The big picture
Psalm 78 turns remembered history into instruction about the heart. The coming generations are to inherit more than flattering memories, because Israel's past includes repeated failure alongside repeated provision. An armed Ephraim can turn back, a people that saw the sea divided can ask whether God can set a table, and mouths can return to correct religious language while hearts remain unstable. The psalm repeatedly places God's remembering against the people's forgetting. He remembers that they are flesh, restrains anger, and continues to act even while the poem exposes their unreliable response. The history doubles back to Egypt because forgotten wonders need to be set out again. It then moves through settlement, idolatry, Shiloh's loss, and the choice of Zion. David's shepherding closes the long account with two qualities that answer its recurring failures: integrity of heart and skill of hands. Memory matters here because it is meant to shape future faithfulness.
Central truth
Psalms 78 and 105–106 use Israel's history as instruction: one generation must teach the next, God's covenant faithfulness must be remembered, rebellion must be confessed without editing, and mercy must remain visible across Exodus, wilderness, land, judgment, and restoration.
The study notes have a page of their own
The movement by movement analysis, the words to trace, the verse by verse notes and where readers differ are written for someone studying alone. They are on the Deep Personal Reflections page for this chapter. This page is the lesson.
A chapter-specific teaching brief
These anchors come from this chapter itself. They help a teacher use the Level 1 overview, the Level 2 study, and the Scripture text as one lesson.
Open with the chapter’s first image
Psalms 78:1: “Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.”
Slow down at the turning point
Psalms 78:38: “But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his…”
Keep this word trail visible
Israel, gave, turned, anger, children, fathers
What to explain, in order
Teach the passage in this order. Each step names the verses it rests on, so every point can be shown in the text before it is applied.
Psalms 78, 105 and 106
Three retellings, one teaching task
Begin by explaining why three long history psalms are taught together. Psalm 78 is a teaching psalm by Asaph that tells Israel's history as a warning. Psalm 105 tells it as praise for God's faithfulness to his promise. Psalm 106 tells it as confession. The same events can be told in all three ways, and Israel needed all three. Teach this first and tell the class that they will not read every verse; they will learn the purpose of each retelling and sample its key moments. Explain that 1 Chronicles 16 uses parts of 105 and 106 when the ark came to Jerusalem.
Psalm 78:1-8
Why children get the archive
Read verses 1-8 carefully. Explain parable and dark sayings as instruction in memorable form, a lesson that needs pondering; Matthew 13:35 applies verse 2 to Jesus' parables. Then show the chain of generations: fathers told us, we will tell our children, they will tell theirs. Teach the purpose of verses 7-8: hope, memory, obedience, and not repeating the past. Ask the class who told them about God. Teach this before any of the history, because it is the reason the history is told.
Psalm 78:9-72
A history of repeated forgetting
Walk quickly through the shape of the rest of Psalm 78. Ephraim's failure, the wonders of Egypt and the sea, water from the rock, the complaint can God furnish a table, manna and quails, judgment, shallow repentance, God's compassion because they were but flesh, the plagues again, the land, idolatry, the loss of the ark at Shiloh. Then the end: God chooses Judah, Zion and David the shepherd. Explain limited the Holy One as putting God to the test, as if setting boundaries on what he could do. Teach the pattern rather than every detail.
Psalm 105:1-45
Joseph was sent ahead
Read 105:1-11 and show the calls to give thanks, seek, remember, and the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Then teach verses 16-22 as the heart of the psalm's providence: God called the famine and sent Joseph ahead; his feet were hurt with fetters until the word of the LORD tried him. Read Genesis 50:20 beside it. Then summarise the plagues and Exodus and read verses 37-45. Show that the gift of the land had a purpose: that they might observe his statutes. Teach this psalm as the joyful remembering of a God who keeps his word.
Psalm 106:1-33
Confession without airbrushing
Now turn to Psalm 106. Read verses 1-8 and stop on verse 6. Then show how the psalm walks through the same history: rebellion at the Red Sea, craving in the wilderness, the envy of Dathan and Abiram, the golden calf, Moses standing in the breach, despising the land, Baal-peor and Phinehas, the waters of Meribah. Explain changed their glory into the similitude of an ox, exchanging the living God for an image of a grass-eating animal, as Romans 1:23 echoes. Teach this as honest confession.
Psalm 106:34-48
The worst, and still mercy
Read verses 34-39 with care. Explain that Israel was mingled among the nations and learned their worst practices, including child sacrifice to the idols of Canaan, condemned in Leviticus 18:21. Handle the command about the nations in verse 34 briefly and pastorally; it belonged to that moment in Israel's history and is not a pattern for anyone now. Then read verses 40-46: judgment, oppression, and nevertheless God heard their cry and remembered his covenant. Teach verse 47 as the prayer of exiles asking to be gathered, and verse 48 as the doxology that closes the fourth book of the Psalms.
Where learners get stuck
The misreadings this passage tends to produce, and how to answer each from the text.
"These psalms are just history lessons, not for us."
Psalm 78 says the history is told so that later generations "might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God" (78:7). Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:6-11 that these events "happened unto them for ensamples" and were written for our admonition. The psalms teach every generation to remember God's works, to recognise the pattern of forgetting in themselves, and to trust God's mercy.
"The people in the wilderness were worse than us."
Psalm 106:6 refuses that thought: "We have sinned with our fathers". The worshipers put themselves inside the history. Forgetting God's past help and doubting his provision, as in 78:19, are common to every generation. Teach learners to read these psalms as a mirror, not a window onto other people's failure, and to confess, as Daniel 9:5 does, "We have sinned".
"God's patience must run out eventually, so there's no hope for people who keep failing."
The psalms show God judging sin seriously, and they also show "many a time turned he his anger away" (78:38) and "Many times did he deliver them" (106:43). Even after exile, Psalm 106:44-47 records God hearing their cry and remembering his covenant. God's patience is not endless indulgence, but his mercy outlasts his people's failures. Teach this to those who think they have failed too often to return.
"Psalm 106:34 means God wants believers to destroy people of other religions."
The command referred to in 106:34 belonged to Israel's entry into Canaan, a unique moment in the history of redemption, and the psalm's concern is that Israel adopted idolatry and child sacrifice (106:35-38). The New Testament gives no such command; Jesus sends his followers to make disciples of all nations by teaching (Matthew 28:19), and Paul says our weapons are not carnal (2 Corinthians 10:4). This verse is never a licence for violence.
Learning objectives
- Explain why Psalm 78 opens with a command to teach children rather than with the first historical event.
- Distinguish the emphases of the three psalms: warning through repeated rebellion, praise for covenant faithfulness, and corporate confession of sin.
- Trace major Exodus and wilderness episodes across the three psalms without forcing identical ordering or detail.
- Identify how forgetting functions as a spiritual danger in Psalm 78 and remembering functions as a duty in Psalm 105.
- Explain how Psalm 106 confesses sins of ancestors using 'we' and 'our' language.
- Show how all three psalms keep God's mercy, covenant, and saving action visible without minimizing Israel's repeated rebellion.
Teacher preparation
- Build a three-column chart labeled Psalm 78, Psalm 105, and Psalm 106 before class; enter each major event in the column where it appears.
- Mark the teaching vocabulary in Psalm 78: law, parable, sayings, fathers, children, generation, testimony, and works.
- Mark the remembering vocabulary in Psalm 105 and the confession vocabulary in Psalm 106.
- Review Exodus, Numbers, and the early settlement accounts enough to recognize the episodes of sea crossing, manna, quail, spies, calf, Korah's rebellion, Meribah, and Canaanite influence.
- Do not turn the lesson into a trivia marathon. Use selected scenes to show why history is being retold differently in each psalm.
Evidence and interpretation checks
Explicit
Psalm 78:5–8 explicitly commands transmission to the next generation so children will set hope in God, remember his works, keep his commandments, and not imitate a stubborn generation.
Scripture-supported
Psalm 105 explicitly grounds the recital in God's covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then follows that promise through Joseph, Exodus, wilderness provision, and the gift of land.
Strong inference
Psalm 106 strongly supports corporate identification with inherited sin because it begins, 'We have sinned with our fathers,' then recounts rebellion using shared covenant language.
Possible or traditional reading
Some historical details are compressed, reordered, or emphasized differently from the Pentateuch because these are poetic theological recitals, not modern chronological transcripts.
