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Psalm Eighty-one
Psalm 81
Chapter Contents
God is praised for what he has done for his people. (1-7)
Their obligations to him. (8-16)
Commentary on Psalm 81:1-7
(Read Psalm 81:1-7)
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, 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 to 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.
Commentary on Psalm 81:8-16
(Read Psalm 81:8-16)
We cannot look for 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 owing to man's wilfulness. People are not
religious, because they will not be so. God is not the Author of their sin, he
leaves them to the lusts of their own hearts, and the counsels of their own
heads; if they do not well, 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, do Christians hold those spiritual and
eternal good things, which the pleasant fields and fertile hills of Canaan
showed forth. Christ is the Bread of life; he is the Rock of salvation, and his
promises are as honey to pious minds. But those who reject him as their Lord
and Master, must also lose him as their Saviour and their reward.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Psalms》
Psalm 81
Verse 5
[5] This
he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out through the land of
Egypt: where I heard a language that I understood not.
Joseph —
Among the people of Israel.
Testimony — For
a witness of that glorious deliverance.
He — God.
Went — As
a captain at the head of his people.
Egypt — To
execute his judgments upon that land.
I — My progenitors, for
all the successive generations of Israel make one body, and are sometimes
spoken of as one person.
A language —
The Egyptian language, which at first was unknown to the Israelites, Genesis 42:13, and probably continued so for
some considerable time, because they were much separated both in place and
conversation from the Egyptians.
Verse 6
[6] I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the
pots.
Pots —
This word denotes all those vessels wherein they carried water, straw, lime, or
bricks.
Verse 7
[7] 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*/.
Calledst — At
the Red Sea.
Secret place —
From the dark and cloudy pillar, whence I thundered against the Egyptians.
Verse 8
[8]
Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken
unto me;
Testify —
This God did presently after he brought them from Meribah, even at Sinai.
Verse 10
[10] I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open
thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
Wide —
Either to pray for mercies, or to receive the mercies which I am ready to give
you.
Verse 15
[15] The
haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time
should have endured for ever.
Him —
Unto Israel.
Their time —
Their happy time.
Verse 16
[16] He
should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of
the rock should I have satisfied thee.
Honey —
With all pleasant and precious fruits.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Psalms》
Exposition
Explanatory Notes and
Quaint Sayings
Hints to the Village
Preacher
TITLE. To the Chief
Musician upon Gittith. Very little is known of the meaning of this title. We
have given the best explanation known to us in connection with Psalm 8 in Vol.
1 of this work. If it be intended to indicate a vintage song, it speaks well
for the piety of the people for whom it was written; it is to be feared that in
few places even in Christian countries would holy hymns be thought suitable to
be sung in connection with the winepress. When the bells upon the horses shall
be holiness unto the Lord, then shall the juice of the grape gush forth to the
accompaniment of sacred song. A Psalm of Asaph. This poet here again dwells
upon the history of his country; his great forte seems to be rehearsing the
past in admonitory psalmody. He is the poet of the history and politics of
Israel. A truly national songster, at once pious and patriotic.
DIVISION. Praise is
called for to celebrate some memorable day, perhaps the passover; whereupon the
deliverance out of Egypt is described, Ps 81:1-7. Then the Lord gently chides
his people for their ingratitude, and pictures their happy estate had they but
been obedient to his commands.
EXPOSITION
Verse
1. Sing, in tune and measure, so that the public praise may
be in harmony; sing with joyful notes, and sounds melodious. Aloud. For the
heartiest praise is due to our good Lord. His acts of love to us speak more
loudly than any of our words of gratitude can do. No dulness should ever
stupefy our psalmody, or half heartedness cause is to limp along. Sing aloud,
ye debtors to sovereign grace, your hearts are profoundly grateful: let your
voices express your thankfulness. Unto God our strength. The Lord was the
strength of his people in delivering them out of Egypt with a high hand, and
also in sustaining them in the wilderness, placing them in Canaan, preserving
them from their foes, and giving them victory. To whom do men give honour but
to those upon whom they rely, therefore let us sing aloud unto our God, who is
our strength and our song. Make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. The God
of the nation, the God of their father Jacob, was extolled in happy music by
the Israelitish people; let no Christian be silent, or slack in praise, for
this God is our God. It is to be regretted that the niceties of modern singing
frighten our congregations from joining lustily in the hymns. For our part we
delight in full bursts of praise, and had rather discover the ruggedness of a
want of musical training than miss the heartiness of universal congregational
song. The gentility which lisps the tune in well bred whispers, or leaves the
singing altogether to the choir, is very like a mockery of worship. The gods of
Greece and Rome may be worshipped well enough with classical music, but Jehovah
can only be adored with the heart, and that music is the best for his service
which gives the heart most play.
Verse
2. Take a psalm. Select a sacred song, and then raise it with
your hearty voices. And bring hither the timbrel. Beat on your tambourines, ye
damsels, let the sound be loud and inspiriting. "Sound the trumpets, beat
the drums." God is not to be served with misery but with mirthful music,
sound ye then the loud timbrel, as of old ye smote it by "Egypt's dark
sea." The pleasant harp with the psaltery. The timbrel for sound, must be
joined by the harp for sweetness, and this by other stringed instruments for
variety. Let the full compass of music be holiness unto the Lord.
