811 Make a song to God our strength: make a glad cry to the God of Jacob. 2 Take up the melody, playing on an instrument of music, even on corded instruments. 3 Let the horn be sounded in the time of the new moon, at the full moon, on our holy feast-day: 4 For this is a rule for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob. 5 He 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. 6 I took the weight from his back; his hands were made free from the baskets. 7 You 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.)
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 81:1-7
Commentary on Psalm 81:1-7
(Read Psalm 81:1-7)
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.