Trevor Laurence
Psalm 78 is a psalm of historical recital. That is, it’s a poetic rehearsal of Israel’s story of life with God, a theologically rich recitation of God’s promises and acts on behalf of his people. Early on, the psalmist declares,
We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done. (v. 4)
By singing God’s story in Psalm 78, worshipers are situated in a narrative that frames perception and expectation. God’s works of old form the community’s shared history, govern her identity, stimulate remembrance and praise, elicit faithful participation in the ongoing story, and—importantly—establish a precedent for hope. The past that shapes the present also shapes anticipation for the future among a community still awaiting the fruition of all God’s good promises. The God who bore with a rebellious people and delivered them over and over will do so yet again. He will not forsake his purposes.
From Shiloh to Zion
Amid the wide-ranging history the psalm has in view, verses 60–72 recount a complex of events spanning the devastation of Shiloh to the inauguration of the Jerusalem temple under the Davidic king:
[60] He forsook his dwelling at Shiloh,the tent where he dwelt among mankind,
[61] and delivered his power to captivity,
his glory to the hand of the foe.
[62] He gave his people over to the sword
and vented his wrath on his heritage.
[63] Fire devoured their young men,
and their young women had no marriage song.
[64] Their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows made no lamentation.
[65] Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
like a strong man shouting because of wine.
[66] And he put his adversaries to rout;
he put them to everlasting shame.
[67] He rejected the tent of Joseph;
he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
[68] but he chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which he loves.
[69] He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,
like the earth, which he has founded forever.
[70] He chose David his servant
and took him from the sheepfolds;
[71] from following the nursing ewes he brought him
to shepherd Jacob his people,
Israel his inheritance.
[72] With upright heart he shepherded them
and guided them with his skillful hand.
The sanctuary at Shiloh was, for a time, the place where the ark of the covenant was kept (Josh 18:1)—the house where the glory-presence of God dwelt among his people. Yet by the time of Samuel, Shiloh was overrun with wicked priests who “did not know the Lord” (1 Sam 2:12), and Israel followed their leaders in provoking the Lord to anger with their idolatry (Ps 78:56–59).
Psalm 78:60–66 recounts in verse the events of 1 Samuel 4:1–7:2. When the Philistines attacked and defeated Israel in a preliminary skirmish, the nation’s elders elected to bring the ark of the covenant out to battle so that “the Lord of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim” (4:4) might spring into action on their behalf. If an unholy people carries into war the footstool of a holy God, surely their king will rise from his throne and grant them deliverance from their enemies.
Instead, the Philistines captured the ark. The God who in judgment had forsaken his dwelling at Shiloh “delivered his power to captivity, his glory to the hand of the foe” (Ps 78:61). Yahweh himself, in a sense, became a prisoner of war, taken captive by a foreign nation and subjected to the “death” of exile, as Shiloh was decimated.
In Jeremiah’s day, God’s dwelling would again become “a den of robbers” (Jer 7:11), the people would again assume that God’s presence operated automatically to ensure protection despite the nation’s presumption and unholiness, and the prophet would point to Shiloh as a model of coming judgment:
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. And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. (Jer 7:12–14)
Yet, even after going into exile in Philistia, “the Lord awoke as from sleep” and “put his adversaries to rout; he put them to everlasting shame” (Ps 78:65–66). The Philistines “took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon” (1 Sam 5:2). On the morning of the second day, they found their god face down on the ground before the Lord—eating the dust, so to speak. And on the morning of the third day, Dagon was not only prostrate upon the ground, but his hands and his head had been cut off from his body (1 Sam 5:4). The Lord brought plagues upon the Philistines’ cities wherever they took the ark until, eventually, his captors decided to send the ark back to Israel. The glory of God returned to his people in the land.
Psalm 78:67–72 press the story forward. After rising as from sleep and triumphing over his enemies, Yahweh chose David and established him as the shepherd-king over the flock of Israel (vv. 70–72), the mediator of God’s caring kingship, the son of God (cf. Ps 2:7; 2 Sam 7:14). And with his enemies defeated, the Lord made his way up Mount Zion and “built his sanctuary” (v. 69). Having rejected his former dwelling place at Shiloh in Ephraimite territory (v. 67), he established a new house—constructed like the heavens and the earth, a replica in miniature of his cosmic temple—for his glory-presence.
The concluding stanzas of Psalm 78 narrate the movement of God’s glory: taken captive by the enemy, rising to accomplish victory, returning to his people, ascending his holy mountain, building his temple, and taking residence in his sanctuary as the Davidic king sits upon Israel’s throne.
From Earthly Zion to Heavenly Zion
Psalm 78 sings God’s past faithfulness to teach Israel to hope for his future faithfulness, and in Jesus, the glory of God makes the same journey once again.
In the Jerusalem temple, Jesus pronounces judgment against a house turned into “a den of robbers” (Matt 21:13), drawing upon Jeremiah’s prophetic declaration that the temple in his day would meet the fate of Shiloh. The second Jerusalem temple, like the first in Jeremiah’s time, is a Shiloh rerun—overseen by self-serving leaders who reject Yahweh’s calls to repentance and invite God’s cleansing judgment. Every evening, Jesus departs the temple to the east and lodges upon the Mount of Olives (Luke 21:37), retracing the departure of God’s glory out of the first temple in Ezekiel’s vision (Ezek 11:23), and within a generation, no stone of that forsaken structure will be left upon another.
Yet, as before, even when judgment comes upon one unholy dwelling, God works for the sake of his people to prepare a new house for his presence.
Like God’s glory in Psalm 78, Jesus—the “radiance of the glory of God” (Heb 1:3), the one in whom God’s glory tabernacled on earth (John 1:14)—is delivered to captivity, offered up to the hands of God’s foes. Jesus enters the exile of the grave, an apparent victory for Satan and the kingdom of darkness, but on the third day, the Lord awakes as from sleep and deals a death-blow to the serpent’s head.
In his resurrection, Jesus triumphs over the forces of darkness and puts them “to open shame” (Col 2:15; cf. Ps 78:66), and the glory of God returns from captivity to bless his people again in the land of the living. The bonds of death could hold Jesus no more than Dagon’s temple could hold the ark of the Lord. The ostensible defeat of God’s glory is in fact the way to victory over his enemies and salvation for the faithful.
Though Israel rejected Jesus as her king, God makes plain that Jesus is his chosen servant, “who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:3–4). The awakening of Yahweh’s glory from the sleep of death gives way to the public installation of his Davidic king.
Rising in victory from his descent into captivity, Jesus continues his upward climb to the heavenly Zion. And enthroned atop the cosmic mountain, he builds his sanctuary, sending his Spirit in cloud and fire to fill up his church like Moses’ tabernacle and Solomon’s temple (Acts 2:1–4; cf. Exod 40:34–38; 1 Kgs 8:10–11). The followers of Jesus are made the holy house of the Lord.
After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and reminded them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). Psalm 78 traces the path of God’s glory through the grave of Philistia to the throne of Zion, recounting in outline the very path Jesus would one day tread.
In Israel’s history, Yahweh embraced the death of exile before ascending in triumph and blessing. “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:26).
Trevor Laurence is the Executive Director of the Cateclesia Institute and the author of Cursing with God: The Imprecatory Psalms and the Ethics of Christian Prayer (Baylor University Press, 2022).
Image: Nicolas Poussin, The Plague at Ashdod