Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 81:10
I [am] the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
10. I am Jehovah thy God,
Which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
Cp. Exo 20:2 ff.; Deu 20:1. To Jehovah Israel owed its existence. The fact that He redeemed it from Egypt constituted His claim upon its allegiance. Cp. 1Jn 4:10.
open &c.] God is ready liberally to satisfy all their needs. Cp. Mat 7:7; Mat 7:11.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I am the Lord thy God … – See Exo 20:2. The meaning is, I am Yahweh, that God; the God to be worshipped and honored by thee; I only am thy God, and no other god is to be recognized or acknowledged by thee. The foundation of the claim to exclusive service and devotion is here laid in the fact that he had brought them out of the land of Egypt. Literally, had caused them to ascend, or go up from that land. The claim thus asserted seems to be twofold:
(a) that in doing this, he had shown that he was God, or that he had performed a work which none but God could perform, and had thus shown his existence and power; and
(b) that by this he had brought them under special obligations to himself, inasmuch as they owed all that they had – their national existence and liberty – entirely to him.
Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it – Possibly an allusion to young birds, when fed by the parent-bird. The meaning here is, I can amply supply all your needs. You need not go to other gods – the gods of other lands – as if there were any deficiency in my power or resources; as if I were not able to meet your necessities. All your needs I can meet. Ask what you need – what you will; come to me and make any request with reference to yourselves as individuals or as a nation – to this life or the life to come – and you will find in me all abundant supply for all your needs, and a willingness to bless you commensurate with my resources. What is here said of the Hebrews may be said of the people of God at all times. There is not a want of our nature – of our bodies or our souls; a want pertaining to this life or the life to come – to ourselves, to our families, to our friends, to the church, or to our country – which God is not able to meet; and there is not a real necessity in any of these respects which he is not willing to meet. Why, then, should his people ever turn for happiness to the weak and beggarly elements of the world (compare the notes at Gal 4:9), as if God could not satisfy them? Why should they seek for happiness in vain amusements, or in sensual pleasures, as if God could not, or would not, supply the real needs of their souls?
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 81:10
Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
The more morally hungry, the better fed
I. Good men are the subjects of moral hunger–a craving for the chief good, hungering and thirsting after righteousness. This implies–
1. Health. The body without appetite for food is diseased; the intellect without appetite for truth is diseased; and the soul without appetite for righteousness is diseased.
2. Provision. The existence of any native desire, physical, intellectual, or moral, implies a corresponding object. Goodness, like the air we breathe, is ever at hand; it encompasses our path. If we really desire it, we shall have it.
II. The more hungry, the better fed. Open thy mouth wide, etc. The Great Father wishes His children to have the profoundest cravings, the largest expectations; for He has an infinity of blessings which it is His happiness to bestow. The more you desire from Him, the more you shall have. (Homilist.)
Motives to enlarged prayer
I. Explain the exhortation. It implies–
1. Warmth and fervency in prayer.
2. A holy fluency and copiousness of expression, so as to order our cause before Him, and fill our mouths with arguments.
3. Enlarged hope and expectation.
II. Consider the import of the promise.
1. If we open our mouths to God in prayer, He will fill them more and more with suitable petitions and arguments.
2. God will fill the mouth with abundant thanksgivings.
3. We shall be filled with those blessings we pray for, if they are calculated to promote our real good and the glory of God.
III. Notice the limitations with which the promise requires to be understood.
1. Though God answers prayer, yet He will do it in His own time, and not always when we expect it.
2. He seldom answers prayer in the manner we expect.
3. He sometimes answers prayer gradually, and not all at once.
4. It is not our performance of duty, but the inviolable faithfulness of God that binds Him to the fulfilment of His promises.
IV. Inferences.
1. It is no wonder that many continue in a destitute and hopeless state: they live without prayer, and so without supplies of mercy.
2. If God thus fills the souls of unnumbered millions, how full must He Himself be! (B. Beddome, M. A.)
An invitation to prayer
I. The basis of the invitation.
1. I am the Lord–the Lord of the whole earth.
2. I am thy God–thy covenant God.
3. I brought thee out of the land of Egypt. He appeals to what He has already done on our behalf.
II. The invitation: Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. The invitation consists of an instruction and a promise: the instruction is, Open thy mouth wide; the promise is, I will fill it.
