Sing in tune
and measure, so that the public praise may be in harmony; sing with joyful
notes, and sounds melodious. Aloud. For the heartiest praise is due to
our good Lord. His acts of love to us speak more loudly than any of our words
of gratitude can do. Unto God our strength. The Lord was the strength of
his people in delivering them out of Egypt and also in sustaining them in the
wilderness, placing them in Canaan, preserving them from their foes, and giving
them victory. To whom do people give honor but to those upon whom they rely?
Therefore let us sing aloud unto our God, who is our strength and our song. Make
a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. The God of the nation, the God of
their father Jacob, was extolled in gladsome music by the Israelitish people;
let no Christian be silent, or slack in praise, for this God is our God. It is
to be regretted that the niceties of modern singing frighten our congregations
from joining lustily in the hymns. The gentility which lisps the tune in
well-bred whispers, or leaves the singing altogether to the choir, is very like
a mockery of worship. Jehovah can only be adored with the heart, and that music
is the best for his service which gives the heart most play.
2. Take a psalm.
Select a sacred song, and then raise it with your hearty voices. And bring
hither the timbrel. Beat on your tambourines; let the song be loud and
inspiriting. The pleasant harp with the psaltery. The timbrel for sound
must be joined by the harp for sweetness, and this by other stringed
instruments for variety.
3. Blow up the trumpet in the new moon. Announce the sacred month, the beginning of months, when
the Lord brought his people out of the house of bondage. In the time
appointed, on our solemn feast day. Obedience is to direct our worship, not
whim and sentiment. The Lord’s people in the olden time welcomed the times
appointed for worship; let us feel the same exultation, and never speak of the
Sabbath as though it could be other than “a delight” and “honorable.” Those
who plead this passage as authority for appointed feasts and fasts must be
moonstruck.
4. It was a
precept binding upon all the tribes that a sacred season should be set apart to
commemorate the Lord’s mercy; and truly it was but the Lord’s due; he had a
right and a claim to such special homage. When it can be proved that the
observance of Christmas, Whitsuntide, and other festivals was ever instituted
by a divine statute, we also will attend to them, but not till then. It is as
much our duty to reject human traditions as to observe the ordinances of the
Lord. We ask concerning every rite and rubric, “Is this a law of the God of
Jacob?” and if it be not clearly so, it is of no authority with us, who walk
in Christian liberty.
5. This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony. The nation is called Joseph; in Egypt it would probably be
known as Joseph’s family. The Passover, which is probably here alluded to, was
to be a standing memorial of the redemption from Egypt. When he went out
through the land of Egypt. Much of Egypt was traversed by the tribes in
their exodus march, and in every place the feast which they had kept during the
night of Egypt’s visitation would be a testimony for the Lord, who had also
himself in the midnight slaughter gone forth through the land of Egypt. Where
I heard a language that I understood not. Surely the connection requires
that we accept these words as the language of the Lord. It would be doing great
violence to language if the I here should be referred to one person, and the
“I” in the next verse to another. But how can it be imagined that the Lord
should speak of a language which he understood not, seeing he knows all things,
and no form of speech is incomprehensible to him? The reply is, that the Lord
here speaks as the God of Israel identifying himself with his own chosen
nation, and calling that an unknown tongue to himself which was unknown to
them. He had never been adored by psalm or prayer in the tongue of Egypt; the
Hebrew was the speech known in his sacred house, and the Egyptian was
outlandish and foreign there. In strictest truth, and not merely in figure,
might the Lord thus speak, since the wicked customs and idolatrous rites of
Egypt were disapproved of by him, and in that sense were unknown. Of the
wicked, Jesus will say, “I never knew you,” and probably in the same sense
this expression should be understood, for it may be correctly rendered, “a
speech I knew not I am hearing.”
6. I removed his shoulder from the burden. Israel was the drudge and slave of Egypt, but God gave him
liberty. Other peoples owe their liberties to their own efforts and courage,
but Israel received its Magna Carta as a free gift of divine power. Truly may
the Lord say this of everyone of his freed people. His hands were delivered
from the pots. He was no longer compelled to carry earth, and mold it, and
bake it. How typical all this is of the believer’s deliverance from legal
bondage, when, through faith, the burden of sin glides into the Saviour’s
sepulchre, and the servile labors of self-righteousness come to an end forever.
7. Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee. God heard his people’s cries in Egypt, and at the Red Sea:
this ought to have bound them to him. Since God does not forsake us in our
need, we ought never to forsake him at any time. When our hearts wander from
God, our answered prayers cry “shame” upon us. I answered thee in the
secret place of thunder. Out of the cloud the Lord sent forth tempest upon
the foes of his chosen. That cloud was his secret pavilion; within it he hung
up his weapons of war, his javelins of lightning, his trumpet of thunder; forth
from that pavilion he came and overthrew the foe that his own elect might be
secure. I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. They had proved him and
found him faithful; he afterwards proved them in return. Precious things are
tested; therefore Israel’s loyalty to her King was put to trial, and, alas, it
failed lamentably. The God who was adored one day for his goodness was reviled
the next, when the people for a moment felt the pangs of hunger and thirst. The
story of Israel is only our own history in another shape. God has heard us,
delivered us, liberated us, and too often our unbelief makes the wretched
return of mistrust, grumbling, and rebellion. Great is our sin; great is the
mercy of our God: let us reflect upon both, and pause awhile. Selah.
