Psalms 81 · The Lantern

Sing we merrily unto God our strength: make a cheerful noise unto the God of Jacob.

Take the psalm, bring hither the tabret: the merry harp with the lute.

Blow up the trumpet in the new-moon: even in the time appointed, and upon our solemn feast-day.

"Sound the trumpet" [Psalm 81:3]. This is, Loudly and boldly preach, be not affrighted! As the Prophet says in a certain place, "Cry out, and lift up as with a trumpet your voice." [Isaiah 58:1] Sound the trumpet in the beginning of the month of the trumpet.

"Blow the trumpet at the new moon, on our festival day of good omen. Because it is a command for Israel, a judgment of the God of Jacob." God ordered the priests to use the trumpets. They reminded the people of the trumpets used on the mountain: when the God of all spoke on Mount Sinai, [Scripture] says, there was a loud noise of the trumpet.

"Sound the trumpet at the beginning of the month, on the day of your notable solemnity." We must also consider that we are commanded through the instruments of the musical discipline both to play the lyre for the Lord and to observe the day of solemnity, so that every action of ours may be directed to the Lord and offered to his ears in most pleasant music, just as musical inst…

For this was made a statute for Israel: and a law of the God of Jacob.

This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony: when he came out of the land of Egypt, and had heard a strange language.

I eased his shoulder from the burden: and his hands were delivered from making the pots.

Thou calledst upon me in troubles, and I delivered thee: and heard thee what time as the storm fell upon thee.

I proved thee also: at the waters of strife.

Hear, O my people, and I will assure thee, O Israel: if thou wilt hearken unto me,

There shall be no new god in you. He whose god is his belly, a new god is his. As many vices as we have, as many sins, so many new gods do we have. I have been angered: anger is a god to me. I have seen a woman, and I have lusted: lust is a god to me. For each one, whatever he desires and reveres, this is his god as well. The greedy man has gold for his god.

That it is none other than God the Word, who exists in the form of God the Father, the impress of his very being, who is equal in all things to the one who begot him, who has emptied himself out. And what is this "emptying out"?

Concerning the first, we proceed as follows and it is shown that the divine being is supremely one. And that this is so, faith and divine Scripture sufficiently proclaim, Exodus twenty: Your God is one God; and Deuteronomy thirty-two: See therefore that I alone am, and there is no other God besides me; and David in the Psalm: There shall not be in you a new god, nor shall you a…

There shall no strange god be in thee: neither shalt thou worship any other god.

For I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. It is we who have been brought out of the land of Egypt — if indeed we have gone out, if we are in the wilderness, if we long to see the land of promise. If we have left Sodom, let us not look back to Sodom: we have been saved on the mountain.

And indeed I do not see that I am sufficient for this work; but nevertheless the strength that inexperience denies, charity supplies. For I know Him who said: "Open your mouth, and I will fill it." Therefore let the good work be in our will, for from divine assistance it will be in its completion.

The door to wisdom is a yearning for it and a powerful desire. Hence the Psalm: "Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it." That is the road by which wisdom comes within me, by which I go into wisdom, and wisdom comes into me, and likewise charity.

I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I shall fill it.

And my people did not hear my voice. I stand before the door, I knock. I want you to open, and I will come in: and you are unwilling to open. And Israel did not attend to me.

"And My people obeyed not My voice" [Psalm 81:11]. For He would not speak these things except to His own people. For, "we know that whatsoever things the Law says, it says to them that are in the Law." [Romans 3:19] "And Israel did not listen to Me." Who? To whom? Israel to Me. O ungrateful soul!

Transgressors of the commandments plunge into abominable crimes. Of such transgressors the Psalm says: "My people did not hear My voice, and Israel did not attend to Me, and I dismissed them according to the desires of their hearts." For the Lord delivers such transgressors into the hands of demons.

But my people would not hear my voice: and Israel would not obey me.

So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts: and let them follow their own imaginations.

If my people had heard me. O most merciful Father, O compassionate God! He entreated, and was not heard; as though angered, he lets go the wanton son. Again he sees him perishing, and grieves that he perishes. And what does he say? If my people had heard me, if Israel had walked in my ways, I would perhaps have humbled their enemies for nothing.

"If My people would have heard Me, if Israel would have walked in My ways" [Psalm 81:13]. For perchance that Israel says, Behold I sin, it is manifest, I go after the affections of my own heart: but what can I do? The devil does this. Demons do this. What is the devil? Who are the demons? Certainly your enemies.

"If my people listened to me, if Israel traveled in my ways, I would have reduced their foes to nothing and laid my hand on those afflicting them." If they had adhered to my advice and followed my commandments, I would easily have destroyed their foes.

O that my people would have hearkened unto me: for if Israel had walked in my ways,

I should soon have put down their enemies: and turned my hand against their adversaries.

The enemies of the Lord have lied to him. In the Hebrew it better reads 'the enemies of the Lord shall deny him' — that is, the Jews, his enemies, shall deny him. But these enemies who are going to deny him — will they then perish? will there then be no remnant?

"The enemies of God have lied unto Him" [Psalm 81:15]. Do you renounce? I renounce. And he returns to what he renounced. In fact, what things do you renounce, except bad deeds, diabolical deeds, deeds to be condemned of God, thefts, plunderings, perjuries, manslayings, adulteries, sacrileges, abominable rites, curious arts.. ..

"The Lord's foes were false to him." Aquila … put it this way: "in their hatred they will deny the Lord." By denying Christ the Lord, they brought hatred on themselves, and by being false to him and to the existing covenants they made themselves enemies of the Lord.

The haters of the Lord should have been found liars: but their time should have endured for ever.

And he fed them from the fat of the wheat. He led them into the land of promise: he fed them not with manna, as in the desert, but with the wheat that fell, that rose again. And he fed them from the fat of the wheat. See the mystery of the Scriptures. From the fat of the wheat. Does wheat have fat? does it perhaps even have entrails?

..."And He fed them of the fat of wheat, and from the rock with honey He satisfied them." In the wilderness from the rock He brought forth water, not honey. "Honey" is wisdom, holding the first place for sweetness among the viands of the heart.

As inducing strength, the seven virtues are represented by the seven loaves of the gospel, from which the whole body of the elect is fed. For the philosophers, these four virtues became stones, but they are actually seven breads of life. Moses' five loaves were made of barley, but the seven loaves of wheat of the evangelical teaching were made out of the fat of the wheat.

He should have fed them also with the finest wheat-flour: and with honey out of the stony rock should I have satisfied thee.

Psalms81