A Feast and a Warning

The title of Psalm 81 says it is by Asaph, on an instrument of Gath. It begins as a festival song. Sing aloud to God, our strength! Blow the trumpet at the New Moon, at the full moon, on our feast day. The feast was a statute God gave Israel to remember how he freed them from Egypt.

Then God speaks through the psalm. He remembers the slavery: I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were freed from the basket. He also remembers testing them at the waters of Meribah. He gives the first command again: There shall be no strange god in you. Then comes a generous promise: Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

Sadly, Israel did not listen, so God let them walk in their own stubborn ways. Yet the psalm ends with God's longing: Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! He would have fed them with the finest of the wheat and satisfied them with honey out of the rock.