1. The instruction instructs us in two things–the manner of prayer and the measures of prayer. The manner of prayer is this–Open thy mouth. The measure of prayer is this–Open thy mouth wide.
2. The promise refers to both temporal and spiritual blessings. (P. Prescott.)
Gods gracious call and precious promise
I. What it is to open the mouth of the soul wide to Christ.
1. A sight of wants.
2. A sense of need.
3. A holy dissatisfaction with all things beside Christ.
4. The souls removing its desires from off vanities, and fixing them on Christ for satisfaction.
5. An assumed expectation of salvation from Christ.
6. A hearty willingness to receive Christ as He offers Himself in the Gospel.
II. Show how Christ fills the soul so as no other can do. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. This promise imports–
1. Such a suitableness in Him to the necessities of the soul, as is to be found in no other.
2. A sufficiency in Christ for all needs.
3. A cominunication of this suitable sufficiency unto that soul which opens its mouth wide to receive it.
(1) Christ gives Himself to that soul, so that such an one might say (Son 2:16).
(2) Christ gives them all good with Himself (Rom 8:32; Psa 84:11).
4. The souls satisfaction upon that communication. When all the cisterns are dried up, the believer has enough, He can rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of his salvation (Hab 3:17). He can say also with Paul (Php 4:18), I am full; and no wonder, for the soul having Christ, has–
(1) A fulness of merit to look to (1Jn 1:7).
(2) A fulness of spirit in Christ to take away the power of sin (Rev 3:1).
(3) A fulness of grace in Him, lodged in Him as the common storehouse of all the saints (Joh 1:16; 1Co 1:30). (T. Boston, D. D.)
Open thy mouth wide
I. The only source of full satisfaction for human life.
1. There is a recognition here of the vastness of human need. Open thy mouth wide. Man has–and this is one of the evidences of his greatness–a vast capacity for desire. The mouth of desire in man is not satisfied though all the treasures of the earth be poured into it.
2. The words imply that mans vastest desires are not awakened until they are consciously turned God-ward. Israel will open its mouth wider if it turn to God than if it forsake Him. There is enough of desire for God in every man to make this world unsatisfying, but in the worldling this desire is Undeveloped and shrivelled. The life that is fixed in God expands, and its desires become richer and vaster. God fills us, not by lessening our desires, but by enriching them.
3. The words imply that nothing less than personal union with God can satisfy the life. I will fill it.
II. The condition of receiving from God. Open thy mouth wide. Probably the figure is taken from the feeding of young birds in the nest by the parent bird. The picture is one of simple dependence and trust. Proud self-sufficiency shuts out the fulness of God. The first step to strength is to realize our own helplessness, simply to open the mouth wide, that God may fill it.
III. The measure of receiving. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it According to the capacity for reception, so is the gift. We have to recognize natural differences of capacity. As an eaglet differs from smaller birds, so men differ from men. All are not, and cannot be, Isaiahs and Pauls. But, on the other hand, a mans receptive power may have its development hindered by his own worldliness or negligence. His spiritual desires may be narrower than they ought to be. Faith, love, and hope grow larger through service. (J. Thomas, M. A.)
Encouragements to prayer
In our text we have God coming very near to His people, and coming near them to encourage them to come nearer to Him. We have the Lord speaking to them, that they may speak to Him. He opens His mouth to them, that they may open their mouths to Him.
I. God encouraging His people by saying, Open thy mouth wide.
1. I suppose that the Lord means by this exhortation, first of all, to help us to get rid of the paralyzing influence of fear. A man, in the presence of one whom he dreads, cannot speak boldly; and if he has been guilty of some great crime, and stands before one whom he regards as his judge, he is like the man in our Lords parable, speechless. A man on his knees, conscious of his sin, fearing the justice of God, would very naturally be unable to speak; and to encourage him God says, Open thy mouth; be not afraid.
2. Next, Open thy mouth wide; that is, speak freely in prayer to God, be not hampered in thy pleading. I have known children of God who have felt a terrible awe in the presence of the Lord. We want freedom, and liberty of access to God, when we come before the mercy-seat; and the Lord therefore encourages His people to break loose from all their shackles when He says, Open thy mouth wide.
