Ps. 78.9 (sons of rebellion)

The sons of Ephraim / well equipped bowmen
turned back / on the day of battle. 

Although it is a customary usage to designate a group (or, tribe) by the identity of their fore-runner (the ‘sons of Ephraim’), in the context of this psalm there is a deeper significance. From verse 3 onward the transmission of the story has not been merely one within the ‘people of God’ but, more specifically, on that descends and is perpetuated by “father to son”. It is an intra-family passing down. The psalmist is intent on this aspect of the tradition. With that in mind, the fact that the first party to be specified in the psalm is a “son of…” is not coincidental. As a ‘son’ they are, or should be, the recipient of the story that perpetuates the event of God’s deliverance and ties the family together into a single living chain. As sons they should, as the immediately preceding verse emphasizes, have a ‘steady heart’ and have a spirit ‘faithful to God’. That is what it means to be a son in this psalm. That is what we should find here. This sense is only increased in the following description of them as “well equipped bowmen”. Not only are the recipients of a story that should bind them in devotion to God, but they are also physically and technically skilled at war. We might say that ‘vertically and horizontally’ these ‘sons of Erphaim’ should represent the pinnacle of the receiving “generation” contemplated in the psalm. Everything about these sons indicates success. And yet, that is not the case. Almost Adam-like, the immediate appearance of a specific group is the immediate introduction of failure. This dynamic begins here and will flow throughout the remainder of the psalm up to the concluding verses, where the ‘true son’ will be revealed (David, the adopted son of God; Ps. 2). What we will find is that everything done on behalf of the people should point to an utter and complete faithfulness on their part but, instead, it only seems to produce an inconceivable rebellion. Just like these “sons of…”, so too will Israel take their bearings from them. In a sense, they all will be these sons acting in rebellion (until David appears to unite and pacify them). Finally, the failure of the ‘sons of Ephraim’ is not merely a generalized failure. Rather, ti is one that occurs at the precise moment that they should succeed (the ‘day of battle’). This too is important and will thematically flow from here on—failure at the precise moment when faithfulness should be found.

Ps. 78.8 (faithfulness and family)

not becoming / like their fathers
a rebellious / and defiant / generation
a generation / that did not / keep its heart steady
and whose spirit / was not faithful / to God. 

This verse becomes the first of the many jarring notes in the psalm. Up to this point the transfer of the story of God’s wonders and commandments has not been only seamless but it has been contemplated within the span of several generations. As we have seen, the story itself is the life of the generations. It is what binds the generations into a single family, uniting them to the primal events related. The focus has steadfastly communal/familial. Here, however, the first intra-family disruption occurs. It is clearly a profoundly disturbing event. While the generations are supposed to conform themselves ever-more deeply to the wonders and Torah of God, these ‘fathers’ they are to ‘not become like’. They represent therefore the antithesis of wonders and Torah. Indeed their incorporation into the story signals them as, contra God’s wonders, an anti-sign. They are, in the words used here, its rebellion. Importantly, this rebellion against God also transforms them into a familial disruption. We do well to pause on this for a moment: for here we find that the family is not itself the mode of authority and example. It is, rather, the story that now supplants the role one would expect the family to inhabit. By castigating the ‘fathers’ the story ‘laicizes’ them, removing them from their (ultimate) seat of authority and revealing that faithfulness and family do not coincide. (“Who are my brothers and sisters…?”) As to the content of their actions, they are marked by two actions and two non-actions. Their two actions are rebellion and defiance. Their non-actions are “not keeping a steady heart” and non-faithfulness to God. What is important to note is that they are not simply passive. They are full of activity contrary to God. (This will become more important as we proceed.) For their failure is not merely a type of passive weakness. Rather, their failure is also an intentional, willing activity.

Ps. 78.6-7 (commandments encased in wonder)

children yet to be born
who in turn / would tell / their children,
that they in turn / would put their confidence / in God
and forget not / the deeds of God,
but keep / his commandments. 