Verse
3. Blow up the trumpet in the new moon. Announce the sacred
month, the beginning of months, when the Lord brought his people out of the
house of bondage. Clear and shrill let the summons be which calls all Israel to
adore the Redeeming Lord. In the time appointed, on our solemn feast day.
Obedience is to direct our worship, not whim and sentiment: God's appointment
gives a solemnity to rites and times which no ceremonial pomp or hierarchical
ordinance could confer. The Jews not only observed the ordained month, but that
part of the month which had been divinely set apart. The Lord's people in the
olden time welcomed the times appointed for worship; let us feel the same
exultation, and never speak of the Sabbath as though it could be other than
"a delight" and "honourable." Those who plead this passage
will keep such feasts as the Lord appoints, but not those which Rome or
Canterbury may ordain.
Verse
4. For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of
Jacob. It was a precept binding upon all the tribes that a sacred season
should be set apart to commemorate the Lord's mercy; and truly it was but the
Lord's due, he had a right and a claim to such special homage. When it can be
proved that the observance of Christmas, Whitsuntide, and other Popish
festivals was ever instituted by a divine statute, we also will attend to them,
but not till then. It is as much our duty to reject the traditions of men, as
to observe the ordinances of the Lord. We ask concerning every rite and rubric,
"Is this a law of the God of Jacob?" and if it be not clearly so, it
is of no authority with us, who walk in Christian liberty.
Verse
5. This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony. The nation is
called Joseph, because in Egypt it would probably be known and spoken of as
Joseph's family, and indeed Joseph was the foster father of the people. The
passover, which is probably here alluded to, was to be a standing memorial of
the redemption from Egypt; and everything about it was intended to testify to
all ages, and all peoples, the glory of the Lord in the deliverance of his
chosen nation. When he went out through the land of Egypt. Much of Egypt was
traversed by the tribes in their exodus march, and in every place the feast
which they had kept during the night of Egypt's visitation would be a testimony
for the Lord, who had also himself in the midnight slaughter gone forth through
the land of Egypt. The once afflicted Israelites marched over the land of
bondage as victors who trample down the slain.
Where
I heard a language that I understood not. Surely the connection requires that
we accept these words as the language of the Lord. It would be doing great
violence to language if the "I" here should be referred to one
person, and the "I" in the next verse to another. But how can it be
imagined that the Lord should speak of a language which he understood not,
seeing he knows all things, and no form of speech is incomprehensible to him?
The reply is, that the Lord here speaks as the God of Israel identifying
himself with his own chosen nation, and calling that an unknown tongue to
himself which was unknown to them. He had never been adored by psalm or prayer
in the tongue of Egypt; the Hebrew was the speech known in his sacred house,
and the Egyptian was outlandish and foreign there. In strictest truth, and not
merely in figure, might the Lord thus speak, since the wicked customs and
idolatrous rites of Egypt were disapproved of by him, and in that sense were
unknown. Of the wicked, Jesus shall say, "I never knew you; "and
probably in the same sense this expression should be understood, for it may be
correctly rendered, "a speech I knew not I am hearing." It was among
the griefs of Israel that their taskmasters spake an unknown tongue, and they
were thus continually reminded that they were strangers in a strange land. The
Lord had pity upon them, and emancipated them, and hence it was their bounden
duty to maintain inviolate the memorial of the divine goodness. It is no small
mercy to be brought out from an ungodly world and separated unto the Lord.
Verse
6. I removed his shoulder from the burden. Israel was the
drudge and slave of Egypt, but God gave him liberty. It was by God alone that
the nation was set free. Other peoples owe their liberties to their own efforts
and courage, but Israel received its Magna Charta as a free gift of divine
power. Truly may the Lord say of everyone of his freed men, I removed his
shoulder from the burden. His hands were delivered from the pots. He was
no longer compelled to carry earth, and mould it, and bake it; the earth basket
was no more imposed upon the people, nor the tale of bricks exacted, for they
came out into the open country where none could exact upon them. How typical
all this is of the believer's deliverance from legal bondage, when, through
faith, the burden of sin glides into the Saviour's sepulchre, and the servile
labours of self righteousness come to an end for ever.
Verse
7. Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee. God heard
his people's cries in Egypt, and at the Red Sea: this ought to have bound them
to him. Since God does not forsake us in our need, we ought never to forsake
him at any time. When our hearts wander from God, our answered prayers cry
"shame" upon us. I answered thee in the secret place of thunder. Out
of the cloud the Lord sent forth tempest upon the foes of his chosen. That
cloud was his secret pavilion, within it he hung up his weapons of war, his
javelins of lightning his trumpet of thunder; forth from that pavilion he came
and overthrew the foe that his own elect might be secure. I proved thee at the
waters of Meribah. They had proved him and found him faithful, he afterwards
proved them in return. Precious things are tested, therefore Israel's loyalty
to her King was put to trial, and, alas, it failed lamentably. The God who was adored
one day for his goodness was reviled the next, when the people for a moment
felt the pangs of hunger and thirst. The story of Israel is only our own
history in another shape. God has heard us, delivered us, liberated us, and too
often our unbelief makes the wretched return of mistrust, murmuring, and
rebellion. Great is our sin; great is the mercy of our God: let us reflect upon
both, and pause a while. Selah. Hurried reading is of little benefit; to sit
down a while and meditate is very profitable.
