Psalms 78:3
in Psalms 78that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Which we have heard and known, And our fathers have told us.
KJV
Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
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This verse in Psalms 78
Commentary
14 notes on this verseA commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
This history had been handed down (Ex 12:14; De 6:20) for God's honor, and that the principles of His law might be known and observed by posterity. This important sentiment is reiterated in (Ps 78:7, 8) negative form.
This site's exposition
I will open my mouth in parables
on Psalms 78:2-4
Matthew 13:35 quotes this verse of Christ teaching the crowds in parables. The Hebrew calls the history a mashal, a proverb, and the hidden things chidoth, riddles that need unfolding. Verses 3 and 4 hand it on, fathers to children to the next generation.
This site's exposition
our fathers have relayed to us
Verse 2 promised hidden things, and verse 3 says how they reached the singer. Matthew Henry called them things of undoubted certainty, heard and known, with no room left to question them. He added that the history was sung to be remembered.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers3 voices
"How great things we have heard, and have known them, and our fathers have told them to us." The Lord was speaking higher up. For of what other person could these words be thought to be, "Hearken ye, O My people, to My law"? Why is it then that now on a sudden a man is speaking, for here we have the words of a man, "our fathers have told them to us." Without doubt God, now about to speak by a man's ministry, as the Apostle saith, "Will ye to receive proof of Him that is speaking in me, Christ?" in His own person at first willed the words to be uttered, lest a man speaking His words should be despised as a man. For it is thus with the sayings of God which make their way to us through our bodily sense. The Creator moveth the subject creature by an invisible working; not so that the substance is changed into anything corporal and temporal, when by means of corporal and temporal signs, whether belonging to the eyes or to the ears, as far as men are able to receive it, He would make His will to be known. For if an angel is able to use air, mist, cloud, fire, and any other natural substance or corporal species; and man to use face, tongue, hand, pen, letters, or any other significants, for the purpose of intimating the secret things of his own mind: in a word, if, though he is a man, he sendeth human messengers, and he saith to one, "Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to his servant, Do this, and he doeth it;" with how much greater and more effectual power doth God, to whom as Lord all things together are subject, use both the same angel and man, in order that He may declare whatsoever pleaseth Him? ...For those things were heard in the Old Testament which are known in the New: heard when they were being prophesied, known when they were being fulfilled. Where a promise is performed, hearing is not deceived. […]
Instructed by the holy Scriptures and especially by the gospel, Pachomius endured many temptations from the demons. The holy Scriptures did not mention in detail the saints' struggle, since they used concise language in showing us the way to eternal life. Thus, for example, the …
"How great the things we have heard and known." These little verses, from "Attend, my people, to my law" up to this verse, "I will utter propositions from the beginning," are spoken from the person of Christ; the Savior himself speaks. Now the remaining verses, up to the end of the psalm, we must take as from the person of the apostles. When, then, the Lord says, "Incline your ear to the words of my mouth" — O apostles, what you have heard in secret, he says, proclaim upon the rooftops — what do the apostles say?
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
They are things of undoubted certainty; we have heard them and known them, and there is no room left to question the truth of them. The gospel of Luke is called a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us ( Luke i.
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Which we have heard and known,....
6 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
The history itself from Moses to David; it is put into a psalm or song that it might be the better remembered and transmitted to posterity, and that the singing of it might affect them with the things here related, more than they would be with a bare narrative of them.
Let not those that receive mercy from God be thereby emboldened to sin, for the mercies they receive will aggravate their sin and hasten the punishment of it; yet let not those that are under divine rebukes for sin be discouraged from repentance, for their punishments are means of repentance, and shall not prevent the mercy God has yet in store for them.
The Nineteenth Century4 voices
Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. Tradition was of the utmost service to the people of God in the olden time, before the more sure word of prophecy had become complete and generally accessible. The receipt of truth from the lips of others laid the instructed believer under solemn obligation to pass on the truth to the next generation. Truth, endeared to us by its fond associations with godly parents and venerable friends, deserves of us our best exertions to preserve and propagate it. Our fathers told us, we hear them, and we know personally what they taught; it remains for us in our turn to hand it on. Blessed be God we have now the less mutable testimony of written revelation, but this by no means lessens our obligation to instruct our children in divine truth by word of mouth: rather, with such a gracious help, we ought to teach them far more fully the things of God. Dr. Doddridge owed much to the Dutch tiles and his mother's explanations of the Bible narratives. The more of parental teaching the better; ministers and Sabbath school teachers were never meant to be substitutes for mother's tears and father's prayers.
Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. Tradition was of the utmost service to the people of God in the olden time, before the more sure word of prophecy had become complete and generally accessible. The receipt of truth from the lips of others laid the instructed believer under solemn obligation to pass on the truth to the next generation. Truth, endeared to us by its fond associations with godly parents and venerable friends, deserves of us our best exertions to preserve and propagate it.
Which we have heard and known - We have heard the law, and known the facts.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
Which we have heard and known - Which have been communicated to us as certain truth. And our fathers have told us - That is, we have heard and known them by their telling us; or, this is the means by which we have known them. They have come down to us by tradition from ancient times.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| אֲשֶׁ֣ר | ʾasher | which | H834 → | 5497 times |
| שָׁ֭מַעְנוּ | shama'nu | we have heard | H8085 → | 1159 times |
| וַנֵּדָעֵ֑ם | vanedaem | and we have known them | H3045 → | 945 times |
| וַ֝אֲבוֹתֵ֗ינוּ | vaavoteinu | and ancestors our | H1 → | 1212 times |
| סִפְּרוּ־ | siperu- | they have recounted | H5608 → | 159 times |
| לָֽנוּ׃ | lanu | to us |
אֲשֶׁ֣רwhich
ʾasherH834 →5497 times
שָׁ֭מַעְנוּwe have heard
shama'nuH8085 →1159 times
וַנֵּדָעֵ֑םand we have known them
vanedaemH3045 →945 times
וַ֝אֲבוֹתֵ֗ינוּand ancestors our
vaavoteinuH1 →1212 times
סִפְּרוּ־they have recounted
siperu-H5608 →159 times
לָֽנוּ׃to us
lanu
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Psalms 44:1We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us the work You did in their days, in the days of old.
it leads to
- Psalms 78:3–6
that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.
- Exodus 13:14–15
In the future, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you are to tell him, ‘With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
- Deuteronomy 6:20
In the future, when your son asks, “What is the meaning of the decrees and statutes and ordinances that the LORD our God has commanded you?”
- Judges 6:13
“Please, my Lord,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all His wonders of which our fathers told us, saying, ‘Has not the…
- Joel 1:3
Tell it to your children; let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.
- Psalms 78:3–6
Through
Psalms 48:8As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the LORD of Hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish her forever. Selah
it leads to
- Psalms 87:5
And it will be said of Zion: “This one and that one were born in her, and the Most High Himself will establish her.”
- Micah 4:1
In the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and the peoples will stream to…
- Psalms 87:5
Through
Exodus 13:8And on that day you are to explain to your son, ‘This is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.’
it leads to
- Exodus 13:14
In the future, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you are to tell him, ‘With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
- Exodus 13:14
Where this verse is studied
On this page
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On this verse
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About Psalms
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 78; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 3; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Homily 11, on Psalm 77; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Pachomius the Great, LIFE OF PACHOMIUS (FIRST GREEK) 17.