3. It must also mean, ask great things: Open thy mouth wide. The greater the thing that you ask, the more sure you are to have it. With men it is, usually, the smaller the favour you crave, the more likely you are to obtain it; but with God it is the other way. There is nothing greater to ask for than Christ, and thou mayest have Christ for the asking, for God has already given Him to all who believe.
4. I think that it also means that we are to feel intense desires: Open thy mouth. Whenever a man speaks with very great earnestness, he opens his mouth widely.
5. Exercise a great expectancy. Consider–
(1) Gods greatness.
(2) His goodness.
(3) The channel by which mercies come to thee: Christ Jesus thy Lord.
(4) That the Holy Spirit is the Author of true prayer.
(5) The greatness of thy wants.
(6) Gods exceeding great and precious promises.
II. Observe God using two great arguments. Open thy mouth wide–
1. Because of what God has done. Child of God, this text belongs peculiarly to you. I am Jehovah, thy God. He has revealed Himself to thee; He has chosen thee, and thou hast chosen Him. Now, canst thou not open thy mouth wide to thine own God, to Jehovah, the great I am the boundless, the infinite, the Almighty God, canst thou not speak freely to Him? And then it is added, I am Jehovah, thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Now, that is the greatest thing that God could do for His people, and, if He has done that, will He not do the lesser things?
2. Because of what God will do. I will fill it. The story goes that the Shah of Persia, a strange man altogether, on one occasion said to a person who had pleased him very greatly, Open your mouth, and when he had opened his mouth, the Shah began to fill it up with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and all sorts of precious stones. I feel morally certain that the man opened his mouth wide. Would not you do the same if you had such an opportunity? Now, the Lord says to each of His own people, whom He has so highly favoured, Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. Suppose you open your mouth wide in prayer. I cannot, says one. Well, open your mouth, and God will fill it with prayer; and then, when you have prayed the prayer that He has given you, He will fill it with answers. God gives prayer as well as the answer to prayer. Only open your mouth, and, as it were, make a vacuum for God to fill. God loves to look for emptiness where He may stow away His grace. When you have done that, then open your mouth with praise. The praise of God is something like Mr. Bunyans Pilgrims Progress. He began to write, he says, and he does not know how he wrote so much; but he quaintly says, As I pulled, it came; and you will find it is so with the praise of God. Praise Him, and you will praise Him. If you do not praise Him, you never will praise Him. If you do not begin, you will never keep on; but once open the sluices of gratitude, and the streams will flow more and more copiously every hour. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Opening the mouth
I. The exhortation.
1. Labour after a great sense of need. You are weakness itself, and emptiness itself, and a mass of sin and misery, apart from God your Father, and Christ your Redeemer, and the Spirit the indweller; and when you know this, then you will open your mouth wide.
2. Seek after an intense and vehement desire. He that prays to God without fervour asks to be denied.
3. Ask for large things, remembering the greatness and goodness of God, and the great pleas you have to urge when you come before Him.
4. Ask for enlarged capacities. If we had more room for the Lords gifts, we should receive more.
II. The promise. I will fill it. You might expect such a promise as that. You could not think it possible for the Lord to say, Open your mouths for nothing. It would not be according to His usual way of procedure. He does not set His servants praying and then say somewhere behind their backs, they shall seek My face in vain. Tantalus belongs to the heathen mythology, not to the Christians experience. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
1. It is a promise only made to those who do open their mouths wide.
2. It is a promise given by One who can fulfil it, and will. How?
(1) With prayers.
(2) With the actual blessings.
