1 To the chiefe Musician vpon Gittith. A Psalme of Asaph. Sing alowd vnto God our strength: make a ioyfull noise vnto the God of Iacob.
2 Take a Psalme, and bring hither the timbrell: the pleasant harpe with the psalterie.
3 Blow vp the trumpet in the new Moone: in the time appointed on our solemne feast day.
4 For this was a Statute for Israel: and a Law of the God of Iacob.
5 This he ordained in Ioseph for a testimonie, when he went out through the land of Egypt: where I heard a language, that I vnderstood not.
6 I remoued his shoulder from the burden: his handes were deliuered from the pots.
7 Thou calledst in trouble, and I deliuered thee, I answered thee in the secret place of thunder: I proued thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah.
8 Heare, O my people, and I will testifie vnto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken vnto me:
9 There shall no strange God be in thee: neither shalt thou worship any strange God.
10 I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
11 But my people would not hearken to my voice: and Israel would none of me.
12 So I gaue them vp vnto their owne hearts lust: and they walked in in their owne counsels.
13 O that my people had hearkned vnto me: and Israel had walked in my wayes!
14 I should soone haue subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their aduersaries.
15 The haters of the Lord should haue submitted themselues vnto him: but their time should haue endured for euer.
16 Hee should haue fedde them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honie out of the rocke, should I haue satisfied thee.
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.
Commentary by Matthew Henry, 1710.