Hurried reading is of little benefit; to sit down awhile and meditate is very
profitable.
8. Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee. Are the people so insensible as to be deaf to their God? So
it would seem, for he earnestly asks a hearing. Are we not also at times quite
as careless and immovable? O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me. There
is much in this if. How low have they fallen who will not hearken unto
God himself! We are not fond of being upbraided; we would rather avoid sharp
and cutting truths; and, though the Lord himself rebuke us, we fly from his
gentle reproofs.
9. There shall no strange god be in thee. No alien god is to be tolerated in Israel’s tents. Neither
shalt thou worship any strange god. Where false gods are, their worship is
sure to follow. We owe all to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: the
world, the flesh, the devil, none of these have been of any service to us; they
are aliens, foreigners, enemies, and it is not for us to bow down before them.
10. I am the Lord
thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Thus did Jehovah usually introduce himself to his people.
The great deliverance out of Egypt was that claim upon his people’s allegiance
which he most usually pleaded. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
Because he had brought them out of Egypt he could do great things for them. He
had proved his power and his good will; it remained only for his people to
believe in him and ask large things of him. The Lord began with his chosen
nation upon a great scale, doing great wonders for them, and offering them vast
returns for their faith and love, if they would but be faithful to him. Sad,
indeed, was the result of this grand experiment.
11. But my people would not hearken to my voice. His warnings were rejected, his promises forgotten, his
precepts disregarded. Though the divine voice proposed nothing but good to
them, and that upon an unparalleled scale of liberality, yet they turned aside.
And Israel would none of me. They would not consent to his proposals,
they walked in direct opposition to his commands, they hankered after the
ox-god of Egypt, and their hearts were bewitched by the idols of the nations
round about. The same spirit of apostasy is in all our hearts, and if we have
not altogether turned aside from the Lord, it is only grace which has prevented
us.
12. So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust. No punishment is more just or more severe than this. If men
will not be checked, but madly take the bit between their teeth and refuse
obedience, who shall wonder if the reins are thrown upon their necks, and they
are let alone to work out their own destruction? And they walked in their
own counsels. There was no doubt as to what course they would take, for man
is everywhere willfull and loves his own way—that way being at all times in
direct opposition to God’s way. People deserted by restraining grace sin with
deliberation; they consult, and debate, and consider, and then elect evil
rather than good, with malice aforethought and in cool blood.
13. The
condescending love of God expresses itself in painful regrets for Israel’s sin
and punishment. Such were the laments of Jesus over Jerusalem. A God of mercy
cannot see people heaping up sorrow for themselves through their sins without
feeling his compassion excited towards them.
14. I should soon have subdued their enemies. As he did in Egypt overthrow Pharaoh, so would he have
baffled every enemy. And turned my hand against their adversaries. He
would have smitten them once, and then have dealt them a return blow with the
back of his hand. See what we lose by sin. Our enemies could never overthrow us
if we did not first overthrow ourselves. Sin strips people of their armor, and
leaves them naked to their enemies. Our doubts and fears would long ago have
been slain if we had been more faithful to our God. Ten thousand evils which
afflict us now would have been driven far from us if we had been more jealous
of holiness in our walk and conversation. We ought to consider not only what
sin takes from our present stock, but what it prevents our gaining: reflection
will soon show us that sin always costs us dear. If we depart from God, our
inward corruptions are sure to make a rebellion. Satan will assail us, the
world will worry us, doubts will annoy us, and all through our own fault.
Solomon’s departure from God raised up enemies against him, and it will be so
with us; but if our ways please the Lord he will make even our enemies to be at
peace with us.
15. The haters of the Lord
should have submitted themselves unto him.
Though the submission would have been false and flattering, yet the enemies of
Israel would have been so humiliated that they would have hastened to make
terms with the favored tribes. Our enemies become abashed and cowardly when we,
with resolution, walk carefully with the Lord. It is in God’s power to keep the
fiercest in check, and he will do so if we have a filial fear, a pious awe of
him. But their time should have endured for ever. The people would have
been firmly established, and their prosperity would have been stable. Nothing
confirms a state or a church like holiness. If we be firm in obedience we shall
be firm in happiness. Righteousness establishes; sin ruins.
16. He should have fed them also with the finest of the
wheat. Famine would have been an unknown
word; they would have been fed on the best of the best food, and have had
abundance of it as their everyday diet. And with honey out of the rock
should I have satisfied thee. Luxuries as well as necessaries would be
forthcoming. The Lord can do great things for an obedient people. When his
people walk in the light of his countenance, and maintain unsullied holiness,
the joy and consolation which he yields them are beyond conception. To them the
joys of heaven have begun even upon earth. They can sing in the ways of the
Lord. The spring of the eternal summer has commenced with them; they are
already blest, and they look for brighter things. This shows us by contrast how
sad a thing it is for a child of God to sell himself into captivity to sin, and
bring his soul into a state of famine by following after another god.
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David
By Charles H Spurgeon
