(the Gath harp, of Asaph)

* * *

At two poles of interpretation, Psalm 81 is either a cohesive whole or disjointed pieces. Seeing it as unified, some scholars have argued that it must have part of an actual liturgical rite, actually recited at a specific time— the beginning of the month at the new moon, or the first of the year, or Passover. Others, doubtless bothered by its strange dialogical leaps, see Psalm 81 as at least two separate psalms, split in the middle of verse 5 and probably elsewhere as well. Some of these interpreters even perform reconstructive surgery with the most oblique lines, moving “Widen your mouth | I want to fill it,” for example, as if a different location might make more sense (10). Neither approach, however, fully appreciates the dark, associative wit of this psalm, its sardonic theology of a God ignored.

Aptly, this psalm that emphasizes God’s people’s failure to hear begins with their noise. The first stanza calls for typical sounds of praise, loud voices and a trio of instruments (1-2). The second stanza adds the ram’s horn to signal a special feast (3). The celebratory commotion is then commented on as the narrator says, “this is a rite… what’s right.. an edict,” tracing the festival back to Egypt (4-5b). And then, without warning, a first-person voice breaks into the ceremony. “I hear a tongue | I’ve never known,” says someone, though who is not clear (5c). It’s God’s voice from verse 6 through presumably the rest of the psalm, saying of Israel, “I have taken the load | off his shoulder.” So “I hear a tongue” might be God speaking. Or it might be someone speaking about God, and thus the line does double duty. If God here recalls meeting Israel “at his exit | from the land of Egypt,” then the “tongue | I’ve never known” emphasizes God’s encounter with his people’s language for the first time. Or if it’s a human speaker announcing the interruption of divine speech, then this hearing-without-knowing is exactly symptomatic of Israel’s problem. Both readings work; the psalm does not decide. Importantly, this line includes the psalm’s first use of the word “hear,” which will appear again four times, once as an imperative and three times as a counterfactual: “hear” (8); “I swear you won’t hear me,” ’im tishma` li, which looks like an oath formula, though it could could also mean “if you would hear me” (8); “and they did not hear,” velo’ sham`a (11), and “if only my people | hearing me,” lo `ammi shomei`a li (13). Despite, or because of, their festive music, the people don’t hear.

This voice that people don’t hear is layered with ambiguities and with deft movement. Verses 6, 7, and 16 rely— as does the entire passage from 11-14— on a shift from perfect-form verbs to imperfect-form verbs: e.g., “I have taken the load | off his shoulder / his grip on the basket passes over” (6). Imperfect verbs in biblical Hebrew can convey past action, but translations lose vital data when they leave out the shift. A load has just come off the people’s shoulder; their grip is still loosening. The people “called,” but God says, “I answer you… I try you” (7). In verse 8, God speaks legalese, though it is not certain whether he testifies or compels Israel to testify. “I want to take the stand with you,”ve’a`idah bekha, means both “I call to witness” and “I witness.” Having called to testimony, God says— or asks— ’im tishma` li, which means both “if (only) you (would) listen to me” and “that you won’t hear me,” the ’im a marker of an implied vow.

Through these layers are woven quotations. God’s speech is strewn with allusions and excerpts from passages the people should have heard. Verses 8 and 9 quote from the most important legal passages (’im tishma` li  Ps. 81:8 = Exod 23:22; lo’ tishtachaveh Ps 81:9 = Exod 23:24, 34:14, and Deut 5:9). Many of the quotations are inexact. Verse 9’s line “there shall not be with you | any strange God,” lo-yihyeh bekha el zar is almost the more famous lo-yihyeh lekha elohim (Exod 20:3; Deut 5:7). Even God’s dramatic self-revelation on Sinai is quoted only partially verbatim: “I am the Lord | your God / lifting you up | from the land of Egypt.”  “Lifting you up” is hama`alka (Deut 20:1) rather than ’asher hotsei’tika (Exod 20:2 = Deut 5:6, cf. Gen 15:7) What does this inexactness mean? Is it God’s point that hearing requires something other than exact recitation? Is it the psalmist actually misremembering crucial passages from Exodus and Deuteronomy, encouraging participants in a rite to take part in mishearing? Or is the misremembering purposive for some other reason? When, in verse 11, Israel “did not hear” and “did not agree,” the paired verbs shama` and ’abah call to mind both Pharaoh (Exod 7:13, 22; 8:15, 19; 9:12; and 10:27) and God (“But the Lord your God did not agree to listen” Deut 23:5). Verse 12, “so I sent them off | with their obstinate heart” also calls to mind both Pharaoh (whose own hard heart refuses to send off Israel) and God (bishrirut libbam echoes Deut 29:19, and more proximately Jer 7:24. Verse 13’s “if only” recalls both God’s complaint in the Song of Moses— “if only they were wise” (Deut 32:29)— and the people’s complaint in the wilderness: “if only we had died in the land of Egypt” (Num 14:2). Verse 16 also nearly quotes from the Song of Moses, both “sweet bits of wheat,” meicheilev chittah (cheilev kilyot hittah, Deut 32:14), and “honey from the cliff,” umitsur devash (devash missela` Deut 32:13). With all of these references, either God or the psalm is up to something, something less like liturgy and more like irony.

Fittingly, too, this psalm of allusive, ironic, layered divine speech spends its most curious verses on the figure of the mouth. The mouth is so important to both praise and complaint. It is the source of what must be listened to, a source of nourishment, and even of danger and death. Even stranger than the hearing of a language “I’ve never known” are the mouth-related line “Widen your mouth | I want to fill it” (10) and the psalm’s final verse, “He made him eat | sweet bits of wheat / and honey from the cliff | I want to satisfy you” (16). Both lines leap out of the texture of the psalm, distinct from what surrounds them. Both express divine desire, suggesting terror as well as tenderness. It is impossible to forget God’s response to complaints in the wilderness, literally stuffing people to death (Num 11), impossible to forget the lines on feeding from the Song of Moses:

He nourished him with honey from the rock

And with oil from the flinty crag

With curds and milk from herd and flock

And with fattened lambs and goats

With choice rams of Bashan

And the finest kernels of wheat (Deut 32:13-14)

The whole of that poem in Deuteronomy gets dark. The people forget this nourishment, which is richly ironic given that, “filled with food, they became heavy and fat” (32:15). They serve gods who eat the fat of sacrifices and drink poison wine (32:32, 38), which results in divine punishment, making arrows drunk on blood, his sword eats flesh (32:42).

But sure, the poem suggests. Play those instruments. Make noise.