Matthew Henry Commentary Psalms 81
Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalms 81
Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalms 81
"Sing aloud unto God our strength: Make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. Raise a song, and bring hither the timbrel, The pleasant harp with the psaltery. Blow the trumpet at the new moon, At the full moon, on our feast-day. For it is a statute for Israel, An ordinance of the God of Jacob. He appointed it in Joseph for a testimony, When he went out over the land of Egypt, [Where] I heard a language that I knew not. I removed his shoulder from the burden: His hands were freed from the basket. 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" — Psalms 81:1-7 (ASV)
All the worship we can render to the Lord is beneath his excellences and our obligations to him, especially in our redemption from sin and wrath. What God had done on Israel's behalf was kept in remembrance by public solemnities. To make a deliverance appear more gracious and more glorious, it is good to observe all that makes the trouble we are delivered from appear more grievous.
We ought never to forget the base and ruinous drudgery to which Satan, our oppressor, brought us. But when, in distress of conscience, we are led to cry for deliverance, the Lord answers our prayers and sets us at liberty. Convictions of sin and trials by affliction prove his regard for his people.
If the Jews, on their solemn feast-days, were thus to call to mind their redemption out of Egypt, much more ought we, on the Christian Sabbath, to call to mind a more glorious redemption, wrought out for us by our Lord Jesus Christ, from worse bondage.
"Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wouldest hearken unto me! There shall no strange god be in thee; Neither shalt thou worship any foreign god. I am Jehovah thy God, Who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt: Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people hearkened not to my voice; And Israel would none of me. So I let them go after the stubbornness of their heart, That they might walk in their own counsels. Oh that my people would hearken unto me, That Israel would walk in my ways! I would soon subdue their enemies, And turn my hand against their adversaries. The haters of Jehovah should submit themselves unto him: But their time should endure for ever. He would feed them also with the finest of the wheat; And with honey out of the rock would I satisfy thee. " — Psalms 81:8-16 (ASV)
We cannot expect too little from the creature, nor too much from the Creator. We may have enough from God if we pray for it in faith. All the wickedness of the world is due to human wilfulness. People are not religious because they choose not to be.
God is not the Author of their sin; he leaves them to the lusts of their own hearts and the counsels of their own minds. If they do not act rightly, the blame must be upon themselves. The Lord is unwilling that any should perish. What enemies sinners are to themselves!
It is sin that makes our troubles long and our salvation slow. Upon the same conditions of faith and obedience, Christians hold those spiritual and eternal good things that the pleasant fields and fertile hills of Canaan symbolized. Christ is the Bread of life; he is the Rock of salvation, and his promises are like honey to devout minds.
But those who reject him as their Lord and Master must also lose him as their Savior and their reward.
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