Psalms 81
Big idea: A festival psalm that turns into a lament — God's lament. It begins with tambourines and trumpets and then hands the microphone to God, who tells the story from his side: I removed his shoulder from the burden; I answered you in the secret place of thunder. Then the offer, one of the most open sentences in Scripture: open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. And then the disappointment: but my people didn't listen to my voice. Israel desired none of me. The psalm ends in the subjunctive — oh that my people would listen — with honey out of the rock left on the table.
Psalm 81 has God grieve over a people who wouldn't listen. Psalm 82 has him confront the judges who wouldn't act.
81:1–7 — Blow the trumpet at the New Moon
A festival psalm that starts as a party and turns into a courtroom. Three verses of tambourines and trumpets, and then the music stops and God begins to speak — and what he says first is a memory of a shoulder coming out from under a load. The odd line is verse 5's 'I heard a language that I didn't know', which is the psalm slipping into the voice of the generation in Egypt.
1 For the Chief Musician. On an instrument of Gath. By Asaph. Sing aloud to God, our strength! Make a joyful shout to the God of Jacob! 2 Raise a song, and bring here the tambourine, the pleasant lyre with the harp. 3 Blow the trumpet at the New Moon, at the full moon, on our feast day. 4 For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob. 5 He appointed it in Joseph for a covenant, when he went out over the land of Egypt, I heard a language that I didn’t know. 6 “I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were freed from the basket. 7 You called in trouble, and I delivered you. I answered you in the secret place of thunder. I tested you at the waters of Meribah.” Selah.
81:8–16 — Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it
God's speech becomes an appeal, and the register is closer to grief than to anger. The invitation in verse 10 is one of the most generous sentences in the Bible — open your mouth wide, and I will fill it — and the reply reported in verse 11 is that Israel 'desired NONE of me'. The judgment that follows is the worst kind: he lets them have their own way.
8 “Hear, my people, and I will testify to you, Israel, if you would listen to me! 9 There shall be no strange god in you, neither shall you worship any foreign god. 10 I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. 11 But my people didn’t listen to my voice. Israel desired none of me. 12 So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they might walk in their own counsels. 13 Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! 14 I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their adversaries. 15 The haters of Yahweh would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever. 16 But he would have also fed them with the finest of the wheat. I will satisfy you with honey out of the rock.”
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).