Psalm 81 — Open Wide Your Mouth

Today’s Passage: Psalm 81

This psalm of Asaph opens as a festival song, calling the people to sing and to sound the ram’s horn to the God who is their strength. Then, partway through, the music gives way to another voice, and it is God Himself who begins to speak. He tells them their own story, how He brought them up out of Egypt, and He holds out a promise as wide as their willingness to receive it. Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it, He says. But they would not listen, and the song closes on His own “if only,” on everything He still held out to a people who had turned away.

As you read, hold this: Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it.

Psalm 81:1-5 (BSB)

For the choirmaster. According to Gittith. Of Asaph.

¹ Sing for joy to God our strength; make a joyful noise to the God of Jacob. ² Lift up a song, strike the tambourine, play the sweet-sounding harp and lyre. ³ Sound the ram’s horn at the New Moon, and at the full moon on the day of our Feast. ⁴ For this is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob. ⁵ He ordained it as a testimony for Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt, where I heard an unfamiliar language:

Sing, strike, play, sound the horn: the psalm piles up its commands, and every one of them is an act of worship. The ram’s horn here is not a bit of festival decoration. It is a statute, an ordinance laid down by the God of Jacob for His people. And notice that even in these opening verses of celebration, Egypt is already in the room, for the psalm remembers this is the God who led them out over the land where they once heard a language they did not know.

Psalm 81:6-7 (BSB)

⁶ “I relieved his shoulder of the burden; his hands were freed from the basket. ⁷ You called out in distress, and I rescued you; I answered you from the cloud of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah

Here the speaker changes, and it is God who now takes up the song. He tells the people their own history back to them, the way a father reminds his children of where they have come from. He lifted the burden from their shoulders and freed their hands from the basket of their labor. When they cried out in their distress He rescued them, answering out of the thundercloud. And He tested them at the waters of Meribah, a real testing at real water, where they had to learn whether they would trust the God who had only just saved them.

Psalm 81:8-10 (BSB)

⁸ Hear, O My people, and I will warn you: O Israel, if only you would listen to Me! ⁹ There must be no strange god among you, nor shall you bow to a foreign god. ¹⁰ I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it.

Hear, He says, and then comes that longing, “if only you would listen to Me.” The command that follows is the first and greatest one: there must be no strange god among them, and they must bow to no foreign god, because He alone is the LORD their God who brought them up out of Egypt. That leaving was not a story they told themselves. It truly happened, and the God who did it has every claim on their whole allegiance. Then comes the promise the whole psalm turns upon: open wide (הַרְחֶב) rachab, pronounced rah-KHAV. Strong's H7337, to enlarge, widen, make room. Picture a mouth held open and empty, waiting to be filled. And here is the wonder hidden in the promise: the thing standing in the way was never any shortage in God’s storehouse, for He has always had more than enough to give. The only obstacle was a mouth held shut, a people who would not open themselves to receive what He stood ready to pour in. your mouth, and I will fill it.

Psalm 81:11-16 (BSB)

¹¹ But My people would not listen to Me, and Israel would not obey Me. ¹² So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. ¹³ If only My people would listen to Me, if Israel would follow My ways, ¹⁴ how soon I would subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their foes! ¹⁵ Those who hate the LORD would feign obedience, and their doom would last forever. ¹⁶ But I would feed you the finest wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

But they would not listen to Him, and Israel would not obey. So He gave them up to their own stubborn hearts, letting them go after their own devices. Then the longing returns one more time, “if only My people would listen to Me,” and with it He names what He still held out to them: the finest of the wheat, and honey drawn from the rock to satisfy them. This is what a listening people would have been fed. This is what He still wanted to give.

Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it.