Psalms 81

Psalms 81. The exhortation to celebrate the passover with joyful heart, ver. 1-3, is followed by the basis on which it rests, ver. 4-7: the passover is the festival of Israel’s deliverance, through their Lord and God, from great trouble and deep misery. While the first part points to what the Lord has done for Israel, the second describes the position which Israel ought to occupy towards their Lord: inasmuch as the Lord, who brought Israel out of Egypt, is thus alone Israel’s God, sufficient for all his necessities. Israel ought therefore to serve him alone, and leave to the world its imaginary deities,-a preposition, however, to which Israel, a Calvin: “Let us learn, whenever the anger of God burns forth, even in the midst of the flames of the conflagration to cast our griefs into the bosom of God, who wonder-fully revives his church from destruction. alas, has not hitherto responded,-and hence the origin of all his troubles, ver. 8-12. Would that he would now become obe-dient to the Lord! the salvation of his kingdom would be the consequence, ver. 13-16. In ver. 1-5 the Psalmist speaks, as is manifest from the con-clusion of ver. 5, as the representative of the better self of the church, or, in the language of the Apocalypse, as its angel; and in the 6th and following verses the speaker is the Lord. But that this distinction, which has commonly been a great deal too much spoken of, is one of no moment, is evident from the fact, that vers. 6 and 7 are nothing else than a continuation of ver. 5, and from the conclusion, vers. 15 and 16, where the address of the Lord, and the address of the Psalmist, who speaks in the spirit of the Lord, are immediately linked together. If we keep this in view, the formal arrangement of the Psalm becomes easy and simple. The Psalm falls into two main divi-sions, an objective and a subjective one, which are even exter-nally separated from each other by a Selah, at the end of ver. 7.

The first, ver. 1-7, is completed in seven verses. This, as usual, is divided into a three and a four. The second main divi-sion contains, in the first instance, only nine verses, and is di-vided by a five and a four. The defect of the conclusion, how-ever, is, as in the case in Ps. lxxvii:, compensated by the title. The arrangement, therefore, is exactly the same as that which obtains universally in Psalms which contain 17 verses. According to the title, “To the Chief Musician after the manner of Gath (comp. at title of Ps. viii.) by Asaph,” the Psalm was composed by Asaph.

We shewed already, at Psalms 74., that we must adhere to the Asaph who belonged to the age of David, in all the Psalms which bear this name, except in those cases in which the contents of the Psalm render this im-possible. In the present instance this is not the case. “The contents,” observes Kצster, “are of a general character, and the freshness of tone indicates the great age of the Psalm.” The verbal reasons which led Hitzig to assign it a very late date are of no consequence. He refers to the loose יהוסף in ver. 5, and to the participle after לו in ver. 13. But that the retention of the ה of the Hiph. (Ew. �˜. 284), is not at all characteristic of the language of later times, is evident, among other passages,from Psalms 45:17, and from 1 Samuel 22:47. These forms are throughout poetical, and are altogether independent of time. Poetry is fond of full and sonorous expressions.

It can never be shewn that the position of the participle after לו is characteristic of a later idiom; comp. 2 Samuel 18:12. In favour, however, of the Asaph of David’s tithe, we have to urge the prophetic cha-racter which our Psalm bears in common with the other produc-tions of this bard, the “seer,” the prophet among the Psalmists, Psalms 1:1; Psalms 73:73; Psalms 73:78. (even Hitzig believed that he heard in the warnings here the voice of the author of the seventy-eighth Psalm), and 81. To this we may add the striking connection between ver. 8 here, and Psalms 1:7.

Psalms 81:1-3

Ver. 1-3.-Ver. 1. Sing aloud to God, who is our strength, make a joyful-noise unto the God of Jacob. Ver. 2. Raise the song, and give the timbrel, the lovely guitar with the harp. Ver. 3. Blow in the month the horn, at the full moon, on the day of our feast.–The exhortation to praise God with all the might depends for its significance, as the second part of the strophe shews, upon its pointing to the rich treasures of salvation which he has imparted to his people.-On “our strength,” comp. as a commentary vers. 14, 15, and Psalms 46:1.