Verse
8. Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee. What? Are
the people so insensible as to be deaf to their God? So it would seem, for he
earnestly asks a hearing. Are we not also at times quite as careless and
immovable? O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me. There is much in this
"if." How low have they fallen who will not hearken unto God himself!
The deaf adder is not more grovelling. We are not fond of being upbraided, we
had rather avoid sharp and cutting truths; and, though the Lord himself rebuke
us, we fly from his gentle reproofs.
Verse
9. There shall no strange god be in thee. No alien god is to
be tolerated in Israel's tents. Neither shalt thou worship any strange god.
Where false gods are, their worship is sure to follow. Man is so desperate an
idolater that the image is always a strong temptation: while the nests are
there the birds will be eager to return. No other god had done anything for the
Jews, and therefore they had no reason for paying homage to any other. To us
the same argument will apply. We owe all to the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ: the world, the flesh, the devil, none of these have been of any
service to us; they are aliens, foreigners, enemies, and it is not for us to
bow down before them. "Little children keep yourselves from idols,
"is our Lord's voice to us, and by the power of his Spirit we would cast
out every false god from our hearts.
Verse
10. I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of
Egypt. Thus did Jehovah usually introduce himself to his people. The great
deliverance out of Egypt was that claim upon his people's allegiance which he
most usually pleaded. If ever people were morally bound to their God, certainly
Israel was a thousand times pledged unto Jehovah, by his marvellous deeds on
their behalf in connection with the Exodus. Open thy mouth wide, and I will
fill it. Because he had brought them out of Egypt he could do great things for
them. He had proved his power and his good will; it remained only for his
people to believe in him and ask large things of him. If their expectations
were enlarged to the utmost degree, they could not exceed the bounty of the
Lord. Little birds in the nest open their mouths widely enough, and perhaps the
parent birds fail to fill them, but it will never be so with our God. His
treasures of grace are inexhaustible,
"Deep
as our helpless miseries are,
And boundless as our sins."
The
Lord began with his chosen nation upon a great scale, doing great wonders for
them, and offering them vast returns for their faith and love, if they would
but be faithful to him. Sad, indeed, was the result of this grand experiment.
Verse
11. But my people would not hearken to my voice. His warnings
were rejected, his promises forgotten, his precepts disregarded. Though the
divine voice proposed nothing but good to them, and that upon an unparalleled
scale of liberality, yet they turned aside. And Israel would none of me. They
would not consent to his proposals, they walked in direct opposition to his
commands, they hankered after the ox god of Egypt, and their hearts were
bewitched by the idols of the nations round about. The same spirit of apostacy
is in all our hearts, and if we have not altogether turned aside from the Lord,
it is only grace which has prevented us.
Verse
12. So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust. No
punishment is more just or more severe than this. If men will not be checked,
but madly take the bit between their teeth and refuse obedience, who shall
wonder if the reins are thrown upon their necks, and they are let alone to work
out their own destruction. It were better to be given up to lions than to our
hearts' lusts. And they walked in their own counsels. There was no doubt as to
what course they would take, for man is everywhere wilful and loves his own
way,—that way being at all times in direct opposition to God's way. Men
deserted of restraining grace, sin with deliberation; they consult, and debate,
and consider, and then elect evil rather than good, with malice aforethought
and in cool blood. It is a remarkable obduracy of rebellion when men not only
run into sin through passion, but calmly "walk in their own counsels"
of iniquity.
Verse
13. O that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked
in my ways! The condescending love of God expresses itself in painful
regrets for Israel's sin and punishment. Such were the laments of Jesus over
Jerusalem. Certain doctrinalists find a stumbling stone in such passages, and
set themselves to explain them away, but to men in sympathy with the divine
nature the words and the emotions are plain enough. A God of mercy cannot see
men heaping up sorrow for themselves through their sins without feeling his
compassion excited toward them.
Verse
14. I should soon have subdued their enemies. As he did in
Egypt overthrow Pharaoh, so would he have baffled every enemy. And turned my
hand against their adversaries. He would have smitten them once, and then have
dealt them a return blow with the back of his hand. See what we lose by sin.
Our enemies find the sharpest weapons against us in the armoury of our
transgressions. They could never overthrow us if we did not first overthrow
ourselves. Sin strips a man of his armour, and leaves him naked to his enemies.
Our doubts and fears would long ago have been slain if we had been more
faithful to our God. Ten thousand evils which afflict us now would have been
driven far from us if we had been more jealous of holiness in our walk and
conversation. We ought to consider not only what sin takes from our present stock,
but what it prevents our gaining: reflections will soon show us that sin always
costs us dear. If we depart from God, our inward corruptions are sure to make a
rebellion. Satan will assail us, the world will worry us, doubts will annoy us,
and all through our own fault. Solomon's departure from God raised up enemies
against him, and it will be so with us, but if our ways please the Lord he will
make even our enemies to be at peace with us.
