Psalms 81:6

Psa 81:6 I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the pots.

Ver. 6. I removed his shoulder from the burden] From the woeful slavery of Egyptian tyrants and task masters, Sordidissimo ministerio.

His hands passed away from the pots] Or baskets, wherein was carried earth for brick clamping and pot making, &c., whereunto they were so close tied that they might not stir a foot from their daily work, till God delivered them. Some say that the pyramids were built by them.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 81:6-7. I removed his shoulder — That is, the shoulder of my people; from the burden — I delivered them from the burdensome slavery of Egypt. His hands were delivered from the pots — Hebrew, מדוד תעברנה, his hands passed from the pots, or, as Chandler renders it, his hands from the pots, through which they had passed. Thus God reminds Israel of their redemption, by his mercy and power, from the burdens and drudgery imposed on them in Egypt. And from this verse to the end of the Psalm, it is evident God is the speaker. Thou calledst in trouble — At the Red sea, Exo 14:10-12; and I delivered thee — In an unexpected and extraordinary way, and disappointed the designs of thy enemies. I answered thee in the secret place of thunder — From the dark and cloudy pillar, whence I thundered and fought against the Egyptians: see Exo 13:21; and Exo 14:19; Exo 14:24. Some refer this to the thunder at Sinai; but at that time they were not in trouble, but in a safe and glorious condition. Be assured, reader, that God is as ready, at all times, to hear the prayers and relieve the distresses of his people, as he was when the Israelites cried unto him in Egypt, and in the wilderness, and received answers from the cloudy pillar. Believe this, and apply to him in thy troubles.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7. (Psa 81:6) I removed from the burden his shoulder; his hands from the basket escape. The first verb strictly means I caused (or suffered) to depart. The idea is borrowed from Exo 6:6-7. The specific reference is no doubt to the carrying of bricks and mortar, and the pot or basket of the next clause is the vessel used for that purpose, the form of which has been found delineated in a burial-vault at Thebes. Escape, literally pass away.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

81:6-7 The Lord heard Israel’s cry in Egypt and rescued them from oppressive slavery.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

If they were never able to give sufficient thanks to God for this deliverance from corporal bondage, how much more are we indebted to him for our spiritual deliverance from the tyranny of Satan and sin?

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

6 I have removed his shoulder from the burden. Here God begins to recount the benefits which he had bestowed upon the Israelites, and the many ways in which he had laid them under obligations to him. The more galling the bondage was from which they had been delivered, the more desirable and precious was their liberty. When, therefore, it is affirmed that their burdens were so heavy that they stooped under them, and that they were doomed to the labor of making bricks, and to other slavish and toilsome occupations, the comparison of this their first state with their condition afterwards is introduced to illustrate the more strikingly the greatness of the blessing of their deliverance. Let us now apply this to ourselves, and elevate our minds to a higher subject, of which it was an image. As God has not only withdrawn our shoulders from a burden of brick, and not only removed our hands from the kilns, but has also redeemed us from the cruel and miserable tyranny of Satan, and drawn us from the depths of hell, the obligations under which we lie to him are of a much more strict and sacred kind than those under which he had brought his ancient people.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(6) Pots.—Deriving from a root to boil, and with allusion to potteries, which, probably, together with the brick-kilns, formed the scene of the forced labour of Israel. The LXX. and Vulg. have “slaved in the basket,” but the basket, which is represented on Egyptian monuments, is doubtless meant by the burden of the last clause.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. I have removed his shoulder from the burden:

His hands shall go free from the basket.

The term ‘basket’ does not occur in Exodus, but baskets for carrying the burdens of bricks or clay so often referred to in Exodus (Exo_1:11; Exo_2:11; Exo_5:4-5; Exo_6:6-7) are frequently represented in Egyptian paintings.

From the pots (A.V.), i.e. from making the pots (P.B.V.), is an improbable explanation.

The P.B.V. in Psa_81:5, “when he came out of the land of Egypt and had heard a strange language,” is derived through the Vulg. from the LXX. Similarly Jerome; but it is probably only a conjectural rendering of a difficult passage, and does not represent a different text.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I removed his shoulder from the burden,.... These are the words of God, declaring how he had delivered the Israelites from the oppression and cruelty of the Egyptians; who made their lives bitter in hard bondage, and obliged them to carry heavy loads of bricks upon their shoulders:

his hands were delivered from the pots, or "baskets" (c); into which the bricks were put when made, and carried on their shoulders; or from making of pots, as Kimchi, who thinks the Israelites were employed in making pots of clay as well as bricks; see Psa 68:13, the Targum is,

"his hands withdrew themselves from casting clay into the pots:''

the whole is typical of the saints' deliverance by Christ from the bondage of sin, Satan, and the law.

