a people (as a congregated unit) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
hearkened
שֹׁמֵ֣עַֽsho.Me.a'
H8085
to hear intelligently (often with implication of attent… · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
Israel
יִ֝שְׂרָאֵ֗לYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
walked
יְהַלֵּֽכוּye.ha.Le.khu
H1980
to walk (in a great variety of applications · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
ways
בִּדְרָכַ֥יbid.ra.Khai
H1870
a road (as trodden) · preposition + noun, common both genders plural construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Deuteronomy 5:29 O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and…
Isaiah 48:18 O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:
Deuteronomy 10:12-13 And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to…
Luke 19:41-42 And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,
Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy child…
Deuteronomy 32:29 O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 81:8–end
God, by the psalmist, here speaks to Israel, and in them to us, on whom the ends of the world are come.
I. He demands their diligent and serious attention to what he was about to say (Psa 81:8): "Hear, O my people! and who should hear me if my people will not? I have heard and answered thee; now wilt thou hear me? Hear what is said with the greatest solemnity and the most unquestionable certainty, for it is what I will testify unto thee. Do not only give me the hearing, but hearken unto me, that is, be advised by me, be ruled by me." Nothing could be more reasonably nor more justly expected, and yet God puts an if upon it: "If thou wilt hearken unto me. It is thy interest to do so, and yet i…
O that my people had hearkened unto me,.... This might have been expected from them, as they were his professing people; and it would have been to their advantage if they had hearkened to him, as well as it would have been well pleasing to him; for that is what is designed by this wish, which does not express the purposing will of God; for who hath resisted that? if he had so willed, he could have given them ears to hear; but his commanding will, and what is his approving one: to hearken to him is not only to hearken to what he commands, but to what he approves of; it is the good and acceptable will of God that men should hearken to the declarations of his will in the law, and to the declara…
Psalm 81:13-16
13. O if my people had hearkened to me! If Israel had walked in my ways! 14. I would soon have brought their enemies low, and turned my hand against their adversaries. 15. The haters of Jehovah would have lied to him, and their time should have been everlasting. 16. I[[415] would have fed them with the fat of corn: and I would have satisfied thee with honey from the rock.
13. O if my people had hearkened to me! By the honorable designation which God gives to the people of Israel, He exposes the more effectually their shameful and disgraceful conduct. Their wickedness was doubly aggravated, as will appear from the consideration, that although God called them to be his people,…
The Church Fathers
"If my people listened to me, if Israel traveled in my ways, I would have reduced their foes to nothing and laid my hand on those afflicting them." If they had adhered to my advice and followed my commandments, I would easily have destroyed their foes. "To nothing" suggests the facility—in other words, easily and without trouble I would have been able to bring about their ruin in an instant.
"If My people would have heard Me, if Israel would have walked in My ways" [Psalm 81:13]. For perchance that Israel says, Behold I sin, it is manifest, I go after the affections of my own heart: but what can I do? The devil does this. Demons do this. What is the devil? Who are the demons? Certainly your enemies. "Unto nothing all their enemies I would have brought down; and on them that oppress them I would have sent forth My hand" [Psalm 81:14]. But now what have they to do to complain of enemies? Themselves have become the worse enemies. For how? What follows? Of enemies ye complain, yourselves, what are you?
If my people had heard me. O most merciful Father, O compassionate God! He entreated, and was not heard; as though angered, he lets go the wanton son. Again he sees him perishing, and grieves that he perishes. And what does he say? If my people had heard me, if Israel had walked in my ways, I would perhaps have humbled their enemies for nothing. Was it a great thing for me to deliver you from tribulation? could I not send forth my majesty and rescue you from danger? But because I have left you to free will, and have set the stadium before you, and I do not crown any but the one who has fought, for that reason I leave the victory to your own choice.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Gittith — A stringed instrument of music. This word is found in the titles of Ps. 8, 81, 84. In these places the LXX. render the word by “on the wine-fats.” The Targum explains by “on the harp which David…
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
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 Isa 1:3. לא־אבה followed by the dative, as in Deu 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 = to cheer, make glad), so that they went on (cf. on the sequence of tense, Psa 61:8) in their, i.e., their own, egotistical, God-estranged determinat…
God wants to give his children his goodness, but only if they listen (Isa 1:18-19; 28:12; 48:18-19; see Deut 6:3). • God promises to subdue the enemies (Deut 9:3) of those who walk the paths of obedience and loyalty. He will also richly feed his people (Isa 1:19).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 81:13
Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!
O that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! The condescending love of God expresses itself in painful regrets for Israel's sin and punishment. Such were the laments of Jesus over Jerusalem. Certain doctrinalists find a stumbling stone in such passages, and set themselves to explain them away, but to men in sympathy with the divine nature the words and the emotions are plain enough. A God of mercy cannot see men heaping up sorrow for themselves through their sins without feeling his compassion excited toward them.
