Psalms 81:8 - Meaning and Application

God, through the psalmist, speaks here to Israel, and in them to us, on whom the ends of the world have come. He first calls for their full and serious attention to what he is about to say (Psalm 81:8). “Hear, O my people,” he says. Who should listen, if his own people will not? He has heard and answered them before, and now he asks whether they will hear him. They must not only listen, but also obey and let themselves be guided by him.

Nothing could be more reasonable or more just, and yet God still puts it as an “if”: “If you will listen to me.” It is for their own good, and yet it is still in question whether they will, because their neck is like an iron sinew, stubborn and hard to bend. He then reminds them of their duty to him as the Lord their God and their Redeemer (Psalm 81:10): “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” This is the opening of the Ten Commandments, and it gives a strong reason for obeying them. Duty, gratitude, and their own good all bind them to obedience, and they break those ties if they refuse.

He then gives a short summary of both the commands and the promises he gave them when he brought them out of Egypt. The great command was that they should have no other gods before him (Psalm 81:9). “There shall be no strange god in you,” meaning none besides their own God. Other gods could rightly be called strange gods, because it is very strange for any people who have the true and living God to long for another. God is jealous in this matter, because he will not give his glory to another, so they must be careful in this area (Exodus 23:13).

The great promise was that God himself, as the all-sufficient God, would be near to them in everything they called on him for (Deuteronomy 4:7). If they stayed close to him as their strong protector and ruler, they would always find him to be their generous provider. “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it,” like young ravens that cry with open mouths and are fed by the old birds. Here is our duty, to expect much from God and to widen our desires toward him. We cannot expect too little from the creature, but we cannot expect too much from the Creator. We are not limited in him, so why should we be limited in ourselves?

Here also is God’s promise. “I will fill your mouth with good things” (Psalm 103:5). There is enough in God to fill our storehouses (Proverbs 8:21), to satisfy every hungry soul (Jeremiah 31:25), to meet every need, answer every right desire, and make us fully happy. The pleasures of the senses only leave a person overfull and still unsatisfied (Isaiah 55:2). God’s pleasures satisfy without ever becoming cloying. We may receive enough from God if we ask in faith. Ask, and it will be given to you. He gives generously and does not scold.

God assured Israel that any lack of these blessings would be their own fault, not his. Nothing would have been too good or too much for them if they had stayed close to him. He would have given them even more besides, as in Samuel 2 12:8.

He then charges them with deep contempt for his authority as their lawgiver and for his grace and favor as their benefactor (Psalm 81:11). He had done much for them and meant to do more, but it all came to nothing. “My people would not listen to my voice,” he says, “but turned a deaf ear to everything I said.” He complains of two things. First, they disobeyed his commands. They did hear his voice, more clearly than any other people ever had, but they would not truly listen to it or be ruled by it, neither by the law itself nor by the good sense within it. Second, they rejected his covenant relationship with them. “They would have none of me.” The Chaldee says, “They did not agree with my word.”

God was willing to be their God, but they were not willing to be his people. They did not like his terms. “I would have gathered them, but they would not.” They had none of him, but why? It was not because they were not invited, for they were freely welcomed into covenant with God. It was not because they could not, for the word was near them, even in their mouth and in their heart. It was simply because they would not. God calls them his people, because he had bought them, bound them to himself, and claimed them by many ties, and yet even they would not listen or obey. Israel, the seed of Jacob, God’s friend, treated him lightly and would have none of him.

All the evil in the wicked world comes from the willfulness of the wicked will. People are not religious because they will not be religious. He then explains the spiritual judgment he brought on them for this (Psalm 81:12): “So I gave them up to their own heart’s lusts.” Those desires became more dangerous enemies and harsher masters than any nearby nation ever was. God withdrew his Spirit, removed the restraint of his grace, and left them to themselves, and that was just. They would do what they wanted, so he let them do what they wanted. Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone.

It is a righteous thing for God to give up those who cling to their own sinful desires and hand themselves over to them. Why should his Spirit always keep striving? His grace belongs to him, and he owes it to no one. Yet he never gave grace to anyone who could claim they deserved it, and he never took it away from anyone who had not first forfeited it. They would have none of me, so I gave them up. Let them go their own way.