(c) "a sporta, a cophino", Gejerus, Amama, Michaelis.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

I removed his shoulder from the burden - The burden which the people of Israel were called to hear in Egypt. The reference is undoubtedly to their burdens in making bricks, and conveying them to the place where they were to be used; and perhaps also to the fact that they were required to carry stone in building houses and towns for the Egyptians. Compare Exo 1:11-14; Exo 5:4-17. The meaning is, that he had saved them from these burdens, to wit, by delivering them from their hard bondage. The speaker here evidently is God. In the previous verse it is the people. Such a change of person is not uncommon in the Scriptures.

His hands were delivered from the pots - Margin, as in Hebrew, passed away. That is, they were separated from them, or made free. The word rendered pots usually has that signification. Job 41:20; 1Sa 2:14; 2Ch 35:13; but it may also mean a basket. Jer 24:2; 2Ki 10:7. The latter is probably the meaning here. The allusion is to baskets which might have been used in carrying clay, or conveying the bricks after they were made: perhaps a kind of hamper that was swung over the shoulders, with clay or bricks in each - somewhat like the instrument used now by the Chinese in carrying tea - or like the neck-yoke which is employed in carrying sap where maple sugar is manufactured, or milk on dairy farms. There are many representations on Egyptian sculptures which would illustrate this. The idea is that of a burden, or task, and the allusion is to the deliverance that was accomplished by removing them to another land.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

I delivered him from burdensome slavery. Pots; as this word is taken, 1Sa 2:14; 2Ch 35:13. Or, baskets, as it signifies, 2Ki 10:7 Jer 24:2. In the general, it seems to note all those vessels wherein they carried water, straw, lime, bricks, &c.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 6. I removed his shoulder from the burden. Israel was the drudge and slave of Egypt, but God gave him liberty. It was by God alone that the nation was set free. Other peoples owe their liberties to their own efforts and courage, but Israel received its Magna Charta as a free gift of divine power. Truly may the Lord say of everyone of his freed men,

I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were delivered from the pots. He was no longer compelled to carry earth, and mould it, and bake it; the earth basket was no more imposed upon the people, nor the tale of bricks exacted, for they came out into the open country where none could exact upon them. How typical all this is of the believer's deliverance from legal bondage, when, through faith, the burden of sin glides into the Saviour's sepulchre, and the servile labours of self righteousness come to an end for ever.

Ver. 6. Pots, or burden baskets. Compare Ex 6:6-7. Rosellini gives a drawing of these baskets from a picture discovered in a tomb at Thebes. "Of the labourers, "says he, "some are employed in transporting the clay in vessels, some in intermingling it with straw; others are taking the bricks out of the form, and placing them in rows; still others with a piece of wood upon their backs, and ropes on each side, carry away the bricks already burned or dried. Their dissimilarity to the Egyptians appears at the first view: their complexion, physiognomy and beard permit us not to be mistaken in supposing them to be Hebrews." Frederic Fysh.

Ver. 6. Pots. The bricklayer's baskets; hanging one at each end of a yoke laid across the shoulders. William Kay.

Ver. 6. The emancipation of believers. Law work is burdensome, servile, never completed, unrewarded, more and more irksome. Only the Lord can deliver us from this slavish toil, and he does it by grace and by power. We do well to remember the time of our liberation, exhibit gratitude for it, and live consistently with it.

Psalms 81:7*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

6. Burden… pots—The latter word also means baskets, as 2Ki_10:7; Jer_24:2. The allusion is to Exo_1:11-14, and probably to the burden-basket used by slaves, in which the Israelites carried brick and other portables. Baskets of this kind have been found in the sepulchral vaults of Thebes. In looking at the condition of the people, their heavy burdens and the servile burden-baskets first meet the eye, and release from these is the fit opening of this passover-song, as it was the first item in the promise of deliverance. Exo_6:6. Besides the making brick for the “treasure-cities,” (granaries, or store cities, as the word denotes,) “Pithom and Raamses,” and their agricultural and other labours, it is not improbable that the Israelites were detailed also for the mining colonies in the peninsula of Mount Sinai, where, anterior to the exodus, the Egyptians carried on extensive mining operations in iron, copper, and turquoise. The ruins of their slag heaps, smelting furnaces, shafts, hieroglyphics, carved tablets, propping of mining caves, etc., are yet to be seen. (See PALMER’S Desert of the Exodus.) Also, Exo_1:11-14; Exo_2:23; Exo_3:7. Slaves, criminals, and captives taken in war were sent to these mines.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 6-16. The "discourse" is now given. It commences somewhat abruptly, and is, perhaps, itself a fragment, the beginning of which is lost. God reminds Israel of his past favours (vers. 6, 7), exhorts them to faithfulness (vers. 8, 9), promises them blessings (ver. 10), complains of their waywardness (vers. 11, 12), and finally makes a last appeal to them to turn to him, and recover his protection, before it is too late (vers. 13-16).

