Psalms 81:14

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.

I should soon have subdued their enemies,.... The Canaanites, and others: this he would have done in a very little time, or at once, and that easily, and without any trouble; he would quickly have humbled them, and brought them on their knees, as the word (g) signifies, to terms of peace; for when a man's ways please the Lord, he makes his enemies to be at peace with him, Proverbs 16:7 so those that hearken to the voice of Christ, and walk in his ways, he subdues their iniquities, and will bruise Satan under their feet shortly, and make them more than conquerors: through himself, over the world; the men and things of it he has overcome: and turned my hand against their adversaries; that troubled, distressed, and oppressed them; and it is a righteous thing with God to render tribulation to them that trouble his people; he turns his chastising hand off of them, which sometimes is heavy upon them, and presses them sore, and turns it in a way of wrath and vindictive justice against their adversaries; and so the Targum, "and turned the stroke of my power against their adversaries;'' this is the lighting down of his arm with the indignation of his anger, which is intolerable, Isaiah 30:30. (g) "flecterem", Cocceius.

Psalm 81:14-15 . I would soon have subdued their enemies — Both those remaining Canaanites, whom now, for their unbelief and apostacy, I have left in the land, to be snares and plagues to them, and also all their encroaching and vexatious neighbours, who have so often invaded and laid waste their country. The haters of the Lord — The enemies of God’s people, such as the neighbouring nations were; should have submitted themselves — Should have owned and professed their subjection to them, if not also have become proselytes to the true religion. He terms them haters of the Lord, partly because they hated the Israelites for God’s sake, and on account of the singularity of their worship, as the heathen often declared; and partly to show the close union and solemn league and covenant which were between God and them, by virtue of which God had declared he would account their friends to be his friends, and their enemies to be his enemies. But their time — That is, Israel’s time, meaning, either, 1st, Their happy time, life being often put for a happy life or state; or, rather, 2d, The duration of their commonwealth; should have endured for ever — Should have lasted for a long time; whereas now their latter and doleful end is hastening toward them.

It may be proper to observe here the original expression, rendered, should have submitted themselves to him, is, יכחשׁו לו , jecachashu lo, which, as we have more than once had occasion to observe, signifies, should have lied unto him, that is, spoken fair, fawned, and pretended great respect to the Jewish people and their God, though in reality they hated them both. In this sense the words are understood by Bishop Patrick, whose paraphrase upon the verse is well worth transcribing. “All that maligned their prosperity,” (the prosperity of Israel,) “and set themselves against the design of the Lord, to make them victorious over their enemies, should have been so daunted, that they should have dissembled their inward hatred, and been forced, at least, to counterfeit submission; but his people should have seen blessed days, and have enjoyed a substantial and durable happiness without any interruption.”

Verse 14. - I should soon have subdued ( rather, I should won subdue ) their enemies. Israel is still surrounded by enemies, anxious for his destruction. God could subdue them and sweep them away in a moment, if he pleased; and would do so, if Israel would repent and return to him. The appeal is to the living Israel - the Israel of the psalmist's time, which is given one more chance of triumph over its enemies. And turned my hand against their adversaries. Logically, the two clauses should have been inverted, since the subjugation of Israel's enemies would be the effect of God's hand being turned against them. Psalm 81:14

I should soon have subdued their enemies - This is one of the consequences which, it is said, would have followed if they had been obedient to the laws of God. The phrase rendered soon means literally like a little; that is, as we might say, in a little, to wit, in a little time. The word rendered subdued means to bow down; to be curved or bent; and the idea is, that he would have caused them to bow down, to wit, by submission before them. Compare Deuteronomy 32:29-30 . And turned my hand against their adversaries - Against those who oppressed and wronged them. The act of turning the hand against one is significant of putting him away - repelling him - disowning him - as when we would thrust one away from us with aversion.

The Passover discourse now takes a sorrowful and awful turn: Israel's disobedience and self-will frustrated the gracious purpose of the commandments and promises of its God. "My people" and "Israel" alternate as in the complaint in Isaiah 1:3 . לא־אבה followed by the dative, as in Deuteronomy 13:9 ([8], ου ̓ συνθελήσεις αὐτῷ). Then God made their sin their punishment, by giving them over judicially (שׁלּח as in Job 8:4 ) into the obduracy of their heart, which rudely shuts itself up against His mercy (from שׁרר, Aramaic שׁרר, Arabic sarra, to make firm equals to cheer, make glad), so that they went on (cf. on the sequence of tense, Psalm 61:8 ) in their, i.e., their own, egotistical, God-estranged determinations; the suffix is thus accented, as e.g., in Isaiah 65:2 , cf. the borrowed passage Jeremiah 7:24 , and the same phrase in Micah 6:16 . And now, because this state of unfaithfulness in comparison with God's faithfulness has remained essentially the same even to to-day, the exalted Orator of the festival passes over forthwith to the generation of the present, and that, as is in accordance with the cheerful character of the feast, in a charmingly alluring manner. Whether we take לוּ in the signification of si (followed by the participle, as in 2 Samuel 18:12 ), or like אם above in Psalm 81:9 as expressing a wish, o si (if but!), Psalm 81:15 . at any rate have the relation of the apodosis to it.

From כּמעט (for a little, easily) it may be conjectured that the relation of Israel at that time to the nations did not correspond to the dignity of the nation of God which is called to subdue and rule the world in the strength of God. השׁיב signifies in this passage only to turn, not: to again lay upon. The meaning is, that He would turn the hand which is now chastening His people against those by whom He is chastening them (cf. on the usual meaning of the phrase, Isaiah 1:25 ; Amos 1:8 ; Jeremiah 6:9 ; Ezekiel 38:12 ). The promise in Psalm 81:16 relates to Israel and all the members of the nation. The haters of Jahve would be compelled reluctantly to submit themselves to Him, and their time would endure for ever. "Time" is equivalent to duration, and in this instance with the collateral notion of Prosperity, as elsewhere ( Isaiah 13:22 ) of the term of punishment. One now expects that it should continue with ואאכילהוּ, in the tone of a promise. The Psalm, however, closes with an historical statement. For ויּאכילהו cannot signify et cibaret eum; it ought to be pronounced ויאכילהו. The pointing, like the lxx, Syriac, and Vulgate, takes v. 17a (cf. Deuteronomy 32:13 .) as a retrospect, and apparently rightly so. For even the Asaphic Psalm 77 and 78 break off with historical pictures. V. 17b is, accordingly, also to be taken as retrospective. The words of the poet in conclusion once more change into the words of God.