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.