1 Sing aloud to God, our strength! Make a joyful shout to the God of Jacob!
2 Raise a song, and bring here the tambourine, the pleasant lyre with the harp.
3 Blow the trumpet at the New Moon, at the full moon, on our feast day.
4 For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5 He appointed it in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out over the land of Egypt, I heard a language that I didn’t know.
6 “I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were freed from the basket.
7 You called in trouble, and I delivered you. I answered you in the secret place of thunder. I tested you at the waters of Meribah.” Selah.
8 “Hear, my people, and I will testify to you, Israel, if you would listen to me!
9 There shall be no strange god in you, neither shall you worship any foreign god.
10 I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
Free Grace note
Open your mouth wide and let a generous God fill it The invitation is stunning: I am Yahweh your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. Notice the order. God rescues first, verse 10 opens by recalling the exodus, and only then asks His people to receive. Grace always runs in that direction. He does not say earn your food, but open wide and let me fill you. A common misread of the Old Testament imagines a stingy, demanding God watching to catch failures. This verse shatters that. He is a Father eager to give more than we usually let Him. The condition for being filled is not achievement but appetite, simply coming hungry and open. That is the same posture in which eternal life is received, empty hands held out to a giving God.
11 But my people didn’t listen to my voice. Israel desired none of me.
12 So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they might walk in their own counsels.
Free Grace note
God lets the stubborn have their way, and it leaves them empty One of the saddest lines in Scripture: my people didn't listen, Israel desired none of me, so I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts. God did not destroy them and did not force them. He simply let them have what they insisted on. Paul describes the same solemn pattern in Romans 1:24, God gave them over to what they wanted. This is not the loss of salvation but the misery of a believer walking away from the feast God spread. Note the ache in verse 13, oh that my people would listen to me. The door was never bolted from God's side. For a maturing believer this is a tender warning. You cannot lose the gift, but you can trade the honey of His fellowship for the emptiness of your own counsel. Come back and open wide again.
13 Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!
14 I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their adversaries.
15 The haters of Yahweh would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever.
16 But he would have also fed them with the finest of the wheat. I will satisfy you with honey out of the rock.”
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