israel," and He left the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent where He had set His name (vv. 59-60). Until then His strength had shown itself in His power on Israel's behalf. Now He handed that strength over to captivity (v. 61), and gave Israel, His glory, into the enemy's hand. Of course, this refers to the captivity of Israel and Judah at the end of the history of the kings. At this time He gave His people over to the sword. They suffered terribly at the hands of their enemies, because God was furious with His own inheritance (v. 62).
Commentators differ on which disaster the psalm has in view. Some read it of the captivity at the end of the kings. Others tie it to the day the Philistines captured the ark.
One writer presses a further cause: evil among God's people that nobody judged. Eli failed here as much as the nation did.
"If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged by the Lord." Israel failed to give glory to God in this way, and so did Eli. That is why God had to defend His own glory, as we have seen. He defended it by handing it over to the enemy. ... These are the terrible results of evil left unjudged in the house of God, and among His people.
Israel carried the ark into battle expecting it to work for them. One writer explains why God let the enemy take it.
Israel hoped the Philistines would be defeated, and the Philistines feared it. The opposite happened. ... Do you know why that was? God will have reality. Did Israel think the ark, the outward pledge of God's presence, could support them while they stayed in their sin? Then they were badly mistaken. God will be no party to what is not true and real. So He says, "I will let my ark go."
Losing the ark might have been shrugged off if daily life had stayed comfortable. One commentator reads the sword of this verse as God refusing to let the loss go unfelt — and finds ownership inside the blow.
If everything else went well, a man might hardly feel the loss of his great treasure. But God will not leave them like that, so chastening they could feel had to follow. So in the very act of owning that in the thoughts of His heart they were still His people, He handed them over to the sword.
The verse is not the end of the account. The arrangement that tested Israel ends here. What follows is something God begins Himself.
God had governed them under law, under testimony, and with compassionate mercy. On that ground Israel was given up completely: the tabernacle left, the ark handed over to captivity and to the enemy. The people too were given over to judgment. But the Lord's love to His people in grace was not weakened. The sorrow they came into called out that love.
The psalm then names the instrument of that love. God chose David, when the nation had nothing left to claim:
It was an extraordinary display of His grace, at a time when the whole nation had turned away from God and forfeited and lost everything. ... The Philistines had carried the ark away captive. But "He chose David also, His servant." Through him God turned back the tide of disaster, and there was safety, food, and guidance for His people.
- His own. God calls Israel His inheritance. The anger here falls on what belongs to Him. It is severe because the bond is real.
- The cause. Idolatry in the land, and evil in God's house that nobody judged, woke the anger. Had they judged themselves, the Lord would not have judged them.
- No shelter. The ark could not cover an unreal condition. God will have reality, so He let the pledge of His presence be carried off rather than back a lie.
- The proof. He struck instead of walking away. The sword was chastening, and chastening means that in His heart they were still His people.
- The outcome. The ruin did not weaken His love. Their sorrow drew it out, and He chose David. Grace starts again where everything has been lost.
The fire consumed their young men, and their maidens were not praised in [nuptial] song;
Psalm 78 retells Israel's story so the next generation would not repeat it, and this verse sits at its darkest point: Shiloh is abandoned, the ark is in enemy hands, and now the judgment reaches the nation's young. Why would God strike His own people at the very point where their future lay?
Older translations read "their maidens were not given to marriage" — the young women were left unwed.
This was not random destruction. One writer calls the fire God's own anger, and the unwed young women its direct result:
Sadly, if all else went well, man might hardly feel the loss of his great treasure. But God will not give them up to that, so chastening they could feel had to follow. Even as He acknowledged that in the thoughts of His heart they were still His people, He gave them up to the sword. The fire of His anger consumed their young men, so the young women went unwed.
Comfortable circumstances would have let Israel shrug off the loss of God's presence. The blow falls because He refuses to leave them numb.
Another writer notes the reversal: the men who should have defended the nation are the ones destroyed.
Fire consumed their young men, who should have been protecting the nation, and left the young women without hope of marriage.
Why did God allow it? One writer finds the answer in Israel's trust in the ark while their own state was sinful:
Israel hoped the Philistines would be defeated, and the Philistines themselves feared it. The very opposite happened. As a Psalm says, God "forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which He placed among men; and delivered His strength into captivity, and His glory into the enemy's hand" (Ps. 78:60, 61). Do you know why that was? God will have reality. The Ark was the outward pledge of God's presence. But if Israel thought it could or would support them in their sinful state, they were greatly mistaken. God will be no party to what is not true and real, so He says, I will let my ark go.
The fire in this verse presses the same principle further: God will not prop up a relationship His people treat as a formality.
This was not one isolated disaster. With the sanctuary gone and the ark taken, nothing outwardly marked Israel as God's people:
So God had departed from Israel in every visible sign of relationship. As the dying wife of Phinehas declared, Ichabod was written over the whole nation. Every formal link was broken. God might still speak through a prophet, and in fact He did. That rested on a grace which was sovereign with Him — His own unchallengeable right, to use whenever He chose. But the established order of things was finished.
(Ichabod means "no glory" — the name Phinehas' dying wife spoke when the enemy took the ark.)
The psalm exists to pass truth on to children, which makes the loss of a generation sharper still. One writer traces its shape:
There was not only a redemption long ago, which faith looked back to. There was also a testimony given, and a law to guide Israel's ways, which they were to make known to their children. But the fathers had been a stubborn and rebellious generation. God gave the law and the testimony so that the children would not be like their fathers. But they were like them, and their history is set out here. So God chastened them; there was direct, open government over their ways.