The Lord mani-fested himself as the strength of his people on their deliverance from Egypt. In ver. 3 the instruments are introduced in regard to their tone: timbrel stands instead of sound of the timbrel. Against the exposition “bring hither the timbrels,” it may be urged, that, according to the title and verse 2d, those addressed are called upon both to sing and to play.-In verse 3 the month is the first and the chief month of the year, the month in which the passover occurred: comp. Exodus 12:1; Exodus 12:2 : “And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, This month shall be to you the chief of months, it shall be the first month of the year to you.” “In the full moon” of the second clause defines ex-actly the time within the sacred month which belonged to the festival. The general and special descriptions are connected with each other exactly in the same way in Leviticus 23:5 : “In the first month, on the 14th day of the month, is the passover to the Lord.” In other passages throughout the law it is merely the general descriptions that occur; thus, Exodus 34:18 : “The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep, seven days shalt thoueat unleavened bread, at the time of the month Abib” (comp. on the passage the Beitr. p. 361 ss. on Abib p. 364), Deuteronomy 16:1 : “Observe the month Abib, for in the month Abib the Lordthy God brought thee out of Egypt:” comp. on the passage theBeitr. p. 365. According to the common construction, הדש sig-nifies the new moon; throughout the Pentateuch, however, itinvariably signifies a month; and everywhere, even in the later scriptures, it retains this signification, with this difference, that sometimes the month stands for the festival peculiar to the month. And the following grounds are decisive the other way. 1. As it is undoubted that כסה signifies full moon, we have two festivals according to this view-a supposition very unlikely in itself, and the more so that no inward connection whatever is indicated be-tween the new moon and the full moon festival. 2. The con- tents of the Psalm shew that it was composed exclusively for use at the passover. The festival for which it was set apart was, according to ver. 5, instituted at the departure from Egypt, and according to verses 6, 7, and 10, stands in immediate reference to this deliverance;–that the new moon of the month Abib was celebrated as, a preparation for the passover is altogether an arbi-trary assumption. 3.

The horn (not at all the trumpets named in Numbers 10:10) appears here only as one among many instruments, while the sound of drums for the new moons, and especially for the 7th of the month, was the peculiar and characteristic cere-mony. Such an amount of musical power as is here desired was not suitable for this festival. 4. There is no doubt that our verse as supplementing the title fixes the character of the Psalm. This, however, it cannot do, if הדש signify the new moon. In this case, in consequence of the indefinite nature, “ in the new moon,” which demands explanation from what follows, we have our atten-tion directed exclusively to “in the full moon;” and are thus left to waver in uncertainty, as the example of Gesenins shows, be-tween the full moon of the passover and of the feast of taber-nacles.a-The idea of those who, after the example of Luther (in our festival of booths), understand the feast of tabernacles, is confuted by the preceding context. By this reference, it becomes a It is clear from Proverbs 7:20, and also from the Syr. (See Gesen.), that כסה denotes in general the full moon, and not at all, as has been supposed, specially the feast of ta-bernacles. altogether impossible to understand the Psalm. The expression “on the day of our feast” is also in favour of the passover. The passover, which celebrates the fundamental deed of God on be-half of his church, is the feast: comp. the Christol. 2:p. 565.Beitr. 3.p. 80. The feast of tabernacles never has this name, not even in 2 Chronicles 5:3.-The correct interpretation of this verse is destructive of the position taken up by Venema, that the Psalm was composed for the celebration of the passover underHezekiah; for this took place, according to 2 Chon. 30:2, con-trary to the usual custom, in the second month. The account of this celebration, however, is so far of importance to Revelation 1-3, as it shows that at that times music and singing formed a very im-portant part of the celebration of the passover: comp. 2 Chronicles 30:21; 2 Chronicles 30:22.

Psalms 81:4-7

Ver. 4-7.-Ver. 4. For it is a law for Israel, a right for the God of Jacob. Ver. 5. Such a commandment he gave to Joseph, when he brought him over Egypt land, where I heard a language unknown to me. Ver. 6. I removed from the bur-den his shoulder, his hands were set free from the burden-bas- kets. Ver. 7. In the distress thou didst call and I delivered thee. I heard thee in the thunder-cover. I proved thee at the waters of strife. Selah.-In ver. 4, the law for Israel and the right for the God of Jacob correspond. God, by the deliverance which he has wrought out, has acquired a right to the thanks of Israel, and it is Israel’s duty, by rendering obedience to the ap-pointed law of the passover, to implement this right. Israel does not celebrate the passover at his own hand, he only pays to God what is his due,-a due demanded on the ground of mercies be-stowed. It is this that distinguishes all festivals belonging to the true religion from those connected with religions that are false; the former depends throughout upon the foundation of a salvation imparted by God, and assumes the character of a right and a duty. The הוא refers to the festivals in general. The individual expressions of festive joy spoken of in ver. 1-3 had not been expressly commanded in the law.

