They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.
Parallel translations
- WEB They tempted God in their heart by asking food according to their desire.
- KJV And they tempted God in their heart by asking meat for their lust.
- NKJV And they tested God in their heart By asking for the food of their fancy.
- NASB And in their heart they put God to the test By asking for food that suited their taste.
- NLT They stubbornly tested God in their hearts, demanding the foods they craved.
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
Israel tested God by demanding food to satisfy their own appetites rather than trusting His provision. It exposes how craving can become a form of unbelief.
Overview
Asaph recounts the wilderness generation deliberately putting God to the test, demanding food on their own terms. The phrase 'in their heart' shows the sin was inward before it was spoken. Such testing of God's goodness is the opposite of the trusting faith Christ commends, who Himself refused to test God when tempted in the wilderness (Matthew 4).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Num 11:4Meanwhile, the rabble among them had a strong craving for other food, and again the Israelites wept and said, “Who will feed us meat?
- Deut 6:16Do not test the LORD your God as you tested Him at Massah.
- 1 Cor 10:9We should not test Christ, as some of them did, and were killed by snakes.
- 1 Cor 10:6These things took place as examples to keep us from craving evil things as they did.
- Ps 106:14–15They craved intensely in the wilderness and tested God in the desert.
- Exod 16:2–3And there in the desert they all grumbled against Moses and Aaron.
- Ps 95:9where your fathers tested and tried Me, though they had seen My work.
- Jas 4:2–3You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask.
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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 78:18 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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