(3) With praises. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Affluence and receptivity
This is a figurative expression, and it indicates that man is a creature of vast spiritual capacity. Men are rarely in full consciousness of that deep, strong, original aptitude of human nature for the things of God. For sin has so deeply impaired our nature, that atrophy and nausea have fallen upon our spiritual faculties, and our moral perceptions have become gross and insensible. But the faculties are in us. The ideas of God and duty, the fitness for responsibility, the spring of the inner nature towards immortal life, the sentiment of love, with its boundless range–these inhere in the soul of every man. They may lie dormant in the inner caves of our personal existence, unused and entrusted by guilt, but they are integral qualities. Nothing–riot guilt, not neglect, not the insane denial of these Divine qualities, not even the suicides hand, can cast out of our being these exalted powers and prerogatives. There is a section of our being which cannot, but by annihilating, die. It is a majestic fact, and it brings with it the most awful responsibility that we are beings of a constitution akin to the Divine, and that we shall live for ever! Now, the reference of the text, in its first section, is to this quality of our nature. When God says, Open thy mouth wide, He refers to an actual capacity in us, latent though it be, which, quickened by the Spirit, may reach up to heaven in lofty aspirations, and take in all the things of God. So, too, the other portion of the text, for it has two terms: open thy mouth wide, is one, and I will fill it, the other. The promise here given us is equally as significant with regard to our nature as is the command. It is a declaration that when the immortal demands of our inner being are once quickened into life, that there is but one Being in the universe who can answer and supply them. Hence the entreaty, Open thy mouth wide, etc., because God only can fill these infinite needs of the immortal soul. What, then, is the reach you are going to make in Divine holiness? How far will you stretch forth in godly desires and aspirations? First of all, if you would attain to a lofty, grand pre-eminence of spiritual growth, fix it in your minds to be men and women of a high order of morals. Not as though the advice be given to begin with morality. God forbid! The beginning of all true soul-life is in the spiritual; but, assuming that you are spiritual, that you have repented and believed, and that, having entered upon the Christian life, led by the Spirit of grace, you are anxious to reach the stature of perfect men in Christ. Lay the foundations of your piety deep in the purest morals! But observe, next, that another stretch of the soul to high spiritual excellence is to be attained by the exercise of duty, that is, the doing of good works. Practical goodness bears somewhat the same relation to eminent piety that husbandry does to the production of good crops, or the care of the gardener to the growth of beautiful flowers. It is, under God, the actual uplifting of the soul from one degree of holiness to another. It is the cultivation of the Christian graces; and, observe, all true cultivation tends to growth and expansion. By doing good to others for Christs sake, we expand our own being; we multiply the force of our sympathies and affections; we reduplicate the power of our loving energy. And so it will follow that obedience to the text will show itself, in the purposed rise of the soul to a high spirituality. This topic is left for the last, because it is the most important; it is the very base of all spiritual acquisition. In the domain of the spirit, spiritual things, spiritual aims, spiritual efforts, spiritual longings, are the foremost of all things. So much, then, for the ideal or principle descriptive of what is spiritual life. And now we can turn to the evidence that is to be found in ourselves that we have this principle implanted in us. That evidence discovers itself in those characteristic spiritual acts of the soul, into which, as sons of God, the saints are led by the Spirit of God. And here the whole field of saintly life lies spread out before us, so that we cannot err. All of its rich productiveness is the fruit of the Spirit. It brings, to our sight, in exceeding brilliancy, the faith and prayerful mightiness of Abraham; the calm meditativeness of Isaac; the crystal purity of Joseph; the serene and unspotted godliness of Samuel; the burning flames of Elijah; the calm constancy of David; the stern self-sacrifice and zealous fervour of the Baptisit; the fiery ardour of holy Paul; the loveliness of St. John the Divine. The sum of what has been advanced may be stated as enforcing these two lessons.
1. That you must avoid as though it were death, the idea of spiritual finality, in the attainments of grace. Never think you have enough of God and Gods Spirit. Never be satisfied with any successes you have reached in holiness. Never pause in your career, saying to the deceived and languid soul, Rest and be thankful. But press on ever to higher, nobler, and more spiritual heights.
2. That there is a law of progress implanted in our nature, which has no limitation. No man here can tell how high he can go in excellence–how far he can reach in godly purity. In the very idea of immortality is implied somewhat that is limitless and unconfined; and so we can by Gods grace stretch out further and further, until we are lost in God Himself. O grand and noble acquisition! O blessed and heavenly consummation! (A. Crummell, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 10. Open thy mouth wide] Let thy desires be ever so extensive, I will gratify them if thou wilt be faithful to me. Thou shalt lack no manner of thing that is good.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Open thy mouth wide; either,
1. To pray for mercies. Ask freely, and abundantly, and boldly, (as this phrase oft signifies,) whatsoever you need, or in reason can desire. Or,
