Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

78:56-64 They Tested and Rebelled against God in the Promised Land. Now that Israel has come to the Promised Land (vv. 54-55), this section describes the time of the judges, leading up to the captivity of the ark and the death of Eli and his sons (vv. 60-64; cf. 1 Samuel 4). Just as before, they tested and rebelled against the Most High, and provoked him to anger. The cycles of apostasy followed by repentance, followed by more apostasy, so familiar from the book of Judges, are in view (Ps. 78:56-58). The sons of the high priest Eli, who ministered in God's tent at Shiloh, brought the ark (in which the glory dwelt) to battle as a good-luck charm against the Philistines; but the Philistines won and took the ark into captivity. It would appear that the victorious Philistines went on to devastate the site of Shiloh as well (cf. Jer. 7:12-15).