Limit
These psalms do not authorize contempt for Israel, racialized readings, or the assumption that recounting sin cancels covenant mercy; each psalm places failure inside a larger theological purpose.
Discussion with answer guidance
1. Why does Psalm 78 begin with children before beginning with Egypt?
What a good answer contains
Because the purpose of the whole history is the next generation. "We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD" (78:4), so "That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born" (78:6), and "That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation" (78:7-8). A good answer sees four aims: know, hope, remember, obey, and the warning not to repeat the fathers' stubbornness. A weak answer treats the opening as a preface rather than the reason for the psalm.
Show teacher guidance
Verses 5–8 state the purpose of the history lesson: the next generation must know, hope, remember, obey, and avoid inherited stubbornness.
2. What repeated failure drives Psalm 78's long recital?
What a good answer contains
Forgetting. Ephraim "forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them" (78:11). In the wilderness, "they tempted God in their heart" and asked, "Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?" (78:18-19). "For all this they sinned still, and believed not for his wondrous works" (78:32). When struck they turned back briefly, but "their heart was not right with him" (78:37), and they "limited the Holy One of Israel" (78:41). A strong answer sees the cycle of forgetting, testing, judgment, shallow return and relapse. A weak answer lists events without seeing the pattern.
Show teacher guidance
Look for forgetting God's works, tempting him, limiting or provoking him, unbelief, and returning again after judgment or mercy.
3. What changes when Psalm 105 retells similar history?
What a good answer contains
Psalm 105 tells the same history almost entirely as God's faithfulness, with no mention of Israel's sin. "He hath remembered his covenant for ever" (105:8); God sent Joseph ahead, "He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant" (105:17), tested "Until the time that his word came" (105:19); then the plagues, the Exodus, the cloud, quails, bread and water. It ends, "For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant" (105:42). A good answer sees that Psalm 105 is thanksgiving, not indictment. A weak answer misses the difference in emphasis.
Show teacher guidance
The spotlight falls more heavily on God's covenant, remembered promise, providential preparation through Joseph, signs in Egypt, provision, and gift of the land.
4. Why does Psalm 106 say 'we have sinned with our fathers' before listing old events?
What a good answer contains
Because the worshipers count themselves in. "We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly" (106:6). They do not tell the past to blame their ancestors; they confess that the same pattern runs through them. A strong answer sees that confession comes before the history, so that the long list that follows is heard as our sin, and notes that Daniel 9 and Nehemiah 9 pray the same way. A weak answer reads Psalm 106 as a list of other people's failures.
Show teacher guidance
The worshipers do not use history to mock previous generations. They confess solidarity with a continuing pattern of covenant failure.
5. Which episodes does Psalm 106 include that make the confession especially uncomfortable?
What a good answer contains
The psalm names the worst episodes. "They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image" (106:19); "they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word" (106:24); "They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor" (106:28); they angered God at the waters of strife so that Moses "spake unadvisedly with his lips" (106:33); and "they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils" (106:37). A good answer sees that the confession does not hide the shameful parts, including child sacrifice. A weak answer stops after the golden calf.
Show teacher guidance
Require examples such as the calf, despising the pleasant land, Baal-peor, Meribah, failure to destroy idolatrous nations, and sacrificing children.
6. What keeps these psalms from ending as a national indictment only?
What a good answer contains
God's mercy runs through all three. In Psalm 78, "he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity" (78:38) and chose David as shepherd (78:70-72). In Psalm 105 God remembers his covenant and promise. In Psalm 106, "Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry: And he remembered for them his covenant" (106:44-45), and the psalm ends with a plea, "Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the heathen" (106:47). A strong answer sees that the history is finally a record of God's patience. A weak answer leaves the class with guilt alone.
Show teacher guidance
God's covenant, remembered mercy, repeated deliverance, chosen shepherd David in Psalm 78, promised land in Psalm 105, and the final plea for gathering in Psalm 106 keep grace visible.
Responsible application
Heart and habits
Use the three psalms to build a memory practice that records both God's faithfulness and human failure, refusing the temptation to preserve only flattering history.
Relationships and community
When teaching institutional history, include the events that explain wounds, corrections, and mercy rather than creating a heroic version that younger members cannot trust.
Teach the children the unedited version
Choose one episode each from rebellion, mercy, and restoration, then explain why Psalm 78 believes the next generation needs all three.
