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Psalm 78 · a question people ask

Matthew quotes the words of 78:2 as "spoken through the prophet" (Matthew 13:35). The title names Asaph. Who spoke it?

In the text

Here is what each verse says. The psalm's title reads, "A contemplation by Asaph" (78:1), and the next verse is "I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old" (78:2). Matthew writes that Jesus spoke in parables "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet" (Matthew 13:35), and quotes those words, worded a little differently in the WEB. Matthew doesn't give the prophet a name, and the psalm's title doesn't call Asaph a prophet. Psalm 50's chapter asks who Asaph is and sets out what 1 Chronicles says of an Asaph among the Levites; these notes don't repeat it, and they don't explain how Matthew's words and the title fit together.

The verses

“A contemplation by Asaph. Hear my teaching, my people. Turn your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old,”
Psalm 78:1-2 · World English Bible
“Jesus spoke all these things in parables to the multitudes; and without a parable, he didn’t speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying, “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world.””
Matthew 13:34-35 · World English Bible
“A Psalm by Asaph. The Mighty One, God, the LORD, speaks, and calls the earth from sunrise to sunset.”
Psalm 50:1 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Psalm 78

Psalm 78: I will open my mouth in a parable

Psalm 78 tells Israel's story in 72 verses and never names Moses; every act is God's, and the one leader it names is David, taken "from the sheepfolds" (78:70). In between, the people forget and remember, and God "remembered that they were but flesh" (78:39). And its opening, "I will open my mouth in a parable" (78:2), is the line Matthew gives for Jesus' parables (Matthew 13:35).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions