Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 3 · Psalm 81
The Eighty First Psalm.
TO the chief Musitian upon Gittith, A Psalm of Asaph.
Paraphrase. The eighty first Psalm, said to be composed by Asaph for the feast of trumpets, Lev. 23.24. Num. 29.1. and 10.10. (which was instituted to commemorate the deliverance out of Aegypt, the sounding of the trumpet being a token of liberty, Lev. 25.10.) is a solemn invitation to all, to sing praises to God for his great deliverances and special mercies to his people, whose sins are the only averters of his favour, and originals of their misery. It was set to the tune called Gittith (see Psal. viii. a.) and committed to the Praefect of the Musick.
1. Sing aloud unto God our strength, make a joyfull noise unto the God of Jacob.
2. ‖Take up, or lift up:a.Take a Psalm and†answer, or speak, or sing to bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the Psaltery.
3. Blow up the trumpet inb. the*first day of the monethmonth, on the new moon, on the day of our feast. new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast-day.
The God of Jacob is our only refuge, preserver and deliverer, O let us all joyne in the most solemn joyfull expressions of thankfulness to him: All the sweetest and most pleasant instrum…nts of Musick are in all reason to accompany, and indeavour to improve our lands, and all the whole nation to be assembled at those times which are solemnly set apart for these offices, the beginning of every monethmonth, to consecrate all that follows.
4. For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob:
And this is but agreeable to the ordinances of divine service given by God himselfe on mount Sinai for all posterity most strictly to observe, soon after that great and signal time of his shewing himself in power and majesty against Pharaoh and the Aegyptians, when we lived among strangers, and were cruelly handled by them.
5. This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out*upon, or against foreign. through the land of Aegypt, where I heard a language that I understood not.
6. I delivered his shoulders from the burthen, his hands‖past away werec. delivered from the pots.
'Twas then the mighty work of his overruling power, upon our addresses made to heaven, speedily to rescue us out of that great slavery, to redeem us from those severe tasks of working in the kilns under Pharaohs officers.
7. Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee ind. the†or covert or, hiding-place from thunder, or by, or with thunder. secret place of thunder, I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah.
And soon after, at the giving of the law in Sinai, when the thunder and lightning and tempest was so terrible, that they all quaked, and besought to be freed from it, he was pleased to free them accordingly, and secure them from all danger. A little before (Exod. xvii.) they were in distress for water at Rephidim, it being for their trial that God suffered them to be in want for a while; and though they behaved it very ill, shewed themselves a faithless murmuring people, yet God spared them then, and inabled Moses by striking the rock Horeb to bring forth plenty of water for them.
8. Hear, O my people, and I will testifie unto thee, O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me,
9. There shall no strange God be in thee, neither shalt thou worshipe. any*heathen, or foreign. strange God.
But having this experience of their infidelity and proneness to apostatize and returne to Aegypt, preferring the false Gods there before the true God, which brought them out from thence, he thought good in that terrible manner v. 7. to give them severe precepts and ordinances of not admitting any Idol or heathen worship among them,
10. I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Aegypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
Severely requiring them to commemorate and serve and worship him, as the God which had with such prodigies of judgments on the Aegyptians, and miracles of mercies toward them, delivered them out of that tyrants hands, and by bringing them water in time of distresse out of the hardest rock, demonstrated his power and readiness to grant them the greatest abundance, if by humility and obedience and fidelity, and constant addresses to him in all their wants, they should render themselves capable of it.
11. But my people would not hearken to my voice, and Israel‖obeyed me not foreign would none of me.
But they were farre from the performance of this condition, from qualifying themselves by obedience, andforeign † foreign acquiesced not in my word, Chald. acquiescence and delight in him, for his performance of this most gratious promise to them.
12. So I gave them up unto†the imaginations of their hearts foreign their own hearts lusts, and they walked in their own counsels.
And accordingly God withdrew his protection, grace and favour from them, delivered them up to follow their own corrupt counsels and purposes, to injoy their own choises, the vanities of their Idol worships, which were not able to protect them, and all the sad consequences thereof.