Here we come to the most compact verses detailing the central emphasis on ‘generations’ and ‘handing on’. The movement is immediate and direct. It begins, indeed, in a generation that does not in fact even exist yet, “children yet to be born”. From there it moves “in turn” to a further generation who “in turn” would put confidence in God. It is important to see how this dynamic of ‘in turn’ delivery of God’s wonders and instruction is not a perceived diminution. It is not the case that the further it gets from the source the more alienated the generations become. Quite the opposite in fact. As we will see, future generations may in fact trump earlier generations in their response to the story. It may be that in an oral culture, one’s sense of time and its effect on transmission is different. However the case may be, though, what is clear is that the story does not lose its power as it proceeds through the generations. In its retelling one is not ‘far from the event’ but made coterminous with it. Time is not the issue. As we will see, it is memory and a failure of the will that is the danger. This leads to a further point: although implicit we find here the first real danger to the story’s life—forgetting. Up to this point in the psalm, the story’s transmission has been actively sought and accomplished. There has been no mention of its failure, nor of any danger. However, here, as the psalmist looks down the generations he is aware of the fact that the story’s life is fragile. It can be forgotten. And the consequences are tragic, which leads to the final point—the perceived goal of this ‘in turn’ handing on: confidence, memory and the keeping of God’s commandments. As we saw yesterday, the story is pregnant with power. The story is that which connects each generation to the primal event of God’s wonders and his Torah. It generates confidence in God. There is the implication here that without the wonders the commandments themselves would not be kept. If they were ever forgotten the commandments would lose their life-giving source. The wonders are the soil of the commandments. In other words, when the commandments are passed down they must be passed down encased in the wonders of God. Clearly, then, the people of God themselves must involve themselves in the passing-on. They are not passing on mere objects, but a story that must involve their entire person. At this point we can refer back to the opening with new insight—the reason the psalmist is so insistent that his listeners actively perceive what he is about to narrate is that they must themselves become vessels of the story, but they cannot be so if they merely ‘hear-and-report’; rather, they must perceive the story; the must see the wonder-works; they must risk a total engagement with the story itself.

Ps. 78.5 (wonder and torah)

He instituted / a set of requirements / in Jacob

and established / a body of teaching / in Israel… 

From the wonders we now move to the teaching and requirements. What we are to see in this is clear from the exodus (and the wondering) account. The wonders refer to those acts by which Yhwh acted miraculously for Israel. The requirements refer to the laws provided to Moses: the Torah. While the joining of these two acts by God seem rather unremarkable there is something deeply important about the fact that from the ‘wonders’ we have now moved into the ethical commands. The import is that there is no disconnect, no distance, between the astonishing acts of power displayed by God on behalf of Israel and his commands. The theophanic power of God and his ethical concern are united. One does not get the ‘wonders’ without the ‘ethics’, nor do we get the ‘ethics’ without the ‘wonders’. They mutually enlighten each other. At root, power and ethics coincide; it is not the case that God’s ‘mastery’ is somehow prior or greater than his commandments. Rather, they both constitute a single arc, a single story, a single ‘riddle’. It is only when this unity is perceived that the greatest source of power can be understood to be a saint rather than a magician. This is not to give priority to the ethical, as if the wonders are only prelude. The wonders actually display creation, and its prodigal power in hands of Yhwh (it is an anticipation of resurrection-power). The Torah likewise reveals the nature of the source of that power. The wonders and the Torah are like the light refracted through a prism, both originating from a single beam. We might even say that creation is Torah embodied. As we will see later, the breaking of the ‘law of instruction’ will bring forth the ‘law of wonder’ (outbreak of destruction). This same dynamic is at work at the very origin of creation itself: we begin with the wonder of creative-blessing and then obtain the instruction  (“you shall not eat…”). Here, this equality between wonder and commandment is displayed by the fact that they both must be ‘handed down’

