Psalm 78:58
New International Version
They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols.

New Living Translation
They angered God by building shrines to other gods; they made him jealous with their idols.

English Standard Version
For they provoked him to anger with their high places; they moved him to jealousy with their idols.

Berean Standard Bible
They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

King James Bible
For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

New King James Version
For they provoked Him to anger with their high places, And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images.

New American Standard Bible
For they provoked Him with their high places And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images.

NASB 1995
For they provoked Him with their high places And aroused His jealousy with their graven images.

NASB 1977
For they provoked Him with their high places, And aroused His jealousy with their graven images.

Legacy Standard Bible
For they provoked Him with their high places And aroused His jealousy with their graven images.

Amplified Bible
For they provoked Him to [righteous] anger with their high places [devoted to idol worship] And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images [by denying Him the love, worship, and obedience that is rightfully and uniquely His].

Christian Standard Bible
They enraged him with their high places and provoked his jealousy with their carved images.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their carved images.

American Standard Version
For they provoked him to anger with their high places, And moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

Contemporary English Version
God demanded all their love, but they made him angry by worshiping idols.

English Revised Version
For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
They made him angry because of their illegal worship sites. They made him furious because they worshiped idols.

Good News Translation
They angered him with their heathen places of worship, and with their idols they made him furious.

International Standard Version
they angered him with their high places and with their carved images they made him jealous.

Majority Standard Bible
They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

NET Bible
They made him angry with their pagan shrines, and made him jealous with their idols.

New Heart English Bible
For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.

Webster's Bible Translation
For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

World English Bible
For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.
Literal Translations
Literal Standard Version
And make Him angry with their high places, "" And make Him zealous with their carved images,

Young's Literal Translation
And make Him angry with their high places, And with their graven images make Him zealous,

Smith's Literal Translation
And they will make him angry with their heights, and they will provoke him to jealousy with their carved images.
Catholic Translations
Douay-Rheims Bible
They provoked him to anger on their hills: and moved him to jealousy with their graven things.

Catholic Public Domain Version
They impelled him to anger on their hills, and they provoked him to rivalry with their graven images.

New American Bible
They enraged him with their high places, and with their idols provoked him to jealous anger.

New Revised Standard Version
For they provoked him to anger with their high places; they moved him to jealousy with their idols.
Translations from Aramaic
Lamsa Bible
For they provoked him to anger by sacrificing on high places, and made him indignant with their graven images.

Peshitta Holy Bible Translated
And they angered him by their sacrifices and they made him jealous by their idols.
OT Translations
JPS Tanakh 1917
For they provoked Him with their high places, And moved Him to jealousy with their graven images.

Brenton Septuagint Translation
And they provoked him with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
I Will Open My Mouth in Parables
57They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow. 58They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols. 59On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.…

Cross References
Deuteronomy 32:16-21
They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations. / They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods, which your fathers did not fear. / You ignored the Rock who brought you forth; you forgot the God who gave you birth. ...

Judges 2:11-13
And the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. / Thus they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed after various gods of the peoples around them. They bowed down to them and provoked the LORD to anger, / for they forsook Him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.

1 Kings 14:22-24
And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and by the sins they committed they provoked Him to jealous anger more than all their fathers had done. / They also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree. / There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land. They imitated all the abominations of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.

2 Kings 17:10-12
They set up for themselves sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree. / They burned incense on all the high places like the nations that the LORD had driven out before them. They did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger. / They served idols, although the LORD had told them, “You shall not do this thing.”

Jeremiah 7:18-19
The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven; they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger. / But am I the One they are provoking? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame?

Ezekiel 8:10-12
So I went in and looked, and engraved all around the wall was every kind of crawling creature and detestable beast, along with all the idols of the house of Israel. / Before them stood seventy elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had a censer in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising. / “Son of man,” He said to me, “do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? For they are saying, ‘The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.’”

Hosea 4:12-13
My people consult their wooden idols, and their divining rods inform them. For a spirit of prostitution leads them astray and they have played the harlot against their God. / They sacrifice on the mountaintops and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is pleasant. And so your daughters turn to prostitution and your daughters-in-law to adultery.

Isaiah 57:5-6
who burn with lust among the oaks, under every luxuriant tree, who slaughter your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks? / Your portion is among the smooth stones of the valley; indeed, they are your lot. Even to them you have poured out a drink offering and offered a grain offering. Should I relent because of these?

Jeremiah 19:4-5
because they have abandoned Me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in this place to other gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have ever known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. / They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it even enter My mind.

2 Chronicles 28:25
In every city of Judah he built high places to offer incense to other gods, and so he provoked the LORD, the God of his fathers.

