A manual of the book of Psalms · Martin Luther
PSALM LXXXI.
_An exhortation to a solemn praising of God.—God challengeth that duty by reason of his benefits.—God exhorting to obedience; complaineth of their disobedience, which proveth their own hurt._ To the chief Musician upon Gittith, a Psalm of Asaph. Sing aloud unto God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day. For this _was_ a statute for Israel, _and_ a law of the God of Jacob. 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. I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the pots. 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. Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me; There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god. I _am_ the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: _and_ they walked in their own counsels. Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, _and_ Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee. This is the form of a prayer and a solemn song for the people of the Jews, which was sung yearly at the feast of tabernacles, to admonish that people, and to keep them in the true worship of God; namely, that of the first commandment. This Psalm, therefore, like the prophets, in all their great instructions, holds forth and enforces the very words of the first commandment, “I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt have none other gods but me:” that is, thou shalt hold me as thy God, thou shalt cleave unto me, thou shalt trust alone in me; thou shalt not worship, thou shalt not call upon, any other God.
But here the whole world lieth in wickedness, the whole is unclean, the whole is the kingdom of the devil. Not only were the people of the Jews in this state of transgression against the first commandment, but all nations, and all religions, and all worshippers, from the beginning of the world; and they will be the same down to the end of the world. The Israelites were indeed the people of God; they had the prophets, and the godly priests and Levites, continually enforcing on them this great and highest worship of the first commandment in all their preachings: and yet they fell away from this worship. Their mouth ought to have been full of God and the praise of God, but it was full of idolatry, and of idolatrous doctrines and abominations. Here is the perverseness of the world: they will admire, they will take up with, they will profess, all other kinds of worship, all other forms and kinds of religions and hypocrisies, and they will multiply and adorn them: but they will trample that very glorious worship of the first commandment under foot: _that_ worship the devil cannot bear; _that_ worship he works to extinguish by all the ways and means in his power. And in the church of God, under the New Testament, this Psalm teaches us the righteousness of faith and of Christ; that we ought to set Christ and his righteousness before and above all works: for our mouth ought to be full of Christ. But we, like the Jews, turn aside to other gods, embracing sometimes these and sometimes those sayings and traditions, each one following the idol imaginations and thoughts of his own heart.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.