Bible Strands
Psalms 78:10
They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses Israel, recounting their historical failures immediately after noting Ephraim's archers fleeing battle. This occurs within a broader recitation of Israel's repeated disobedience following God's deliverance.
The words — The Hebrew phrase שָ֭מְרוּ בְּרִית אֱלֹהִים (shamru berit Elohim) translates literally to "they kept God's covenant," while מֵאֲנ֥וּ לָלֶֽכֶת (me'anu la-lekhet) means "they refused to walk." These terms directly frame the verse's declaration of covenant violation and disobedience.
The thread — This pattern of covenant failure and law-rejection echoes in Deuteronomy 31:20 and Deuteronomy 31:16, where Israel's future rebellion is warned, and in Judges 2:10, where a new generation "did not know the LORD." The same cycle of forgetting and refusing repeats across Israel's history.
Why it lands — The text records Israel's explicit rejection of divine instruction without excuse or qualification. A reader must confront the directI have to answer now.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law;
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 31:20 When I have brought them into the land that I swore to give their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey, they will eat their fill and prosper. Then they will turn to other gods and worship them, and they will reject Me and break My covenant.
- Deuteronomy 31:16 And the LORD said to Moses, “You will soon rest with your fathers, and these people will rise up and prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake Me and break the covenant I have made with them.
- Judges 2:10 After that whole generation had also been gathered to their fathers, another generation rose up who did not know the LORD or the works that He had done for Israel.
- Nehemiah 9:26 But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.
- 2 Kings 17:14 But they would not listen, and they stiffened their necks like their fathers, who did not believe the LORD their God.
- Jeremiah 31:32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.