When I was in high school, my family had a somewhat unorthodox Thanksgiving arrangement. My dad and I always had to work Black Friday, and since my mom’s folks were not getting any younger, Pops would insist that she and my brother drive up to visit them for the week. Come Turkey Day, he and I would throw down on some turkey at the local Cracker Barrel, take a nap, catch a flick at the local movie theater, then wind down for a commemorative dinner at Waffle House. Such became our tradition for well over a decade. Now that he is gone, I will treasure these memories for the rest of my life.
While holidays make for good meals and a little rest and relaxation, they are designed for more than that. Not just at the familial level, but at the civic and national level, holidays are designed to be commemorative. They are, in one sense, retrospective. Consider America’s Thanksgiving: It commemorates the first Pilgrim harvest in the New World and God’s gracious provision for the Pilgrims as they fled religious persecution. But in reflecting on America’s past, this holiday also contains an element that is both prospective and formative as well. Considering why the Pilgrims gave thanks to God is designed to shape our own hearts as well.
Israel was no different. (Well, it was a little different.) They had civic holidays too. The difference: Their holidays were divinely sanctioned. But these holidays were also designed to be for more than rest and relaxation. One of these holidays was the Feast of Booths (or Tabernacles). Psalm 81 was written to commemorate such an occasion, with a formative end in mind: to call us to return to the Lord and to worship him with thankful hearts.
We will consider this psalm in two parts, allowing each half to shape our understanding of the dialogical nature of corporate worship.
Sing! (vv.1–5a)
When we study the Bible, one of the first things we ought to look for are repeated words, synonyms, or phrases. Right away, we notice that in the opening verses, three times we are commanded to sing, and three times to play music (the timbrel, the harp and lyre, and the trumpet). The point: This is no dour assembly but a joyful occasion, with the musical procession likened to the war cry of victory in the heat of battle.
But in verse 3, Asaph also brings into view the when of these festivities: “at the new moon” and “at the full moon.” So as we think about what is happening, we turn to Moses to consider the psalmist’s intended context.
Our modern world orders its days according to the solar calendar—that is, according to the earth’s rotation around the sun. But Israel, like most agricultural societies, ordered their days differently. Their days were ordered according to the lunar calendar—that is, the moon’s rotation around the earth. Thus, a new moon marked the start of a new month, and the full moon marked the midway point of each month.
And ever since Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, by divine decree, at the start of every month, beginning at the first sight of the new moon, the nation was given an extra day of rest on top of their weekly Sabbaths. You can read about it in Numbers 10:10, where Moses calls it the “day of your gladness.” On this day, the first of every month, the priests would blast trumpets over the sacrifices to remind the nation that God would both protect and provide for them.
But note that in this psalm, Asaph makes mention of both the new moon and the full moon. And only once a year did Israel have a festival on both occasions in a given month: in the seventh month, which began the new year.
Every year, at the new moon of the seventh month, the Feast of Trumpets was held—a national reminder that God had delivered Israel from slavery, that he had appeared to them at Sinai, and that he would supply them with a bountiful harvest if they would but worship him and him alone. Then, two weeks later, at the full moon, they were commanded to commemorate the Feast of Tabernacles, a seven-day festival, which, according to Leviticus 23:33–43 and Deuteronomy 16:13–17, commemorated their deliverance from slavery. During this time, like a sort of national weeklong camping trip, the nation would build little booths to dwell in to serve as a perpetual reminder to successive generations of Israel’s time in the wilderness. And Moses tells the nation that during this time, they are to “be altogether joyful” (Deut 16:15).
They were to do this every year. Every seventh year, during this festival, the Lord commanded the nation to assemble and hear the law read (Deut 31:10–13). Every fiftieth year, this festival inaugurated the Year of Jubilee, when everyone who had fallen into debt slavery was delivered, and everyone who lost their home had their inheritance restored to them. In other words, these annual festivals (and mega-festivals, we might call them in their seventh and fiftieth years) were designed to be a perpetual reminder that they were no longer slaves but sons. No dour celebration, these holidays reminded the nation that God provided for them with all they needed in the wilderness— even bread from heaven and water from a rock. Thus, it seems that, given the references to the new and full moons in verse 3, this psalm was penned to be sung for such an occasion, at the Feast of Tabernacles.
In verses 4–5, we are told this is not simply a nice activity but rather a divine statute instituted at the exodus by God himself. Why should you sing for joy, O Israel? Because God commanded it to remind you of your adoption as sons! It is not simply a week off of work but has been given to commemorate what God has done, and so mold and shape your character and your expectations of God’s kind providences in your life. It is a festival, both commemorative and formative.
And so, as the people assemble for this religious and national holiday, they were to sing to the Lord a victory song. But that is not all they were to do; they were also to hear him speak. And this alternation between singing and hearing reminds us of the true nature of worship: It is dialogical.
Hear! (vv. 5b–16)
One of the most striking features about this collection of psalms (73–89) is that so far, they have focused only on the worship leader asking the question Where is God in all my trials and afflictions? But now, for the first time in book 3, God himself speaks directly to the people and gives an answer. But the irony is palpable, for in verse 5, the psalmist does not recognize the voice of God. “I hear a language I had not known,” he says; then for the rest of the psalm proceeds to quote the words he hears: God’s address to the nation.
Consider that: God speaks to the people, but they do not even recognize his voice. For the people, worship had become formative, even performative. Amos denounced this same attitude in the people of his day, who would ask,
When will the new moon be over,
so that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale . . .
and deal deceitfully with false balances?” (8:5)
In other words, the people went to worship but were simply going through the motions.
