Psalms 81:16

od, that he would deliver their shoulder from their burdens, and their hands from the pots - the moulds and furnaces in which they formed and baked their brick. Verse 7 Thou calledst in trouble - They had cried by reason of their burdens, and the cruelty of their task-masters; and God heard that cry, and delivered them. See Exo 3:7 , etc. In the secret place of thunder - On Mount Sinai; where God was heard, but not seen. They heard a voice, but they saw no shape. At the waters of Meribah - See this transaction, Exo 17:1 (note), etc. Verse 8 Hear, O my people - These are nearly the same words with those spoken at the giving of the law, Exo 20:2 . Verse 10 Open thy mouth wide - Let thy desires be ever so extensive, I will gratify them if thou wilt be faithful to me. Thou shalt lack no manner of thing that is good. Verse 11 Israel would none of me - לא אבה לי lo abah li, They willed me not, they would not have me for their God. Verse 12 Unto their own hearts' lust - To the obstinate wickedness of their heart. In their own counsels - God withdrew his restraining grace, which they had abused; and then they fulfilled the inventions of their wicked hearts. Verse 13 O that my people had hearkened unto me, - Israel had walked in my ways - Nothing can be more plaintive than the original; sense and sound are surprisingly united. I scruple not to say to him who understands the Hebrew, however learned, he has never found in any poet, Greek or Latin, a finer example of deep-seated grief, unable to express itself in appropriate words without frequent interruptions of sighs and sobs, terminated with a mournful cry. yl (m# ym( wl ישראי בדרכי יהלכו Lo ammi shomea li Yishrael bidrachi yehallechu! He who can give the proper guttural pronunciation to the letter ע ain; and gives the ו vau, and the י yod, their full Asiatic sound, not pinching them to death by a compressed and worthless European enunciation; will at once be convinced of the propriety of this remark. Verse 14 I should soon have subdued - If God's promise appeared to fail in behalf of his people, it was because they rejected his counsel, and walked in their own. While they were faithful, they prospered; and not one jot or tittle of God's word failed to them. Verse 15 Their time should have endured for ever - That is, Their prosperity should have known no end. Verse 16 With the finest of the wheat - מחלב חטה mecheleb chittah; literally, with the fat of wheat, as in the margin. Honey out of the rock - And he fed thaim of the grese of whete: And of the hony stane he thaim filled. Old Psalter. Thus paraphrased: "He fed thaim with the body of Criste and gastely understandyng; and of hony that ran of the stane, that is, of the wisedome that is swete to the hert." Several of the fathers understand this place of Christ. Introduction A warning to corrupt judges, Psa 82:1 , Psa 82:2 ; an exhortation to them to dispense justice without respect of person, Psa 82:3-5 ; they are threatened with the judgments of the Lord, Psa 82:6-8 . This Psalm, which, in the title, is attributed to Asaph, was probably composed in the time when Jehoshaphat reformed the courts of justice throughout his states; see 2Chr 19:6 , 2Chr 19:7 , where he uses nearly the same words as in the beginning of this Psalm. Verse 1 God standeth in the congregation of the mighty - The Hebrew should be translated, "God standeth in the assembly of God." God is among his people; and he presides especially in those courts of justice which himself has established. The Court of King's Bench is properly the place where the king presides, and where he is supposed to be always present. But the kings of England seldom make their appearance there. King James I sometimes attended: at such times it might be said, "The king is in the king's court." I believe the case above to be similar. Judges! beware what you do! God is in his court, and in the midst (of the assembly) God will judge. See Parkhurst under אלה. Verse 2 Accept the persons of the wicked? - "Lift up their faces," encourage them in their oppressions. Selah - "Mark this:" ye do it, and sorely sLall ye suffer for it. Verse 3 Defend the poor - You are their natural protectors under God. They are oppressed: punish their oppressors, however rich or powerful: and deliver them. Verse 5 They know not - The judges are not acquainted with the law of God, on which all their decisions should be founded. Neither will they understand - They are ignorant and do not wish to be instructed. They will not learn; they cannot teach. Happy England! How different from Judea, even in the days of Jehoshaphat! All thy judges are learned, righteous, and impartial. Never did greater men in their profession dignify any land or country - (1822). All the foundations of the earth - "All the civil institutions of the land totter." Justice is at the head of all the institutions in a well regulated state: when that gets poisoned or perverted, every evil, political and domestic, must prevail; even religion itself ceases to have any influence. Verse 6 Ye are gods - Or, with the prefix of כ ke, the particle of similitude, כאלהים keelohim, "like God." Ye are my representatives, and are clothed with my power and authority to dispense judgment and justice, therefore all of them are said to be children of the Most High. Verse 7 But ye shall die like men - כאדם keadam, "ye shall die like Adam," who fell from his high perfection and dignity as ye have done. Your high office cannot secure you an immortality. And fall like one of the princes - Justice shall pursue you, and judgment shall overtake you; and you shall be executed like public state criminals. You shall not, in the course of nature, fall into the grave; but your life shall be brought to an end by a legal sentence, or a particular judgment of God. Verse 8 Arise, O God, judge the earth - Justice is perverted in the land: take the scepter, and rule thyself. For thou shalt inherit all nations - Does not this last verse contain a prophecy of our Lord, the calling of the Gentiles, and the prevalence of Christianity over the earth? Thus several of the fathers have understood the passage. It is only by the universal spread of Christianity over the world, that the reign of righteousness and justice is to be established: and of whom can it be said that he shall inherit all nations, but of Jesus Christ? Introduction

d unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! 14 I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. 15 The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever. 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. God, by the psalmist, here speaks to Israel, and in them to us, on whom the ends of the world are come. I. He demands their diligent and serious attention to what he was about to say ( v. 8 ): " Hear, O my people! and who should hear me if my people will not? I have heard and answered thee; now wilt thou hear me? Hear what is said with the greatest solemnity and the most unquestionable certainty, for it is what I will testify unto thee. Do not only give me the hearing, but hearken unto me, that is, be advised by me, be ruled by me." Nothing could be more reasonably nor more justly expected, and yet God puts an if upon it: " If thou wilt hearken unto me. It is thy interest to do so, and yet it is questionable whether thou wilt or no; for thy neck is an iron sinew." II. He puts them in mind of their obligation to him as the Lord their God and Redeemer ( v. 10 ): I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt; this is the preface to the ten commandments, and a powerful reason for the keeping of them, showing that we are bound to it in duty, interest, and gratitude, all which bonds we break asunder if we be disobedient. III. He gives them an abstract both of the precepts and of the promises which he gave them, as the Lord and their God, upon their coming out of Egypt. 1. The great command was that they should have no other gods before him ( v. 9 ): There shall no strange god be in thee, none besides thy own God. Other gods might well be called strange gods, for it was very strange that ever any people who had the true and living God for their God should hanker after any other. God is jealous in this matter, for he will not suffer his glory to be given to another; and therefore in this matter they must be circumspect, Exod. xxiii. 13 . 2. The great promise was that God himself, as a God all-sufficient, would be nigh unto them in all that which they called upon him for ( Deut. iv. 7 ), that, if they would adhere to him as their powerful protector and ruler, they should always find him their bountiful benefactor: " Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it, as the young ravens that cry open their mouths wide and the old ones fill them." See here, (1.) What is our duty—to raise our expectations from God and enlarge our desires towards him. We cannot look for too little from the creature nor too much from the Creator. We are not straitened in him; why therefore should we be straitened in our own bosoms? (2.) What is God's promise. I will fill thy mouth with good things, Ps. ciii. 5 . There is enough in God to fill our treasures ( Prov. viii. 21 ), to replenish every hungry soul ( Jer. xxxi. 25 ), to supply all our wants, to answer all our desires, and to make us completely happy. The pleasures of sense will surfeit and never satisfy ( Isa. lv. 2 ); divine pleasures will satisfy and never surfeit. And we may have enough from God if we pray for it in faith. Ask, and it shall be given you. He gives liberally, and upbraids not. God assured his people Israel that it would be their own fault if he did not do as great and kind things for them as he had done for their fathers. Nothing should be thought too good, too much, to give them, if they would but keep close to God. He would moreover have given them such and such things, 2 Sam. xii. 8 . IV. He charges them with a high contempt of his authority as their lawgiver and his grace and favour as their benefactor, v. 11 . He had done much for them, and designed to do more; but all in vain: " My people would not hearken to my voice, but turned a deaf ear to all I said." Two things he complains of:—1. Their disobedience to his commands. They did hear his voice, so as never any people did; but they would not hearken to it, they would not be ruled by it, neither by the law nor by the reason of it. 2. Their dislike of his covenant-relation to them: They would none of me. They acquiesced not in my word (so the Chaldee); God was willing to be to them a God, but they were not willing to be to him a people; they did not like his terms. "I would have gathered them, but they would not." They had none of him; and why had they not? It was not because they might not; they were fairly invited into covenant with God. It was not because they could not; for the word was nigh them, even in their mouth and in their heart. But it was purely because they would not. God calls them his people, for they were bought by him, bound to him, his by a thousand ties, and yet even they had not hearkened, had not obeyed. "Israel, the seed of Jacob my friend, set me at nought, and would have none of me. " Note, All the wickedness of the wicked world is owing to the wilfulness of the wicked will. The reason why people are not religious is because they will not be so. V. He justifies himself with this in the spiritual judgments he had brought upon them ( v. 12 ): So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts, which would be more dangerous enemies and more mischievous oppressors to them than any of the neighbouring nations ever were. God withdrew his Spirit from them, took off the bridle of restraining grace, left them to themselves, and justly; they will do as they will, and therefore let them do as they will. Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone. It is a righteous thing with God to give those up to their own hearts' lusts that indulge them, and give up themselves to be led by them; for why should his Spirit always strive? His grace is his own, and he is debtor to no man, and yet, as he never gave his grace to any that could say they deserved it, so he never took it away from any but such as had first forfeited it: They would none of me, so I gave them up; let them take their course. And see what follows: They walked in their own counsels, in the way of their heart and in the sight of their eye, both in their worships and in their conversations. "I left them to do as they would, and then they did all that was ill;" they walked in their own counsels, and not according to the counsels of God and his advice. God therefore was not the author of their sin; he left them to the lusts of their own hearts and the counsels of their own heads; if they do not well, the blame must lie upon their own hearts and the blood upon their own heads. VI. He testifies his good-will to them in wishing they had done well for themselves. He saw how sad their case was, and how sure their ruin, when they were delivered up to their own lusts; that is worse than being given up to Satan, which may be in order to reformation ( 1 Tim. i. 20 ) and to salvation ( 1 Cor. v. 5 ); but to be delivered up to their own hearts' lusts is to be sealed under condemnation. He that is filthy, let him be filthy still. What fatal precipices will not these hurry a man to! Now here God looks upon them with pity, and shows that it was with reluctance that he thus abandoned them to their folly and fate. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? Hos. xi. 8, 9 . So here, O that my people had hearkened! See Isa. xlviii. 18 . Thus Christ lamented the obstinacy of Jerusalem. If thou hadst known, Luke xix. 42 . The expressions here are very affecting ( v. 13-16 ), designed to show how unwilling God is that any should perish and desirous that all should come to repentance (he delights not in the ruin of sinful persons or nations), and also what enemies sinners are to themselves and what an aggravation it will be of their misery that they might have been happy upon such easy terms. Observe here, 1. The great mercy God had in store for his people, and which he would have wrought for them if they had been obedient. (1.) He would have given them victory over their enemies and would soon have completed the reduction of them. They should not only have kept their ground, but have gained their point, against the remaining Canaanites, and their encroaching vexatious neighbours ( v. 14 ): I should have subdued their enemies; and it is God only that is to be depended on for the subduing of our enemies. Not would had have put them to the expense and fatigue of a tedious war: he would soon have done it; for he would have turned his hand against their adversaries, and then they would not have been able to stand before them. It intimates how easily he would have done it and without any difficulty. With the turn of a hand, nay, with the breath of his mouth, shall he slay the wicked, Isa. xi. 4 . If he but turn his hand, the haters of the Lord will submit themselves to him ( v. 15 ); and, though they are not brought to love him, yet they shall be made to fear him and to confess that he is too hard for them and that it is in vain to contend with him. God is honoured, and so is his Israel, by the submission of those that have been in rebellion against them, though it be but a forced and feigned submission. (2.) He would have confirmed and perpetuated their posterity, and established it upon sure and lasting foundations. In spite of all the attempts of their enemies against them, their time should have endured for ever, and they should never have been disturbed in the possession of the good land God had given them, much less evicted and turned out of possession. (3.) He would have given them great plenty of all good things ( v. 16 ): He should have fed them with the finest of the wheat, with the best grain and the best of the kind. Wheat was the staple commodity of Canaan, and they exported a great deal of it, Ezek. xxvii. 17 . He would not only have provided for them the best sort of bread, but with honey out of the rock would he have satisfied them. Besides the precious products of the fruitful soil, that there might not be a barren spot in all their land, even the clefts of the rock should serve for bee-hives and in them they should find honey in abundance. See Deut. xxxii. 13, 14 . In short, God designed to make them every way easy and happy. 2. The duty God required from them as the condition of all this mercy. He expected no more than that they should hearken to him, as a scholar to his teacher, to receive his instructions—as a servant to his master, to receive his commands; and that they should walk in his ways, those ways of the Lord which are right and pleasant, that they should observe the institutions of his ordinances and attend the intimations of his providence. There was nothing unreasonable in this. 3. Observe how the reason of the withholding of the mercy is laid in their neglect of the duty: If they had hearkened to me, I would soon have subdued their enemies. National sin or disobedience is the great and only thing that retards and obstructs national deliverance. When I would have healed Israel, and set every thing to-rights among them, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and so a stop was put to the cure, Hos. vii. 1 . We are apt to say, "If such a method had been taken, such an instrument employed, we should soon have subdued our enemies:" but we mistake; if we had hearkened to God, and kept to our duty, the thing would have been done, but it is sin that makes our troubles long and salvation slow. And this is that which God himself complains of, and wishes it had been otherwise. Note, Therefore God would have us do our duty to him, that we may be qualified to receive favour from him. He delights in our serving him, not because he is the better for it, but because we shall be. This psalm is calculated for the meridian of princes' courts and courts of justice, not in Israel only, but in other nations; yet it was probably penned primarily for the use of the magistrates of Israel, the great Sanhedrim, and their other elders who were in places of power, and perhaps by David's direction. This psalm is designed to make kings wise, and "to instruct the judges of the earth" (as 2 and 10 ), to tell them their duty as ( 2 Sam. xxiii. 3 ), and to tell them of their faults as

Honey - With all pleasant and precious fruits.