8 “Hear, my people, and I will testify to you,
Israel, if you would listen to me! 9 There shall be no strange god in you,
neither shall you worship any foreign god. 10 I am Yahweh, your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. 11 But my people didn’t listen to my voice.
Israel desired none of me. 12 So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts,
that they might walk in their own counsels. 13 Oh that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways! 14 I would soon subdue their enemies,
and turn my hand against their adversaries. 15 The haters of Yahweh would cringe before him,
and their punishment would last forever. 16 But he would have also fed them with the finest of the wheat.
I will satisfy you with honey out of the rock.”
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.