Psalms 78:9

The children of Ephraim being armed, and carrying bows,.... Or "casting" arrows out of the "bow" (a); they went out well armed to meet the enemy, and they trusted in their armour, and not in the

The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. -The Israelites failed to realize the high destination which was the very object for which God called them into national existence.

The children of Ephraim: this passage concerns, either, 1. The tribe of Ephraim, and some exploit of theirs, wherein they met with this disaster; whether it were that mentioned , or some other not particularly related in any other place of Scripture. For we must not think that all the actions and events of the several tribes are recorded in Scripture, but only some of the most memorable ones. Or, 2. The ten tribes, who are very frequently called Ephraim, because that tribe was the chief of them, and the seat of the kingdom. And so this is referred by some to the captivity of the ten tribes, 2 Kings 17, although the historical references of this Psalm seem not to go beyond David’ s time. Or rather, 3. All the tribes and people of Israel, who are sometimes designed by the name of Ephraim, as ,18,20 Zechariah 10:7; as well they might be, because of the eminency of this tribe, out of which came Joshua their first governor in Canaan, and in which the ark of God continued for a long time, and whose people were both most numerous and most valiant; and therefore they are fitly named for all, to show that this slaughter was not made amongst them for any defect of power or courage in them, but merely from God’ s just judgment upon them for their sins here following. And that Ephraim is here put for all Israel seems to be evident from the following verses, wherein the sins upon which this overthrow is charged are manifestly the sins of all the children of Israel, and they who are here called Ephraim, are called Jacob and Israel, . And so this passage is by divers learned interpreters referred unto that dreadful overthrow related 1Sa 4; wherein they did not stand to fight, but turned their backs and fled, as is there expressed, which though it reached all Israel, yet Ephraim is particularly named, because as the ark, so the fight, was in that tribe; and therefore it may be presumed that the Ephraimites were a very considerable part of that Israelitish army. And the psalmist having related this amazing providence and judgment of God upon his own people, he falls into a large discourse of the causes of it, to wit, the great, and manifold, and continual sins of that and the former generations; which having prosecuted from hence to , he there returns to this history, and relates the sad consequences of that disaster, to wit, the captivity of the ark, and God’ s forsaking of Shiloh and Ephraim, and removing thence to the tribe of Judah and Mount Zion, the reason of which change of place he designed to give in the relation of this passage. Bows; which includes arrows; and these being then the chiefest and most common weapons, are put for all other arms.

Psalms 78:9 The children of Ephraim, [being] armed, [and] carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.Ver. 9. The children of Ephraim being armed, &c.] This the Rabbis interpret of eight thousand Ephraimites, who would needs break prison, as it were, out of Egypt (before the time that God had set for their deliverance thence), and seize upon Palestine, the promised land; but with evil success; for they were slain by the men of Gath, to the great grief of their father Ephraim, 1 Chronicles 7:21-23, and to the increase of their servitude in Egypt, Exodus 1:8-14 This is historia Caballica. See R. Solomon on those words, Exodus 15:14, the people shall hear and be afraid; sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina, who, remembering what a slaughter they once made of these Ephraimites, shall fear the just revenge of that cruelty. Others interpret this text by Judges 1:29, and some by 2 Kings 17:1-18, with Hosea 10:6-8, &c., but this to me seemeth most likey. These are ancient things, and of such the psalmist promiseth to treat, Psalms 78:2-3. Being armed and carrying bows] Trusting to their own strength and warlike preparations, and choosing rather to be counted temerarious than timorous. Turned back in the day of battle] Carnal confidence seldom comes home otherwise than weeping.

(9) Armed, and carrying bows.—Following Jeremiah 4:29, and from analogy with Jeremiah 44:9 (“handle and bend the bow”) we get as literal rendering of the Hebrew here, drawing and shooting with the bow. LXX. and Vulgate, “bending and shooting with the bow.” But a close comparison of this verse with Psalms 78:57 of this psalm, and with Hosea 7:16, has suggested to a recent commentator a much more satisfactory explanation, The sons of Ephraim (are like men) drawing slack bowstrings which turn back in the day of battle. “Both the disappointment on the day of battle and the cause of the disappointment, which are mentioned in the text, will be appreciated by the English reader who remembers that the result of the battle of Creçy was determined at the outset by a shower of rain which relaxed the strings of our enemy’s bows” (Burgess, Notes on the Hebrew Psalms.)[15] [15] This translation assumes that the primitive meaning of the verb râmah is was slack. Certainly the root idea of the word (comp. the cognate râphah and the meaning of the derivation in Proverbs 10:4; Proverbs 12:24) seems to have been relaxation. That turned back, both here and in Psalms 78:57, refers to the recoil of a bow, seems indubitable. By taking this sense of a comparison of the general character of Ephraim to a bow with a relaxed string that fails at the moment it is wanted (a figure made more expressive by the fact that archery was a practice in which Ephraim excelled), we are freed from the necessity of conjecturing a particular incident to account for this verse, which seems to break the sequence of thought. The whole historical retrospect is intended to lead up to the rejection of the northern kingdom (represented by Ephraim), but the poet is unable to keep back his climax, and thrusts it in here almost parenthetically.

Verse 9. The children of Ephraim - turned back] This refers to some defeat of the Ephraimites; and some think to that by the men of Gath, mentioned 1 Chronicles 7:21. R. D. Kimchi says this defeat of the Ephraimites was in the desert; and although the story be not mentioned in the law, yet it is written in the Books of the Chronicles, where we read, on the occasion of "Zabad the Ephraimite, and Shuthelah, c., whom the men of Gath, who were born in the land, slew and Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him," 1 Chronicles 7:20-22: but to what defeat of the Ephraimites this refers is not certainly known; probably the Israelites after the division of the two kingdoms are intended.

9–16. Israel’s disobedience and ingratitude, in spite of all God’s mercies to them at the Exodus and in the wilderness.

The children of Ephraim - The sons of Ephraim; that is, the descendants of Ephraim; the tribe of Ephraim.

9. The psalmist has introduced his subject, and prepared the way for the admonitory rehearsal of God’s acts of sovereign authority toward the nation.