Verse
15. The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto
him. Though the submission would have been false and flattering, yet the
enemies of Israel would have been so humiliated that they would have hastened
to make terms with the favoured tribes. Our enemies become abashed and cowardly
when we, with resolution, walk carefully with the Lord. It is in God's power to
keep the fiercest in check, and he will do so if we have a filial fear, a pious
awe of him. But their time should have endured for ever. The people would have
been firmly established, and their prosperity would have been stable. Nothing
confirms a state or a church like holiness. If we be firm in obedience we shall
be firm in happiness. Righteousness establishes, sin ruins.
Verse
16. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat.
Famine would have been an unknown word, they would have been fed on the best of
the best food, and have had abundance of it as their every day diet. And with
honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee. Luxuries as well as
necessaries would be forthcoming, the very rocks of the land would yield
abundant and sweet supplies; the bees would store the clefts of the rocks with
luscious honey, and so turn the most sterile part of the land to good account.
The Lord can do great things for an obedient people. When his people walk in
the light of his countenance, and maintain unsullied holiness, the joy and
consolation which he yields them are beyond conception. To them the joys of
heaven have begun even upon earth. They can sing in the ways of the Lord. The spring
of the eternal summer has commenced with them; they are already blest, and they
look for brighter things. This shows us by contrast how sad a thing it is for a
child of God to sell himself into captivity to sin, and bring his soul into a
state of famine by following after another god. O Lord, for ever bind us to
thyself alone, and keep us faithful unto the end.
EXPLANATORY
NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
TITLE. It is
remarkable that as Psalm 80 treats of the church of God under the figure of a
vine, so the present is entitled, "upon Gittith, "literally
upon the winepress. Whether the expression was meant to refer to a musical
instrument, or to some direction as to the tune, is uncertain. In our Saviour's
adoption of the figure of a vineyard to represent his church, he speaks of a
winepress dug in it, Mt 21:33. The idea refers itself to the final result in
some sense, in a way of salvation of souls, as the same figure of a winepress
is used in Revelation 16 of the final destruction of the ungodly. W. Wilson.
Verse
2. Timbrel. The toph, English version tabret,
timbrel, LXX., tumpanon, once qalthrion. It was what would now be called a
tambourine, being played by the hand; and was specially used by women. It is
thrice mentioned in the Ps 81:2 Ps 149:3 150:4. Joseph Francis Thrupp.
Verse
2. The Psaltery. It is probably impossible to be sure as to
what is intended by a psaltery. The Genevan version translates it viol,
and the ancient viol was a six stringed guitar. In the Prayer book version, the
Hebrew word is rendered lute, which instrument resembled the guitar, but
was superior in tone. The Greek word "psalterion" denotes a stringed
instrument played with the fingers. Cassidorus says that the psaltery was
triangular in shape, and that it was played with a bow. Aben Ezra evidently
considered it to be a kind of pipe, but the mass of authorities make it a
stringed instrument. It was long in use, for we read of it in David's time as
made of fir wood (2Sa 6:55), and in Solomon's reign, of algum trees (2Ch 9:11),
and it was still in use in the days of Nebuchadnezzar.
Verse
3. Blow up the trumpet, etc. The Jews say this blowing of
trumpets was in commemoration of Isaac's deliverance, a ram being sacrificed
for him, and therefore they sounded with trumpets made of ram's horns: or in
remembrance of the trumpet blown at the giving of the law; though it rather was
an emblem of the gospel and ministry of it, by which sinners are aroused,
awakened and quickened, and souls are charmed and allured, and filled with
spiritual joy and gladness. John Gill.
Verse
3. The trumpet. The sound of the trumpet is very commonly employed
in Scripture as an image of the voice or word of God. The voice of God, and the
voice of the trumpet on Mount Sinai, were heard together (Ex 19:5,18-19), first
the trumpet sound as the symbol, then the reality. So also John heard the voice
of the Lord as that of a trumpet (Re 1:10 4:1), and the sound of the trumpet is
once and again spoken of as the harbinger of the Son of Man, when coming in
power and great glory, to utter the almighty word which shall quicken the dead
to life, and make all things new (Mt 24:31 1Co 15:52; 1Th 4:16). The sound of
the trumpet, then, was a symbol of the majestic, omnipotent voice or word of
God; but of course only in those things in which it was employed in respect to
what God had to say to men. It might be used also as from man to God, or by the
people, as from one to another. In this case, it would be a call to a greater
than usual degree of alacrity and excitement in regard to the work and service
of God. And such probably was the more peculiar design of the blowing of
trumpets at the festivals generally, and especially at the festival of trumpets
on the first day of the second month. Joseph Francis Thrupp.
Verse
3. "In the new moon, "etc. The feast of the new
moon was always proclaimed by sound of trumpet. For want of astronomical
knowledge, the poor Jews were put to sad shifts to know the real time of the
new moon. They generally sent persons to the top of some hill or mountain about
the time which, according to their supputations, the new moon should appear.
The first who saw it was to give immediate notice to the Sanhedrim; they
closely examined the reporter as to his credibility, and whether his
information agreed with their calculations. If all was found satisfactory, the
president proclaimed the new moon by shouting out, wdqm mikkodesh!
"It is consecrated." This word was repeated twice aloud by the
people; and was then proclaimed everywhere by blowing of horns, or what
is called the sound of trumpets. Among the Hindus some feasts are
announced by the sound of the conch, or sacred shell. Adam Clarke.
