8 Hear, my people, and I will testify unto thee; O Israel, if thou wouldest hearken unto me! 9 There shall no strange ·god be in thee, neither shalt thou worship any foreign ·god. 10 I am Jehovah thy God, that brought thee up out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. 11 But my people hearkened not to my voice, and Israel would none of me. 12 So I gave them up unto their own hearts' stubbornness: they walked after their own counsels. 13 Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, that Israel had walked in my ways! 14 I would soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. 15 The haters of Jehovah would have come cringing unto him; but their time would have been for ever. 16 And he would have fed them with the finest of wheat; yea, with honey out of the rock would I have satisfied thee.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 81:8-16
Commentary on Psalm 81:8-16
(Read Psalm 81:8-16)
We cannot look for too little from the creature, nor too much from the Creator. We may have enough from God, if we pray for it in faith. All the wickedness of the world is owing to man's wilfulness. People are not religious, because they will not be so. God is not the Author of their sin, he leaves them to the lusts of their own hearts, and the counsels of their own heads; if they do not well, the blame must be upon themselves. The Lord is unwilling that any should perish. What enemies sinners are to themselves! It is sin that makes our troubles long, and our salvation slow. Upon the same conditions of faith and obedience, do Christians hold those spiritual and eternal good things, which the pleasant fields and fertile hills of Canaan showed forth. Christ is the Bread of life; he is the Rock of salvation, and his promises are as honey to pious minds. But those who reject him as their Lord and Master, must also lose him as their Saviour and their reward.