Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 78:4

We will not hide [them] from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.

We will not hide them from their children – From their descendants, however remote. We of this generation will be faithful in handing down these truths to future times. We stand between past generations and the generations to come. We are entrusted by those who have gone before us with great and important truths; truths to be preserved and transmitted in their purity to future ages. That trust committed to us we will faithfully discharge. These truths shall not suffer in passing from us to them. They shall not be stayed in their progress; they shall not be corrupted or impaired. This is the duty of each successive generation in the world, receiving, as a trust, from past generations, the result of their thoughts, their experience, their wisdom, their inventions, their arts, their sciences, and the records of their doings, to hand these down unimpaired to future ages, combined with all that they may themselves invent or discover which may be of use or advantage to the generations following.

Shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord – The reasons why he should be praised, as resulting from his past doings – and the wags in which it should be done. We will keep up, and transmit to future times, the pure institutions of religion.

And his strength – The records of his power.

And his wonderful works that he hath done – In the history of his people, and in his many and varied interpositions in their behalf.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Psa 78:4

We will not hide them from their children.

Children

I. The interesting objects of our solicitude mentioned. Consider–

1. The love which welcomes them.

2. The evils which surround them.

3. The possibilities which await them.

II. The sacred duties which we owe to them.

1. They are weak; we must protect them (Gen 33:1-20.).

2. They are helpless; we must provide for them.

3. They are ignorant; we must instruct them.

III. The object which we hope shall be realized.

1. The knowledge of truth shall be perpetuated.

2. Our children will put their hope in God.

3. They shall be better than their fathers. (The Study.)

The knowledge of national benefits and deliverances transmitted to the rising generation

I. Point out a few of those things which we have heard and known, or which our fathers have told us, and which we, with the psalmist, may style The praises of the Lord, and His strength, and the wonderful works that He hath done.

II. Recommend and enforce the resolution in my text. The great Gad may justly expect that we acquaint ourselves with His ways and works; that we endeavour to trace Him in the natural, providential, and civil world, and in the world of grace; and that we treasure up in our hearts each signal deliverance He hath wrought. But a genuine disciple of Jesus, and a child of God, will neither wish to live nor to die unto himself. What we have known of the wonderful works of God in favour of our fathers, of ourselves, or of ages to come, we should transmit to the rising generation. I am apprehensive that one cause of the languishing state of public spirit, and of pious zeal, in this age, is the want of knowledge. Had the minds of persons in the present day been early and deeply impressed with the conduct of God to this highly favoured country, the privileges they enjoy would be more dear and important in their esteem, and patriotism would not be that empty boast which we have too much reason to apprehend it now is. With the knowledge of those things we have heard, and known, and which our fathers have told us, transmit, as far as possible, the things themselves. On our part let nothing be left untried, that they who are soon to fill our places in civil and religious life, and that their descendants, even to the worlds last period, may stand forth, under God, the guardians of each important and sacred right, and approve themselves the unshaken friends of their country, of Jesus, and of the Gospel. (N. Hill.)

The transmission of Scriptural truth to posterity

The text presents four grand arguments why we should zealously devote ourselves to this duty.

I. The peculiar character of scriptural truth. Consider it–

1. As a revelation of God.

2. As a law of duty.

3. As a history of Gods conduct.

II. The manner in which we have been put into its possession. As we have received the knowledge of God and the way of happiness from our fathers, who showed us by their lips and their lives the way of happiness, we are bound, by every consideration of gratitude, to give to others what has been so freely given to us.

III. The divine arrangements as to its transmission. Fathers are commanded to make known the commands and the character of Gad to their children. Various powerful reasons might be assigned for this infinitely wise arrangement. The young come into our world with an awfully strong bias to evil, and it is unspeakably important to check the workings of their depravity by presenting the most powerful considerations which tend to the accomplishment of such an end. Nor must it be forgotten here, that, as immortal creatures, the character of man is usually formed in youth for eternity.

IV. The great results which it is intended to accomplish. Every individual who receives the knowledge of God, in the love of it, becomes a moral sun, diffusing light and warmth around him, the glorious effects of which shall be felt through all the changes of time, and in eternity itself. (J. Belcher.)

The true method by which generation helps generation

I. True religious knowledge is a thing imparted to man. It is that which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. It is not inbred nor discovered. Without denying that man has a capacity to discover God as the Creator, all history shows that he has never done so; and as to His redeeming capacity, that, in the nature of the case, transcends all human conceptions. As sinners, this is the knowledge of God we require, and it involves the former. And we have it, not by intuition or discovery, but by impartation. It has been transmitted to us through many generations.

