Psalms · 16 verses
Psalms 81
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
A ram’s horn announces the feast, but its grand finale is honey from a rock.
The feast is soundedvv. 1–4
The psalm opens with a full musical cupboard: song, tambourine, harp, lyre, and the ram’s horn. The occasion is the New Moon and the full moon of the Feast, all presented as statute and ordinance rather than a casual outbreak of noise.
A voice from Egyptvv. 5–7
The feast reaches back to Joseph and Egypt, where the speaker heard an unfamiliar language and recalls a burden leaving a shoulder, a basket leaving hands, a cry answered, and a test at the waters of Meribah. The language remains unnamed, which is a splendidly abrupt little mystery in the middle of the recollection.
The mouth, the rock, and the warningvv. 8–16
The divine speech turns from rescue to complaint: Israel would not listen, would not obey, and was given over to its stubborn heart. Yet the speech remains lavishly open-handed—an invitation to open the mouth, a promise to subdue enemies, the finest wheat, and honey that somehow comes from a rock.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Ps 81:1For the choirmaster. According to Gittith. Of Asaph. Sing for joy to God our strength; make a joyful noise to the God of Jacob.
Ps 81:2Lift up a song, strike the tambourine, play the sweet-sounding harp and lyre.
Ps 81:3Sound the ram’s horn at the New Moon, and at the full moon on the day of our Feast.
Ps 81:4For this is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
Ps 81:5He ordained it as a testimony for Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt, where I heard an unfamiliar language:
Ps 81:6“I relieved his shoulder of the burden; his hands were freed from the basket.
Ps 81:7You called out in distress, and I rescued you; I answered you from the cloud of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
Ps 81:8Hear, O My people, and I will warn you: O Israel, if only you would listen to Me!
Ps 81:9There must be no strange god among you, nor shall you bow to a foreign god.
Ps 81:10I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it.
Ps 81:11But My people would not listen to Me, and Israel would not obey Me.
Ps 81:12So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.
Ps 81:13If only My people would listen to Me, if Israel would follow My ways,
Ps 81:14how soon I would subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their foes!
Ps 81:15Those who hate the LORD would feign obedience, and their doom would last forever.
Ps 81:16But I would feed you the finest wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 153 passages were voted onto 15 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 10John 15:7If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
- 10Psalms 107:9For He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.
- 10Exodus 20:2“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
- 12Jeremiah 7:24Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.
- 12Romans 1:24Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another.
- 10John 7:37On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and called out in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.
- 10Revelation 21:6And He told me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give freely from the spring of the water of life.
- 13Isaiah 48:18If only you had paid attention to My commandments, your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like waves of the sea.
- 13Deuteronomy 5:29If only they had such a heart to fear Me and keep all My commandments always, so that it might be well with them and with their children forever.
- 16Deuteronomy 32:13–14He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him the produce of the field. He nourished him with honey from the rock and oil from the flinty crag,
- 10Ephesians 3:19–20of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
- 12Isaiah 30:1“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the LORD, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin.
- 7Exodus 19:19And as the sound of the ram’s horn grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him in the thunder.
- 10Psalms 37:3–4Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
- 10Revelation 22:17The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” Let the one who hears say, “Come!” And let the one who is thirsty come, and the one who desires the water of life drink freely.
- 12Acts 7:42But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
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