They are, how-ever, accidents which necessarily accompany the substance.-In ver. 5-7, the deed is more particularly described on which the right of God and the duty of Israel are founded. In reference to עדוה a testimony, next a law, comp. at Psalms 19:7, 78:5.Joseph occupies the place of Israel here, because, during the whole period of the residence in the land of Egypt, the nation owed every thing to Joseph, “the crowned one among his brethren,” Genesis 49:26; their whole existence there was founded on the services which Joseph had rendered to Egypt; comp.

Exodus 1:8, according to which, the oppression of Israel arose from the new king, who did not know Joseph. It was only during this period of his existence that Israel could bear the name of Joseph; and it is altogether incorrect to generalize what is founded singly and entirely on the special circumstances connected with that period. The passage before us has assuredly nothing whatever to do with Psalms 77:15; Psalms 77:80 :i. The suffix in בצאתו refers to Jo-seph. “Out of Egypt” is the expression which commonly occurs in the Pentateuch; comp. Exodus 11:41, “All the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt,” ver. 51, Numbers 22:5, Deuteronomy 9:7; particularly in connection with the feast of the passover, comp. Exodus 34:18, “Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread, seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread as I have commanded thee at the time of the month Abib, for in the month Abib thou wentest out of Egypt.” Here, how-ever, the expression is “over Egypt,” across, על, in the same sense in which it occurs in Job 29:7, “When I went out to the gate over or across the city.” This over is more expressive than out of. The marching out appears all the more glorious, inas-much as the marching extended over the whole country, across Egypt. Numbers 33:4 supplies the commentary,-“The chil-dren of Israel went out with a high hand before all the Egyp-tians;” comp. Exodus 14:8.a Many expositors have suffered them-selves to be led astray by the על. They translate: when he. (the Lord) went forth against the land of Egypt, with reference to Exodus 11:4, “About midnight I go out in the land of Egypt.” Against this, however, we may urge, besides the manifest refer-ence to the passage from the Pentateuch above referred to, the obviously corresponding expression “who led thee out of the land of Egypt,” in ver. 11. There is next added very suitably, accord-ing to the first-mentioned rendering, “where I heard a language a Calvin: The people, led on by God, traversed freely the whole land of Egypt, a pas- sage having been afforded them in consequence of the broken and terrified state of the inhabitants. unknown to me,” an expression which denotes more exactly the oppressive nature of their previous condition, and the unspeakable benefit arising from their deliverance; comp. Psalms 114:1, “WhenIsrael went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from the people of strange language.” Finally, in the continuation in ver. 6 and 7, the language refers entirely to the deliverance out of Egypt, and not at all to the destruction of the first-born of the Egyptians, to which there is nowhere else one single reference throughout the whole Psalm. The last words of the verse indicate, as has been already observed, what it was that rendered the departure of the Israel so very desirable. To dwell in the midst of a people of strange language, to serve a people from whom they were inwardly in a state of utter estrangement, must have been very painful and oppressive. The subject is Israel represented by the Psalmist. We cannot translate, “a language of such a one whom,” “but a lan-guage (of the kind that) I did not understand,” “a language of unintelligibility for me;” Comp.

Bצttcher, proben p. 51. Many expositors translate: the voice of one unknown to me (a God whom I till that time did not know) I heard then in Egypt, or I hear now, the oracle referred to in ver. 6-16.

But a compa-rison of the parallel passages, Psalms 114:1, which is particularly decisive, Deuteronomy 28:49, “The Lord will bring upon thee a people from afar, . . . . a people whose language thou dost not understand,” Isaiah 33:19, and Jude 5:15, leaves no doubt whatever as to the correctness of the interpreta-tion given above. Farther, the description of the miserable condition in which Israel existed in the land of Egypt is continued in ver. 6 and 7. To the unknown language here, corresponds the burden, the burden-basket there; and to the marching out here the rescuing, the delivering there. Then the designation of Jehovah as one unknown, for the whole people, or for the individual, to whom a revelation begins, is destitute of all real foundation and analogy. Finally, this translation, which proceeds from an entire misapprehension of the whole train of thought, must be rejected on etymological grounds. שפה never signifies a particular discourse, but a way of speaking, a language; comp. Bצttcher.–As the difference in regard to thespeaker (in ver: 6 and 7 it s the Lord that speaks, while pre-vious to this the Psalmist, or Israel represented by him, hadspoken in the name and spirit of the Lord) is one merely of form, and as, in reality, verses 6 and 7 merely continue the train of thought of ver. 5 (when the Lord removed, or, then the Lord re-moved) it is altogether inappropriate, by marks of quotation, to favour the idea of the beginning of a new address.

