Psalm 81:13

“Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!”

John Calvin (1509-1564)

O if my people had hearkened to me! By the honourable 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 this consideration, that although God called them to be his people, they differed nothing from those who were the greatest strangers to him. Thus he complains by the Prophet Isaiah, (chap. i. 3,) “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” The Hebrew particle wl, lu, which I have rendered O if! is not to be understood as expressing a condition, but a wish; and therefore God, I have no doubt, like a man weeping and lamenting, cries out, O the wretchedness of this people in wilfully refusing to have their best interests carefully provided for! He assumes the character of a father, and observing, after having tried every possible means for the recovery of his children, that their condition is utterly hopeless, he uses the language of one saddened, as it were, with sighing and groaning; not that he is subject to human passions, but because he cannot otherwise express the greatness of the love which he bears towards us. The Prophet seems to have borrowed this passage from the song of Moses in Deut. xxxii. 29, where the obstinacy of the people is bewailed in almost the same words: “Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!” He means tacitly to upbraid the Jews, and to impress upon their minds the truth, that their own perverseness was the only cause which prevented them from enjoying a state of great outward prosperity.

If it is objected, that God in vain and without ground utters this complaint, since it was in his power to bend the stiff necks of the people, and that, when he was not pleased to do this, he had no reason to compare himself to a man deeply grieved; I answer, that he very properly makes use of this style of speaking on our account, that we may seek for the procuring cause of our misery nowhere but in ourselves. We must here beware of mingling together things which are totally different–as widely different from each other as heaven is distant from the earth. God, in coming down to us by his word, and addressing his invitations to all men without exception, disappoints nobody. All who sincerely come to him are received, and find from actual experience that they were not called in vain. At the same time, we are to trace the fountain of the secret electing purpose of God this difference, that the word enters into the heart of some, while others only hear the sound of it. And yet there is no inconsistency in his complaining, as it were, with tears, of our folly when we do not obey him. In the invitations which he addresses to us by the external word, he shows himself to be a father; and why may he not also be understood as still representing himself under the image of a father in using this form of complaint? In Ezekiel xviii. 32, he declares with the strictest regard to truth, “ I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth,” provided in the interpretation of the passage we candidly and dispassionately take into view the whole scope of it. God has no pleasure in the death of a sinner: How? because he would have all men turned to himself. But it is abundantly evident, that men by their own free-will cannot turn to God, until he first change their stony hearts into hearts of flesh: yea, this renovation, as Augustine judiciously observes, is a work surpassing that of the creation itself. Now what hinders God from bending and framing the hearts of all men equally in submission to him? Here modesty and sobriety must be observed, that instead of presuming to intrude into his incomprehensible decrees, we may rest contented with the revelation which he has made of his will in his word. There is the justest ground for saying that he wills the salvation of those to whom that language is addressed, (Isaiah xxi. 12,) “Come unto me, and be ye converted.” In the second part of the verse before us, we have defined what it is to hear God. To assent to what he speaks would not be enough; for hypocrites will grant at once that whatever proceeds from his mouth is true, and will affect to listen just as if an ass should bend its ears. But the clause is intended to teach us that we can only be said to hear God, when we submit ourselves to his authority.

(From: “Commentary”)

David Dickson (1583-1662)

Last of all is set down, by way of God’s lamenting for his people, what felicity they lost by this their refusing to make God their delight, and his voice their rule to walk by. First, if they had obeyed God, their enemies would not have been their masters, but they would have been made victorious over their adversaries, v. 13-15. Next, they would have been satisfied with all contentments abundantly, set forth under the terms of feeding them with fine wheat and honey. This lamenting of God for his people’s misery, is borrowed from the manner of men, lamenting the misery which their disobedient children have brought upon themselves; and is not to be taken so, as if there were in God any passion or perturbation, or miserable lamentation; but this speech is to be conceived, as other like speeches in Scripture, which are borrowed from the affections of men, and are framed to move some holy affection in men, suitable to that affection from which the Lord taketh the similitude; and so, O that my people had hearkened unto me, serveth to move his people (who should hear this expression,) to repent and lament their not hearkening unto God; and to study in all time to come to be more obedient unto him, even as they would eschew the curse which came upon misbelieving and disobedient Israel, and as they desired to obtain the blessings whereof carnal Israelites came short, and deprived themselves. And if it be asked, what may be imported by this speech properly? we answer, O that my people had hearkened unto me, &c., showeth these six things: First, what order the Lord hath set in giving blessings to his visible church; namely, that they begin and believe in him, and study to obey him, and that they, by means appointed by him, should look to have such blessings as he hath promised to believers, and to obedient people. Next, this manner of speech showeth how acceptable and pleasant unto God it is to see the faith, obedience, and welfare of his people, all joined together in his appointed order. Thirdly, that the meritorious and culpable cause of men’s misery is not in God but in man, who by his sin deserveth it, and draweth it on himself. Fourthly, that God delighteth not in the death or destruction of his people, but that they should repent and live. Fifthly, that this is his will, that whosoever shall hear of the evil meeting which the Israelites gave to God, and of the judgment which they drew upon themselves, may be made wise by this lamentation made by God for Israel’s destruction; and so may rather choose to hearken to God, as they did not, than to be given over in his wrath to their own lusts, and to perish in his indignation, as befell them. Sixthly, that God requireth a suitable meeting of his people to his dispensations, that is, that they may be so willing to hearken to his voice, and so loath to offend him, as he manifesteth by words and works his willingness to save them, and his loathness to destroy them.

