Psalm 81:15

The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) Submitted.—See Note, Psalm 18:44.

Him—i.e., Israel; Jehovah’s enemies being also Israel’s enemies.

Their time—i.e., Israel’s. One of the sudden changes of number so frequent in Hebrew poetry. As a nation Israel would continue to live and prosper.

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

The haters of the Lord - The enemies of the Lord, often represented as those who hate him - hatred being always in fact or in form connected with an unwillingness to submit to God. It is hatred of his law; hatred of his government; hatred of his plans; hatred of his character. See Romans 1:30; John 7:7, John 15:18, John 15:23-25. Compare Exodus 20:5.

Should have submitted themselves unto him - Margin, yielded retained obedience. Hebrew, lied. See the phrase explained in the notes at Psalm 18:44. The meaning is, that they would have been so subdued as to acknowledge his authority or supremacy, while it is, at the same time, implied that this would have been forced and not cordial. No external power, though it may so conquer as to make people outwardly obedient, can affect the will, or subdue that. The grace of God alone can do that, and it is the special triumph of grace that it can do it.

But their time - The time of his people. They would have continued to be a happy and a flourishing nation.

Should have endured for ever - Perpetually - as long as they continued to be obedient. If a nation were obedient to the will of God; if it wholly obeyed his laws; if it countenanced by statute no form of sin; if it protected no iniquity; if it were temperate, just, virtuous, honest, there is no reason why its institutions should not be perpetual, or why it should ever be overthrown. Sin is, in all cases, the cause of the ruin of nations, as it is of individuals.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13-16. Obedience would have secured all promised blessings and the subjection of foes. In this passage, "should have," "would have," &c., are better, "should" and "would" expressing God's intention at the time, that is, when they left Egypt.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The haters of the Lord; all the haters and enemies of God’s people, as the neighbouring nations were; whom he calls haters of God, partly because they hated the Israelites for God’s sake, and for the singularity of their religious worship, as the heathen oft declared; and partly to show the strict league and union which was betwixt God and them, by virtue whereof God had declared all their friends and enemies to be his own, which was a great aggravation of their wickedness.

Should have submitted themselves unto him; should have professed and owned their subjection to him. For the phrase, See Poole "Psalm 18:44". Their time, i.e. Israel’s time; the relative belonging to the remoter antecedent; as it is in many other places of Scripture, whereof I have formerly given instances. By their time he means either,

1. Their happy time, as life is oft put for a happy life or State, as Psalm 34:12 49:18 Deu 4:1 5:33, &c. Or,

2. The duration of their commonwealth. Endured for ever, i.e. lasted for a very long time; whereas now their latter and doleful end is hastening towards them.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him,.... Or, "lied unto him" (h); feignedly submitted to him, flattered him, pretended friendship to him, and entered into a league with him; either Israel, mentioned Psalm 81:13, our God, whom and whose worship and people they hated; as every natural man is an hater of God, and all that is good, and enmity itself unto him; but these shall all submit to Christ, sooner or later, in one way or another, and acknowledge him Lord, and that he is superior to them, and themselves not a match for him; as Julian the emperor when wounded, said, Thou hast overcome me, O Galilean:

but their time should have endured for ever; which Jarchi and Aben Ezra interpret of the calamities and vengeance that should come upon the haters of God, who will be punished with everlasting destruction; their worm will never die, nor their fire be quenched; it is everlasting, and the smoke of their torment will ascend for ever and ever; in which sense the word is used, Isaiah 13:22 or rather this is to be understood of the time, or happy state and condition, of the Israelites, which would have been of long continuance, had they hearkened to the Lord, and walked in his ways; particularly, they would have long enjoyed the land of Canaan, which was given to Abraham and his seed for an everlasting possession, and which they held by the tenure of their obedience, Genesis 17:8, and so all truly gracious souls, that hearken to the voice of Christ, and walk in his ways, are in a happy state, which will endure for ever; they are blessed with all spiritual blessings, and those are for ever; the heavenly land of Canaan they shall dwell in for ever; their mansions or habitations in Christ's Father's house are everlasting; their house, not made with hands, is eternal in the heavens; their estate, possession, and inheritance is an eternal one; it is incorruptible, and fades not away; their being with Christ is for ever; and their happiness is often expressed by eternal life and eternal glory.