2. To receive the mercies which I am ready to give you.
I will fill it; I will give or grant them all, upon condition of your obedience.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
I am the Lord thy God,…. The true Jehovah, the Being of beings, in whom all live and move and have their beings, the covenant God of his people; and is a reason why they should hear him, and worship him, and no other:
which brought thee out of the land of Egypt; this, with what goes before, is the preface to the ten commands, the first and principal of which is urged in the preceding verse; and this is another reason why the Lord God should be had and worshipped, and not a strange god; and redemption from worse than Egyptian bondage, from the bondage of sin, Satan, and the law, and a deliverance from worse than Egyptian darkness, and from a state of wickedness and impiety, should lay under greater obligations still to serve the Lord, and worship him only; who adds, as a further reason for it,
open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it; which may be understood of opening the mouth either in prayer or in praise: to open the mouth wide in prayer is to pray with great freedom, to pour out the soul to God, lay open its whole case, and tell him all his mind and wants; to pray with great boldness, and with much importunity and fervency, and in full assurance of faith, pleading with great strength the promises of God, and asking in faith for much, according to them; and God may be said to fill this wide mouth of faith in prayer, when he grants the desires of the heart, gives his people what they will, even very largely and abundantly, yea, more than they can ask or think: to open the mouth wide in praise is to be abundantly thankful for mercies received; and when persons are so, the Lord fills them with more abundant matter for praise and thanksgiving; see Ps 71:8, or this may be interpreted of opening the mouth wide in expressions of desire after spiritual food, hungering and thirsting after spiritual things, when the Lord fills or satisfies the mouths of his people with good things,
Ps 103:5, with the sincere milk of the word which they desire, and with the ordinances, the breasts of consolation they long for, and so satisfies them with the goodness and fatness of his house, Ps 64:4, the metaphor seems to be taken from the young of birds, which open their mouths, and are filled by the old ones: the Targum is,
“open thy mouth to the words of the law, and I will fill it with every good thing.”
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
10. I am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide. God, by making mention of the deliverance which he had wrought for the people, put a bridle upon those whom he had taken under his protection, by which he might hold them bound to his service; and now he assures them, that with respect to the time to come, he had an abundant supply of all blessings with which to fill and satisfy their desires. The three arguments which he employs to induce the Israelites to adhere exclusively to him, and by which he shows them how wickedly and impiously they would act in turning aside from him, and having recourse to strange gods, are worthy of special attention. The first is, that he is Jehovah. By the word Jehovah, he asserts his claims as God by nature, and declares, that it is beyond the power of man to make new gods. When he says I am Jehovah, the pronoun I is emphatic. The Egyptians, no doubt, pretended to worship the Creator of heaven and of earth; but their contempt of the God of Israel plainly convicted them of falsehood. Whenever men depart from Him, they adorn the idols of their own invention with His spoils, whatever the specious pretexts may be by which they attempt to vindicate themselves. After having affirmed that he is Jehovah, he proves his Godhead from the effect and experience, — from the clear and irrefragable evidence of it in his delivering his people from Egypt, and especially, from his performing at that time the promise which he had made to the fathers. This is his second argument. The power which was displayed on that occasion ought not to have been contemplated apart by itself, since it depended upon the covenant, which long before he had entered into with Abraham. By that deliverance he gave a proof not less of his veracity than of his power, and thus vindicated the praise which was due to him. The third argument is, that he offers himself to the people for the time to come; assuring them, that, provided they continue to persevere in the faith, he will be the same towards the children as the fathers experienced him to be, his goodness being inexhaustible: Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. By the expression open wide, he tacitly condemns the contracted views and desires which obstruct the exercise of his beneficence. “If the people are in penury,” we may suppose him to say, “the blame is to be entirely ascribed to themselves, because their capacity is not large enough to receive the blessings of which they stand in need; or rather, because by their unbelief they reject the blessings which would flow spontaneously upon them.” He not only bids them open their mouth, but he magnifies the abundance of his grace still more highly, by intimating, that however enlarged our desires may be, there will be nothing wanting which is necessary to afford us full satisfaction. Whence it follows, that the reason why God’s blessings drop upon us in a sparing and slender manner is, because our mouth is too narrow; and the reason why others are empty and famished is, because they keep their mouth completely shut. The majority of mankind, either from disgust, or pride, or madness, refuse all the blessings