13. ‖or If foreignO that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my wayes:
14. I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries.
Had they but performed their part of Covenant to God, afforded chearfull obedience, and faithfully observed his directions, he would have been most sure to have performed his promise to them, and by interposition of his strength immediately have discomfited and destroyed their stoutest enemies.
15. The haters of the Lord should have†yielded feigned obedience, see note on Ps. xviii. o. submitted themselves unto him; but their time should have endured for ever.
All that opposed them, and so resisted the counsels of God for making Israel a most happy and prosperous people, should certainly have been brought low, and for dread of his power performed a feigned, though not real, obedience to him; and so the peace and strength of the people of Israel should have been most durable and lasting.
16. He should have fed them also withf. the*fat finest of the wheat; and with honey out of‖the rock. theg. stony rock should I have satisfied thee.
And that accompanied with all temporal plenty, the most fertile harvests and richest accessions, the best sorts and greatest stores of every thing, not only for necessity, but delicaty. (And so parallel to this the world of Christians, if they would but set themselves chearfully to the practice of his precepts, should finde a wonderfull spiritual completion of this promise, not only sufficient, yea abundant grace to performe what is required of them in that degree as will be accepted, but withall the most exuberant joyes and pleasures in this world (abstracted from the bliss of the other world) in the constant exercises of his graces, and practice of those duties.)
Annotations on Psalm LXXXI.
V. 2. Take a Psalme] What foreign foreignsignifies, will be discerned best from the Chaldee, who render it by foreign Lift up your voice in a laud or Psalm; so Abu Walid, sound, or sing out aloud praise, or songs of praise; according to the notion of foreign for lifting up, applied to the voice, whether in singing or weeping, which the Lxxii. duly render, foreign, to raise or lift up the voice. It is also applied to speaking, as when Balaam is said to take or lift up a parable, Num. xxiii. 7, 18. & xxiv. 3, 15, 20, 21, 23. So Job xxvii. 1. Job added foreign to lift up his parable: the Lxxii. render it, foreign he adding spake. So Hab. ii. 6. foreign they shall lift or take up a parable. All Hebrew dialect for pronouncing, or speaking aloud, or solemnly, as here the Psalm is solemnly to be sung, and so to be lifted up. As for foreign,foreign which follows, it may perhaps be best rendred, answer the Timbrel, from the notion of foreign for referre, or perhaps rather according to the Chaldee use of the word, speak, or annuntiate to the Timbrel; as Jud. xi. 40. the daughters of Israel went yearly foreign to speak to the daughter of Jephtha, i. e. to annuntiate, sing songs to her, by way of lamentation; the Lxxii. render it foreign to mourne for, and so the rest of the antient Interpreters agree: and then by analogy, this here will be singing a chearfull, as that was a dolefull song. So Jud. v. 11. foreign they shall reherse, by way of Praise or Psalm, the righteousnesses of the Lord. But others derive foreign from foreign, so doth Abu Walid, and under that root renders it strike up, or play on the Timbrel.
V. 3. In the new moon] The word foreign foreignmust here be rendred in the beginning of the monethmonth, that so foreign,foreign that follows, may be rendred, as it truly signifies, in the new moon. 'Tis true that from foreign new, foreign doth indifferently signify the novilunium, and the first day of the monethmonth; but here the new moon being peculiarly exprest by foreign, and that saith Aben Ezra, because the moon is then hid (from foreign texit) to which the C… ds, foreign in the … ('tis strange the Latine … render it in mense qui cooperi …, when foreign signifies first moone, and from thence monethmonth) to avoid tautology, foreign must be rendred the new monethmonth, i. e. the first day of the monethmonth. Thus Num. 28.17. is rendred by the Targum foreign the beginning of the monethmonth, and foreign in the plural foreign the beginning of the moneths, not of the moones. The Syriack set this down here most expresly, foreign in the beginning or first of the monethmonth, and on the new moon, which meeting alwayes together, were festival among the Jewes (the Jewish Arab reads, over the sacrifice, in the dayes that his people keep the feast) and so the trumpet to be sounded thereon. The Lxxii. read the foreign on an eminent day, I suppose, rather by way of Paraphrase, for such it was, then by deducing the word from foreign computavit, as some imagine, because the festival recurres constantly on a numbred or fixt day. Then for foreign foreignthat literally is to be rendred, on the day of our feast: the Lxxii. joynes it with the former, and reads foreign in the eminent day of our feast (some festival dayes being among the Jews more eminent then others, the first and last dayes of those feasts, which continued many dayes;) but this sure again by way of paraphrase, not of literal rendring, the preposition ל on being not taken notice of in their rendring.
