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Psalm 81 is one of the most obviously liturgical psalms in Book Three. Its movement is from praise (verses 1–5a) to admonition (verses 5b–16), the latter including two divine speeches (verses 6–10 and 11–16) where God speaks as if through a prophet, but in this case through the psalmist. This makes the overall genre of the psalm as hard to define as was Psalm 78. It has less of the accusatory tone of other *Asaphite psalms: in much of the psalm God speaks to Israel rather than Israel to God. Nevertheless, the editors seem to have included this alongside Psalm 80 with reason: each has strong ties to ‘Joseph’ (80:1–2; 81:5–6); each uses the Exodus traditions (80:9; 81:9–10); and each sees its authority as a ‘warning’ or ‘testimony’ (‘edut)—in the title to Psalm 80 and in 81:5).¹³⁶

The psalm has played a prominent part in Jewish liturgy, and much of the reason for this hinges around verses 2–3, which refer to the music (timbrel, sweet lyre, harp and trumpet) and the occasion (‘the new moon. the full moon’) of the act of worship. A common view is that this was for *Sukkot, the vintage festival also known as Tabernacles or Booths; the use of ‘Gittit’ in the title, whose meaning can be ‘winepress’, could strengthen this further: the word Gittit is cited in instructions for the festival of Tabernacles in the *Talmud (b.Sukka 55a).¹³⁷ The *Septuagint also translates ‘Gittit’ in this way, although this might be to give the psalm a more eschatological focus, implying that God will come to ‘harvest’ his people not only at the turn of the year but at the end of time. There is some evidence at *Qumran that the beginning of this psalm was used to accompany the blowing of the *shofar in their Sabbath liturgy (Damascus Document XI–XII). *Targum also reads the psalm in a liturgical way: verse 4 (Eng. v. 3) reads ‘Blow the trumpet in the month of Tishri, in the month when our feasts are concealed’.¹³⁸ (This refers to the uniqueness of the festival as it takes place at the beginning of the month, when the moon is still ‘concealed’: all other festivals take place in the middle of the month at the full moon.) The Talmud also connects this psalm, several times, with the autumnal New Year: Ros Has. 8a/8b speaks of the blowing of the shofar at the New Year (as in verse 4) to be a ‘statute and ordinance’. Sop. 19.2 also refers to this New Year festival when apples and honey are to be consumed in anticipation of ‘a sweet new year’.¹³⁹ As the psalm makes clear in its later references to the Exodus, the festival is not only agricultural, but it also has a historical focus: the idea that bondage in Egypt ceased on the day of the New Year is connected with the blowing of the shofar to proclaim the hope for release from servitude.

The psalm has been adapted for other liturgical settings as well. Although the title is lacking in the *Septuagint, in *Mishnah Tamid 7.4, Psalm 81 is the ‘song for the fifth day of the week’, i.e. Thursday.¹⁴⁰ As to why Psalm 81 is suitable for the ‘fifth day’, the (somewhat convoluted) argument is that this was the day when God created the birds and the fish, and just as these need to be sustained by God, so the people need to trust God for their sustenance as well, learning lessons from God’s provision during the wilderness wanderings (verses 5–7).¹⁴¹ The Exodus allusions and the different liturgical contexts give occasion for further reflections on the continuation of the Jewish exile: more than any other psalm in Book Three, this is a prayer for ‘release from Egypt’ which has not yet come about.¹⁴²

Early Christian commentators emphasise instead the Christological relevance of particular verses, rather than the meaning of the psalm as a whole, often allowing one phrase to produce a small treatise. A typical example is *Cassiodorus, whose interest in music and liturgy provided an extensive discourse inspired by the reference to ‘blowing the trumpet’ in verse 3. Cassiodorus first offers an exposition about the discipline of music in the ordering of the world, and its unleashing of great forces. He then outlines its importance: first, this is through harmonics, rhythmics and metrics; secondly, through musical instruments (percussion, strings and wind); thirdly, in creating the six harmonies; and fourthly, in ordering the fifteen tones.¹⁴³ Psalm 81 has somehow disappeared from view.

