Psalms 81: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The psalm opens with a call to sing, play instruments, and blow the ram's horn at the appointed festival, a practice it traces back to a rule God gave Israel when he brought them out of Egypt. God then speaks: he reminds them how he lifted the load from their shoulders, answered them in trouble, and tested them at Meribah, and he tells them to have no foreign god. He says his people would not listen, so he left them to their own stubborn plans. The psalm ends with God saying what he would have done if they had listened: defeat their enemies and feed them with the finest wheat and honey from the rock.

Claim by Claim

1. 81:1
   • The hearers are commanded to sing aloud to God.
   • God is called our strength.
   • The hearers are commanded to make a joyful shout to the God of Jacob.
2. 81:2
   • The hearers are told to raise a song.
   • The hearers are told to bring the hand-drum.
   • The hearers are told to bring the sweet-sounding lyre together with the harp.
3. 81:3
   • The hearers are told to blow the ram's horn at the new moon.
   • The horn is also to be blown at a set point in the month, which is either the full moon or the appointed time.
   • That day is called our festival day.
4. 81:4
   • This is a statute for Israel.
   • This is an ordinance belonging to the God of Jacob.
5. 81:5
   • He appointed it in Joseph as a testimony.
   • This was done when he went out over the land of Egypt.
   • It is unclear whether the one who went out over the land of Egypt is God or Joseph or Israel.
   • The speaker says he heard there a language he did not know.
6. 81:6
   • God says he removed his shoulder from the burden.
   • God says his hands were freed from the carrying basket.
7. 81:7
   • God says the hearer called out in trouble.
   • God says he rescued the hearer.
   • God says he answered the hearer in the hidden place of thunder.
   • God says he tested the hearer at the waters of Meribah.
   • Selah.
8. 81:8
   • God calls his people to listen.
   • God says he will give testimony against them.
   • God addresses Israel.
   • God says: if only you would listen to me.
9. 81:9
   • There is to be no foreign god among you.
   • You shall not bow down to a foreign god.
10. 81:10
    • God says: I am the LORD your God.
    • God says he brought them up out of the land of Egypt.
    • God tells them to open their mouth wide.
    • God says he will fill their mouth.
11. 81:11
    • God's people did not listen to his voice.
    • Israel did not want God.
12. 81:12
    • God gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart.
    • They walked in their own counsels.
13. 81:13
    • God wishes his people had listened to him.
    • God wishes Israel had walked in his ways.
14. 81:14
    • God says he would quickly have subdued their enemies.
    • God says he would have turned his hand against their adversaries.
15. 81:15
    • Those who hate the LORD would have cringed in submission to him.
    • Their time would have lasted forever.
    • It is unclear whether the time lasting forever belongs to the haters of the LORD or to God's people.
16. 81:16
    • He would have fed them with the finest of the wheat.
    • God says he would have satisfied the hearer with honey from the rock.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

81:1

"The God of Jacob" identifies God by his connection to Jacob, the ancestor from whom the twelve tribes descended and who was also called Israel. Using the ancestor's name is a way of naming the whole nation's God.

81:2

These are the instruments of Israelite worship: a small hand-held frame drum (the King James "timbrel"), and two related stringed instruments whose exact difference is uncertain, the King James calls them "harp" and "psaltery." Neither resembles a modern concert harp; both were small, portable, and plucked.

81:3

The horn is a shofar, a ram's horn blown as a signal, not a musical instrument in the modern sense. Israel's calendar followed the moon: the new moon opened each month and was marked by horn blasts, and the great festivals fell at full moon, in the middle of the month. The King James "in the time appointed" translates a word that most likely means the full moon.

81:4

"Statute" and "law" here refer to the festival itself, the command to keep the feast, not to law in general.

81:5

Joseph was one of Jacob's sons, and two of the tribes descended from him; his name is used here for the nation as a whole. "When he went out across the land of Egypt" is genuinely unclear in the Hebrew: it may mean when Israel marched out of Egypt at the exodus, or when God went out through Egypt in judgment on the night of the Passover. The last line switches to a new speaker, either the psalmist or Israel recalling the strangeness of the Egyptian language.

81:6

Egyptian wall paintings show forced laborers carrying loads in baskets slung from the shoulders. The Hebrew word can mean a basket for carrying clay or bricks; the King James read it as "pots." Both readings point to the same thing, the brick-making labor Israel was forced into in Egypt.

81:7

"The secret place of thunder" is literally the hiding place or covering of thunder, the storm cloud from which God spoke. Meribah, whose name means "quarrelling," is where Israel complained about the lack of water in the wilderness and God gave water from a rock (Exodus 17 and Numbers 20). "Selah" is a term found throughout the Psalms whose meaning is unknown; it is usually taken as a musical or liturgical direction, perhaps a pause or a swell.

81:8

In the King James, to "testify unto" someone means to give them a solemn, formal warning, the way a witness in court puts something on the record. It does not mean sharing a personal experience, which is how the word is often used today.

81:9

"Strange" in the King James means foreign or belonging to someone else, not odd. The wording closely echoes the opening of the Ten Commandments.

81:10

The image is of a bird opening its beak to be fed, or of a person opening their mouth for food, a picture of complete dependence and of God's readiness to supply.

81:11

"Would none of me" is an old idiom meaning wanted nothing to do with me. "Would not hearken" means refused to listen, with the sense of refusing to obey rather than simply failing to hear.

81:12

The Hebrew says God let them go in the stubbornness of their own heart. "Lust" in the King James means simply desire or craving, not specifically sexual desire.

81:14

In 1611 English "should" often carried the sense of our "would". Verses 14 to 16 describe what did not happen, because verse 11 has already said the people refused to listen. "Turned my hand against" is a military image of striking an opponent.

81:15

The verb translated "submitted themselves" or "cower" means to cringe or shrink back, and often carries the sense of an insincere or forced submission. The second half is ambiguous in the Hebrew: "their time" may be the enemies' doom lasting forever, or, if the pronoun refers back to Israel, Israel's good fortune lasting forever.

81:16

"The finest of the wheat" is literally the fat of the wheat, fat being the richest and most valuable part of an animal. Wild bees nested in clefts of rock, so honey from stone was a proverbial image of rich food coming from the most unpromising place. The verse also shifts from "them" to "you," addressing the people directly.