The Redeemer of Israel’s tender lamentation over His people’s rejection of His grace
 
It is thought that this psalm was written to support the Passover festal observance, in which the people were encouraged to render a full-hearted worship. This was in accordance to the laws given and to be observed, and especially the law against the worship of false gods.
 
But as so often happened in history, God’s people ignored what God had spoken. A generation grew up that did not know God experimentally, and demurred from His revelation. The psalmist recounts the benefits that would have been possessed by them if they had listened. There would have been the subduing of the enemy and their submission, but God would have also fed them with the finest of wheat and honey. Wheat, which signifies the bread of life, which is Christ; and honey, which is the sweetness and enrichment of Christ who is the mystical Rock.
 

Psalm 81

   1  Sing loud to God our strength; with joy
         to Jacob's God do sing.
   2  Take up a psalm, the pleasant harp,
         timbrel and psalt'ry bring.

   3  Blow trumpets at new-moon, what day
         our feast appointed is:
   4  For charge to Isr'el, and a law
         of Jacob's God was this.

   5  To Joseph this a testimony
         he made, when Egypt land
      He traveled through, where speech I heard
         I did not understand.

   6  His shoulder I from burdens took,
         his hands from pots did free.
   7  Thou didst in trouble on me call,
         and I delivered thee:

      In secret place of thundering
         I did thee answer make;
      And at the streams of Meribah
         of thee a proof did take.

   8  O thou, my people, give an ear,
         I'll testify to thee;
      To thee, O Isr'el, if thou wilt
         but hearken unto me.

   9  In midst of thee there shall not be
         any strange god at all;
      Nor unto any god unknown
         thou bowing down shalt fall.

  10  I am the Lord thy God, which did
         from Egypt land thee guide;
      I'll fill thy mouth abundantly,
         do thou it open wide.

  11  But yet my people to my voice
         would not attentive be;
      And ev'n my chosen Israel
         he would have none of me.

  12  So to the lust of their own hearts
         I them delivered;
      And then in counsels of their own
         they vainly wandered.

  13  O that my people had me heard,
         Isr'el my ways had chose!
  14  I had their en'mies soon subdued,
         my hand turned on their foes.

  15  The haters of the Lord to him
         submission should have feigned;
      But as for them, their time should have
         for evermore remained.

  16  He should have also fed them with
         the finest of the wheat;
      Of honey from the rock thy fill
         I should have made thee eat.


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