Psalm 81:9

There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) Open . . .—A condensed statement of God’s gracious promise (Deuteronomy 7:12-13; Deuteronomy 8:7; Deuteronomy 8:9; Deuteronomy 11:13; Deuteronomy 11:16, &c). It is said to have been a custom in Persia, that when the king wishes to do a visitor especial honour he desires him to open his mouth wide, and the king then-crams it full of sweetmeats, and sometimes even with jewels. And to this day it is a mark of politeness in Orientals to tear off the daintiest bits of meat for a guest, and either lay them before him, or put them in his mouth. (See Thomson, Land and Book, p. 127.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

81:8-16 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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

There shall no strange god be in thee - Worshipped by thee; or recognized and regarded as a god. This was a condition of his favor and friendship. Compare Deuteronomy 32:12; Isaiah 43:12. The word here rendered "strange" - זר zār - has reference to one of a foreign nation; and the meaning is, that they were not to worship or adore the gods that were worshipped by foreigners. This was a fundamental law of the Hebrew commonwealth.

Neither shalt thou worship any strange god - The Hebrew word here is different - נכר nêkâr - but means substantially the same thing. The allusion is to gods worshipped by foreign nations.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. (Compare Ps 50:7). The reproof follows to Ps 81:12.

if thou wilt hearken—He then propounds the terms of His covenant: they should worship Him alone, who (Ps 81:10) had delivered them, and would still confer all needed blessings.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Thou shalt renounce all false gods and worship, and worship me only.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

There shall no strange god be in thee,.... Or in the midst of thee, owned and worshipped as God; or in thine heart, for whatever engrosses the affection, or a man puts his trust and confidence in, that he makes his god, and is a strange one: thus, if any friend or relation, father or mother, wife or children, are loved more than God, they are set up as such in his place; thus the epicure, that seeks the gratification of his carnal lusts, makes his belly his god; and the covetous man his money, in which he trusts, and therefore is called an idolater; and the self-righteous man his righteousness, on which he depends for salvation: hence we read of idols set up in the heart, from which they are disengaged in conversion, and kept from, Ezekiel 14:7.

neither shall thou worship any strange god; only the Lord God is to be worshipped, Matthew 28:19 and there is but one God; though this is to be understood not to the exclusion of the Son and Spirit, who are with the Father the one God, and to be worshipped equally with him, and are; see Matthew 28:19.

Geneva Study Bible

There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. no strange god] Cp. Psalm 44:20; Deuteronomy 32:16.

any strange god] Any alien god. Cp. Deuteronomy 32:12. Absolute frdelity to Jehovah was the fundamental principle of the Sinaitic covenant, embodied in the first ‘word’ of the Decalogue.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god (comp; Exodus 20:3; Deuteronomy 5:7). Such worship had evidently begun, and required to be forbidden afresh. Psalm 81:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

It is a gentle but profoundly earnest festival discourse which God the Redeemer addresses to His redeemed people. It begins, as one would expect in a Passover speech, with a reference to the סבלות of Egypt (Exodus 1:11-14; Exodus 5:4; Exodus 6:6.), and to the duwd, the task-basket for the transport of the clay and of the bricks (Exodus 1:14; Exodus 5:7.).

(Note: In the Papyrus Leydensis i. 346 the Israelites are called the "Aperiu (עברים), who dragged along the stones for the great watch-tower of the city of Rameses," and in the Pap. Leyd. i. 349, according to Lauth, the "Aperiu, who dragged along the stones for the storehouse of the city of Rameses.")

Out of such distress did He free the poor people who cried for deliverance (Exodus 2:23-25); He answered them בּסתר רעם, i.e., not (according to Psalm 22:22; Isaiah 32:2): affording them protection against the storm, but (according to Psalm 18:12; Psalm 77:17.): out of the thunder-clouds in which He at the same time revealed and veiled Himself, casting down the enemies of Israel with His lightnings, which is intended to refer pre-eminently to the passage through the Red Sea (vid., Psalm 77:19); and He proved them (אבחנך, with ŏ contracted from ō, cf. on Job 35:6) at the waters of Merbah, viz., whether they would trust Him further on after such glorious tokens of His power and loving-kindness. The name "Waters of Merı̂bah," which properly is borne only by Merı̂bath Kadesh, the place of the giving of water in the fortieth year (Numbers 20:13; Numbers 27:14; Deuteronomy 32:51; Deuteronomy 33:8), is here transferred to the place of the giving of water in the first year, which was named Massah u-Merı̂bah (Exodus 17:7), as the remembrances of these two miracles, which took place under similar circumstances, in general blend together (vid., on Psalm 95:8.). It is not now said that Israel did not act in response to the expectation of God, who had son wondrously verified Himself; the music, as Seal imports, here rises, and makes a long and forcible pause in what is being said. What now follows further, are, as the further progress of Psalm 81:12 shows, the words of God addressed to the Israel of the desert, which at the same time with its faithfulness are brought to the remembrance of the Israel of the present. העיד בּ, as in Psalm 50:7; Deuteronomy 8:19, to bear testimony that concerns him against any one. אם (according to the sense, o si, as in Psalm 95:7, which is in many ways akin to this Psalm) properly opens a searching question which wishes that the thing asked may come about (whether thou wilt indeed give me a willing hearing?!). In Psalm 81:10 the key-note of the revelation of the Law from Sinai is struck: the fundamental command which opens the decalogue demanded fidelity to Jahve and forbade idol-worship as the sin of sins. אל זר is an idol in opposition to the God of Israel as the true God; and אל נכר, a strange god in opposition to the true God as the God of Israel. To this one God Israel ought to yield itself all the more undividedly and heartily as it was more manifestly indebted entirely to Him, who in His condescension had chosen it, and in His wonder-working might had redeemed it (המּעלך, part. Hiph. with the eh elided, like הפּדך, Deuteronomy 13:6, and אכלך, from כּלּה, Exodus 33:3); and how easy this submission ought to have been to it, since He desired nothing in return for the rich abundance of His good gifts, which satisfy and quicken body and soul, but only a wide-opened mouth, i.e., a believing longing, hungering for mercy and eager for salvation (Psalm 119:131)!