Psalm 80:10, “ I am YHWH your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
YHWH alone—as the God who raised His people out of slavery—will be the God of His people. A necessary implication of this is that He alone will be their provider. They need not (must not) look to a variety of ‘familiar spirits’ who are, in fact, ‘strange gods’, in order to be satisfied. Rather, let them look only to YHWH, let them bring all of their need—in every realm—to Him, let them open wide their mouths and see that He will fill them.
That final line is arresting. A wide open mouth conjures the image of a baby bird yawning up toward its mother, desperate for food…it is an image of hunger, of need, of vulnerability, of want, of trust, of hope, of child-like dependence. This is the posture God’s people are supposed to take toward Him…this is the way in which they are to approach Him. With mouths open like nesting birds who depend upon and long for the food that only their mother can give.
And with what does He fill the open mouths of His people? With ‘the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock…’ (v.16). With richness, with fullness, with sweetness and strength, with the best of the land—which is ultimately to say, with Himself.
YHWH Himself is the finest of wheat, the heavenly bread, the reality beneath the Manna; and YHWH Himself is the Rock from whom flows not only living water, but also the sweetest of honeys—both images of Himself given by His Spirit. Yes, the Lord gives Himself in all that He gives, and He satisfies the opened mouths of his people with the True Food that He Himself is; the food that He gives when He becomes it upon the cross in the flesh and blood of the Beloved Son.
Yes, in every provision God gives—not only provision of necessities, but also of light and sound and joy and peace and ten-thousand other graces—in all of these, it is ultimately with God Himself in Christ—the finest Wheat, and the Rock from whom the Spirit of sweetest honey flows—that His people are filled, and so satisfied, when they open the mouths of their souls to Him in faith.