Verse
3. In the time appointed. The word rendered the time appointed,
signifies the hidden or covered period; that is, the time when
the moon is concealed or covered with darkness. This day was a joyful festival,
returning every month; but the first day of the seventh moon was most solemn of
the whole; being not only the first of the moon, but of the civil year. This
was called the feast of trumpets, as it was celebrated by the blowing of
trumpets from sunrising to sun setting; according to the command, "It
shall be a day of the blowing of trumpets to you." This joy was a memorial
of the joy of creation, and the joy of giving the law; it also preindicated the
blowing of the gospel trumpet, after the dark, the covered period of the death
of Christ, when the form of the church changed, and the year of the
"redeemed" began; and finally, it prefigured the last day, when the trumpet
of God shall sound, and the dead shall be raised. Alexander Pirie.
Verse
5. I heard a language that I understood not. The language
that he then heard—the religious worship of idolaters,—vows offered up "to
birds and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things, "Ro 1:23, and strength
and mercy sought from every object in nature, except himself, —was a
language unknown to him—"he knew it not." William Hill Tucker.
Verse
6. Pots, or burden baskets. Compare Ex 6:6-7.
Rosellini gives a drawing of these baskets from a picture discovered in a tomb
at Thebes. "Of the labourers, "says he, "some are employed in
transporting the clay in vessels, some in intermingling it with straw; others
are taking the bricks out of the form, and placing them in rows; still others
with a piece of wood upon their backs, and ropes on each side, carry away the
bricks already burned or dried. Their dissimilarity to the Egyptians appears at
the first view: their complexion, physiognomy and beard permit us not to be
mistaken in supposing them to be Hebrews." Frederic Fysh.
Verse
6. Pots. The bricklayer's baskets; hanging one at each end of
a yoke laid across the shoulders. William Kay.
Verse
7. To answer in the secret place of thunder, refers us to the
pillar of cloud and fire, the habitation of the awful Majesty of God, whence
God glanced with angry eyes upon the Egyptians, filled them with consternation
and overthrew them. Venema.
Verse
10. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. Surely this
teaches us, that the greater and more valuable the blessings are which we
implore from the divine beneficence, the more sure shall we be to receive them
in answer to prayer...But, though men are to be blamed, that they so seldom
acknowledge God in any thing, yet they are still more to be blamed, that they seek
not from him the chief good. Men may, however, possibly cry to God for inferior
things, and apply in vain. Even good men may ask for temporal blessings, and
not receive them; because the things we suppose good, may not be good,
or not good for us, or not good for us at present. But none shall
seek God for the best of blessings in vain. If we ask enough, we shall
have it. While the worldling drinks in happiness, if it will bear the name,
with the mouth of an insect, the Christian imbibes bliss with the mouth of an
angel. His pleasures are the same in kind, with the pleasure of the infinitely
happy God. John Ryland.
Verse
10. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. You may easily
over expect the creature, but you cannot over expect God: "Open thy mouth
wide, and I will fill it; "widen and dilate the desires and expectations
of your souls, and God is able to fill every chink to the vastest capacity.
This honours God, when we greaten our expectations upon him, it is a
sanctifying of God in our hearts. Thomas Case (1598-1682), in "Morning
Exercises."
Verse
10. Open thy mouth wide. This implies,
1.
Warmth and fervency in prayer. To open the mouth is in effect to open the
heart, that it may be both engaged and enlarged... We may be said to open our
mouths wide when our affections are quick and lively, and there is a
correspondence between the feelings of the heart and the request of the lips;
or when we really pray, and not merely seem to do so. This is strongly and
beautifully expressed in Ps 119:131: I opened my mouth, and panted: for I
longed for thy commandments.
2.
It implies a holy fluency and copiousness of expression, so as to order our
cause before him, and fill our mouths with arguments. When the good man gets
near to God, he has much business to transact with him, many complaints to
make, and many blessings to implore; and, as such seasons do not frequently
occur, he's the more careful to improve them. He then pours out his whole soul,
and is at no loss for words; for when the heart is full, the tongue overflows.
Sorrow and distress will even make those eloquent who are naturally slow of
speech.
3.
Enlarged hope and expectation. We may be too irreverent in our approaches to
God, and too peremptory in our application; but if the matter and manner of our
prayer be right, we cannot be too confident in our expectations from him...
Open thy mouth wide then, O Christian; stretch out thy desires to the
uttermost, grasp heaven and earth in thy boundless wishes, and believe there is
enough in God to afford the full satisfaction. Not only come, but come with
boldness to the throne of grace: it is erected for sinners, even the chief of
sinners. Come to it then, and wait at it, till you obtain mercy and find grace
to help in time of need. Those who expect most from God are likely to receive
the most. The desire of the righteous, let it be ever so extensive, shall be
granted. Benjamin Beddome.
Verse
10. I will fill it. Consider the import of the promise: Open
thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek,
and ye shall find." Particularly,
1.
If we open our mouths to God in prayer, he will fill them more and more with
suitable petitions and arguments. When we attempt to open the mouth, God will
open it still wider. Thus he dealt with Abraham when he interceded for Sodom;
the longer he prayed, the more submissive and yet the more importunate he
became. By praying we increase our ability to pray, and find a greater facility
in the duty. "To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly."
