Psalms81
New Living Translation
1 Sing praises to God, our strength. Sing to the God of Jacob.
2 Sing! Beat the tambourine. Play the sweet lyre and the harp.
3 Blow the ram’s horn at new moon, and again at full moon to call a festival!
4 For this is required by the decrees of Israel; it is a regulation of the God of Jacob.
5 He made it a law for Israel when he attacked Egypt to set us free. I heard an unknown voice say,
6 “Now I will take the load from your shoulders; I will free your hands from their heavy tasks.
7 You cried to me in trouble, and I saved you; I answered out of the thundercloud and tested your faith when there was no water at Meribah. Interlude
8 “Listen to me, O my people, while I give you stern warnings. O Israel, if you would only listen to me!
9 You must never have a foreign god; you must not bow down before a false god.
10 For it was I, the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it with good things.
11 “But no, my people wouldn’t listen. Israel did not want me around.
12 So I let them follow their own stubborn desires, living according to their own ideas.
13 Oh, that my people would listen to me! Oh, that Israel would follow me, walking in my paths!
14 How quickly I would then subdue their enemies! How soon my hands would be upon their foes!
15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him; they would be doomed forever.
16 But I would feed you with the finest wheat. I would satisfy you with wild honey from the rock.”
Study
Psalms 81Public-domain commentary and original-language notes for Psalms 81. The full AI study guide (summary, themes, context) has its own page.
Chapter Summary
In this chapter: God is praised for what he has done for his people. (1–7). Their obligations to him. (8–16).
vv1-7
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.
vv8-16
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.
Key Words
נָצַח: properly, to glitter from afar, i.e. to be eminent (as a superintendent, especially of the Temple services and its music); to be permanent
גִּתִּית: a Gittite harp
אָסָף: Asaph, the name of three Israelites, and of the family of the first
רָנַן: properly, to creak (or emit a stridulous sound), i.e. to shout (usually for joy)
אֱלֹהִים: gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God; occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates; and sometimes as a superlative
עֹז: strength in various applications (force, security, majesty, praise)
רוּעַ: to mar (especially by breaking); figuratively, to split the ears (with sound), i.e. shout (for alarm or joy)
יַעֲקֹב: Jaakob, the Israelitish patriarch
נָשָׂא: to lift, in a great variety of applications, literal and figurative, absolute and relative
זִמְרָה: a musical piece or song to be accompanied by an instrument
Cross References
Psalms 81Establishes the feast of trumpets in the seventh month, matching the blowing of trumpets here.
Supported by Matthew Poole
Parallels the mention of coming out of Egypt and hearing a language not understood.
Supported by Matthew Poole
The preface to the Decalogue: 'I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of Egypt.'
Supported by JFB
Direct parallel of feeding on honey out of the rock as a blessing of covenant obedience.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Associates the language of a foreign oppressor with distress, explaining 'a language I understood not.'
Supported by Matthew Poole, JFB
Identifies the 'secret place of thunder' as the pillar of cloud at the Red Sea deliverance.
Supported by Matthew Poole, JFB
New Testament parallel to God giving up stubborn sinners to their own hearts' lusts.
Supported by JFB
Illuminates 'submit themselves' as feigned or forced submission by subdued enemies.
Supported by Matthew Poole
Describes the historical 'burden' and taskmasters from which Israel's shoulder was delivered.
Supported by JFB
The waters of Meribah where Israel murmured and God tested their faith.
Supported by John Calvin
Parallels God summoning His people ('Hear, O my people') to testify and reprove them.
Supported by JFB
God's passionate lamentation desiring that His people would hearken and walk in His ways.
Prescribes blowing trumpets over sacrifices on solemn days and at new moons.
Supported by Matthew Poole
Verbal link using the same Hebrew term for the pots or baskets used in forced labor.
Supported by Matthew Poole