811 A song to our strong God! a shout to the God of Jacob! 2 Anthems from the choir, music from the band, sweet sounds from lute and harp, 3 Trumpets and trombones and horns: it's festival day, a feast to God! 4 A day decreed by God, solemnly ordered by the God of Jacob. 5 He commanded Joseph to keep this day so we'd never forget what he did in Egypt. I hear this most gentle whisper from One I never guessed would speak to me: 6 "I took the world off your shoulders, freed you from a life of hard labor. 7 You called to me in your pain; I got you out of a bad place. I answered you from where the thunder hides, I proved you at Meribah Fountain.
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.