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Psalm 78:57
but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were twisted like a deceitful bow.
55He also drove out the nations before them, allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
56Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and didn’t keep his testimonies,
57but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were twisted like a deceitful bow.
58For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.
59When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel,
Notice
A deceitful bow makes Israel’s repeated treachery tangible: the people settled by God turn back from him in the same way their fathers did.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
What does the image of a deceitful bow reveal about the betrayal described here?
Write on thisWhich inherited habits, if any, might make faithfulness to God harder for you?
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Where else Scripture says this
12 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Malachi 3:6“For I, the LORD, don’t change; therefore you, sons of Jacob, are not consumed.Psalm 78 describes Israel turning back; Malachi addresses Jacob’s descendants with God’s declaration that he does not change.
Hosea 7:16They return, but not to the Most High. They are like a faulty bow. Their princes will fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue. This will be their …Both compare the people to an unreliable bow and describe a turning that takes them away from God.
Psalm 44:18Our heart has not turned back, neither have our steps strayed from your path,Both speak of turning back, but Psalm 44 denies the departure that Psalm 78 recounts.
Psalm 78:9The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.Bows and turning back appear in both verses, linking Ephraim’s retreat in battle with the later description of treachery.
Ezekiel 20:27–28“Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel, and tell them, ‘The Lord GOD says: “Moreover, in this your fathers have blasphemed me, in that they have …Both name the fathers’ wrongdoing against God, placing Israel’s present conduct within a history of unfaithfulness.
Psalm 101:3I will set no vile thing before my eyes. I hate the deeds of faithless men. They will not cling to me.Both name faithlessness, with Psalm 78 recounting it and Psalm 101 rejecting the deeds of faithless men.
1 Samuel 15:11“It grieves me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments.” Samuel was angry; and he …Saul’s turning back from following God echoes Israel’s turning back, with disobedience to God’s commands named in both settings.
Judges 3:5–7The children of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.The shared thread is Israel’s history; Judges names their neighbors, while the psalm describes their treachery toward God.
Psalm 78:8and might not be as their fathers— a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with …Both identify the fathers as an example of unfaithfulness, and verse 57 records the repetition that verse 8 warns against.
Jeremiah 11:10They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words. They have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel …Both describe the people turning back to their fathers’ wrongdoing, repeating an earlier generation’s betrayal of God.
Hebrews 8:9not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they didn’t …Both recount Israel’s failure to remain faithful to God, with Hebrews naming their failure to continue in his covenant.
Numbers 32:14“Behold, you have risen up in your fathers’ place, an increase of sinful men, to increase the fierce anger of the LORD toward Israel.Both describe a generation repeating its fathers’ wrongdoing, with God’s anger named in the surrounding psalm and in Numbers.
Where this verse fits
Guilt and confession. temptation. sermon or Bible study notes.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
The warning is worth taking to heart: repeating a family’s faithlessness remains a betrayal of God, even when that pattern has a long history.
Now put it in your words.
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).