(h) "mentientur", Montanus; "mentiti fuissent", Vatablus; "mentirentur", Musculus, Cocceius, Gejerus; "mendaciter se dedissent", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Geneva Study Bible

The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time {m} should have endured for ever.

(m) If the Israelites had not broken covenant with God, he would have given them victory against their enemies.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. The haters of Jehovah should come cringing unto him,

So that their time should be for ever.

Unto him may mean to Jehovah or to Israel; but apparently the latter. Jehovah’s enemies are the enemies of His people, and He would force them to pay homage, however reluctantly (Psalm 66:3 note), to Israel; that so Israel’s time of prosperity might know no end, the nation’s life never fail.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - The haters of the Lord. Israel's enemies are always spoken of as God's enemies also (comp. Psalm 3:2, 7; Psalm 9:3; Psalm 68:1; Psalm 79:6, 7, etc.). They "hate" Jehovah (Psalm 21:8; Psalm 83:2), not merely as Israel's Protecter, but as the Source of all good, whereas they delight in evil. Should have submitted themselves unto him; rather, should submit themselves, or "should yield feigned obedience" (Authorized Version, margin). But their time (i.e. Israel's time) should have endured forever; rather, should endure. Psalm 81:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Passover discourse now takes a sorrowful and awful turn: Israel's disobedience and self-will frustrated the gracious purpose of the commandments and promises of its God. "My people" and "Israel" alternate as in the complaint in Isaiah 1:3. לא־אבה followed by the dative, as in Deuteronomy 13:9 ([8], ου ̓ συνθελήσεις αὐτῷ). Then God made their sin their punishment, by giving them over judicially (שׁלּח as in Job 8:4) into the obduracy of their heart, which rudely shuts itself up against His mercy (from שׁרר, Aramaic שׁרר, Arabic sarra, to make firm equals to cheer, make glad), so that they went on (cf. on the sequence of tense, Psalm 61:8) in their, i.e., their own, egotistical, God-estranged determinations; the suffix is thus accented, as e.g., in Isaiah 65:2, cf. the borrowed passage Jeremiah 7:24, and the same phrase in Micah 6:16. And now, because this state of unfaithfulness in comparison with God's faithfulness has remained essentially the same even to to-day, the exalted Orator of the festival passes over forthwith to the generation of the present, and that, as is in accordance with the cheerful character of the feast, in a charmingly alluring manner. Whether we take לוּ in the signification of si (followed by the participle, as in 2 Samuel 18:12), or like אם above in Psalm 81:9 as expressing a wish, o si (if but!), Psalm 81:15. at any rate have the relation of the apodosis to it. From כּמעט (for a little, easily) it may be conjectured that the relation of Israel at that time to the nations did not correspond to the dignity of the nation of God which is called to subdue and rule the world in the strength of God. השׁיב signifies in this passage only to turn, not: to again lay upon. The meaning is, that He would turn the hand which is now chastening His people against those by whom He is chastening them (cf. on the usual meaning of the phrase, Isaiah 1:25; Amos 1:8; Jeremiah 6:9; Ezekiel 38:12). The promise in Psalm 81:16 relates to Israel and all the members of the nation. The haters of Jahve would be compelled reluctantly to submit themselves to Him, and their time would endure for ever. "Time" is equivalent to duration, and in this instance with the collateral notion of Prosperity, as elsewhere (Isaiah 13:22) of the term of punishment. One now expects that it should continue with ואאכילהוּ, in the tone of a promise. The Psalm, however, closes with an historical statement. For ויּאכילהו cannot signify et cibaret eum; it ought to be pronounced ויאכילהו. The pointing, like the lxx, Syriac, and Vulgate, takes v. 17a (cf. Deuteronomy 32:13.) as a retrospect, and apparently rightly so. For even the Asaphic Psalm 77 and 78 break off with historical pictures. V. 17b is, accordingly, also to be taken as retrospective. The words of the poet in conclusion once more change into the words of God. The closing word runs אשׂבּיעך, as in Psalm 50:8, Deuteronomy 4:31, and (with the exception of the futt. Hiph. of Lamed He verbs ending with ekka) usually. The Babylonian system of pointing nowhere recognises the suffix-form ekka. If the Israel of the present would hearken to the Lawgiver of Sinai, says v. 17, then would He renew to it the miraculous gifts of the time of the redemption under Moses.