Psalm 81 · a question people ask
Who says "I heard a language that I didn’t know" (81:5), and where do God's words begin?
The psalm doesn't say who says it. The verse reads, "He appointed it in Joseph for a covenant, when he went out over the land of Egypt, I heard a language that I didn’t know" (81:5). In Hebrew I heard and I didn’t know are in the first person, like the I of the next verse, but the WEB leaves 81:5 outside its quotation marks and opens them at 81:6: "I removed his shoulder from the burden" (81:6). The Hebrew has no quotation marks, so the WEB's are a reading of where the words change hands. What the psalm does make plain is who speaks in the verses that follow: "I am the LORD, your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt" (81:10). It doesn't say whose I is in 81:5, or what language was heard, and these notes don't either.
The verses
“He appointed it in Joseph for a covenant, when he went out over the land of Egypt, I heard a language that I didn’t know. “I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were freed from the basket.”
“I am the LORD, your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”