Psalm 81

1 Rejoice ye in God our helper; shout aloud to the God of Jacob.

2 Take a psalm, and produce the timbrel, the pleasant psaltery with the harp.

3 Blow the trumpet at the new moon, in the glorious day of your feast.

4 For this is an ordinance for Israel, and a statute of the God of Jacob.

5 He made it to be a testimony in Joseph, when he came forth out of the land of Egypt: he heard a language which he understood not.

6 He removed his back from burdens: his hands slaved in making the baskets.

7 Thou didst call upon me in trouble, and I delivered thee; I heard thee in the secret place of the storm: I proved thee at the water of Strife. Pause.

8 Hear, my people, and I will speak to thee, O Israel; and I will testify to thee: if thou wilt hearken to me;

9 there shall be no new god in thee; neither shalt thou worship a strange god.

10 For I am the Lord thy God, that brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.

11 But my people hearkened not to my voice; and Israel gave no heed to me.

12 So I let them go after the ways of their own hearts: they will go on in their own ways.

13 If my people had hearkened to me, if Israel had walked in my ways,

14 I should have put down their enemies very quickly, and should have laid my hand upon those that afflicted them.

15 The Lord’s enemies should have lied to him: but their time shall be for ever.

16 And he fed them with the fat of wheat; and satisfied them with honey out of the rock.

Psalm 81 Commentary

Chapter 81

God is praised for what he has done for his people. (1-7) Their obligations to him. (8-16)

Verses 1-7 All the worship we can render to the Lord is beneath his excellences, and our obligations to him, especially in our redemption from sin and wrath. What God had done on Israel's behalf, was kept in remembrance by public solemnities. To make a deliverance appear more gracious, more glorious, it is good to observe all that makes the trouble we are delivered from appear more grievous. We ought never to forget the base and ruinous drudgery to which Satan, our oppressor, brought us. But when, in distress of conscience, we are led to cry for deliverance, the Lord answers our prayers, and sets us at liberty. Convictions of sin, and trials by affliction, prove his regard to his people. If the Jews, on their solemn feast-days, were thus to call to mind their redemption out of Egypt, much more ought we, on the Christian sabbath, to call to mind a more glorious redemption, wrought out for us by our Lord Jesus Christ, from worse bondage.

Verses 8-16 We cannot look for too little from the creature, nor too much from the Creator. We may have enough from God, if we pray for it in faith. All the wickedness of the world is owing to man's wilfulness. People are not religious, because they will not be so. God is not the Author of their sin, he leaves them to the lusts of their own hearts, and the counsels of their own heads; if they do not well, the blame must be upon themselves. The Lord is unwilling that any should perish. What enemies sinners are to themselves! It is sin that makes our troubles long, and our salvation slow. Upon the same conditions of faith and obedience, do Christians hold those spiritual and eternal good things, which the pleasant fields and fertile hills of Canaan showed forth. Christ is the Bread of life; he is the Rock of salvation, and his promises are as honey to pious minds. But those who reject him as their Lord and Master, must also lose him as their Saviour and their reward.

Chapter Summary

To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A [Psalm] of Asaph. Of "gittith," See Gill on "Ps 8:1." The Targum renders it, "upon the harp which came from Gath;" and so Jarchi says it was a musical instrument that came from Gath. The Septuagint, and the versions which follow that, render it, "for the winepresses." This psalm, according to Kimchi, is said concerning the going out of the children of Israel from Egypt; and was composed in order to be sung at their new moons and solemn feasts, which were typical of Gospel things in Gospel times; see Colossians 2:16 and so the Syriac version, "a psalm of Asaph, when David by him prepared himself for the solemnities."