Psalm 81
The full text of Psalm 81 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.
For the music director. According to the Gittith. Of Asaph.
1 Sing aloud to God our strength;
shout for joy to the God of Jacob.
2 Raise a song and sound the tambourine,
the sweet lyre with the harp.
3 Blow the horn at the new moon,
at the full moon, for our feast day.
4 For it is a statute for Israel,
a judgment of the God of Jacob.
5 He established it as a testimony in Joseph
when he went out over the land of Egypt.
A language I had not known, I heard:
6 "I removed the burden from his shoulder;
his hands were freed from the basket.
7 In distress you called and I rescued you;
I answered you from the hiding place of thunder;
I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
8 Hear, my people, and I will warn you—
O Israel, if you would listen to me!
9 There shall be no strange god among you;
you shall not bow down to a foreign god.
10 I am the LORD your God,
who brought you up from the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
11 But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel would have none of me.
12 So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their hearts;
they walked in their own counsels.
13 If only my people would listen to me,
if Israel would walk in my ways!
14 I would quickly subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes.
15 Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him,
and their punishment would last forever.
16 But I would feed you with the finest wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you."
Translation notes (3)
- Psalm 81:3a Hebrew keseh, 'full moon', occurs elsewhere only in Proverbs 7:20. Since the horn (shofar) sounds at the new moon and the feast falls at the full moon, interpreters have long debated whether the psalm refers to Passover in the first month or to Tabernacles in the seventh, whose new moon was itself marked by trumpet blasts (Leviticus 23:24).
- Psalm 81:5a The final clause is disputed: some take the unknown language as Egypt's foreign speech heard by Israel in bondage, while others understand the psalmist to be hearing the voice of God, whose oracle begins in the next verse. The abrupt shift to the first person favors the latter reading, marking the transition into divine speech.
- Psalm 81:7a The phrase beseter ra'am (בְּסֵתֶר רַעַם), literally 'in the hiding place of thunder', evokes the storm cloud of Sinai, from which God answered Moses in thunder (Exodus 19:19). Meribah, 'quarreling', names the place where Israel demanded water (Exodus 17:7; Numbers 20:13); there the people tested God, yet here God declares that he tested them.
About this translation
You are reading the Trinity Bible Version (TBV) — an original 2026 translation made straight from the Hebrew, in clear modern English, exclusive to Trinity Bible. Every chapter of every book is free to read online. For the study edition — with Hebrew and Greek on every verse and the full translation notes — open Psalms in the Trinity Bible app.
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