Psalms 81 · The Lantern

To the choirmaster. Upon the gittith. Of Asaph. Sing aloud to God our strength; shout to the God of Jacob.

Sing for Joy to God Our Strength

Lift up a song and give a tambourine, a pleasant lyre with a harp.

Blow the horn at the new moon, at the full moon for the day of our festival.

"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 it is a statute for Israel, a judgment of the God of Jacob.

He set it as a testimony in Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt. I heard a language I did not know:

“I removed his shoulder from the burden; his palms passed away from the basket.

In distress you called, and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah.

Hear, my people, and I will testify against you — Israel, if you would listen to me.

There will be no strange god among you, and you will not bow down to a foreign god.

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"?

It must be said that this truth, that God is one, is a truth not only believable, but also intelligible: since it is necessary and certain not only from the testimony of Scripture and the illumination of grace, which is found in faith; but it is also certain from itself and from the testimony of creatures.

I am the LORD your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide and I will fill it.

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.

But my people did not listen to my voice, and Israel was not willing for me.

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.

So I sent him away in the stubbornness of their heart; they walked in their own counsels.

If only my people would listen to me, if Israel would walk in my ways!

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.

In a little while I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes.

Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him, and their time would be forever.

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.

And he would feed him from the fat of the wheat; and from a rock I would satisfy you with honey.”

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.

Psalms81

Sing for Joy to God Our Strength