1. They have handed it down to us by inspired documents.

2. They have handed it down to us by their own teaching.

II. True religious knowledge is imparted to us, not to monopolize, but to transmit (Psa 78:5-8). The transmittory arrangement implies–

1. That the children of every generation have a capacity for receiving this knowledge. There is no danger of teaching religion boo soon.

2. That the children of every generation will require this knowledge. Coming generations may not require our philosophies, poetries, and governments; they may out-grow our sciences, and despise our civilization, but they will require our religion. Though they may not require our lamps, they will need our sun.

3. The eternal harmony of all Gods operations. The Eternal does not contradict Himself. The first Divine act on earths theatre will harmonize with the last. The whole will form one great anthem filling eternity with music.

III. True religious knowledge is to be thus transmitted in order to elevate posterity.

1. The grand result aimed at is threefold–

(1) Rightness of intellect. Not forget the works of God. A constant recognition of Divine agency.

(2) Rightness of heart. That they might set their hope in God, and set their heart aright; the heart fixed on God as the supreme Good.

(3) Rightness of conduct. Keep His commandments. To bring immortal man to this sublime rightness–this rightness in thought, feeling, and action, is the grand and ultimate end of all this teaching. Glorious end!

2. It is coming slowly but surely. Humanity is rising, and every true thought arid virtuous act helps it on. (Homilist.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 4. We will not hide them] In those ancient times there was very little reading, because books were exceedingly scarce; tradition was therefore the only, or nearly the only, means of preserving the memory of past events. They were handed down from father to son by parables or pithy sayings, and by chronological poems. This very Psalm is of this kind, and must have been very useful to the Israelites, as giving instructions concerning their ancient history, and recounting the wonderful deeds of the Almighty in their behalf.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

The praises, i.e. his glorious and praiseworthy actions, as the following words explain it.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

We will not hide them from their children,…. The children of the Jewish fathers, but faithfully publish and declare them, as Christ and his apostles did; or the children of God and Christ, their spiritual seed and offspring:

showing to the generation to come; and so in all successive ages, by the ministration of the word, and the Spirit attending it; see

Ps 22:30,

the praises of the Lord; what he has done in predestination, redemption, and effectual calling, which is to the praise of the glory of his grace, Eph 1:6, and so all other truths of the Gospel, which are to the praise of Father, Son, and Spirit, and engage men to show it forth:

and his strength displayed; in Christ, the man of his right hand, made strong for himself, and in the redemption wrought out by him, as well as in the conversion of sinners by his mighty grace, and in the preservation of them by his power:

and his wonderful works that he hath done; in providence and grace; the miracles wrought by Christ, which were the wonderful works given him to finish, as proofs of his deity and Messiahship, and are testified in the Gospel for the confirmation of it; and especially the wonders of redeeming love, and calling grace, which are peculiarly to be ascribed unto him as the works his hands have wrought, and the wonderful decrees of God he made in eternity concerning these things.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

4. We will not conceal them from their children in the generation to come. Some take the verb נכחד, nechached, in the nephil conjugation, and translate it, they are not concealed or hidden. But it ought, according to the rules of grammar, to be resolved thus: — We will not conceal them from our posterity, implying, that what we have been taught by our ancestors we should endeavor to transmit to their children. By this means, all pretense of ignorance is removed; for it was the will of God that these things should be published from age to age without interruption; so that being transmitted from father to child in each family, they might reach even the last family of man. The end for which this was to be done is shown — that they might celebrate the praises of Jehovah, in the wonderful works which he hath done

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

How lovely is it to behold, even from the days of the patriarchs, the care and attention with which the fathers handed down the testimony they had received concerning the promised seed. Hence we find Abraham telling Isaac, and Isaac Jacob, and Jacob, when dying, holding forth to his children, the blessing of redemption by Christ, upon which their own souls had lived, and with which they were most familiarly acquainted. Gen 50:24Gen 50:24 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Psa 78:4 We will not hide [them] from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.

Ver. 4. We will not hide them from their children ] The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit with, 1Co 12:7 , neither is any one born (much less born again) for himself; but must be as useful as may be in his generation,

Paulum sepultae distat inertiae

Celata virtus – (Hor.).

The praises of the Lord ] The praise worthy acts of God for his people, and against their enemies; for these two are not sundered, Phi 1:28 .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)