Psalms 78:48

He gave over their livestock also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.

World English Bible
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Other translations

WEBBE

He also gave over their livestock to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.

BSB

He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.

KJV

He gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.

ASV

He gave over their cattle also to the hail, And their flocks to hot thunderbolts.

BBE

Ice was rained down on their cattle; thunderstorms sent destruction among the flocks.

Original Hebrew

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The early church

I say then of these crooked and embittering persons, "How often they exasperated Him in the desert, and provoked Him to wrath in the waterless place!" [Psalm 78:40]. "And they turned themselves and tempted God, and exasperated the Holy One of Israel" [Psalm 78:41]. He is repeating that same unbelief of theirs, of which He had made mention above. But the reason of the repetition is, in order that there may be mentioned also the plagues which He inflicted on the Egyptians for their sakes: all which things they certainly ought to have remembered, and not to be ungrateful. Lastly, there follows what? "They remembered not His hands, in the day when He redeemed them from the hand of the troubler" [Psalm 78:42]. And he begins to speak of what things He did to the Egyptians: "He set in Egypt His signs, and His prodigies in the plain of Thanis" [Psalm 78:43]: "and He turned their rivers into blood, and their showers lest they should drink" [Psalm 78:44], or rather, "the flowings of waters," as some do better understand by what is written in Greek, τὰ ὀμβρήματα, which in Latin we call scaturigines, waters bubbling from beneath. "He sent upon them the dog-fly, and it ate them up; and the frog, and it destroyed them" [Psalm 78:45]. "And He gave their fruit to the mildew, and their labours to the locust" [Psalm 78:46]. "And He slew with hail their vineyards, and their mulberry trees with frost" [Psalm 78:47]. "And He gave over to the hail their beasts of burden, and their possessions to the fire" [Psalm 78:48]. "He sent upon them the anger of His indignation, indignation and anger and tribulation, a visitation through evil angels" [Psalm 78:49]. He made a way to the course of His anger, and their beasts of burden He shut up in death [Psalm 78:50]. "And He smote every first-born thing in the land of Egypt, the first-fruits of their labours in the tabernacles of Cham" [Psalm 78:51].
Augustine of Hippo · d. 430Expositions on the Psalms

Commentary

Matthew Henry · Verses 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.

Read Matthew Henry on Psalm 78 →

Spurgeon · Verse 48

He gave up their cattle also to the hail. What hail it must have been to have force enough to batter down bullocks and other great beasts. God usually protects animals from such destruction, but here he withdraws his safeguards and gave them up: may the Lord never give us up. Some read, "shut up, "and the idea of being abandoned to destructive influences is then before us in another shape. And their flocks to hot thunderbolts. Fire was mingled with the hail, the fire ran along upon the ground, it smote the smaller cattle. What a storm must that have been: its effects were terrible enough upon plants, but to see the poor dumb creatures stricken must have been heartbreaking. Adamantine was that heart which quailed not under such plagues as these, harder than adamant those hearts which in after years forgot all that the Lord had done, and broke off from their allegiance to him.

Read Spurgeon on Psalm 78 →

Cross-references

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Cross-references: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. Hebrew and Greek data from STEPBible.org (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0. Library: sources.