“Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery.”
The call to worship specifies instruments and occasion: "Raise a song, sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp." The enumeration of instruments (tambourine, lyre, harp) suggests a full musical celebration; the description "sweet" applied to the lyre indicates aesthetic appreciation of beauty in worship. This verse establishes that worship engages the whole person, including the sensory and emotional dimensions.
Church Fathers on Psalms 81:2
1. For a Title this Psalm has, “Unto the end for the presses, on the fifth of the Sabbath, a Psalm to Asaph himself.” Into one title many mysteries are heaped together, still so that the lintel of the Psalm indicates the things within. As we have to speak of the presses, let no one expect that we shall speak of a vat, of a press, of olive baskets; because neither the Psalm has this, and therefore it indicates the greater mystery.... No such thing did ye hear in this when it…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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