1 Corinthians 10:20-22
No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to be participants with demons. / You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot partake in the table of the Lord and the table of demons too. / Are we trying to provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?

Romans 1:21-23
For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts. / Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, / and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Acts 17:29-30
Therefore, being offspring of God, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination. / Although God overlooked the ignorance of earlier times, He now commands all people everywhere to repent.

1 John 5:21
Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

Revelation 9:20
Now the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the works of their hands. They did not stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk.


Treasury of Scripture

For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

their high

Leviticus 26:30
And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.

Numbers 33:52
Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:

Deuteronomy 12:2,4
Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: …

moved

Psalm 79:5
How long, LORD? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire?

Exodus 34:14
For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

Deuteronomy 32:16,17,21
They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger…

with

Psalm 97:7
Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols: worship him, all ye gods.

Exodus 20:4,5
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: …

Deuteronomy 4:16-25
Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, …

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Psalm 78
1. An exhortation both to learn and to preach, the law of God
9. The story of God's wrath against the incredulous and disobedient
67. The Israelites being rejected, God chose Judah, Zion, and David.














They enraged Him
The phrase "They enraged Him" refers to the Israelites' actions that stirred God's anger. The Hebrew root word here is "כָּעַס" (ka'as), which means to provoke or anger. This reflects a deep emotional response from God, who is portrayed as a loving yet just deity. The Israelites' behavior was not merely a breach of law but a personal affront to God, who had chosen them as His people. This highlights the relational aspect of the covenant between God and Israel, where disobedience is seen as a betrayal of trust and love.

with their high places
"High places" refers to elevated sites where the Israelites engaged in worship, often of foreign gods. The Hebrew term "בָּמוֹת" (bamot) indicates these were not just physical locations but centers of idolatrous practices. Archaeological findings have uncovered such sites, confirming their use in ancient Near Eastern religious practices. These high places were a direct violation of God's command to worship Him alone and in the manner He prescribed, usually at the tabernacle or temple. This disobedience was a significant factor in God's anger, as it represented a turning away from His ordained worship.

they provoked His jealousy
The phrase "they provoked His jealousy" uses the Hebrew root "קָנָא" (qana), which conveys a sense of zealous protection over what is rightfully one's own. In a conservative Christian perspective, God's jealousy is not petty or insecure but a righteous desire to maintain the purity and exclusivity of His relationship with His people. This divine jealousy is akin to a husband's rightful expectation of fidelity from his wife, emphasizing the covenantal bond between God and Israel.

with their idols
"With their idols" points to the tangible representations of false gods that the Israelites worshipped. The Hebrew word "פֶּסֶל" (pesel) refers to carved images or statues. Historically, the surrounding nations worshipped a pantheon of gods, and Israel's adoption of these practices was a direct violation of the first two commandments. This idolatry was not just a cultural assimilation but a spiritual adultery, as it replaced the worship of the one true God with that of lifeless images. The conservative Christian view sees this as a timeless warning against allowing anything to take the place of God in one's life, whether physical idols or modern-day equivalents like wealth, power, or status.

Verse 58. - For they provoked him to anger with their high places. The "high place" worship was always displeasing to God. It was, no doubt, deeply tinged with idolatry. And moved him to jealousy with their graven images. In the time of the Judges, both graven and molten images were employed by the Israelites in a worship which they nevertheless regarded as the worship of Jehovah (see the history of Micah in Judges 17. and 18, especially Judges 17:4, 13, and Judges 18:14, 17, 18, 31).

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
They enraged Him
וַיַּכְעִיס֥וּהוּ (way·yaḵ·‘î·sū·hū)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Hifil - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine plural | third person masculine singular
Strong's 3707: To trouble, to grieve, rage, be indignant

with their high places
בְּבָמוֹתָ֑ם (bə·ḇā·mō·w·ṯām)
Preposition-b | Noun - feminine plural construct | third person masculine plural
Strong's 1116: An elevation

and provoked His jealousy
יַקְנִיאֽוּהוּ׃ (yaq·nî·’ū·hū)
Verb - Hifil - Imperfect - third person masculine plural | third person masculine singular
Strong's 7065: To be, zealous, jealous, envious

with their idols.
וּ֝בִפְסִילֵיהֶ֗ם (ū·ḇip̄·sî·lê·hem)
Conjunctive waw, Preposition-b | Noun - masculine plural construct | third person masculine plural
Strong's 6456: An idol, image


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OT Poetry: Psalm 78:58 For they provoked him to anger (Psalm Ps Psa.)
Psalm 78:57
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