Psalms 78:36

My Notes

What Does Psalms 78:36 Mean?

"Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues." Israel's response to God's discipline is FLATTERY — not genuine repentance but strategic speech. They FLATTER with their mouths and LIE with their tongues. The words sound right. The hearts are wrong. The speech is designed to get God to relent without actually changing their behavior. The flattery is the substitute for the faithfulness.

The phrase "they did flatter him with their mouth" (vayphatthuhu bephihem — they enticed/deceived Him with their mouth) uses PATHAH — to entice, to persuade, to seduce. The same word used for the serpent DECEIVING Eve (Genesis 3). Israel tries to SEDUCE God with words — saying the right things, performing the right prayers, producing the right sounds — without the corresponding reality. The mouth moves. The heart doesn't.

The phrase "they lied unto him with their tongues" (uvilshonam yekhazevu lo — with their tongue they lied to Him) makes the deception EXPLICIT: the words are LIES. The prayers are false. The repentance-language is dishonest. Israel LIED to GOD — attempted to deceive the omniscient with speech that contradicted the heart. The audacity is staggering: lying to the One who sees the heart.

The 'NEVERTHELESS' (verse 36 follows the pattern of verse 34-35: 'When he slew them, they sought him... they remembered that God was their rock') contextualizes the flattery: Israel returned to God UNDER PRESSURE — when the discipline hit. The seeking was strategic, not sincere. The returning was pain-avoidance, not love. The flattery was the language of crisis-management, not genuine devotion.

Reflection Questions

• 1.What right-sounding words are you offering God that don't match your heart?
• 2.What does using the SERPENT-word (pathah — deceive/seduce) for Israel's prayer teach about flattery as attempted manipulation of God?
• 3.How does pressure-driven 'repentance' (seeking God only when discipline hits) differ from genuine return?
• 4.What lies are hidden in your prayer-language — what words that sound right but aren't honest?

Devotional

They FLATTERED God. LIED to God. With their MOUTHS and TONGUES. The words sounded like repentance. The hearts hadn't changed. Israel tried to SEDUCE God with speech — performing the right prayers without the corresponding reality. The flattery was the substitute for the faithfulness.

The word for 'flatter' is PATHAH — the same word used for the serpent DECEIVING Eve. Israel tries to do to GOD what the serpent did to Eve: persuade with words, seduce with speech, manipulate with language. The audacity is extraordinary — attempting to deceive the OMNISCIENT. Trying to fool the One who sees the heart with words that don't match the heart.

The LYING to God is the most honest description of dishonest prayer: Israel LIED with their tongues — spoke words to God that contradicted their intentions. The prayers were PERFORMATIVE — designed to produce a divine response (relenting from discipline) without a corresponding human reality (genuine repentance). The prayer was a tool, not a conversation. The worship was leverage, not love.

The CONTEXT makes it worse: the flattery came after God's DISCIPLINE (verse 34 — 'when He slew them, THEN they sought Him'). The seeking was PRESSURE-DRIVEN. The returning was PAIN-AVOIDANCE. The flattery appeared only when the suffering was unbearable — not because the heart changed but because the circumstances demanded it. Remove the pressure, and the flattery evaporates.

What flattery are you offering God — what right-sounding words that don't match the heart — and what pressure produced them?

Commentary

Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.

Cross References

Related passages throughout Scripture