2.
God will fill the mouth with abundant thanksgivings. Many of David's psalms
begin with prayer, and end with the most animated praises. No mercies so
dispose to thankfulness as those which are received in answer to prayer; for
according to the degree of desire will be the sweetness of fruition...
3.
We shall be filled with those blessings we pray for, if they are calculated to
promote our real good and the glory of God. Do we desire fresh communications
of grace, and manifestations of divine love; a renewed sense of pardoning
mercy, and an application of the blood of Christ? Do we want holiness, peace,
and assurance? Do we want to hear from God, to see him, and be like him? The
promise is, My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in
glory by Christ Jesus, Php 4:19. You shall have what you desire, and be
satisfied: it shall be enough, and you shall think it so. "The Lord will
give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk
uprightly." Benjamin Beddome.
Verse
10. The custom is said still to exist in Persia that when the king
wishes to do a visitor, an ambassador for instance, especial honour, he desires
him to open his mouth wide; and the king then crams it as full of sweetmeats as
it will hold; and sometimes even with jewels. Curious as this custom is, it is
doubtless referred to in Ps 81:10: Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it;
not with baubles of jewels, but with far richer treasure. John Gadsby.
Verse
11. My people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none
of me. Know, sinner, that if at last thou missest heaven, which, God
forbid! the Lord can wash his hands over your head, and clear himself of your
blood: thy damnation will be laid at thine own door: it will then appear there
was no cheat in the promise, no sophistry in the gospel, but thou didst
voluntarily put eternal life from thee, whatever thy lying lips uttered to the
contrary: My people would have none of me. So that, when the jury shall
sit on thy murdered soul, to inquire how thou camest to thy miserable end, thou
wilt be found guilty of thy own damnation. No one loseth God, but he that is
willing to part with him. William Gurnall.
Verse
11. And Israel would none of me. It is added, and Israel
would none of me, more closely, was not borne to me by a natural bent.
For this is the original force of the word hka, as it still survives in Job 9,
where it is used of the ships borne outward by a favourable wind and tide. Venema.
Verse
11. Israel would none of me. That is, would not be content
alone with me, would not take quiet contentment in me (as the Hebrew
word signifies); the Lord was not good enough for them, but their hearts went
out from him to other things. Thomas Sheppard, 1605-1649.
Verse
12. So I gave them up. The word give up suggests the
idea of a divorce, whereby a husband sends away a capricious wife, and
commands her to live by herself...Transferred to God, it teaches us nothing
else than that God withdraws his protecting and guiding hand from
the people, and leaves them to themselves; so that he ceases to chasten and
defend them, but, on the other hand, suffers them to become hardened and to
perish. Venema.
Verse
12. So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts, etc. A man
may be given up to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the soul may be
saved, but to be given up to sin is a thousand times worse, because that is the
fruit of divine anger, in order to the damnation of the soul; here God wounds
like an enemy and like a cruel one, and we may boldly say, God never punished
any man or woman with this spiritual judgment in kindness and love. John
Shower (1657-1715), in "The Day of Grace."
Verse
12. I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts. O dreadful
word! The same will the Spirit do upon our rejecting or resisting of his
leading. He may long strive, but he will "not always strive, " Ge
6:3. If the person led shall once begin to struggle with him that leads him,
and shall refuse to follow his guidance, what is then to be done, but to leave
him to himself? Continued, rooted, allowed resistance to the Spirit, makes him
so to cast off a person as to lead him no more... Let it be your great and
constant care and endeavour to get the Spirit's leading continued to you. You
have it; pray keep it. Can it be well with a Christian, when this is suspended
or withdrawn from him? How does he wander and bewilder himself, when the Spirit
does not guide him! How backward is he to good, when the Spirit does not bend
and incline him thereunto! How unable to go, when the Spirit does not uphold
him! What vile lusts and passions rule him, when the Spirit does not put forth
his holy and gracious government over him! O, it is of infinite concern to all
that belong to God, to preserve and secure to themselves the Spirit's leading!
Take a good man without this, and he is like a ship without a pilot, a blind
man without a guide, a poor child that has none to sustain it, the rude
multitude that have none to keep them in any order. What a sad difference is
there in the same person, as to what he is when the Spirit leads him,
and as to what he is when the Spirit leaves him!
OBJECTION.—"But
does the Spirit at any time do this to God's people? Does he ever suspend and
withdraw his guidance from persons who once lived under it?"
ANSWER.—Yes;
too often. It is what he usually does, when his leadings are not followed. This
is a thing that grieves him; and when he is grieved he departs, withholds, and
recalls his former gracious influences, though not totally and finally; yet for
a time and in such a degree. As a guide, that is to conduct the traveller; if
this traveller shall refuse to follow him, or shall give unkind usage to him,
what does the guide then do? Why, he receded, and leaves him to shift for
himself. It is thus in the case in hand: if we comply with the Spirit, in his
motions, and use him tenderly, he will hold on in his leading of us; but if
otherwise, he will concern himself no more about us. O, take heed how you carry
yourself towards him: not only upon ingenuousness, it is base to be unkind to
our Guide, (Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast
forsaken the Lord thy God, when he led thee by the way? Jer 2:17,)but also
upon the account of self love: for "as we behave ourselves to him, so he
will behave himself to us:" "Ita nos tractat, ut a nobis
tractatur." Thomas Jacombe (1622-1687), in "Morning Exercises."