foreignV. 6. Delivered] From foreign transiit, to pass away, or over, is foreign here, they passed, i. e. went out, or away, to denote an escape or deliverance. The Lxxii. read foreign they served, or had served, as from foreign serviit, through the great affinity betwixt the two letters ך and ר, in which also the sense is not amiss exprest, if only we read it as in the preterplupersect tense, they had served, for that signifies that now they did not, but were delivered from it. As for foreign foreignfrom which they past, it signifies a pot, or other utensil made of earth, to be set over the fire to heat any thing; and such it seems the Israelites were imployed in making, when they were under the task-masters in Aegypt.
V. 7. Secret place] foreign foreignis latibulum, a covering, or place to fly unto from any danger, from foreign foreignto hide, protect, or defend. And then if thunder be joyned with it, foreign will be either the covering of thunder, the cloud where the thunder is hid, (to which the story agrees, where God is said to have spoken from the midst of the cloud, and that with thunders, Deut. v. 22.) as Habak. iii. 4. the hiding of his power, or else the covering or hiding-place from thunder. That here it is to be taken in the second sense, will probably be concluded from a parallel place, Isa. xxxii. 2. There foreign is resolved to be the covering from rain or inundation; so the Syriack expresly read it foreign a refuge from the showre, and to the same purpose the Chaldee foreign as they that hide themselves from the tempest or showre, and the Lxxii. foreign, he shall be hid as from driven rain or water; in like manner as in the former part of that verse, foreign is by us rendred a hiding place from wind, (the same that is elsewhere exprest by the preposition, foreign a protection from inundation, Is. xxv. 4.) and so the Syriack reads, foreign from the wind, and so all the interproters agree there. And if they there hold, then by just analogy so it may be here, and thereto the story also well accords. The thunder was that which is set down Ex. xix. and which is there mentioned to be so terrible on mount Sinai at the giving of the Law, that all the people that were in the camp trembled, v. 16. and removed and stood afar off, Exod. xx. 18. and were afraid by reason of the fire &c. Deut. v. 5. and v. 23. it came to pass, when you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, ye said, Behold the Lord hath shewed us his glory, &c. Now therefore why should we die? for this great fire will consume us: if we hear the voice of the Lord any more, then we shall die, v. 25. Go thou neer and speak to us, v. 27. So the Apostle, they intreated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore, Heb. xii. 19. And then as God was pleased to hearken to this request of theirs, Deut. v. 28. The Lord heard the voice of your words when ye spake unto me, and the Lord said, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, they have well said, &c. (which is certainly a forme of granting their requests, as well as an approbation of their promise to obey;) so here it is said, Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee, relieved thee from that great fear of thine. And then it follows, I answered thee in the covert from thunder, i. e. granted thy petition in delivering thee, or giving thee safety from the thunder, in that notion of answering for granting a request: Or else, I answered, i. e. I spake to thee, in the covert from thunder, because as God thus by thunder answered them here, i. e. spake to them in the words here following, v. 8. Hear O my people (according to the use of foreign foreignfor speaking, as well as answering, and the Greek foreign in the same sense, see Mar. xi. note a.) so did he take special care to preserve them from receiving any hurt by it (and accordingly Moses said unto the people, Fear not— Exod. xx. 20. and I stood between the Lord and you at that time Deut. v. 5.) and so is here said to have answered them foreign in the covering or hiding-place from the thunder; foreign in the hiding place of or from the tempest, say the Lxxii. defended them from it (when it thundred most terribly) as in a hiding-place or safe refuge. That it belongs to this time of giving the Law is made evident by that which follows v. 8. Hear O my people, the forme of giving the law Deut. v. 1. and, I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Aegypt v. 10. the very first words of the Decalogue Exod. xx. 2. This therefore of Gods speaking to them at mount Sinai, so famous for the thunders, is without question that which is intimated in this place, which way soever the interpretation lie, whether of his speaking in the place where thunder is hid as in a repository, i. e. in the clouds, or that he answered or spake in the covert from thunder, which by analogy with the two places in Isaiah compared together, Is. xxxii. 