42 They did not remember His power , The day when He redeemed them from the adversary , 43 When He performed His signs in Egypt And His marvels in the field of Zoan , 44 And turned their rivers to blood , And their streams , they could not drink . 45 He sent among them swarms of flies which devoured them, And frogs which destroyed them. 46 He gave also their crops to the grasshopper And the product of their labor to the locust . 47 He destroyed their vines with hailstones And their sycamore trees with frost . 48 He gave over their cattle also to the hailstones And their herds to bolts of lightning . 49 He sent upon them His burning anger , Fury and indignation and trouble , A band of destroying angels . 50 He leveled a path for His anger ; He did not spare their soul from death , But gave over their life to the plague , 51 And smote all the firstborn in Egypt , The first issue of their virility in the tents of Ham . 52 But He led forth His own people like sheep And guided them in the wilderness like a flock ; 53 He led them safely , so that they did not fear ; But the sea engulfed their enemies .
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 78:42-53
Commentary on Psalm 78:40-55.
(Read Psalm 78:40-55.)
Let not those that receive mercy from God, be thereby made bold to sin, for the mercies they receive will hasten its punishment; yet let not those who are under Divine rebukes for sin, be discouraged from repentance. The Holy One of Israel will do what is most for his own glory, and what is most for their good. Their forgetting former favours, led them to limit God for the future. God made his own people to go forth like sheep; and guided them in the wilderness, as a shepherd his flock, with all care and tenderness. Thus the true Joshua, even Jesus, brings his church out of the wilderness; but no earthly Canaan, no worldly advantages, should make us forget that the church is in the wilderness while in this world, and that there remaineth a far more glorious rest for the people of God.