Verse 10. - I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. The reminder was continually needed (see Exodus 20:2; Leviticus 26:13; Deuteronomy 5:6; Hosea 12:9; Hosea 13:4). Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it (comp. 2 Kings 13:19). God's gifts, both temporal and spiritual, are proportioned to our eager longing for them. As Christ could not do his miracles in one place because of their unbelief (Mark 6:5, 6), so God cannot give lavishly unless we desire largely.
81:8-16 We cannot look for too little from the creature, nor too much from the Creator. We may have enough from God, if we pray for it in faith. All the wickedness of the world is owing to man's wilfulness. People are not religious, because they will not be so. God is not the Author of their sin, he leaves them to the lusts of their own hearts, and the counsels of their own heads; if they do not well, the blame must be upon themselves. The Lord is unwilling that any should perish. What enemies sinners are to themselves! It is sin that makes our troubles long, and our salvation slow. Upon the same conditions of faith and obedience, do Christians hold those spiritual and eternal good things, which the pleasant fields and fertile hills of Canaan showed forth. Christ is the Bread of life; he is the Rock of salvation, and his promises are as honey to pious minds. But those who reject him as their Lord and Master, must also lose him as their Saviour and their reward.
I am the Lord thy God,.... The true Jehovah, the Being of beings, in whom all live and move and have their beings, the covenant God of his people; and is a reason why they should hear him, and worship him, and no other:
which brought thee out of the land of Egypt; this, with what goes before, is the preface to the ten commands, the first and principal of which is urged in the preceding verse; and this is another reason why the Lord God should be had and worshipped, and not a strange god; and redemption from worse than Egyptian bondage, from the bondage of sin, Satan, and the law, and a deliverance from worse than Egyptian darkness, and from a state of wickedness and impiety, should lay under greater obligations still to serve the Lord, and worship him only; who adds, as a further reason for it,
open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it; which may be understood of opening the mouth either in prayer or in praise: to open the mouth wide in prayer is to pray with great freedom, to pour out the soul to God, lay open its whole case, and tell him all his mind and wants; to pray with great boldness, and with much importunity and fervency, and in full assurance of faith, pleading with great strength the promises of God, and asking in faith for much, according to them; and God may be said to fill this wide mouth of faith in prayer, when he grants the desires of the heart, gives his people what they will, even very largely and abundantly, yea, more than they can ask or think: to open the mouth wide in praise is to be abundantly thankful for mercies received; and when persons are so, the Lord fills them with more abundant matter for praise and thanksgiving; see Psalm 71:8, or this may be interpreted of opening the mouth wide in expressions of desire after spiritual food, hungering and thirsting after spiritual things, when the Lord fills or satisfies the mouths of his people with good things, Psalm 103:5, with the sincere milk of the word which they desire, and with the ordinances, the breasts of consolation they long for, and so satisfies them with the goodness and fatness of his house, Psalm 64:4, the metaphor seems to be taken from the young of birds, which open their mouths, and are filled by the old ones: the Targum is,
"open thy mouth to the words of the law, and I will fill it with every good thing.''
which brought thee out of the land of Egypt; this, with what goes before, is the preface to the ten commands, the first and principal of which is urged in the preceding verse; and this is another reason why the Lord God should be had and worshipped, and not a strange god; and redemption from worse than Egyptian bondage, from the bondage of sin, Satan, and the law, and a deliverance from worse than Egyptian darkness, and from a state of wickedness and impiety, should lay under greater obligations still to serve the Lord, and worship him only; who adds, as a further reason for it,
open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it; which may be understood of opening the mouth either in prayer or in praise: to open the mouth wide in prayer is to pray with great freedom, to pour out the soul to God, lay open its whole case, and tell him all his mind and wants; to pray with great boldness, and with much importunity and fervency, and in full assurance of faith, pleading with great strength the promises of God, and asking in faith for much, according to them; and God may be said to fill this wide mouth of faith in prayer, when he grants the desires of the heart, gives his people what they will, even very largely and abundantly, yea, more than they can ask or think: to open the mouth wide in praise is to be abundantly thankful for mercies received; and when persons are so, the Lord fills them with more abundant matter for praise and thanksgiving; see Psalm 71:8, or this may be interpreted of opening the mouth wide in expressions of desire after spiritual food, hungering and thirsting after spiritual things, when the Lord fills or satisfies the mouths of his people with good things, Psalm 103:5, with the sincere milk of the word which they desire, and with the ordinances, the breasts of consolation they long for, and so satisfies them with the goodness and fatness of his house, Psalm 64:4, the metaphor seems to be taken from the young of birds, which open their mouths, and are filled by the old ones: the Targum is,
"open thy mouth to the words of the law, and I will fill it with every good thing.''