Psalms 81:5

This he ordained, to wit, the blowing of trumpets. In Joseph; among the posterity of Joseph, to wit, the people of Israel, as is evident both from the foregoing verse, where they are called Israel, and from the following words in this verse, where they are described by their coming out of Egypt, which was common to all the tribes of Israel, who are sometimes called by the name of Joseph, of which see on Psalms 80:1. For a testimony; either,

1. For a law, which is oft called a testimony. Or rather,

2. For a witness and memorial of that glorious deliverance mentioned in the following words. For,

1. That this was a statute and law be had expressed, Psalms 81:4, which it is not likely that he would here repeat, especially in a more dark and doubtful phrase.

2. He seems to declare the end of that law, which was to be a testimony. When he, to wit, God, he who ordained, as was now said, went out, as a captain at the head or on the behalf of his people, through the land of Egypt, to execute his judgments upon that land or people. Or, against, &c., to destroy it. Or, out of it, as both ancient and other interpreters render this particle al, which is elsewhere put for meal, and meal is put for min, from or out of, as is manifest by comparing 2 Kings 21:8 with 2 Chronicles 33:8. So this text notes the time when this and the other feasts were instituted; which was at or presently after their coming out of Egypt, even at Sinai. Where I; i.e. my progenitors; for all the successive generations of Israel make one body, and are sometimes spoken of as one person; heard a language that I understood not; either,

1. The language of God himself speaking from heaven at Sinai, which was strange and terrible to me. Or rather,

2. The Egyptian language, which at first was very ungrateful and unknown to the Israelites, Genesis 42:23, and probably continued so for some considerable time, because they were much separated both in place and conversation from the Egyptians, through Joseph's pious and prudent design. This exposition is confirmed from Psalms 114:1, where this very thing is mentioned as an aggravation of their misery; and from other places of Scripture, where this is spoken of as a curse and plague, to be with a people of strange language, as Deuteronomy 28:49 Jeremiah 5:15.