Such a change as to speakers requires very little attention to be paid to it, es- pecially in the Psalm of Asaph, as they are of a highly poetical character. At the first clause of ver. 6, comp.

Exodus 6:6; Exodus 6:7, “I the Lord bring you out from under the burden of the Egyptians.” The basket דוד is, according to the parallelism, the burden-basket. Baskets of this kind were found in the sepulchral vaults which have been opened in Thebes, of which Rosellini first fur-nished drawings and descriptions: the Israelites used them for carrying from one place to another the clay and manufactured bricks: comp. Egypt and the Books of Moses, p. 79, &c.a -On. “I heard thee in the thunder-cover,” in ver. 7, comp. Habakkuk 3:4, “And there (in the lightning-flash which surrounds the Lord at his appearance) was the hiding of his power.” As in that pas-sage God is concealed in the lightning-flash (comp. Delitzsch), so is he here in the thunder, i. e., the thunder-cloud, “the dark-ness,” Exodus 20:18, the storm. There is no need for assuming that the Psalmist alludes, specially and exclusively, to Exodus 14:24, according to which, while the Egyptians were passing through the sea, the Lord looked upon their chariots from the pillar of fire and cloud, and thus completed the deliverance of the Is-raelites. It is a common figure of poetry to represent the Lord as riding forth in a storm, mighty against his enemies, and onbehalf of this people; comp. Psalms 77:16-18; Psalms 18:11 :–and hence the Psalmist has assuredly before his eyes the whole series of Egyptian plagues. At the last clause, I proved thee at the water of Meribah, Luther says correctly: “he makes mention of the waters of strife in order that he may remind them of their sins.” The words do not properly belong to the train of thought in the preceding context, which is occu-pied only with the salvation of God. They look in the first in- a Calvin: “We may now apply the subject to ourselves: inasmuch as God has not only removed our shoulders from burdens of bricks, and our hands from kilns, but has redeemed us from the tyranny of Satan, and brought us up from perdition, we are laid under much more solemn obligations than were the ancient people.“stance very like the expression of an idea which had started up uncalled for. This apparently arbitrary reference to Israel’s un-faithfulness and ingratitude prepares the way, however, for the following exhortation and complaint, and thus forms the connect-ing link between the first and second portions of the Psalm. The proving at the waters of strife, Ezekiel 17:1, &c. (comp. on the rela-tion which this narrative bears to that at Numbers 20:1, &c., the Beitr. p. 378, &c.) is specially referred to, because it was here that the first proper act of rebellion took place on the part of the people who had only a short while ago beheld the glorious deeds of the Lord-the first manifestation of his real nature. The proving comes into notice here in reference to the well known re-sult by which it was followed.

Psalms 81:8-12

Ver. 8-12.-Ver. 8. Hear my people, and let me swear solemnly to thee, if thou harkenest unto me. Ver. 9. Let there not be among thee another God; and thou shalt not wor- ship a God of the strangers. Ver. 10. I am the Lord thy God who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, I will fill it. Ver. 11. But my people does not listen to my voice, and Israel will not be mine. Ver. 12. So I have given them over to the wickedness of their heart, they walk in their own counsels.-On ver. 8, comp. Psalms 1:7. On “my peo- ple,” Luther says: “You are my people, I have preserved, nour-ished, and redeemed thee; therefore listen to me.” As אם is never a particle expressive of desire, it is necessary to supply: it will be well with thee, or something similar,-a construction rendered also probable by comparing ver. 13. Similar ellipses occur in Exodus 32:32 ; Psalms 27:17 (comp. at the passage), Luke 19:42; Luke 19:9 (see Koenצhl on the passages).-Ver. 9 and 10 depend on Exodus 20:2; Exodus 20:3. It has been very unjustifiably maintained that the first commandment stands instead of the whole decalogue. This would deprive the thought of all point. It was only their fathers’ God, their country’s God, that had ma-nifested himself in the past as Israel’s Redeemer (comp. Deut. 32:12, “the Lord alone did lead him, and there was not with him one God of the stranger),” and thus he is still rich in help for them; therefore they should even now serve this one God only. -Ver. 10 is in reality connected with ver. 9 by a “Because.” The expression, “who led thee out of the land of Egypt” is literallyfrom Deuteronomy 20:1.