And see what followed. They walked in their own counsels, in the way of their own hearts and by what they saw with their own eyes, both in worship and in daily life. “I left them to do what they wanted, and then they did what was evil.” They followed their own plans instead of God’s advice and direction. God was not the cause of their sin. He left them to the desires of their hearts and the plans of their own minds. If they did not do well, the blame must rest on their own hearts, and the guilt on their own heads.

Finally, he shows his goodwill toward them by wishing they had done what was right for themselves. He saw how sad their condition was, and how sure their ruin would be when they were handed over to their own sinful desires. That is worse than being given over to Satan, which may still be part of correction (1 Timothy 1:20) and salvation (1 Corinthians 5:5). But being handed over to one’s own sinful desires is to be sealed under condemnation. “Let the filthy person remain filthy still.” What terrible falls these desires can drive a person into.

Now God looks on them with pity and shows that he gave them up only with reluctance. “How can I give you up, Ephraim?” (Hosea 11:8, Hosea 11:9). So here, “Oh, that my people had listened!” See also Isaiah 48:18. In the same way, Christ grieved over stubborn Jerusalem: “If you had known” (Luke 19:42).

These words are moving, as Psalm 81:13-16 shows. They are meant to show how unwilling God is for anyone to perish, and how he wants all to come to repentance. He takes no pleasure in the ruin of sinful people or nations. They also show how much sinners harm themselves, and how much worse their misery will be because they could have been happy on such simple terms.

Here we see, first, the great mercy God had prepared for his people, if they had obeyed him. He would have given them victory over their enemies and quickly finished the work. They would not only have held their ground, but would have overcome the remaining Canaanites and their troublesome neighbors around them (Psalm 81:14). He says, “I would have subdued their enemies,” and it is God alone who can subdue our enemies.

He would not have put them through a long and exhausting war. He would have done it quickly, turning his hand against their enemies, and then those enemies would not have been able to stand against them. This shows how easily God could have done it, without any trouble at all. With only a turn of his hand, yes, with the breath of his mouth, he kills the wicked (Isaiah 11:4). If he only turns his hand, the Lord’s haters will submit to him (Psalm 81:15). Even if they do not come to love him, they will be forced to fear him and admit that they cannot beat him. God is honored, and so is his people Israel, when former rebels submit, even if their surrender is forced and only on the surface.

He would also have secured their children and their children’s children, and given their nation a firm and lasting place. No enemy efforts would have driven them out. Their time in the land would have lasted forever, and they would have stayed safely in the good land God had given them. They would never have been disturbed in it, much less removed from it.

He would also have given them abundant good things (Psalm 81:16). He would have fed them with the finest wheat, the best grain and the best of its kind. Wheat was one of Canaan’s main crops, and they exported much of it (Ezekiel 27:17). He would not only have provided the best bread for them, but also satisfied them with honey from the rock. Even the rocky places would have brought forth honey, so that no part of their land would have been empty or barren. See (Deuteronomy 32:13-14). In short, God meant to make them happy and at ease in every way.

Second, God required only one duty from them as the condition for all this mercy. He asked no more than that they listen to him, like a student listening to a teacher to receive instruction, or a servant listening to a master to receive commands. He also asked that they walk in his ways, the ways of the Lord, which are right and pleasing, and that they keep his ordinances and pay attention to the guidance of his providence. Nothing in this was unfair or unreasonable.

Third, we see why this mercy was withheld. It was because they neglected the duty. “If they had listened to me,” God says, “I would soon have subdued their enemies.” National sin, or national disobedience, is the great thing that delays national rescue. When God was ready to heal Israel and set everything right among them, then Ephraim’s sin came to light and stopped the cure (Hosea 7:1). We often say, “If only this method had been used, or that person sent, our enemies would have been quickly defeated.” But we are wrong. If we had listened to God and done our duty, it would have been done. It is sin that makes our troubles last and keeps salvation slow. This is what God himself grieves over, wishing it had been otherwise.

So God wants us to do our duty to him so that we may be ready to receive his favor. He delights in our serving him, not because it adds anything to him, but because it is good for us.