Which he commanded / our fathers
to make known / to their children
that the next generation / might know; 

God “institutes a set of requirements”; he “establishes a body of teaching”; and then he “commands” the fathers to make it known to their children. The ‘passing down’ is itself a commandment. The Torah has woven into it its own perpetuity. To not ‘hand it down’ is to, itself, violate Torah. This is how the ‘forever’ of the Torah lives in the ‘immortality’ of the generations. And this is why when the ‘story ceases’ the covenant curses become enacted. As manifestations of God’s forever, when man rebels, man will have to stand in front of the witness of Torah and wonders.

Ps. 78.4 (event, memory and tradition)

We will not / keep them from / our children
tell them / to the next generation
the praiseworthy acts/ of Yhwh / his power
and the wonders / he has done. 

The familial chain of tradition is now being established in this verse. The previous verse described these ‘wonders’ as passing from “our fathers to us”. Now, “we will not keep them from our children”. As we will see later on this generational transfer of God’s wonders is hoped to be passed down even further: “children yet to be born, who in turn would tell their children…” (vs. 6). There are two things to note regarding the opening line. First, we must notice that throughout the opening of the psalm and for the remainder, the psalmist speaks in the first person. Here, however he switches to the first person plural, “We will not keep...”. It is an interesting shift in perspective and a thematic one—at the precise point when the story becomes the  communal passing down from father to son the story itself becomes the “we” of the passing down. The psalmist becomes his generation, and the generation becomes the psalmist. In this communal identity the story of God’s wonders is most faithfully embodied. We need to emphasize this again as it will become more and more important: the focus of the psalm is entirely communal and familial, from God’s perspective and from the psalmist’s perspective. When faithfulness occurs it occurs familially; when rebellion ocurrs, it occurs familially. The story of God’s wonders presupposes its being embodied within the memory of his family, of his people. It is in that family that it gathers to itself its power and finds its ‘goal’—for the wonders of God are wonders meant to be the ‘glue’ and ‘power’ of familial (we might say covenantal) vitality. The second point to make seems to be an obvious one—that the wonders of God are not meant to be ‘kept’ but to be ‘told’ (“we will not keep them from our children; tell them to the next generation…”). Although obvious there are important depths to this observation. God’s wonders are meant to, in a sense, ‘flow’ like a river down throughout the generations. What this entails is that the original act, the performance of the wonder itself, had as its goal not simply those that observed it, but the ongoing family of those that observed it. In a sense, the original generation did not obtain a type of ‘priority’ over later generations. Rather, it could be that the later generations actually receive a greater strength because they benefit from the growing reflection of that event within the family as this ‘river’ broadens and deepens in the community’s reflection. This is a crucial thing to grasp: that the original event will always be the source of the river, but not the goal of the river. The ‘goal’ of the river will be its living within the memory of God’s family so as to unite them all into that single story and event. The memory will make the event perpetually present; it will become an infinite warehouse within the memory (and, specifically, the liturgy) of the people. In another image—the memory of the event will be the act by which the event will be perpetually ‘birthed’ into the present, and the event contains within itself that goal and that power. Likewise, and consistent with this image, the event is ‘handed over to man’ so that man might ‘pass it down’. God’s event presupposes its ongoing life within the memory of the people. It is not to be ‘magically’ reenacted whole-cloth from a direct intervention by God. Rather, it will obtain its goal in and through its being mediated by man (its being ‘traditioned’ by man). In other words, like the seed of a man it is delivered into the womb of Israel where Israel will now apply to the event its own active appropriation of it; nourishing it and passing it on. The event will come to its full realization there, in Israel, and not in some external place. This is not mere speculation; we will see this clearly later in the psalm (and is evident, for example, in Deuteronomy among other places). In the liturgy, God’s wonders are placed within a realm of God’s forever. They are, in their memory, ‘perpetualized’.