To the chief musician, on Gittith. A psalm of Asaph
81:Title Gittith was probably a musical term.⚜
81
📚Sing aloud to God our strength! Make a joyful sound to the
God of Jacob!
2 📚Take up a psalm, and assign
the tambourine,
the pleasant harp with the lyre.
3 📚Blow the trumpet in the
new moon at the set time,
on our solemn feast day.
4 For this is a statute
for Israel,
and a law of the God
of Jacob.
5 📚He ordained this in Joseph
for a testimony,
when he went throughout
the land of Egypt,
where I heard a language
that I did
not understand.
81:1-5 Joy is the result of putting God first in life, of obeying His will. Here the subject is the joy of God’s people at the time of one of the national festivals (Leviticus chapter 23). To understand this psalm it is not necessary to identify which one is meant here.⚜
81:5 The tribe of Joseph was the leading tribe of Israel in Egypt and here seems to signify the whole of Israel. The phrase “a language that I did not understand” is obscure in Hebrew. Does Asaph mean the words that follow which were spoken by God? Does he identify himself with Israel in Egypt and mean the language of the Egyptians? The literal translation is “I will hear a lip I did not know” – a voice not known.⚜
6 📚God says “I removed
the burden from his
shoulder.
His hands were freed
from the baskets.
7 📚You called out in trouble,
and I rescued you.
I answered you in the secret place
of thunder.
I tested you at the waters
of Meribah. Selah
8 📚Hear, O my people,
and I will testify to you.
O Israel, if only you would
listen to me!
81:8 God longs to bless His people but cannot justly do so unless they listen to Him – vs 13-16.⚜
9 📚You must have no foreign
god among you,
nor worship any alien god.
10 📚I am the LORD
your God who brought you
out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide,
and I will fill it.
81:10 It is not men who beg God to be allowed to come to Him and be cared for by Him. It is God Who has to beseech men! It is God Who constantly has to urge men to pray, not men who have to try to get God to let them pray. God is far more eager to bless men than they are to seek His blessing. God wants to fill His people with good things. The mouth here of course represents the whole person. God will give us all we need, both material and spiritual things. It is our part to fully open our minds, our hearts, our lives to Him (Ps 37:4; 107:9; Matt 7:7-11).⚜
11 📚But my people would not listen
to my voice,
and Israel would have none
of me.
81:11 This was the sin, the tragedy of Israel throughout most of its history.⚜
12 📚So I gave them up to their
own hearts’ desire;
and they walked in their
own counsels.
81:12 A very terrible punishment but a perfectly just one (Prov 1:30-31; Rom 1:24, 26, 28; 2 Thess 2:10-12; Rev 22:11-12). The person or the people who will not listen to God is in grave danger (Heb 12:25).⚜
13 📚Oh, that my people had listened
to me,
and Israel had walked
in my ways!
14 📚I would soon have subdued
their enemies,
and turned my hand against their
adversaries.
15 📚The haters of the LORD would have
submitted themselves to him,
and their time would have gone
on forever.
16 📚He would also have fed them
with the finest of the wheat,
and with honey out of the rock
I would have satisfied you”.
81:6-16 In all these verses God is speaking through Asaph. See 2 Pet 1:21.⚜
81:13-16 These are only a few of the blessings God promises His people when they listen and obey. Notice the word “soon” in v 14. It indicates God’s heart to bless His people when it is just and right to do so.⚜