Verse
12. I gave them up...and they walked in their own counsels.
That was to give them up to a spirit of division, to a spirit of discontent, to
a spirit of envy, and jealousy, to a spirit of ambition, of self seeking and
emulation, and so to a spirit of distraction and confusion, and so to ruin and
destruction. Such, and no better, is the issue, when God gives a people up to
their own counsels; then they soon become a very chaos, and run themselves into
a ruinous heap. As good have no counsel from man, as none but man's. Joseph
Caryl.
Verse
12. God calls upon Israel to hear and obey him, they will not: But
my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me. What
was the result of their refusal? So I gave them up unto their own hearts
lust: and they walked in their own counsels. God doth not testify his anger
for their contempt of him be sending plague, or flames, or wild beasts among
them. He doth not say, Well, since they thus slight my authority, I will be
avenged on them to purpose; I will give them up to the sword, or famine, or
racking diseases, or greedy devouring lions, which would have been sad and
grievous; but he executes on them a far more sad and grievous judgment, when he
saith, So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust: and they walked in
their own counsels. God's leaving one soul to one lust, (One's soul to
one's lust?) is far worse than leaving him to all the lions in the world. Alas!
it will tear the soul worse than a lion can do the body, and rend it in pieces,
when there is none to deliver it. God's giving them up to their own wills, that
they walked in their own counsels, is in effect a giving them up to eternal
wrath and woe. George Swinnock.
Verse
12. God moves everything on his ordinary providence according to
their particular natures, God moves everything ordinarily according to the
nature he finds it in. Had we stood in innocency, we had been moved according
to that originally righteous nature; but since our fall we are moved according
to that nature introduced into us with the expulsion of the other. Our first
corruption was our own act, not God's work; we owe our creation to God, our
corruption to ourselves. Now since God will govern his creature, I do not see
how it can be otherwise, than according to the present nature of the creature,
unless God be pleased to alter that nature. God forces no man against his
nature; he doth not force the will in conversion, but graciously and powerfully
inclines it. He doth never force nor incline the will to sin, but leaves it to
the corrupt habits it hath settled in itself: So I gave them up unto their
own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels; counsels of their
own framing, not of God's. He moves the will, which is sponte mala,
according to its own nature and counsels. As a man flings several things out of
his hand, which are of several figures, some spherical, tetragons, cylinders,
conics, some round and some square, though the motion be from the agent, yet
the variety of their motions is from their own figure and frame; and if any
will hold his hand upon a ball in its motion, regularly it will move according
to its nature and figure; and a man by casting a bowl out of his hand, is the
cause of the motion, but the bad bias is the cause of its irregular motion. The
power of action is from God, but the viciousness of that action from our own
nature. As when a clock or watch hath some fault in any of the wheels, the man that
winds it up, or putting his hand upon the wheels moves them, he is the cause of
the motion, but it is the flaw in it, a deficiency of something, is the cause
of its erroneous motion; that error was not from the person that made it, or
the person that winds it up, and sets it on going, but from some other cause;
yet till it be mended it will not go otherwise, so long as it is set upon
motion. Our motion is from God,—Ac 17:28, In him we move, —but not the
disorder of that motion. It is the fulness of a man's stomach at sea is the
cause of his sickness, and not the pilot's government of the ship. God doth not
infuse the lust, to excite it, though he doth present the object about which
the lust is exercised. God delivered up Christ to the Jews, he presented him to
them, but never commanded them to crucify him, nor infused that malice into
them, nor quickened it; but he, seeing such a frame, withdrew his restraining
grace, and left them to the conduct of their own vitiated wills. All the
corruption in the world ariseth from lust in us, not from the objects which God
in his providence presents to us: 2Pe 1:4, The corruption that is in the
world through lust. Stephen Charnock.
Verse
13. Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, etc. God
sometimes doth not mind his children when they cry, that they may hereby take
occasion to remember how oft he hath cried and they have not minded him. Doth
not the Lord cry out to his people of duty and they do not hear him? Doth he
not complain here of this neglect, not only as a dishonour, but as a grief unto
him? No marvel then if God let his people cry out of misery, and doth not hear
them. The Lord shuts his ear that we might consider how we have shut our ears;
yea, he shuts his ears that he may open ours. We are moved to hear and answer
the call and command of God, though we find that he doth not hear nor answer
our call and cry. If the Lord should always be swift to hear us, how slow
should we be in hearing him, and while we have our desires, forget most of our
duties. Abraham Wright.
Verse
13. Oh that my people had hearkened, etc. God speaks as if he
were comforted when he is but heard, or as if we comforted him when we hear
him. God beseecheth us, and speaks entreaties to us, that his counsels and
commands may be heard: Oh that my people had hearkened unto me. The Lord
tells them indeed it would have proved their consolation (Ps 81:14): I
should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their
adversaries. Yet while he speaks so pathetically, he seems to include his
own consolation in it as well as theirs. Oh that my people had hearkened
unto me: it would have been good for them, and it would have given high
content to myself. Joseph Caryl.
