Psalm 81 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 81 (1928 BCP) is a festival psalm of thanksgiving, remembered deliverance, covenant warning, and promised nourishment. In the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (1928), it is appointed at Morning Prayer on the Fifteenth Day of the month. Its summons to rejoice is not a general call to religious cheerfulness: it arises from the God who brought Israel out of Egypt and who calls his people to hear his voice.
Prayer Book Text
The 1928 Psalter entitles the Psalm Exultate Deo (“Rejoice in God”). Its opening joins instrumental praise to the memory of the Exodus and to an appointed feast:
SING we merrily unto God our strength; * make a cheerful noise unto the God of Jacob. 2 Take the psalm, bring hither the tabret, * the merry harp with the lute. 3 Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, * even in the time appointed, and upon our solemn feast-day. 4 For this was made a statute for Israel, * and a law of the God of Jacob. 5 This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, * when he came out of the land of Egypt, and had heard a strange language.
The movement is from praise to testimony. Israel praises “God our strength” because worship remembers a particular liberation: God addressed a people who had heard “a strange language” in Egypt. The trumpet and feast are therefore not ornaments around an otherwise private spirituality; they enact the statute by which a delivered people remembers whose people it is.
I eased his shoulder from the burden, * and his hands were delivered from making the pots. 7 Thou calledst upon me in troubles, and I delivered thee; * and heard thee what time as the storm fell upon thee. 8 I proved thee also * at the waters of strife. 9 Hear, O my people; and I will assure thee, O Israel, * if thou wilt hearken unto me, 10 There shall no strange god be in thee, * neither shalt thou worship any other god. 11 I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: * open thy mouth wide, and I shall fill it.
Here the speaker is God. The Psalm’s recollection of bricks, trouble, and the waters of strife makes its command against strange gods covenantal rather than abstract. The One who demands exclusive worship is the One who has first delivered; the promise to fill the open mouth continues the pattern of divine gift.
But my people would not hear my voice; * and Israel would not obey me; 13 So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts, * and let them follow their own imaginations. 14 O that my people would have hearkened unto me! * for if Israel had walked in my ways, 15 I should soon have put down their enemies, * and turned my hand against their adversaries. 16 The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him; * but their time should have endured for ever. 17 I would have fed them also with the finest wheat-flour; * and with honey out of the stony rock would I have satisfied thee.
The ending is grievous but not indifferent. “I gave them up” describes the consequence of refusing God’s voice, while “O that my people would have hearkened” keeps the divine lament and invitation before the worshipper. The final image—wheat and honey from a stony rock—sets abundance against self-chosen scarcity.
Exodus, Worship, and Obedience
Psalm 81’s prohibition of a “strange god” deliberately echoes the first commandment. The Exodus is not simply a past event used as an illustration; it is the ground on which Israel is summoned to worship the LORD alone.
I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
The Psalm’s “open thy mouth wide” should thus be read beside the commandment. The mouth opened to God is not an attempt to manipulate blessing; it is the posture of a people who receive their life from the Deliverer rather than from a substitute god. Its reference to Meribah (“the waters of strife”) also refuses a sentimental account of the wilderness: redeemed people are still tested in whether they will hear.
A Christian Reading
Early Christian interpretation heard in the Psalm’s trumpet a summons to proclaim the new life given in Christ. Augustine’s reading is a theological reception of the Psalm, rather than a claim that its Exodus setting has disappeared:
For the beginning of the month, is the new moon: the new moon, is the new life. What is the new moon? “If any, then, is in Christ, he is a new creature.” What is, “sound the trumpet in the beginning of the month of the trumpet”? With all confidence preach ye the new life, fear not the noise of the old life.
Augustine’s “new life” reading follows the Psalm’s worship language into Christian proclamation. It should not turn Israel’s feast into a mere metaphor: the Psalm itself makes public praise answer to God’s historical saving work. In the Church’s hearing, the same structure guards proclamation from novelty for its own sake—the “new” life is the life God gives, not an invented god or a self-made identity.
The Psalm’s final image also received a christological interpretation, drawing on Paul’s statement that “that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4). Augustine writes:
“Honey” is wisdom, holding the first place for sweetness among the viands of the heart. … And this honey is not from any chance person, but “from the rock.” But “the Rock was Christ.”
That interpretation is appropriately received as a Christian reading of the Psalm’s final promise, not as a denial of its original wilderness imagery. It directs the Church back to the Psalm’s fundamental question: will the people who have been delivered listen to the God who supplies them?
Use in the Daily Office
At Fifteenth-Day Morning Prayer, Psalm 81 gives the Office a distinctive sequence: praise begins in remembered redemption, turns to the searching command to hear, and ends with God’s unexhausted desire to feed his people. It is therefore fitting in corporate worship, especially where thanksgiving must be joined to repentance and renewed obedience. Its instruments and trumpet also remind a congregation that common praise is testimony: the people’s song tells the story of the God who has freed them.
See Also
- Book of Common Prayer (1928)
- The Psalter (1928 BCP)
- Daily Office (1928 BCP)
- Psalm 80 (1928 BCP)
- Psalm 82 (1928 BCP)
External Links
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 81, Exultate Deo, vv. 1–5, “The Fifteenth Day: Morning Prayer”; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription. The wording and appointment were compared word for word with
sources/justus1928/Psalms2.htm. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 81, vv. 6–11; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 81, vv. 12–17; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version (Cambridge: University Press, 1769), Exodus 20:2–4; Bible Gateway, “Exodus 20:1–6, KJV”.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 81, §6, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 81”. The quotation was checked against the named transcription.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 81, §21, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 81”.