*Theodoret of Cyrus attends more practically to the admonitions in verses 8, 13–16, interpreting these as references to heretics in the Christian community of his day (such as *Arians and *Nestorians) who would be judged by their false teaching.¹⁴⁴ *Bede, by contrast, focusses on the *Vulgate title of the psalm which, following Mishnah Tamid, also assigns it to the fifth day of creation: the references to the sea evokes a discourse on the waters of baptism, and the regeneration Christ offers to his church.¹⁴⁵

Some illustrations in Christian manuscripts have also been influenced by liturgical traditions. The popular liturgical Psalter called the Psalterium Feriale had eight liturgical divisions, and Psalm 81 (in the Latin, Psalm 80) was at the beginning of the sixth of these divisions, often resulting in a larger illuminated initial or illustration next to the first letter of the first word (‘E’ for Exultate) in other Psalters. An amusing example is in Bodleian MS. Canon. Liturg. 151, fol. 146v, an Italian secular Psalter with *antiphons, possibly from Naples, dating from the latter part of the fourteenth-century. The somewhat rotund psalmist, dressed in red, is playing his viola (or lyre) to God, who is lying in a cloud looking down and blessing him as he plays. Three or four nude figures (perhaps souls?) also listen to the psalmist with outstretched arms. The image is reproduced as Plate 3.¹⁴⁶

Other illuminated manuscripts either develop musical allusions or use visual allegories. For example, the *Stuttgart Psalter (fol. 97v) and *Utrecht Psalter (fol. 48r) offer images of horns, harps and bells. Similarly the fifteenth-century Isabella Breviary (fol. 155v) has an image of David and his musicians, reading (or singing?) from the Law, with the Temple in the background.¹⁴⁷ An early Jewish illumination does the same: the *Parma Psalter (fol. 116A), humorously depicts a hybrid with a long body, a dog’s hind legs and a horse’s head, beating a kettledrum with a drumstick whilst with his left hand he is playing a small pipe, illustrating verses 2–3.¹⁴⁸ Irwin *Davis provides a similar but contemporary musical and liturgical image of Ps. 81:3, for *Rosh Hashanah. His illustration is of Jerusalem, painted against a dark star-filled sky; the crescent moon is shining, and at its first appearance the watcher is blowing the shofar to awaken the Jews from their spiritual slumber and begin the period of self-examination that ends on *Yom Kippur.¹⁴⁹

Allegorical readings are more evident in Byzantine Psalters. The *Khludov Psalter (fol. 82r) for example, illustrates verse 16 with an image of Moses striking the rock, upon which Christ sits, with water coming out: the inscription reads ‘Moses striking the water from the rock, and the rock is Christ’ (1 Cor. 10:2–5).¹⁵⁰ The *Theodore Psalter (fol. 110r) has a similar image, with the addition of Deut. 32:13.¹⁵¹ This is also found in the *Pantokrator (fol. 114r), *Bristol (fol. 137v) and *Barberini (fol. 142r) Psalters.

It is inevitable that a psalm with such a liturgical history should have a large repertoire of musical arrangements. J. Braun’s recent ‘Take up a Psalm, Take up a Drum, the Tuneful Psaltery and Harp, Take up a Harp for the New Moon, Blow the Horn to Herald our Solemn Feast Day’ is a Jewish example set as a canon in two verses.¹⁵² Another recent Jewish arrangement of verses 13–17 (Eng. vv. 12–16) is Max Stern’s ‘Ha’azinu’, a cantata for contrabass and orchestra on the theme of Moses’ Farewell to the children of Israel: these verses, alongside Deut. 32:29, are used in Part 1 Scene 6, as part of a Hasidic wedding song symbolising the love between God and his people.¹⁵³

There are also many Christian arrangements. *Byrd’s ‘Sing Joyfully’—probably his last surviving anthem—was composed to be performed at the christening of Mary, daughter of James I, in 1605 (with the play on the Hebrew name ‘Jacob’, in verse 1, and the Greek derivation, ‘James’): the piece has a dance-like quality, ending with a trumpet fanfare.¹⁵⁴ Da *Palestrina arranged these verses in Latin (‘Exultate Deo’) for St. Peter’s Rome in the late sixteenth-century. *Mozart, when aged 16, arranged the whole of this psalm as a motet (‘Exultate Jubilate’, or ‘Rejoice, Be Glad’) which was in three movements, for soprano and orchestra (1773). Verses 1–4 were adapted by William *Walton in his ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’, first performed in 1931: they are used in Part 3, as a song of praise by the exiles, and again a dance-like rhythm is used.¹⁵⁵ *Howells also wrote a choral setting for this psalm, also titled ‘Exultate Deo’, in 1977. More recently still, James *MacMillan’s Blow the Trumpet in the New Moon had its world première in June 2017 at the Royal Festival Hall: this is a dramatic setting of the first four verses of Psalm 81, taken from the Geneva Bible. It offers a celebratory fanfare for trumpets and trombones, with the choir singing modern Polish music alongside the more typical Celtic folk-derived *melismas: the unexpected ‘limping rhythm’ (long-short-two longs) adds dance-like energy to the hymnic summons to worship at the start of this psalm.

In conclusion, overall—and unusually in these Asaphite psalms—one of the most important aspects of the reception history of Psalm 81, in both Jewish and Christian traditions, is liturgical and musical, bringing to life elements of hope, even in earlier Jewish reception.