The psalm does not end in the ashes. Commentators read the collapse as the background for what God does next, out of Himself alone:
Sovereign grace is God's only resource, if He is to bless man. All His dealings, however gracious, fail of their aim. If He acted on the results of His dealings, He would give them up. But when everything was at its worst, He wakes in His love to His people, because of their misery and His love for them.
Man's complete ruin makes way for God to show His love and power for His people. But if God steps in for a people who have ruined themselves beyond hope, it cannot rest on what they are for God. It rests entirely on what God is for them.
- Cause — Israel leaned on the ark while living in sin. "God will have reality," so He would not back what was not true.
- Consequence — fire took the young men, the nation's defence, and left the young women with no marriage. The future itself was gone.
- Purpose — God struck while still owning them as His people. Comfort would have let them feel nothing.
- Extent — every formal link broke, and Ichabod, "no glory," stood over the nation. Only sovereign grace still spoke, through a prophet.
- Outcome — ruin made room for grace. At the worst moment He woke in love, and blessing rests on what God is for His people, not what they are for Him.
Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation.
Psalm 78 retells Israel's story: God carried, fed and rescued this people, and they still ended up with a captured ark and dead priests. This verse is the low point, and it raises two questions — why did God let His own priests die, and why did their widows not weep?
The verse looks back to the collapse at Shiloh. There the Philistines, Israel's neighbours and enemies, defeated Israel and seized the ark — the gold-covered chest that marked God's presence among His people. One writer sets out the whole chain of loss:
Meanwhile, the ruin is complete. The Philistines come up against Israel and strike them. In their superstition they send for the ark of God to deliver them — the ark of the covenant they had so often broken! They are struck down again. Hophni and Phinehas are killed, and the ark is taken. Eli falls backward at the news and breaks his neck. As she dies, Phinehas' wife gives her son a name that expresses the people's terrible condition. "And she named the child Ichabod, saying, 'The glory has departed from Israel.'" The priesthood, as the link between God and Israel, had come to its final end.
One writer sets the sword beside the loss of the sanctuary. God would not let Israel lose Him and feel nothing:
Shiloh is given up, and the tent He had pitched among men in wonderful loving-kindness... If everything else had gone well, a person might hardly feel the loss of his great treasure. But God will not leave them like that, so chastening they could actually feel had to follow. In the very act of owning that in the thoughts of His heart they were still His people, He handed them over to the sword. The fire of His anger consumed their young men, so the young women never married. Their priests also fell by the sword, which left the sanctuary twice desolate. Their widows were silent with a grief that went beyond the grief of widowhood.
Commentators differ on both the date and the reason. One puts the verse in the much later captivity, and traces the silence to a conscience that had stopped feeling God's hand:
Of course, this refers to the captivity of Israel and Judah at the end of the history of the kings... Their priests too fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation. This was because the people had become so insensitive to God's dealings that they could no longer think clearly (vv. 63-64). Terrible affliction!
Another writer finds the despair too deep to come from the death of Eli's two sons alone. He blames King Saul, who set Doeg the Edomite on the priests:
The last lines reveal such a state of despair in those who were once the most honoured in the nation that we cannot think they refer only to the death of Hophni and Phinehas. Saul was surely the author of this crowning disaster... Doeg had stirred up his worst passions. Saul summoned Ahimelech the priest and all his father's house before him on a charge of conspiring with David. He ordered this Edomite to fall upon them, "who killed on that day eighty-five persons who wore the linen ephod." That was not all. Saul had spared Agag, king of the Amalekites, against God's express command. Now he gave the whole city of the priests to the sword... This unexpected, crushing blow fell without pity on hearts already broken by the killing of their husbands. It turned their sorrow to despair. They made no lamentation!
None of this came without warning. God had already spoken against Eli's household, and the fallen priests are that word coming true:
How literally the solemn words of judgment on Eli's house came true (1 Sam. 2:31-33; 1 Sam. 22:17-19; 1 Kings 2:27). Yet the Lord Himself would bring their deliverance, as He carried out His purposes: royalty in David, and worship in the temple built by David's son.
The priests were the appointed link to God, so their death closed an era. What follows in the psalm is not a fresh test of Israel:
This is the end, in fact, of the legal covenant, in one important aspect of it. The people had failed under it as first given — they failed completely at Sinai itself. Priesthood was then a resource... they were put under law a second time, in the hands of a mediator: first Moses, then the family of Aaron. Now these too had completely failed, and all was gone once more... Man is "flesh," and with man in the flesh this is the end. David does follow in this psalm, but this is not presented as a new trial. David is only the expression of a grace in God — a grace that will need Another to show it properly. But the grace is here.
- Ruin. Shiloh fell: the ark captured, Eli dead, and "the priesthood, as the link between God and Israel," at "its final end."
- Silence. Commentators read the widows' silence two ways: consciences too numb to "think clearly," or sorrow crushed into despair.
- Sentence. The priests' death was no accident. God's judgment on Eli's house came true to the letter.
- End. Law failed, then priesthood failed. With "man in the flesh" there was nothing left to build on.
- Grace. At the lowest point the Lord Himself brings deliverance — royalty in David, and worship in the temple built by David's son. Grace, not a new trial.