Commentary on Psalms Volume 2 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
intimating, that God's manner of acting was not of a common kind, so as easily to account for their gradually forgetting his works, but that the Israelites had perversely and wickedly shut their eyes, that they might not be restrained in their sinful course, by beholding the glory of God.
Psalm 78:12-16
12. He wrought marvellously [or he did wondrous things] in the sight of their fathers; in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. 803 13. He divided the sea, and caused them to pass through, and made the waters to stand as an heap. 14. And he led them by a cloud in the day; and all the night by the light of fire. 15. He clave the rocks in the wilderness: and made them to drink in great deeps. 16. And he brought forth streams from the rock, and made the waters to run down like rivers.
12. He wrought marvellously in the sight of their fathers. The Psalmist is still to be regarded as condemning the posterity of the Israelites for their guilt; but he very properly, at the same time, begins to speak of the first ancestors of the nation, intimating, that the whole race of them, even from their first original, were of a perverse and rebellious disposition. But having remarked that the children of Ephraim had fallen into apostasy, because they had forgotten the wonderful works of God, he continues to prosecute the same subject. Meanwhile, as I have said, he makes a very happy transition to speak of the fathers, whom it was his object to include in the same condemnation. In the first place, he adverts to the miracles which were wrought in the midst of the land of Egypt, previous to the departure of the people from it. To recall these the more vividly to the mind, he names a place
Zoan was the ancient capital of Egypt where the Pharaohs resided. Its great antiquity appears from the expression used respecting Hebron, in Numbers 13:22, where, to set forth the antiquity of that city, in which Abraham the tenth from Noah dwelt, it is said, that it "was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt." Zoan is twice specified in this psalm, here and in verse 43d, (though not mentioned in the history of the plagues in the book of Exodus,) as the scene of the wonderful works wrought on Pharaoh and the land of Egypt by Moses. This may mean, that these miracles were performed there in the sight of Pharaoh. Or the field or country of Zoan, may be put poetically for Egypt in general. Thus, in other poetical parts of Scripture, Zoan is sometimes used instead of Egypt, as in Isaiah 19:11, 13, where "the princes of Zoan" just mean the counsellors of Pharaoh; and in Isaiah 30:4, where, when God's ancient people are represented as sending to Egypt for relief, it is said, that their "princes were at Zoan." Zoan is rendered by the Chaldee,טאנים by the LXX. Τανις, by the Vulgate Tanis, and by the Coptic Tane, from the Coptic ten, plain, flat, level; being situated on the low ground of the Delta, on one of the Eastern branches of the Nile, bearing its own name, near a large lake, now called the Lake of Menzala, 44 miles west of Pelusium, 169 miles east of Alexandria, and three miles from the Mediterranean. There are ruins still remaining to mark the site of Zoan or Tanis, called San by the Arabs, comprising broken obelisks, capitals of the Corinthian order, a granite monument, etc. These ruins, however, are not thought to be of the highest antiquity.