Psalms 77 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
Monarchy or exile period, roughly 1000 to 500 BC, from the Asaph collection of temple songs
Location
Unspecified, a setting of sleepless night-time prayer, with the poem's memory travelling back to the Red Sea
Audience
Israelite worshippers facing a national disaster that seemed to contradict God's past record
Situation
A man lies awake asking whether God has permanently given up on his people. Halfway through he changes tactics and deliberately rehearses the exodus, when God brought Israel through the sea.
Key Background
The turn in this psalm shows a standard Israelite way of handling doubt, which was not to argue the feeling away but to recite shared national history until the present looked different. The storm language of thunder, lightning and shaking earth describes God's presence, a way of speaking about a divine appearance that Israel shared with its neighbours' poetry. The line about God's footprints being unseen in the water is the poem's own admission that the rescue was real even though the mechanism was hidden.
I out to with my voice — to with my voice, and he listens to me.
On the day everything fell apart, I for the Lord. All night long my hands were stretched out and wouldn't drop. My soul to be
I think of God and I groan. I dwell on it and my spirit collapses. Selah.
You my through the watches of the night. I am so shaken I can't even speak.
I think back to the days, the years that have long since passed.
I remember my in the night. I turn it over in my heart; my spirit for answers.
"Will the Lord us forever? Will he never show his again?
Has his disappeared for good? Has his died out, generation after generation?
Has God forgotten how to be compassionate? Has his anger slammed the door on his tenderness?" Selah.
And then I said, "This is what tears me apart — that the of the Most has changed."
But I will remember what has done. Yes — I will remember the you did long ago.
I will everything you've made, and with every powerful thing you've done.
God, your way runs through the that to you. What god is as great as our God?
You are the God who does things explanation. You showed the what your strength looks like.
With your own arm, you your people — the sons and daughters of and Joseph. Selah.
The waters saw you, God — the waters saw you and writhed. The itself shook.
The clouds poured out water, the skies cracked with thunder, and your of lightning flew in every direction.
Your thunder rolled through the whirlwind, lightning lit up the whole world, and the earth trembled and shook.
Your cut straight through the sea, your path ran through the waters, and no one could trace your
You your people like a flock, guided by the hands of and Aaron.