Psalm 81 comments

 

Psalm 81:1 ¶  «To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm of Asaph.» Sing aloud unto God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. 2  Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. 3  Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day. 4  For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob. 5  This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out through the land of Egypt: where I heard a language that I understood not. 6  I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the pots. 7  Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder: I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah.

 

John Gill wrote that Gittith, a musical instrument taken from the town of Gath. This Psalm, it is said, was written as a commemoration of Exodus in particular to be sung at solemn occasions.

 

God was the strength of Israel, as He is the Christian’s strength. We should rejoice in Him always.

 

Leviticus 23:24  Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.

 

Although there are many different opinions on verse 5 perhaps this has to do with the fact that people had not heard God speak like He did to the Hebrews before in a new written language which I discussed in Exodus and through fire and the sound of a trumpet and many other ways. The languages that God used to lead the Hebrews was something unknown before that time.

 

He gave them their alphabet some have written. When Moses came down the mountain with the Ten Commandments that may be the beginning of the alphabet that we use, the precursor to it. God created the writing that contrasted with the pictograms of hieroglyphics and cuneiform writing that dominated the ancient world. From China, Sumeria, and Egypt to the civilizations of the ancient Americas pictures were used to convey ideas and history and as representations of things worshipped. The basic units of writing, the letters, become symbols for ideas rather than pictures representing things to be worshipped as idols. ‘A’, instead of a symbol for a bull or an ox, is Aleph in Hebrew and Alpha in Greek, and ‘A’ for modern purposes. A good study for this is Marc A. Ouaknin’s Mysteries of the Alphabet. This could be part of God drawing a people out of a world of idolatrous pictures to be adored and turning their writing into ideas to be expressed by symbols.

Exodus 20:18 ¶  And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. 19  And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. 20  And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. 21  And the people stood afar off, and

Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.

 

But God’s Law, given to Moses, was also a new language which while men may have known God’s standard from the beginning as Genesis and Job seem to suggest and we have discussed it was codified and “written in stone”. See my commentaries on Genesis and Job.

 

Pots in this context were the baskets where the bricks were put that the Hebrews had to make that they were forced to carry. For Meribah see;

Exodus 17:4  And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me. 5  And the LORD said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. 6  Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7  And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not?

 

Psalm 81:8 ¶  Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me; 9  There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god. 10  I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. 11  But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me. 12  So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels. 13  Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! 14  I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. 15  The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever. 16  He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.

 

If the Israelites will just listen to God, if they will just listen. They were told not to worship foreign gods, not the God who led them out of Egypt. For strange as foreign see;

The word stranger is used to denote a foreigner, an alien to a people, who lives among that people.

Genesis 15:13  And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

Genesis 17:12  And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.

Leviticus 24:22  Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the LORD your God.

Jacob put away his strange gods.

Genesis 35:1 ¶  And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. 2  Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments: 3  And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. 4  And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. 5  And they journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.

Remember the Law given to Moses;

Exodus 20:3  Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4  Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5  Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6  And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

See verse 12 and how God will give people over to their own delusions. See the religious history of mankind summarized by Paul in Romans.

Romans 1:16 ¶  For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17  For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. 18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

    19 ¶  Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21  Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23  And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24  Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25  Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26  For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27  And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28  And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29  Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30  Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31  Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32  Who knowing the

 

judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

If the Israelites had obeyed God would have done good things for them as He says here in this Psalm. Let this be a warning to you that your life will go much better, even though you will have persecution and tribulation just by virtue of living in a fallen world in a fallen body, but life will go much better and the Lord God will bless you if you obey Him and stay close. Let God speak to you through His word daily and often and do what you understand from the Bible what God wants you to do. Praise God and don’t make the mistake of the Israelites in ignoring His admonitions and commands on your life.