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’.