Session plans
Two timings of the same lesson. The shorter keeps the reading, the central discussion and one response; the longer gives the confusions and the application their own time.
45 minutes
Who told you
Ask each person who first told them about God. Then read 78:1-8 and take question one.
Forgetting
Read 78:17-22 and 78:32-41 and take question two. Address confusion one.
Joseph sent ahead
Read 105:1-8 and 105:16-22 and take question three.
We have sinned
Read 106:6-8 and 106:19-24, 106:34-38. Take questions four and five. Address confusions two and four.
Nevertheless
Read 78:38-39 and 106:44-48 and take question six. Address confusion three.
Tell the next generation
Read the key verse together. Ask each person to name one thing God has done that they will tell a younger person, then pray.
90 minutes
Family memory
Ask the group to share a family memory that was passed down to them. Then read 78:1-4.
The purpose
Read 78:1-8 and take question one. Read Deuteronomy 6:6-7.
The cycle
Read selections from Psalm 78: verses 9-11, 17-22, 32-41, 56-58 and 65-72. Take question two. Draw the cycle on the board. Address confusion one with 1 Corinthians 10:6-11.
Thanksgiving
Read 105:1-11, 16-22 and 37-45 with Genesis 50:20. Take question three.
Confession
Read 106:1-8, 13-14, 19-24 and 28-39. Take questions four and five. Address confusions two and four with care.
Mercy
Read 78:38-39 and 106:40-48. Take question six and confusion three.
Our own retelling
In groups, write three sentences about God's faithfulness in your church or family history: one of thanks, one of confession, one of hope.
Handout and prayer
Read the key verse together and pray 106:47-48.
Adapting the lesson
Children
Tell the Exodus and wilderness events with pictures: the sea, water from the rock, manna. Then read 78:4 and say that grown-ups tell children about God so they will trust him too. Teach 78:7, set their hope in God. Leave out the golden calf details, Baal-peor and child sacrifice entirely. Let children tell one thing God has done that they want to remember.
Youth
Ask how families and churches pass on what matters. Read 78:5-8 and talk about what they want to pass on someday. Use the cycle of Psalm 78 to discuss patterns of forgetting God in their own lives. Read Joseph in 105:17-22 for anyone in a hard season. Handle Psalm 106:37-38 briefly and soberly, and address confusion four directly.
Adults
Give time to the three ways of telling the same history, and ask how adults tell their own life with God: as warning, as thanksgiving, as confession. Discuss corporate confession, as in 106:6, Daniel 9 and Nehemiah 9. Address the hard verses about the nations and child sacrifice carefully. Plan how the group will pass faith to the next generation.
One to one
Ask them to tell you briefly the history of their life with God. Then read 105:16-19 if they are in a waiting season, 106:6 if they need to confess, or 78:38 if they fear they have failed too often. Pray with them and encourage them to tell one younger person what God has done.
Song and video learning lab
A song or video may interpret, compress, or dramatize the text. Its value becomes clearer when its choices are compared with Scripture.
- Before the media: the exact passage and its central movement.
- During the media: the words, people, events, and emotions the artist emphasizes.
- After the media: what it clarifies, what it leaves out, and what belongs back in the biblical text.
Handout
One page for learners to take home. The print button prints this section alone.
Psalms 78 and 105–106
The passage in brief
Psalms 78, 105 and 106 retell Israel's history in three ways. Psalm 78 tells it so children will hope in God and not repeat their fathers' forgetfulness and rebellion, and shows God's compassion again and again. Psalm 105 tells it as thanksgiving for God's faithfulness to his promise to Abraham, sending Joseph ahead and bringing his people out of Egypt with joy. Psalm 106 tells it as confession, we have sinned with our fathers, yet ends with God remembering his covenant.
A verse to keep
That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:
Psalms 78:7 · King James Version
Questions to take home
Who told you about God, and who will you tell?
Where do you see the pattern of forgetting God in your own life?
How does Psalm 106:44-45 give hope to people who keep failing?
This week
Tell one younger person this week a specific thing God has done for you or your family.
Music and video connected to the passage
Related media appears when its Scripture reference overlaps this study. Music and video can illuminate a theme while the biblical text remains the foundation.
