Overall Israel disobeyed the Lord. They turned from his ways to their own.
We can say more, though. For mere disobedience sounds too external. It can imply their primary issue was their actions. It can imply the root issue was what they did or didn’t do with their hands, without much concern for their hearts, or heads—or ears.
What Is the Center of the Psalms?
As I’m reading and praying through the Psalms in my Bible reading, I’m reading through W. Robert Godfrey’s Learning to Love the Psalms. On the chapter for Psalm 81, Godfrey begins unlike he does for any other chapter so far. He writes, “Psalm 81 is a remarkable and important psalm in the Psalter” (142).
He says this for a handful of reasons. But primarily, it’s because of something I’ve never heard before. Godfrey writes, “In a sense, [Psalm 81] is the central psalm in the book of Psalms” (143).
Godfrey clarifies Psalm 81 of course isn’t central in terms of chapters (since there’s 150 psalms). Nor is Psalm 81 central in word count. Rather, Psalm 81 is central as “it is the central psalm in the central book of the Psalter” (143). There are five “Books” in the Psalms—divisions that are in the original text—and Psalm 81 is the middle psalm in the middle Book.
And thinking more about this, it seems that if anything, this is most likely what the Israelites saw as the center of their song book. With these five inspired “Books,” we can imagine that if an Israelite were asked, “What is the central psalm?” They probably wouldn’t answer “Psalm 75,” like we would with our focus on the 150. Instead, answering “Psalm 81,” since it is the psalm in the middle of Book Three would perhaps fit better.
The Center of the Center
Anyway, that’s Godfrey’s argument for why Psalm 81 is the central psalm in the Psalms.
What’s more interesting, however, is what the center of Psalm 81 itself is. If Psalm 81 is the center of the Psalms, what’s the center of the center? Godfrey writes,
“At the center of Psalm 81 are these words: ‘O Israel, if you would but listen to me!’ (v. 8b). For all the mysteries of God’s providence with Israel, here is the central truth: Israel was suffering a crisis of exile because she had not listened to her God” (143).
Fascinating, right? The central issue wasn’t merely or mainly disobedience or idolatry. Those were symptoms, results. What was the root? Not listening. Deciding to disregard God’s words. From there, everything fell apart.
The Diagnosis: Not Me, But Their Own Counsels
But in God’s word this root is even deeper still than just saying they didn’t listen—and it’s deeper for us. We can hear that Israel didn’t listen and imagine that they had closed off ears. But no one does. Instead, as God tells Israel, when we don’t listen to God, it’s because we’re listening somewhere else.
Notice how God talks in Psalm 81 when he diagnoses this central problem. Hear God’s specific judgment on their non-listening. I’ll italicize the ending of each line to get the point across:
“[11] But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me.
[12] So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.
[13] Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!” (Psalm 81:11-13)
That gets at the heart of what goes on when people don’t listen to God—and it isn’t as simple as closing one’s ears to God’s words. Notice how the Lord talks, how he reasons, particularly in the Hebrew poetic parallelism (in which lines A and B of each couplet repeat or build on each other):
- Verse 11: God says the people the people didn’t listen to “my voice.” Then in the parallelism, the next line connects the idea of not listening to God’s voice with, “Israel would not submit to me.” The point: Their lack of listening was connected to a lack of submission.
- Verse 12: When God gives them over, he gives them over “to their stubborn hearts.” And again in Hebrew parallelism, what is connected to their stubborn hearts? “Following “their own counsels.” The point: Their stubbornness was connected to them wanting their own counsels.
- Verse 13 is that central verse of the Psalms. Here, God’s final Oh-sigh clarifies the situation. The people wouldn’t “listen to me,” which again, in the parallelism, connects to how they didn’t “walk in “my ways.” The point: Particularly coming after verse 12, this shows they didn’t listen because they wanted their ways over God’s.
To reiterate the points:
- Their lack of listening to God related to a lack of submission to God.
- Their stubbornness related to them following their own counsels.
- They really wanted their ways over God’s ways.
True Listening Is Preferring God’s Ways Over Our Ways
The issue was not listening to God. But it wasn’t just “not listening.” Their refusal to listen had deep roots.
Which matters for me, someone who writes blogs like this on the Bible, and it matters for most of you, the reader, who reads post like this. Because let’s be honest, for most of us as Christians, if we only heard that the central issue in the Psalms is “not listening to God’s word,” we’d tend to think that’s not our issue. Sure, that’s the issue for many in liberal theological circles. But we go to Bible-believing churches. We read our Bibles. We don’t erase things from God’s word.
So does this apply? Absolutely. Again, consider Israel. God’s denouncement of Israel’s lack of listening wasn’t that they actually removed things from God’s word, like we’d say more liberal traditions do today. Instead, Israel heard what God said, but they didn’t submit to what they heard. They heard God’s counsels, but followed their own. They wanted their way instead of God—all even as they thought they were still “listening” to God.
The takeaway for us, then, isn’t merely that we need to “listen to God.” Of course we must listen to God—we need to read and prayerfully listen to God in his word.
But digging into the root of this central issue in the central psalm, the takeaway is more than just the need to “listen,” it’s that we make sure we don’t have our ways and our counsels and our traditions take precedence over God’s ways.
When all is boiled down, that’s the crucial point.
One Last Example: Jesus and the Pharisees
To back this up, think about it with Jesus and the Pharisees—an example not from the Old Testament but from the New Testament. The Pharisees were so bothered by Jesus’s denouncement of them because it didn’t make sense to them. They loved the Old Testament. They thought, unlike their forefathers, they were trying to listen to God. So, they figured they were finally the faithful ones unlike the Psalm 81 Israelites!
Yet Jesus said they weren’t, at all. Why? Because although they did “listen” and didn’t remove aspects of God’s word, still, at the root, they didn’t want to submit to God’s ways, but they preferred their own ways. They heard and knew God’s ways, and they consider them important, but they took second place.
Which is why, as we read Jesus’s interactions with the Pharisees, we get the sense that the Psalm 81 rebuke would still apply: “Oh, that they would but listen to me!”
May we not be the same. May we read our Bible and listen to God’s word. But more that merely that, according to what we see in the center of the center of the psalms, may we listen by preferring God’s ways and counsel over our own ways and counsels.