which are offered them from heaven. Others, although they do not altogether reject them, yet with difficulty take in only a few small drops, because their faith is so straitened as to prevent them from receiving an abundant supply. It is a very manifest proof of the depravity of mankind, when they have no desire to know God, in order that they may embrace him, and when they are equally disinclined to rest satisfied with him. He undoubtedly here requires to be worshipped by external service; but he sets no value upon the bare name of Deity — for his majesty does not consist in two or three syllables. He rather looks to what the name imports, and is solicitous that our hope may not be withdrawn from him to other objects, or that the praise of righteousness, salvation, and all blessings, may not be transferred from him to another. In calling himself by the name Jehovah, he claims Godhead exclusively to himself, on the ground that he possesses a plenitude of all blessings with which to satisfy and fill us.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Psa 81:10. Open thy mouth wide, &c. i.e. “I will satisfy thy desires, be they ever so large. Be faithful to me, and I will fill thee with blessings in profusion.” The Chaldee reads, Open thy mouth to the words of the law, and I will fill it with every thing which is good. Houbigant renders it, Who have enlarged thy mouth, and filled it.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 637
PRAYER EFFECTUAL, TO ANY EXTENT
Psa 81:10. I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
ACCESS to God, and a certainty of acceptance with him, have been amongst the most distinguished privileges of the Lords people in all ages. To his ancient people the Jews, God said, What nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? To us, under the Christian dispensation, it is promised, that wherever two or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus, there will that blessed Saviour be in the midst of them. None shall draw nigh to him in prayer, but he will also draw nigh to them, to answer their prayers. In the psalm before us, God most affectionately encourages his people to come to him, and to enlarge their requests to the utmost extent of their necessities: Hear, O my people! and I will testify unto thee, O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me. I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt; open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
Here, Brethren, let me call your attention to,
I.
The invitation given us
How comprehensive the words in which it is contained!
[Here is no limit to our petitions. On the contrary, we are encouraged to extend them to every thing that our souls can desire. Nor is there any limit assigned, beyond which we are not to expect an answer. Whatever we want for body or for soul, for time or for eternity, it shall all be given us, if only we will approach unto God, and make our requests known unto him.]
And how marvellous the invitation, as sent by God to sinful man!
[God can receive nothing from us: our goodness can never extend to him. He is altogether independent of us: and if the whole human race were annihilated this very moment, God would suffer no loss. Neither his honour nor his happiness were in the least diminished, when the fallen angels were cast out of heaven into the bottomless abyss of hell: nor if we were all plunged into the same abyss of misery, would God be in the least affected by it. Yet, behold, He deigns to send us the gracious invitation which we have just heard, and permits even the vilest amongst us to regard it as addressed personally to himself. To every soul amongst us he says, Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.]
Listen then with wonder to,
II.
The consideration with which it is enforced
Surprising encouragement! Mark it,
1.
As referring to Gods ancient people
[God had brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm. What an evidence was this of his power! and what a pledge was this of his willingness to do for them all that their necessities might require! Behold the sea opening before them, to give a dry path to them, and to overwhelm in one common ruin every one of their pursuers! Behold the bread given them for forty years by a daily miraculous supply from heaven, and the water from the rock following them in all their way! See them at last established in the Promised Land! Could they ask more than had already been done for them? And if these things had been done notwithstanding all their rebellions, what should they not obtain if they would implore it with all humility from God?]
2.
As comprehending that more wonderful redemption vouchsafed to us
[If the typical redemption from Egypt afforded such encouragement to prayer, what must we think of that redemption which it shadowed forth, even the redemption of our souls from death and hell, by the precious blood of Gods only dear Son? Hear Jehovah saying, I am the Lord thy God, who became a man for thee; who died upon the cross for thee; who bore thy sins in my own body on the tree, that thou mightest be freed from the condemnation due to them, and mightest inherit a throne of glory! What a claim is this to our gratitude! what an incentive to the utmost possible enlargement of our petitions! and what an encouragement to our most unshaken affiance! Take the invitation by itself, and it expresses all that we can wish: but take it in connexion with this consideration with which it is enforced, and methinks there will not be one amongst us that will not most cordially accept it, and most thankfully avail himself of the liberty, the inestimable liberty, thus accorded to him.]
But, seeing that this invitation has been so often sent to us,
1.
