Study Desk

People^[b] ate the bread of angels.^[c] He sent them an abundant supply of food.^(z)

He made the east wind blow in the skies and drove the south wind by His might.^(aa)

He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the seas.

He made them fall in His camp, all around His tent.^[d][e](ab)

They ate and were completely satisfied, for He gave them what they craved.^(ac)

Before they had satisfied their desire, while the food was still in their mouths,

God's anger flared up against them, and He killed some of their best men. He struck down Israel's choice young men.^(ad)

Despite all this, they kept sinning and did not believe His wonderful works.^(ae)

He made their days end in futility, their years in sudden disaster.^(af)

When He killed some of them, the rest began to seek Him; they repented and searched for God.^(ag)

They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their Redeemer.^(ah)

But they deceived Him with their mouths, they lied to Him with their tongues,^(ai)

their hearts were insincere toward Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.^(aj)

Yet He was compassionate; He atoned for^[f] their guilt and did not destroy them. He often turned His anger aside and did not unleash^[g] all His wrath.^(ak)

He remembered that they were only flesh, a wind that passes and does not return.^(al)

How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert.

They constantly tested God^(am) and provoked the Holy One of Israel.^(an)

They did not remember His power shown on the day He redeemed them from the foe,^(ao)

when He performed His miraculous signs in Egypt and His wonders in the region of Zoan.^(ap)

He turned their rivers into blood, and they could not drink from their streams.^(aq)

He sent among them swarms of flies,^(ar) which fed on them, and frogs, which devastated them.^(as)

He gave their crops to the caterpillar and the fruit of their labor to the locust.^(at)

He killed their vines with hail and their sycamore fig trees with a flood.

He handed over their livestock to hail and their cattle to lightning bolts.^(au)

He sent His burning anger against them: fury, indignation, and calamity— a band of deadly messengers.^[h](av)

He cleared a path for His anger. He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague.^(aw)

He struck all the firstborn^(ax) in Egypt, the first progeny of the tents of Ham.^[i](ay)

He led His people out like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.^(az)

He led them safely, and they were not afraid; but the sea covered their enemies.^(ba)

He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand acquired.^(bb)

He drove out nations before them.^(bc) He apportioned their inheritance by lot and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.^(bd)

But they rebelliously tested the Most High God, for they did not keep His decrees.^(be)

They treacherously turned away like their fathers; they became warped like a faulty bow.^(bf)

They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their carved images.^(bg)

God heard and became furious; He completely rejected Israel.^(bh)

He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent where He resided among men.^[j](bi)

He gave up His strength^[k] to captivity and His splendor to the hand of a foe.^(bj)

He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged with His heritage.^(bk)

Fire consumed His chosen young men, and His young women had no wedding songs.^[l](bl)

His priests fell by the sword, but the^[m] widows could not lament.^[n](bm)

Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep, like a warrior from the effects of wine.^(bn)

He beat back His foes; He gave them lasting shame.^(bo)

He rejected the tent of Joseph and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.

He chose instead the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.^(bp)

He built His sanctuary like the heights,^[o] like the earth that He established forever.^(bq)

He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds;^(br)

He brought him from tending ewes to be shepherd over His people Jacob— over Israel, His inheritance.^(bs)

He shepherded them with a pure heart and guided them with his skillful hands.^(bt)