2. and Is. xxv. 4. (where for foreign in one, is foreign in the other) seems more probable, and so likewise by the coherence with the antecedents here, their calling and Gods delivering. The only seeming objection against interpreting it of Sinai is, that that murmuring at Meribah, Exod. xvii. was before the thundring on Sinai Ex. xix. whereas here the thunder is mentioned first, and then after that Meribah, in the end of this verse. But that will easily be answered, as by the neerness of those two passages the one to the other, so also by the liberty taken in poems of not observing strict order in each narration, (see Ps. Lxxxiii. 9. where the victory over the Midianites Judg. vii. is mentioned before that of Sisera Jud. iv.) but especially by looking forward to v. 8. where the subject being the commands given in Sinai, and those connecting in sense to Gods answering them in Sinai, in that hiding-place of, or covert from thunder, i. e. whether his speaking in the clouds, or his speaking to them in thunder, but protecting them from receiving any hurt by it, that which comes in the midst betwixt them is in all reason to be read, as in a parenthesis, to this sense, that Gods having proved and found them so faulty at Rephidim, so extremely prone to infidelity and returning to Aegypt, was the occasion of his giving them that law on Sinai against other Gods &c. v. 8, 9. Hear O my people— I am the Lord— the beginning or first words of Gods answering or speaking to them in Sinai out of the thunder. All this hath been said on supposition that foreign thunder is to be joyned with foreign secret place. But the Jewish Arab gives us another rendring of it, out of the secret place, with or by thunder. And then the secret place must refer to God, who is said to make darkness his secret place Ps. xviii. 11. that is to dwell in his infinite majesty in Heaven invisibly, and so here to give answer from Heaven by thunder. To this the Chaldee appertains, which paraphraseth it the hidden place of the house of Gods majesty.
V. 9. Strange God] From foreign foreignknown, familiar, is the word also used per antiphrasin for any forrainer or stranger, peculiarly for one that is not of the house of Israel, an alien or Gentile. So Gen. xvii. 12. foreign a stranger which is not of thy seed; foreign the sonne of the people, say the Chaldee, i. e. a Gentile. So Gen. xxxv. 2. Put away foreign the Gods of the alien, the Gentile God; foreign the Idols of the people, say the Chaldee. And so here foreign any Gentile God, for which the Chaldee sets foreign profane Idols.
V. 16. Finest] The word foreign foreignsignifies originally milk, and thence fatt, and so its poetically applied here to wheat, as Deut. xxxii. 14. the fatt of the kidneys of the wheat, and so Gen. xLv. 18. foreign the satt of the earth, and Num. xviii. 29. for which the Chaldee significantly reads foreign the goodness, as here foreign Good bread of wheat, the Lxxii. and Syriack reteining the literal foreign the fatt.
V. 18. Stony rock] That foreign foreignsignifies a rock there is no question, but whether it be literally or poetically to be understood here, being joyned with hony, is the only difficulty. And first it is not to be thought, that the discourse is of miraculous feeding, (then indeed there is no doubt but God could bring hony, as well as water, out of the hardest rock.) It plainly belongs in this place to the description of the plenty of Canaan. Secondly then, if the style be in this poetical, as it was in the words immediately precedent, the fatt of the wheat, it will then be neither impossible nor improbable that the rock, to which the hony here relates, should be the hony-comb, because hony out of the comb is the best (sweeter then hony and the hony comb, by way of ascent) as the fatt of the wheat signified the best. But then thirdly, because Deut. xxxii. 13. where hony out of the rock is again mentioned, there is added to it, Oyle out of the flinty rock, it is most probable, that the word rock should be equally literal in both places, and signify that to be usual in those countries, which is still ordinary, for Bees to breed and swarme in holes of rocks, and thence to supply them with hony in great plenty. And then why may not oyle out of the flinty rock signify, that there was no rock so hard, or barren, but God would make the Olive-trees to grow there, and yield them abundance of Oyle?