From the Lord’s lamenting, learn further, 1. As, on the one hand, the miscarriage and misery of others before us should make us wise to eschew the evil which befell them, and to obtain the good whereof they, by their disobedience, were deprived; so, on the other hand, the willingness of God to bless those who follow his direction, should make us diligent to understand what course God hath prescribed, and should make us confident to obtain blessedness in our endeavour to follow it: for, O that my people had hearkened unto me, &c., teacheth us so much. 2. They may be in the number and estimation of God’s people, by virtue of church covenant, who, for refusing to follow God’s counsel, may come short of God’s blessings; for, O that my people had hearkened unto me, &c., maketh this evident. 3. He who heareth God uttering his wishes for the conversion of his people, and lamenting that his word is not believed, and that his offer of grace is not received, giveth God an evil meeting, and neither believeth God’s goodness nor careth for his own salvation, except he join with God, lamenting his own misbelief in time past, and wish heartily the same wish with God for his own conversion for time to come; for this speech, O that my people had hearkened unto me, &., is framed to this very end, to make the hearer willing, and so to convert him, or else to convict him, if he take not hold of the offer. 4. Whatsoever be the Lord’s secret decrees concerning the salvation of some and condemnation of others in the visible church; yet the means of execution of those decrees are so holy and just, and wisely carried on, as those decrees shall not be particularly revealed to the stumbling of any man, but the offer of grace and declaration of God’s goodness so laid out in common, that whosoever embraceth not the same, is made inexcusable; for when God saith, O that my people had hearkened unto me, he that doth not answer the Lord, with, O that thou wouldst frame this heart of mine to the obedience of faith, hath nothing to say, if he be damned, for his slighting the offer so freely held forth unto him and pressed upon him.

(From: “A Commentary on the Psalms”)

John Gill (1697-1771)

O that my people had hearkened unto me, &c.] 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 declarations of his grace in the Gospel; and indeed it is the voice of Christ, the Angel of God’s presence, who went before the children of Israel in the wilderness, which they were to hearken to and obey, that is here meant; see Ex 23:20-22, and Heb 3:6-8, and Israel had walked in my ways; which he marked out and directed them unto, meaning his ordinances and commandments; which to walk in, as it denotes progress and continuance, and supposes and requires life and strength, so it is both pleasant and profitable.

(From: “Exposition of the Old Testament”)

Francis Turretin (1623-1687)

Finally, we may now omit many other things since by this hypothesis wants, and vehement desires (yet fruitless and frustrated) are attributed to God by which he is made to intend and in earnest will that, which willing, he yet knew never would be or could be. Is it easy for anyone to gather whether they are becoming to the majesty of the supreme deity or repugnant to his wisdom and power; whether under the pretext of extolling the divine goodness and grace, they are not too much obscured and lessened while they are made to be vain and inefficacious, and accomplish nothing else than increasing the guilt of man and rendering him inexcusable (anapologeton). Nor can this absurdity be taken away by saying that the Scripture seems to impute to God desires and wants of this kind (Ps. 81:13; Is. 48:18). It is evident that these are anthropopathical locutions, to be understood in a manner becoming to God (theoprepos), and to be referred to the preceptive will in order to teach what is pleasing to God and what is the duty of man. They are not to be referred to the decretive will to intimate what he intended and what he willed to be done about man.

(From: “Institutes of Elenctic Theology”)