The Great Divorce: When God Chooses Sides
Introduction: The Scandal of Divine Sovereignty
We live in a squishy, sentimental age. Our generation wants a God who is more like a celestial guidance counselor, a divine therapist who validates everyone and chooses no one. We want a God who never picks teams, never draws lines, and certainly never rejects anyone. The modern sensibility demands a God who is utterly impartial, which is to say, a God who is ultimately indifferent. But the God of the Bible is not like that at all. The God of Scripture is a God of intense, passionate, and particular love. And because His love is particular, it is also fiercely discriminating.
Psalm 78 is a long, hard look at Israel's history. It is a recital of covenant faithlessness, a litany of rebellion, idolatry, and forgetfulness. For sixty-four verses, the psalmist recounts how God's people, particularly the northern tribes led by Ephraim, continually provoked the Lord despite His miraculous deliverance and provision. They tested God, grumbled against Him, and went whoring after foreign gods. God's patience, while long, is not infinite. This brings us to our text, which describes a dramatic and decisive turning point in the history of redemption. God, who had seemed passive and silent in the face of this rebellion, suddenly and violently intervenes.
What we are about to read is a scandal to the modern mind. It describes God waking up like a drunken giant, routing His enemies, and then making a sovereign, unilateral, and eternal choice. He rejects the preeminent tribe of Joseph and Ephraim, the center of power and population, and He chooses little Judah. He chooses a mountain, Zion. And He chooses a shepherd boy, David. This is not democratic. It is not fair in the way our egalitarian age defines fairness. It is the raw, untamed, and glorious sovereignty of God in action. And if we don't understand this divine prerogative to choose, to elect, to favor one and not another, then we will never understand the gospel. For the gospel is nothing if not the story of a God who sets His particular love on a particular people, in a particular place, through a particular person, for His own particular glory.
The Text
Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep,
As if He were a warrior overcome by wine.
He struck His adversaries backward;
He put on them an everlasting reproach.
He also rejected the tent of Joseph,
And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
But chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion which He loved.
And He built His sanctuary like the heights,
Like the earth which He has founded forever.
He also chose David His servant
And took him from the sheepfolds;
From following the nursing ewes He brought him
To shepherd Jacob His people,
And Israel His inheritance.
So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart,
And led them with his skillful hands.
(Psalm 78:65-72 LSB)
The Waking Warrior (vv. 65-66)
The scene shifts with a startling and violent metaphor.
"Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep, As if He were a warrior overcome by wine. He struck His adversaries backward; He put on them an everlasting reproach." (Psalm 78:65-66)
This is the kind of language that makes modern worship leaders nervous. This is not "gentle Jesus, meek and mild." This is God portrayed as a mighty warrior, a gibbor, who, having been silent, now rouses Himself to action. The image of being "overcome by wine" is not to suggest divine intoxication, but rather to convey an explosive, uncontainable, and terrifying energy. After a long period of what appeared to be divine inactivity, where the Philistines captured the Ark and Israel's apostasy went unchecked, God arises with a shout. His "sleep" was not weakness; it was the quiet before the storm. It was the purposeful restraint of a king who is about to unleash His full power.
And when He acts, the result is decisive. "He struck His adversaries backward." This refers to God's judgment on the Philistines, plaguing them with tumors until they were forced to return the Ark of the Covenant. He puts on them an "everlasting reproach." God's judgments in history are not temporary setbacks; they are permanent verdicts. When God decides to humiliate His enemies, that humiliation sticks.
This is a necessary corrective to our anemic view of God. We serve a sovereign warrior, not a helpless bystander. When evil seems to be winning, when the church is compromised and the culture is collapsing, it is not because God is weak or absent. He is simply waiting for the appointed time to awaken, to shout, and to strike. And when He does, no enemy will stand before Him.
The Great Divorce and the Sovereign Choice (vv. 67-68)
Following the routing of the external enemies, God turns His attention to the internal corruption. He performs a great covenantal amputation.
"He also rejected the tent of Joseph, And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which He loved." (Psalm 78:67-68 LSB)
This is the heart of the passage. The "tent of Joseph" refers to Shiloh, where the Tabernacle had been for centuries. Shiloh was in the territory of Ephraim, the most powerful of the northern tribes. Ephraim was the son of Joseph, who had received the birthright from Jacob. By all human standards, Ephraim was the natural choice to lead Israel. But God "rejected" them. The word is emphatic. He spurned them, He cast them off. Why? Because of their persistent idolatry and covenant rebellion, which the first part of the psalm details.
And in their place, God makes a choice. It is a choice based not on human merit or prominence, but on divine love and sovereign pleasure. "But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which He loved." He chooses the tribe of Judah, from which the line of kings would come. And He chooses a place, Mount Zion, a Jebusite stronghold that David would conquer and make his capital. God's choice is not a ratification of an existing reality; it is the creation of a new one. He does not choose Jerusalem because it is great; Jerusalem becomes great because He chooses it.