Verse
13. Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, etc. There is to us
a deep mysteriousness in all this; but the desire of God for our salvation and
right moral state, is here most obviously manifested: and let us proceed on
that which is obvious, not on that which is obscure. Thomas Chalmers.
Verse
13. Walked in my ways. None are found in the ways of
God, but those who have hearkened to his words. W. Wilson.
Verse
14. Turned my hand. God expresseth the utter overthrow of the
enemies of his people, but by the turning of a hand: if God do but turn
his hand, they are all gone presently, soon subdued. If he do but touch the
might, the pomp, the greatness, the riches and the power of all those in the
world that are opposers of his church, presently they fall to the ground: a
touch from the hand of God will end our wars. Joseph Caryl.
Verse
16. Honey out of the rock. The rock spiritually and mystically
designs Christ, the Rock of salvation, 1Co 10:4; the honey out of the
rock, the fulness of grace in him, and the blessings of it, the sure mercies of
David, and the precious promises of the everlasting covenant; and the gospel,
which is sweeter than the honey or the honeycomb, and with these such are
filled and satisfied who hearken to Christ and walk in his ways; for, as the
whole of what is here said shows what Israel lost by disobedience, it clearly
suggests what such enjoy who hear and obey. John Gill.
Verse
16. Honey out of the rock. God extracts honey out of the
rock—the sweetest springs and pleasures from the hardness of afflictions; from
mount Calvary and the cross, the blessings that give greatest delight; whereas
the world makes from the fountains of pleasure stones and rocks of torment. Thomas
Le Blanc.
Verse
16. Honey out of the rock. Most travellers who have visited
Palestine in summer have had their attention directed to the abundance of
honey, which the bees of the land have stored up in the hollows of trees and in
crevices of the rock. In localities where the bare rocks of the desert alone
break the sameness of the scene, and all around is suggestive of desolation and
death, the traveller has God's care of his chosen people vividly brought to
mind, as he sees the honey which the bees had treasured up beyond his reach,
trickling in shining drops down the face of the rock. John Duns.
Verse
16. When once a people or a person are accepted of God, he spares no
cost, nor thinks anything too costly for them. He would have fed them also
with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have
satisfied thee. I would not have fed thee with wheat only, that's good; but
with the finest wheat, that's the best. We put in the margin, with the fat
of wheat; they should not have had the bran, but the flour, and the finest
of the flour; they should have had not only honey, but honey out of the rock,
which, as naturalists observe, is the best and purest honey. Surely God cannot
think anything of this world too good for his people, who hath not thought the
next world too good for them; certainly God cannot think any of these outward
enjoyments too good for his people, who hath not thought his Son too good for
his people; that's the apostle's argument, Ro 8:32: He that spared not his
own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely
give us all things? even the best of outward good things, when he seeth it
good for us. Joseph Caryl.
HINTS TO THE
VILLAGE PREACHER
Verse
1. Congregational singing should be general, hearty, joyful. The
reasons for this, and the benefits of it.
Verses
1-3.
1.
Praise should be sincere. It can come from the people of God only.
2.
It should be constant: they should praise God at all times.
3.
It should be special. There should be seasons of special praise.
(a)
Appointed by God, as Sabbaths and solemn feasts.
(b)
Demanded by providence on occasion of special
deliverances
and special mercies.
4.
It should be public: "sing aloud:" "bring hither, "etc. G.
R.
Verse
4. The rule of ordinances and worship; pleas for going beyond it;
instances in various churches; the sin and danger of such will worship.
Verse
5. What there is in the language of the world which is
unintelligible to the sons of God.
Verse
6. The emancipation of believers. Law work is burdensome, servile,
never completed, unrewarded, more and more irksome. Only the Lord can deliver
us from this slavish toil, and he does it by grace and by power. We do well to
remember the time of our liberation, exhibit gratitude for it, and live
consistently with it.
Verse
7.
1.
Answered prayers,—bonds of gratitude.
2.
Former testing times,—warning memories.
3.
The present a time for new answers as it is also for fresh tests.
Verse
7. Waters of Meribah. The various test points of the
believer's life.
Verses
8-10.
1.
A compassionate Father, calling to his child: O my people, and I will
testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me.
2.
A jealous sovereign, laying down his law: There shall no strange god be in
thee.
3.
An all sufficient Friend, challenging confidence: I am the Lord thy God:
open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. Richard Cecil. 1748-1810.
Verses
8, 11, 13. The command, the disobedience, the regret.
Verses
11, 12.
1.
The sin of Israel. They would not hearken. The mouth is opened in attentive
hearing: open thy mouth wide; but my people, etc. Their sin was greatly
aggravated
1.
By what God had done for them.
2. By the gods they had preferred to him.
2. The punishment.
1.
Its greatness: I gave them up, etc.
2. Its justice: They would none of me. G. R.
Verses
8, 11, 13. The command, the disobedience, the regret.
Verse
13. The excellent estate of an obedient believer.
1.
Enemies subdued.
2. Enjoyments perpetuated.
3. Abundance possessed.
Verses
13-14. The sin and loss of the backslider.
Verse
14. Spiritual enemies best combatted by an obedient life.
Verse
16.
1.
Spiritual dainties.
2. By whom provided.
3. To whom given.
4. With what result—"satisfied."
── C.H. Spurgeon《The Treasury of David》