Salmi 81

1 Per il Capo de’ musici. Sulla Ghittea. Salmo di Asaf. Cantate con gioia a Dio nostra forza; mandate grida di allegrezza all’Iddio di Giacobbe!

2 Intonate un salmo e fate risonare il cembalo, l’arpa deliziosa, col saltèro.

3 Sonate la tromba alla nuova luna, alla luna piena, al giorno della nostra festa.

4 Poiché questo è uno statuto per Israele, una legge dell’Iddio di Giacobbe.

5 Egli lo stabilì come una testimonianza in Giuseppe, quando uscì contro il paese d’Egitto. Io udii allora il linguaggio di uno che m’era ignoto:

6 O Israele, io sottrassi le tue spalle ai pesi, le tue mani han lasciato le corbe.

7 Nella distretta gridasti a me ed io ti liberai; ti risposi nascosto in mezzo ai tuoni, ti provai alle acque di Meriba. Sela.

8 Ascolta, o popolo mio, ed io ti darò degli ammonimenti; o Israele, volessi tu pure ascoltarmi!

9 Non vi sia nel mezzo di te alcun dio straniero, e non adorare alcun dio forestiero:

10 Io sono l’Eterno, l’Iddio tuo, che ti fece risalire dal paese d’Egitto; allarga la tua bocca, ed io l’empirò.

11 Ma il mio popolo non ha ascoltato la mia voce, e Israele non mi ha ubbidito.

12 Ond’io li abbandonai alla durezza del cuor loro, perché camminassero secondo i loro consigli.

13 Oh se il mio popolo volesse ascoltarmi, se Israele volesse camminar nelle mie vie!

14 Tosto farei piegare i loro nemici, e rivolgerei la mia mano contro i loro avversari.

15 Quelli che odiano l’Eterno dovrebbero sottomettersi a lui, ma la loro durata sarebbe in perpetuo.

16 Io li nutrirei del fior di frumento, e li sazierei di miele stillante dalla roccia.

Salmi 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."