For the rest of the psalm, the Lord speaks to his people and calls them to hear these strange words. He says in verse 6, “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket”—referring to the baskets the Israelites would use to haul bricks for Pharaoh. “In distress you had called and I plucked you out; I answered you from the thundercloud. And I tested you at the waters of Meribah” (v. 7; translation mine).
In Israel’s liturgical prayers in Psalms 73–80 they have been asking, “Where is God? Is he among us or not?” (cf. Ex 17:7). And it is as if God says, “I have spoken! I have not remained silent! I have given you my word! But have you even been listening?”
Again, note the repeated words in this section. Four times God passionately pleads with his people (vv. 8 [two times], 11, 13): Listen to me! Please, listen! And do not just hear, but heed. And in verse 9, he gives specific admonition: What more can I say that I have already said? You shall have no other gods before me. I alone, and nobody else, delivered you from Egypt. Return to me, and I will feed you, just as I did in the desert. Why are you commemorating this festival? It is to remind you that I protected you, I provided for you. So let it be formative: Let this feast guide your present conduct.
Yet, is not pursuing other lovers Israel’s sinful pattern? “My people would not listen” (v. 11). The English Standard Version translates it like this: “Israel would not submit to me.” More woodenly, “She did not want me.” In response God says, “So I gave her free rein to do as her hardened heart desired.”
It is as if God were saying, “You want to know why these afflictions [rehearsed in Psalms 73–80] have befallen the nation? It is not I who abandoned you; you abandoned me. And so I gave you what you wanted, but it was not me. I gave you over to your heart’s desire.” It is the same judgment God gives the nations in Romans 1, when three times Paul says that God gave them up to their own disordered passions. And it is as if God now says, “And look where your own lustful heart has gotten you: judgment, famine, and exile. Heed wisdom’s call and return to the ancient paths. Come home and know what real joy truly is.”
Yet even as God rehearses the causes of Israel’s judgment, he then pleads with his people to return. It is as if God says (in vv–16), “Consider what would happen if you came back! How quickly would your enemies fall! How richly would you be fed! Protection! Provision! The finest wheat—even water from the rock—water as sweet as honey” (cf. Deut 32:13–14).
Surely among the nation there will be phony worshipers. Verse 15 speaks of these posers cringing before God, but I think the New American Standard Bible is more apt: Those who hate God “pretend” obedience, and surely they will have their reward. If only Israel would return to God wholeheartedly, they would lack for nothing; and then there would be reason to truly celebrate—and to feast. Then they would be satiated with the Lord’s bounty.
After the nation was brought back from exile, one of the practices they incorporated into their liturgy at the Feast of Booths was this: They would draw water from the pool of Siloam to commemorate God satiating his people with water from a rock. John tells us that at the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles), Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and on the last day of that festival stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (7:37–39). The shadow had given way to the substance: Christ truly satisfies the thirsty soul.
Joyful Worship
So what now? How do we appropriate this psalm for ourselves in the twenty-first century? How do we heed God’s beckoning call to return to him? Should, for instance, the church reinstitute the Feast of Tabernacles? Should church fellowship groups host new moon festivals? Are we somehow sinning by not having enough shofars and tambourines in our corporate worship services? I do not think that is the takeaway.
The Colossian church faced a similar crisis: Certain factions claimed the church needed to reinstitute new moon festivals and condemned the rest of the congregation for not having done so. And in response to their shenanigans, Paul writes this: “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, . . . [being] puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind” (Col 2:16–18).
In other words, God instituted festivals like the new moon and the Feast of Tabernacles for the church under the old covenant to be commemorated, to point their hearts prospectively forward to Christ, who has fulfilled all the things they signify.
So the question for us is this: How has Christ fulfilled these new and full moon festivals? As we have already surveyed, every new moon commemorated the wonderful truth that our Father protects and provides for his church. And every year, in the seventh month, at the full moon, the Feast of Tabernacles served as a perpetual reminder that God had delivered Israel from slavery. At the same time, every fiftieth year, at the Jubilee, Israel was reminded that God would deliver them yet again and so satisfy the longing heart (v.16).
In his commentary on this psalm, Matthew Henry writes, “If the Jews, on their solemn feast-days, were thus to call to mind their redemption out of Egypt, much more ought we, on the Christian Sabbath, to call to mind a more glorious redemption, wrought out for us by our Lord Jesus Christ, from worse bondage.” In other words, these old covenant festivals point forward to the consummate Sabbath inaugurated under the new covenant, and commemorated every Lord’s Day (cf., Heb. 4:9).
Even as these old covenant festivals prospectively formed the nation’s hopes for the messianic age, so now every Lord’s Day we commemorate its inauguration, even as we still await the consummation of all things. O, taste and see that the Lord is good! Our God has given a feast for his people to commemorate under the new covenant: the Lord’s Day, to serve as a perpetual reminder that the new exodus has begun, and that as we make our way to Zion, he feeds us with the heavenly manna and causes us to drink deeply of his Spirit.
The Lord’s Day is our holiday. This is our holy day. May we receive it as the gift that it is with joy—to rest from our labors and to delight in our Savior; to sing joyfully to him, as our God has commanded; to hear his voice, not to harden it as Israel did at Meribah; and to return to our first love, to him who alone satisfies the longing of every thirsty soul.
©Charles Williams. All Rights Reserved.
You can find the whole series here.
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Charles Williams
Charles Williams was ordained in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) in 2016, and serves as one of the pastors of Redemption OPC in Gainesville, FL.
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