In ancient Hebrew usage, Psalm 81 was to be said on Thursdays. The
Church honors this designation by assigning Psalm 81 at their feet and
their subjection 81 to Morning Prayer of Thursday of the second week in
the four week Psalter, just as she has made Psalm 110 a "Sunday psalm"
and Psalm 51 a "Friday psalm." Designating a particular psalm for a
particular day of the week and allowing that psalm to accompany us for
the next 52 weeks would be a fruitful practice for the New Year.
Besides enriching our personal prayer, it would give us ever more reason
to ring out our joy to God our
strength.
Psalm 81
Ring
out your joy
to God our strength,
shout in triumph
to the God of Jacob.
Raise a song
and sound the timbrels,
the a sweet-sounding harp
and the lute
blow the trumpet at the new moon,
when the moon is full, on our feast.
For this is Israel's law,
a command of the God of Jacob.
He imposed it as a rule on Joseph,
when he went out
against the land of Egypt.
A voice I did not know said to me:
"I freed your shoulder
from the burden;
your hands were freed from the load.
You called in distress
and I saved you.
I answered
concealed in the storm cloud,
at the waters of Meribah
I tested you.
Listen, my people, to my warning,
O Israel, if only you would heed!
Let there be
no foreign god among you
no worship of an alien god.
I am the Lord your God
who brought you
from the land of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth
and I will fill it.
But my people did not heed my voice
and Israel would not obey,
so I left them
in their stubbornness of heart
to follow their own designs.
O that my people would heed me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
At once I would subdue their foes,
turn my hand against their enemies.
The Lord's enemies would cringe
at their feet
and their subjection
would last forever.
But Israel I would feed
with the finest wheat
and fill them
with honey from the rock."