Psalms 78:41

King James Version

Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.

Parallel Translations

English Standard Version
They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Yea, they returned, & tempted God, and limited the Holie one of Israel.

Christian Standard Bible®
They constantly tested Godand provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Hebrew Names Version
They turned again and tempted God, And provoked the Holy One of Yisra'el.

Easy-to-Read Version
Again and again they tested his patience. They really hurt the Holy One of Israel.

Amplified Bible
Again and again they tempted God, And distressed the Holy One of Israel.

American Standard Version
And they turned again and tempted God, And provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Contemporary English Version
They kept testing him and caused terrible pain for the Holy One of Israel.

Complete Jewish Bible
Repeatedly they challenged God and pained the Holy One of Isra'el.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
And still again they tried God, and set bounds to the Holy One of Israel.

King James Version (1611)
Yea they turned backe and tempted God: and limited the holy one of Israel.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Yea, they turned back, and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

English Revised Version
And they turned again and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Berean Standard Bible
Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Lexham English Bible
So they again tested God and distressed the Holy One of Israel.

Literal Translation
Yea, they turned back and tested God, and pained the Holy One of Israel.

New Century Version
Again and again they tested God and brought pain to the Holy One of Israel.

New English Translation
They again challenged God, and offended the Holy One of Israel.

New King James Version
Yes, again and again they tempted God, And limited the Holy One of Israel.

New Living Translation
Again and again they tested God's patience and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

New Life Bible
They put God to the test again and again, and troubled the Holy One of Israel.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Yea they again put GOD to the test, And, to the Holy One of Israel, caused they sorrow:

Douay-Rheims Bible
(77-41) And they turned back and tempted God: and grieved the holy one of Israel.

George Lamsa Translation
Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and defied the Holy One of Israel.

Good News Translation
Again and again they put God to the test and brought pain to the Holy God of Israel.

New American Standard Bible
Again and again they tempted God, And pained the Holy One of Israel.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
They turned backe and tempted the Lorde: and prescribed boundes to the most holy [God] of Israel.

New Revised Standard
They tested God again and again, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Darby Translation
And they turned again and tempted God, and grieved the Holy One of Israel.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
And thei weren turned, and temptiden God; and thei wraththiden the hooli of Israel.

Young's Literal Translation
Yea, they turn back, and try God, And the Holy One of Israel have limited.

World English Bible
They turned again and tempted God, And provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Revised Standard Version
They tested him again and again, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Update Bible Version
And they turned again and tempted God, And provoked the Holy One of Israel.

Webster's Bible Translation
Yes, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.

Bible in Basic English
Again they put God to the test, and gave pain to the Holy One of Israel.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
O how oft haue they greued him in the wildernesse? How many a tyme haue they prouoked him in the deserte?

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Again and again they tempted God, And pained the Holy One of Israel.

Legacy Standard Bible
Again and again they tested God,And pained the Holy One of Israel.

Contextual Overview

⁴⁰ How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! ⁴¹ Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. ⁴² They remembered not his hand, nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy. ⁴³ How he had wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Zoan. ⁴⁴ And had turned their rivers into blood; and their floods, that they could not drink. ⁴⁵ He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them. ⁴⁶ He gave also their increase unto the caterpiller, and their labour unto the locust. ⁴⁷ He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycomore trees with frost. ⁴⁸ He gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts. ⁴⁹ He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Yea: Numbers 14:4, Numbers 14:22, Deuteronomy 6:16, Acts 7:39, Hebrews 3:8-11, 2 Peter 2:21, 2 Peter 2:22

limited: Psalms 78:19, Psalms 78:20, Mark 5:35, Mark 5:36

Reciprocal: Exodus 17:2 - wherefore Numbers 11:23 - Is the Lord's Numbers 14:11 - believe me 1 Samuel 15:11 - turned 2 Kings 7:2 - if the Lord Psalms 78:56 - General Psalms 78:57 - But Psalms 95:9 - When Psalms 101:3 - them Psalms 106:14 - tempted Ezekiel 20:13 - rebelled Malachi 3:15 - they that tempt Matthew 4:7 - Thou John 6:9 - but John 11:21 - if Acts 5:9 - to tempt

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Yea, they turned back, and tempted God,.... They talked of going back to Egypt, and of choosing a captain to lead them back thither, Numbers 14:3, and they turned back from the Lord, and from his good ways, and chose their own ways, and followed after idols; or the sense is, they again tempted God, not only at Meribah, but elsewhere; they tempted him again and again, even ten times, as before observed:

and limited the Holy One of Israel; or "signed" d him; signed him with a sign, so the Targum; they tempted him by asking a sign of him, as Jarchi interprets it; insisting that a miracle be wrought, by which it might be known whether the Lord was among them or not, Exodus 17:7, with which compare Matthew 16:1, or they set bounds, so Kimchi; to his power and goodness, saying, this he could do, and the other he could not; see Psalms 78:19, and so men limit the Lord when they fix on a blessing they would have, even that, and not another; and the measure of it, to what degree it should be bestowed on them, as well as set the time when they would have it; whereas the blessing itself, and the degree of it, and the time of giving it, should be all left with the Lord; who knows which and what of it is most convenient for us, and when is the best time to bestow it on us.

d התוו "signaverunt", Pagninus.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Yea, they turned back, and tempted God - They turned away from his service; they were disposed to return to Egypt, and to place themselves in the condition in which they were before they were delivered from bondage.

And limited the Holy One of Israel - The idea is, that they set a limit to the power of God; they fancied or alleged - (and this is a thing often done practically even by the professed people of God) - that there was a boundary in respect to power which he could not pass, or that there were things to be done which he had not the ability to perform. The original word - תוה tâvâh - occurs but three times in the Scriptures; in 1 Samuel 21:13, where it is rendered scrabbled (in the margin, made marks); in Ezekiel 9:4, where it is rendered set, that is, set a mark (margin, mark); and in the place before us. It is rendered here by the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, to provoke to anger. DeWette translates it troubled. Professor Alexander, “On the Holy One of Israel (they) set a mark.” The idea in the word would seem to be that of making a mark for any purpose; and then it means to delineate; to scrawl; or to set a mark for a limit or boundary. Thus it might be applied to God - as if, in estimating his character or his power, they set limits or bounds to it, as one does in marking out a farm or a house-lot in a city or town. There was a limit, in their estimation, to the power of God, beyond which he could not act; or, in other words, his power was defined and bounded, so that beyond a certain point he could not aid them.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Psalms 78:41. Limited the Holy One of Israel. — The Chaldee translates, "And the Holy One of Israel they signed with a sign." The Hebrew word התוו hithvu is supposed to come from the root תוה tavah, which signifies to mark; and hence the letter ת tau, which in the ancient Hebrew character had the form of a cross X, had its name probably because it was used as a mark. Mr. Bate observes that in hithpael it signifies to challenge or accuse; as one who gives his mark or pledge upon a trial, and causes his adversary to do the same. Here it most obviously means an insult offered to God.