How amazing is it that any of us can live without prayer!
[Methinks it were almost a libel upon human nature to suppose that there should be any one so stupid and so brutish as to live without prayer; and I ought to make an apology for suggesting even a possibility that such an one may be found in this assembly. Well; forgive me, if in this I have erred: yet I would affectionately put it home to the consciences of all who are here present, and ask, Have you, my Brethren, and you, and you, really sought after God, and spread your wants before him, and implored mercy at his hands, and wrestled with him, as it were, in prayer, for an out-pouring of his Spirit upon you? Have you done it this week past? Have you done it this very morning? Can you call God to witness that you have thus opened your mouth wide before him, in the hope that he would fill and satisfy you with the abundance of his grace? Is there no one amongst you that stands reproved for his neglect of this duty? Yea, rather, are there not some amongst you who have never poured out their souls before God in prayer during their whole life, or, at all events, only under the pressure of some great calamity, which, when it was past, left them in the same careless and obdurate state as before? Perhaps some of you may have repeated some form which you learned in carly life, or may have read some form out of a book: but this is not prayer, if it be unattended with the real desires of the heart: prayer, is not a mere service of the lip and knee, but the effusion of the soul before God in earnest supplication. I lament to think how many there are utter strangers to such holy wrestlings, such sweet communion with their God. Let me, then, remind such persons what sad regret they excite in the bosom of Jehovah; and what bitter regret they themselves also will one day experience in their own bosoms. God says, O that my people had hearkened to me, and Israel had walked in my ways! And will not you also, ere long, adopt a similar language, and say, O that I had hearkened to the voice of my God, and had walked in the ways to which he called me! And if God contemplate with such regret the blessings which he would have bestowed [Note: ver. 1316.], with what sad regret will you one day view the blessings you have lost! Be wise in time; and now avail yourselves of the opportunity that is afforded you, seeking the Lord whilst he may be found, and calling upon him whilst he is near.]
2.
How lamentable is it that any one should yield to discouragement in prayer!
[What could God say to you, more than he has said; or do for you, more than he has done? St. Paul says, He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with Him also freely give us all things? Only reflect on what he has done, and how impossible it was any fallen creature should dare to ask such things at Gods hands, and you need not fear to enlarge your petitions, to the utmost extent of language to express, or of imagination to conceive. You are not straitened in him; be not straitened in yourselves [Note: 2Co 6:12.]. Only spread your wants before him freely, and you shall find that He is able to do for you exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or even think [Note: Eph 3:20.]. Go to him, then, and pray to him with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit; yea, pray without ceasing, and give him no rest till he has answered your requests. But be not hasty to imagine that he will not hear; because he may already have heard and answered in the way most conducive to your good, whilst you are doubting whether he will so much as listen to your petitions. Of course you cannot expect to receive, unless you ask according to his will [Note: 1Jn 5:14.]; but, with that reserve only, I assure you, that ye may ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you [Note: Joh 15:7.]. Only ask in faith, and according to your faith it shall be done unto you.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 81:10 I [am] the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
Ver. 10. Open thou thy mouth wide, &c. ] If thou be straitened, it is not in me, but in thine own bowels; he secretly taxeth them for their and their in prayer, their faithlessness and faint-heartedness, whereby they do deny, as it were, their own prayers: ask largely, and speed accordingly.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the LORD thy God. Hebrew. Jehovah.thy Elohim. App-4. The title of the Lawgiver.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
I am: Exo 20:2, Jer 11:4, Jer 31:31-33
open: Psa 37:3, Psa 37:4, Joh 7:37, Joh 15:7, Joh 16:23, Eph 3:19, Eph 3:20, Rev 21:6, Rev 22:17
Reciprocal: Gen 17:7 – God 2Ki 4:3 – borrow not a few 2Ki 21:9 – they hearkened Psa 50:7 – O my Son 5:2 – Open Isa 43:12 – no strange Eze 20:19 – the Lord Hos 8:3 – cast Hos 12:9 – I that Hos 13:4 – I am Mat 7:8 – General Mat 22:3 – and they would not Luk 13:34 – how 2Co 6:13 – be
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
81:10 I [am] the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: {i} open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
(i) God accuses their incredulity, because they did not open their mouths to receive God’s benefits in such abundance as he pours them out.