1<To the chief music-maker; put to the Gittith. Of Asaph.> Make a song to God our strength: make a glad cry to the God of Jacob. 2Take up the melody, playing on an instrument of music, even on corded instruments. 3Let the horn be sounded in the time of the new moon, at the full moon, on our holy feast-day: 4For this is a rule for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob. 5He gave it to Joseph as a witness, when he went out over the land of Egypt; then the words of a strange tongue were sounding in my ears. 6I took the weight from his back; his hands were made free from the baskets. 7You gave a cry in your trouble, and I made you free; I gave you an answer in the secret place of the thunder; I put you to the test at the waters of Meribah. (Selah.) 8Give ear, O my people, and I will give you my word, O Israel, if you will only do as I say! 9There is to be no strange god among you; you are not to give worship to any other god. 10I am the Lord your God, who took you up from the land of Egypt: let your mouth be open wide, so that I may give you food. 11But my people did not give ear to my voice; Israel would have nothing to do with me. 12So I gave them up to the desires of their hearts; that they might go after their evil purposes. 13If only my people would give ear to me, walking in my ways! 14I would quickly overcome their haters: my hand would be turned against those who make war on them. 15The haters of the Lord would be broken, and their destruction would be eternal. 16I would give them the best grain for food; you would be full of honey from the rock.
Matthew Henry's Commentary
God is praised for what he has done for his people. (1-7) Their obligations to him. (8-16) 1-7 All the worship we can render to the Lord is beneath his excellences, and our obligations to him, especially in our redemption from sin and wrath. What God had done on Israel's behalf, was kept in remembrance by public solemnities. To make a deliverance appear more gracious, more glorious, it is good to observe all that makes the trouble we are delivered from appear more grievous. We ought never to forget the base and ruinous drudgery to which Satan, our oppressor, brought us. But when, in distress of conscience, we are led to cry for deliverance, the Lord answers our prayers, and sets us at liberty. Convictions of sin, and trials by affliction, prove his regard to his people. If the Jews, on their solemn feast-days, were thus to call to mind their redemption out of Egypt, much more ought we, on the Christian sabbath, to call to mind a more glorious redemption, wrought out for us by our Lord Jesus Christ, from worse bondage. 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.