This is the doctrine of election in its rawest form. It is the scandal of particularity. God does not love in the abstract. He loves particular people and particular places. He chose Abraham out of Ur. He chose Isaac over Ishmael. He chose Jacob over Esau. And here, He chooses Judah over Ephraim. This is not arbitrary; it is purposeful. God is narrowing the lines of redemption, preparing the way for the one who would be called the Lion of the tribe of Judah. If you stumble over God choosing Judah, you will certainly break your neck over Him choosing to save the world only through the cross of His Son.
A Permanent Dwelling and a Shepherd King (vv. 69-71)
God's choice is not temporary; it is foundational and permanent. He establishes a place and installs a man.
"And He built His sanctuary like the heights, Like the earth which He has founded forever. He also chose David His servant And took him from the sheepfolds; From following the nursing ewes He brought him To shepherd Jacob His people, And Israel His inheritance." (Psalm 78:69-71 LSB)
The sanctuary on Mount Zion is built to last. It is "like the heights," lofty and secure. It is founded "forever," like the earth itself. This points beyond the physical temple, which we know was destroyed. It points to the reality that Zion represented: the permanent dwelling place of God with His people. This is a type, a foreshadowing, of the true and eternal temple, the body of Jesus Christ, and by extension, His church. As the writer to the Hebrews says, we have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God (Hebrews 12:22).
Then God chooses His man. Notice the pattern: God rejects the established and powerful (Ephraim) and chooses the obscure and lowly. He finds David "His servant" not in the court or the army, but in the sheepfolds. He was a shepherd, following the nursing ewes, the most menial part of the job. This is God's consistent method. He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. He chooses fishermen to be apostles and a persecutor of the church to be the greatest missionary.
And the task He gives David is a promotion in the same line of work. He took him from shepherding sheep to "shepherd Jacob His people." The skills of a good shepherd, care, protection, guidance, and courage, are the very skills needed to be a good king. God's training ground is often in the small, unseen places of faithfulness. The man who is faithful with a flock of sheep can be trusted with the flock of God.
The Measure of a Good Ruler (v. 72)
The psalm concludes with a summary of David's reign, giving us the divine standard for all leadership.
"So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, And led them with his skillful hands." (Psalm 78:72 LSB)
Here are the two essential qualities of godly rule: right character and right competency. First, "the integrity of his heart." This means wholeness, soundness, a heart undivided in its loyalty to God. David, for all his grievous sins, was a man after God's own heart. His heart was fundamentally oriented toward God. This is the internal qualification. All true leadership begins with the heart.
But integrity is not enough. The second quality is "skillful hands." This refers to wisdom, prudence, and practical ability. A good heart that is incompetent can do immense damage. A godly leader must not only mean well; he must know what he is doing. He must have the skill to govern, to lead, to make wise decisions. Integrity and skill, character and competence, piety and prudence. This is the biblical model for kings, for pastors, for fathers, for every man in his God-given station.
Conclusion: The True David and His Unshakable Zion
This entire passage is a glorious pointer to the Lord Jesus Christ. The rejection of Ephraim and the choice of Judah was a step toward Bethlehem, where the Lion of Judah would be born. The choice of Zion was a picture of the unshakable kingdom that He would establish. And the choice of David was a type of the true Shepherd-King who was to come.
Jesus is the one who truly awoke as a warrior from the sleep of death. He rose from the grave with a shout, routing His adversaries, Satan, sin, and death, and putting them to an everlasting reproach. He has established His sanctuary, the Church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.
He is the ultimate fulfillment of David. He is the Good Shepherd who was taken, not from the sheepfolds, but from the throne of heaven, to shepherd His people. He rules with perfect integrity of heart, for He is sinless. And He leads with infinitely skillful hands, for in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He is the one who gathers His sheep, His inheritance, and He will lose none of them.
The principle of divine election still stands. God is still in the business of rejecting the proud, the self-sufficient, and the powerful. He is still choosing the foolish, the weak, and the base things of the world to shame the wise. He is not choosing us because of our pedigree, our accomplishments, or our potential. He chooses us because He loves us. He sets His affection upon us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
Therefore, our only proper response is gratitude and humility. We were not chosen because we were Judah. We were Ephraim, rebellious and faithless. But God, in His sovereign mercy, rejected what we were, and chose to make us His own in His beloved Son. He has taken us out of the muck and mire and made us part of His holy mountain, the new Jerusalem. Our task now is to follow our Shepherd-King, trusting in the integrity of His heart and the skill of His hands, until He brings us safely into His everlasting kingdom.