38 But He is compassionate, covers iniquity, and destroys not; Yea, many a time He takes back His anger, And rouses not all His wrath. 39 So He remembered that they were [but] flesh, A wind that goes and comes not again.
40 How often did they provoke Him in the wilderness, Did they grieve Him in the desert! 41 Yea, again and again they tempted God, And the Holy One of Israel they vexed. 42 They remembered not His hand, The day when He set them free from the adversary, 43 When He set forth His signs in Egypt, And His wonders in the field of Zoan. 44 And He turned to blood their Nile streams, And their streams they could not drink.
45 He sent amongst them flies that devoured them, And frogs that destroyed them. 46 And He gave their increase to the caterpillar, And their toil to the locust. 47 He killed their vines with hail, And their sycamores with frost. [?] 48 And He gave their cattle up to the hail, And their flocks to the lightnings.
49 He sent against them the heat of His anger, Wrath and indignation and trouble, A mission of angels of evil. 50 He levelled a path for His anger, He spared not their souls from death, But delivered over their life to the pestilence. 51 And He smote all the first-born of Egypt, The firstlings of [their] strength in the tents of Ham.
52 And He made His people go forth like sheep, And guided them like a flock in the desert. 53 And He led them safely, that they did not fear, And the sea covered their enemies. 54 And He brought them to His holy border, This mountain, which His right hand had won. 55 And He drove out the nations before them, And allotted them by line as an inheritance, And made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
56 But they tempted and provoked God Most High, And His testimonies they did not keep. 57 And they turned back and were faithless like their fathers, They were turned aside like a deceitful bow; 58 And they provoked Him to anger with their high places, And with their graven images they moved Him to jealousy. 59 God heard and was wroth, And loathed Israel exceedingly.
60 So that He rejected the habitation of Shiloh, The tent [which] He had pitched among men. 61 And He gave His strength to captivity, And His beauty into the hand of the adversary. 62 And He delivered His people to the sword, And against His inheritance He was wroth. 63 Their young men the fire devoured, And their maidens were not praised in the marriage-song. 64 Their priests fell by the sword, And their widows made no lamentation.
65 Then the Lord awoke as one that had slept, Like a warrior shouting because of wine. 66 And He beat His adversaries back, He put on them a perpetual reproach. 67 And He loathed the tent of Joseph, And the tribe of Ephraim He did not choose. 68 But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.
69 And He built His sanctuary like [heavenly] heights, Like the earth which He has founded for ever. 70 And He chose David His servant, And took him from the sheepfolds; 71 From following the ewes that give suck, He brought him To feed Jacob His people, And Israel His inheritance. 72 So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart, And with the skilfulness of his hands he guided them.
This psalm is closely related to Psalms cv.-cvii.
Like them, it treats the history of Israel, and especially the Exodus and wilderness wanderings, for purposes of edification, rebuke, and encouragement. The past is held up as a mirror to the present generation. It has been one long succession of miracles of mercy met by equally continuous ingratitude, which has ever been punished by national calamities. The psalm departs singularly from chronological order. It arranges its contents in two principal masses, each introduced by the same formula (vv. 12, 43) referring to "wonders in Egypt and the field of Zoan." But the first mass has nothing to do with Egypt, but begins with the passage of the Red Sea, and is wholly occupied with the wilderness. The second group of wonders begins in ver. 44 with the plagues of Egypt, touches lightly on the wilderness history, and then passes to the early history of Israel when settled in the land, and finishes with the establishment of David on the throne. It is difficult to account for this singular _bouleversement_ of the history. But the conjecture may be hazarded that its reason lies in the better illustration of continual interlacing of mercy and unthankfulness afforded by the events in the wilderness, than by the plagues of Egypt. That interlacing is the main point on which the psalmist wishes to lay stress, and therefore he begins with the most striking example of it. The use of the formula in ver. 12 looks as if his original intention had been to follow the order of time. Another peculiarity is the prominence given to Ephraim, both in ver. 9 as a type of faithlessness, and in ver. 67 as rejected in favour of Judah. These references naturally point to the date of the psalm as being subsequent to the separation of the kingdoms; but whether it is meant as rebuke to the northern kingdom, or as warning to Judah from the fate of Ephraim, is not clear. Nor are there materials for closer determination of date. The tone of the closing reference to David implies that his accession belongs to somewhat remote times.