I removed his shoulder from the burden. In Egypt, burdens were borne upon the shoulder, either simply held upon it with both hands, or distributed between the two shoulders by means of a yoke (see Rawlinson"s "Herodotus," vol. 2. p. 214). His hands were delivered from the pots; rather, from the basket; i.e. the basket in which the clay was carried before it was made into bricks.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Pots - This word denotes all those vessels wherein they carried water, straw, lime, or bricks.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

It is a gentle but profoundly earnest festival discourse which God the Redeemer addresses to His redeemed people. It begins, as one would expect in a Passover speech, with a reference to the סבלות of Egypt (Exo 1:11-14; Exo 5:4; Exo 6:6.), and to the duwd, the task-basket for the transport of the clay and of the bricks (Exo 1:14; Exo 5:7.).

(Note: In the Papyrus Leydensis i. 346 the Israelites are called the "Aperiu (עברים), who dragged along the stones for the great watch-tower of the city of Rameses," and in the Pap. Leyd. i. 349, according to Lauth, the "Aperiu, who dragged along the stones for the storehouse of the city of Rameses.")

Out of such distress did He free the poor people who cried for deliverance (Exo 2:23-25); He answered them בּסתר רעם, i.e., not (according to Psa 22:22; Isa 32:2): affording them protection against the storm, but (according to Psa 18:12; Psa 77:17.): out of the thunder-clouds in which He at the same time revealed and veiled Himself, casting down the enemies of Israel with His lightnings, which is intended to refer pre-eminently to the passage through the Red Sea (vid., Psa 77:19); and He proved them (אבחנך, with ŏ contracted from ō, cf. on Job 35:6) at the waters of Merbah, viz., whether they would trust Him further on after such glorious tokens of His power and loving-kindness. The name "Waters of Merı̂bah," which properly is borne only by Merı̂bath Kadesh, the place of the giving of water in the fortieth year (Num 20:13; Num 27:14; Deu 32:51; Deu 33:8), is here transferred to the place of the giving of water in the first year, which was named Massah u-Merı̂bah (Exo 17:7), as the remembrances of these two miracles, which took place under similar circumstances, in general blend together (vid., on Psa 95:8.). It is not now said that Israel did not act in response to the expectation of God, who had son wondrously verified Himself; the music, as Seal imports, here rises, and makes a long and forcible pause in what is being said. What now follows further, are, as the further progress of Psa 81:12 shows, the words of God addressed to the Israel of the desert, which at the same time with its faithfulness are brought to the remembrance of the Israel of the present. העיד בּ, as in Psa 50:7; Deu 8:19, to bear testimony that concerns him against any one. אם (according to the sense, o si, as in Psa 95:7, which is in many ways akin to this Psalm) properly opens a searching question which wishes that the thing asked may come about (whether thou wilt indeed give me a willing hearing?!). In Psa 81:10 the key-note of the revelation of the Law from Sinai is struck: the fundamental command which opens the decalogue demanded fidelity to Jahve and forbade idol-worship as the sin of sins. אל זר is an idol in opposition to the God of Israel as the true God; and אל נכר, a strange god in opposition to the true God as the God of Israel. To this one God Israel ought to yield itself all the more undividedly and heartily as it was more manifestly indebted entirely to Him, who in His condescension had chosen it, and in His wonder-working might had redeemed it (המּעלך, part. Hiph. with the eh elided, like הפּדך, Deu 13:6, and אכלך, from כּלּה, Exo 33:3); and how easy this submission ought to have been to it, since He desired nothing in return for the rich abundance of His good gifts, which satisfy and quicken body and soul, but only a wide-opened mouth, i.e., a believing longing, hungering for mercy and eager for salvation (Psa 119:131)!

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

General Information:

Here God begins speaking.

removed the burden from his shoulder

Here "the burden from his shoulder" represents the forced labor the Israelites had to do as slaves in Egypt. (See: Synecdoche)

his hands were freed from holding the basket

Here "holding the basket" represents the forced labor the Israelites had to do as slaves in Egypt. (See: Synecdoche)

In your distress

"In your great suffering"

I answered you from a dark thundercloud

When God came to the Israelites, he hid the fullness of his presence and glory in a dark and threatening cloud. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

I tested you at the waters of Meribah

God tested the children of Israel to see if they would trust him to supply water in the desert of Meribah. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

translationWords

burden

hand

call

test

water

selah

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

As a testimony for Jehoseph He ordained it On Rosh Hashanah, Joseph went out of prison.

[when] I understood a language that I had not known It is explained in tractate Sotah (36b) that [the angel] Gabriel taught him seventy languages.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.