Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
All Commentaries on Psalms 78:3 Go To Psalms 78
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
5. "How great things we have heard, and have known them, and our fathers have told them to us" (ver. 3). The Lord was speaking higher up. For of what other person could these words be thought to be, "Hearken ye, O My people, to My law"? Why is it then that now on a sudden a man is speaking, for here we have the words of a man, "our fathers have told them to us." Without doubt God, now about to speak by a man's ministry, as the Apostle saith, "Will ye to receive proof of Him that is speaking in me, Christ?" in His own person at first willed the words to be uttered, lest a man speaking His words should be despised as a man. For it is thus with the sayings of God which make their way to us through our bodily sense. The Creator moveth the subject creature by an invisible working; not so that the substance is changed into anything corporal and temporal, when by means of corporal and temporal signs, whether belonging to the eyes or to the ears, as far as men are able to receive it, He would make His will to be known. For if an angel is able to use air, mist, cloud, fire, and any other natural substance or corporal species; and man to use face, tongue, hand, pen, letters, or any other significants, for the purpose of intimating the secret things of his own mind: in a word, if, though he is a man, he sendeth human messengers, and he saith to one, "Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to his servant, Do this, and he doeth it;" with how much greater and more effectual power doth God, to whom as Lord all things together are subject, use both the same angel and man, in order that He may declare whatsoever pleaseth Him? ...For those things were heard in the Old Testament which are known in the New: heard when they were being prophesied, known when they were being fulfilled. Where a promise is performed, hearing is not deceived. "And our fathers," Moses and the Prophets, "have told unto us."
