They did not keep God’s covenant and refused to live by his instructions.
Parallel translations
- WEB They didn’t keep God’s covenant, and refused to walk in his law.
- KJV They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law;
- BSB They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.
- NKJV They did not keep the covenant of God; They refused to walk in His law,
- NASB They did not keep the covenant of God And refused to walk in His Law;
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
They did not keep God's covenant and refused to walk in His law.
Overview
The root of Israel's failure was covenant unfaithfulness and unwillingness to obey God's instruction. Their disobedience was a deliberate refusal, not mere weakness. This diagnosis of rebellion sets the pattern the psalm traces, highlighting the constant tension between God's faithfulness and His people's faithlessness.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Deut 31:20For when I have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they have eaten and filled themselves, and grown fat; then they will turn to other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant.
- Judg 2:10–12After all that generation were gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them, who didn’t know Yahweh, nor the work which he had done for Israel.
- Deut 31:16Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers. This people will rise up, and play the prostitute after the strange gods of the land, where they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.
- Neh 9:26–29“Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, cast your law behind their back, killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies.
- Jer 31:32not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says Yahweh.
- 2 Kgs 17:14–15Notwithstanding, they would not listen, but hardened their neck, like the neck of their fathers, who didn’t believe in Yahweh their God.
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 78:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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