The words, “Open thy mouth wide, I will fill it,” are equivalent to “I am rich for all thy necessities, even for thy boldest wishes,” as is evident from their development in ver. 14-16.-In ver. 11, 12, the Lord complains that Israel had hitherto, to their own loss, failed to respond to the exhortations addressed to them in ver. 8-10, notwithstanding the solid foun-dation on which these rested in their deliverance. Comp.

Prov. i. 30, 31, “they would have none of my counsel, they despised all my censures: therefore they eat the fruit of their way and shall be satisfied with their own counsels.” At ver. 11, Luther says: “ It is something dreadful and terrible that he says my people Israel. If it had been a stranger to whom I had mani-fested no particular deeds of kindness, &c.” Allusion is made to Deuteronomy 13:9, where it is said, in reference to him who should entice Israel to serve strange Gods: “thou shalt not consent unto him nor hearken unto him.” Israel had- singularly and shamefully reversed the matter: they had lent their ear to the enticer and renounced their own God. The preterites denote the past stretching forward into the present.-At ver. 12, God lets every one take his own way; the stiff-necked Israelites who would not have his truth and goodness, shall be given over to error and wickedness, to their own destruction; comp. Romans 1:24. 2 Thessalonians 2:10; 2 Thessalonians 2:11. The לב שרירות (not hardness but wickedness of heart) is here and everywhere else where it occurs, Isaiah 3:17; Isaiah 7:24, taken from Deuteronomy 29:19. To walk in their own counsels is to regulate the life according to them, according to the passions of their own corrupted hearts instead of the com-mandments of the holy God, comp. Jeremiah 7:24; Isaiah 65:2 : “arebellious people who walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts.”

Psalms 81:13-16

Ver. 13-16. Arnd.: “The blessed God in his great fatherly love and faithfulness cannot leave them, he must repeat his pro-mise and call men again to him by the offer of his gracious deeds.” -Ver. 13. If now my people did hear me, and Israel walked in my way. Ver. 14. I would soon bring down their enemies and turn my hand upon their adversaries. Ver. 15. The haters of the Lord would feign submission to him, and their time would continue for ever. Ver. 16. He would feed them with the fat of the wheat, and out of the rock would I satisfy thee with honey. —The לו, ver. 13, denotes the condition notwithstanding the consciousness that it is not realized: if my people heard, which they do not: comp. Ewald, 627. Isaiah 48:18. The ways of the Lord form the contrast to their own stupid and ruinous plans, ver. 12.-The phrase “to turn the hand upon,” ver. 14, is, when taken by itself, an indefinite one, to turn it to the object of trade or manufacture: comp. the Christol. p. 338. Here, accord-ing to the connection, it is the punishing hand; and to turn it back denotes the speedy overpowering of the enemies,-as for-merly in the days of old, ver. 6 and 7: comp. particularly thereבצרה.-The first half of ver. 15 depends on Deuteronomy 33:29 : “thy enemies shall feign to thee” (comp. at Psalms 18:44.) The allusion to this passage shews that the לו is to be referred to Israel and accounts for the singular. On “the haters of the Lord,” Luther: “Thou shouldst not think that I am favourable to them, for they are my enemies also.

But they are too strong for thee and gain the upper hand because thou hast forsaken me. Had it not been for this, matters would have been very different.

It is not the enemies that plague thee; it is I: mine hand it is that oppresses thee when thine enemies oppress thee.” It was the design to give great prominence to the thought so comfort-ing for Israel and so well fitted to lead them to reconciliation with God, that their enemies are also the enemies of God, which led to the expression, “the haters of the Lord,” instead of “my haters.” The use of the third person in the first clause of ver. 16 is connected with this. But towards the conclusion, the usual form is resumed. On the second clause, comp. 2 Samuel 7:24. The עת signifies always time, never fortune.�On ver. 16, Luther: “For there are two things of which we stand in need, nourish-ment and protection. Therefore, God now says, that if they turn to him he will not only be their man of war to fight for them, but also their husbandman: so that those who fear him and trust in him shall want nothing that pertains to this life.” The first clause is from Deuteronomy 32:14 (the fat of the wheat is instead of the best of the wheat), the second clause from Deuteronomy 32:13,and he caused Israel to suck honey from the rock, oil from the flinty rock.” That the honey from the rock is not at all what several very prosaicly have supposed, the honey which the bees had prepared in the crevices of the rocks, but something alto-gether unusual and supernatural (out of the hard barren rock) isevident from the parallel clause in Deut., oil from the flinty rock,and also from the passage, Job 29:6, which in like manneralludes to the passage in Deut.: “when I bathed my feet in milkand the hard rock was changed for me into streams of oil.”