Psalms 83

Him the heathen for His inheritance. Thou, O Christ, shalt inherit all nations, and be the Governor over them (2 : 8 ; 22 : 28). Let the second coming of Christ set to rights all these disorders. There are two words with which we may comfort ourselves and one another, in reference to the mismanagements of power among men; one is (Rev. 19 : 6), Hallelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; the other is (Rev. 22 : 20), Surely, I come quickly. H.

The moral lessons of this Psalm for all who have to do with the administration of civil law are too obvious to need remark. Who does not see that if there be a Supreme Being, the doctrine of this Psalm must be true, and being true, is infinitely beneficent in its influence and sublime in its moral grandeur? C.

1. O God, keep not thou silence : Hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. 2 For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult : And they that hate thee have lifted up the head. 3 They take crafty counsel against thy people, And consult together against thy hidden ones. 4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation ; That the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. 5 For they have consulted together with one consent ; Against thee do they make a covenant : 6 The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites ; Moab, and the Hagarenes ; 7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek ; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre : 8 Assyria also is joined with them ; They have holpen the children of Lot. [Selah 9 Do thou unto them as unto Midian ; As to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon : 10 Which perished at En-dor ; They became as dung for the earth. 11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb ; Yea, all their princes like Zebah and Zal-munna : 12 Who said, Let us take to ourselves in possession The habitations of God. 13 O my God, make them like the whirling dust ; As stubble before the wind. 14 As the fire that burneth the forest, And as the flame that setteth the mountains on fire ; 15 So pursue them with thy tempest, And terrify them with thy storm. 16 Fill their faces with confusion ; That they may seek thy name, O LORD. 17 Let them be ashamed and dismayed for ever ; Yea, let them be confounded and perish : 18 That they may know that thou alone, whose name is JEHOVAH, Art the Most High over all the earth.

THIS Psalm describes a powerful confederation against the kingdom, of which the principal leaders are Edom, Moab, Ammon, certain Arabian tribes, supported by the Philistines.

Tyrians, and Assyrians. The mention of Amalek proves that the Psalm belongs to the period before the captivity, since the Amalekites were destroyed by the Simeonites before that time. Nearly all ancient and many modern commentators (Tholuck, De Wette, Hengstenberg, Delitzsch, Himpel, Kay) hold that the confederacy of the Moabites and Ammonites and others, described in 2 Chr. 20 : 5-12, gave occasion to the Psalm. The great terror of Jehoshaphat and the people, the express mention of Mount Seir, and the result brought about by a division between the incongruous elements, confirm this view ; nor is it at all impossible that the Psalm may have been written by Jahaziel, “a Levite of the sons of Asaph,” who was moved by the Spirit of God to promise a complete deliverance (2 Chr. 20 : 14-17). The mention of the Assyrians, not as leaders, but as encouragers, of the confederacy of the Philistines and Tyrians, will be considered in the notes. We find the Edomites, Philistines, and Arabians active in hostility in the reign of Jehoshaphat’s successor. Cook.

We know of no period in the history of Israel when all the various tribes here enumerated were united together for the extermination of their enemy. But as this Psalm helps us to complete the narrative in Judges of the defeat of the Midianites (v. 11), so it may itself supplement the narrative of the particular event which called it forth. It may describe some event which we read in the history, but which there assumes less formidable proportions, and in so doing it may help us to complete the picture. If so, there can be very little doubt with what portion of the history it best synchronizes. The confederacy must be that which threatened Judah in the reign of Jehoshaphat, the account of which is given in 2 Chr. 20. There, as in the Psalm, Moab and Ammon, “the children of Lot,” are the leading powers ; and the Edomites are mentioned as forming a part of the invading army. The poet is fully alive to the danger which threatens his nation. Look where he may, the horizon is black with gathering clouds. Judah is alone, and his enemies are compassing him about. The hosts of invaders are settling like swarms of locusts on the skirts of the land. East, south, and west they are mustering to the battle. The kindred, but ever hostile tribe of Edom on the border, issuing from their mountain fastnesses ; the Arab tribes of the desert ; the old hereditary foes of Israel, Moab and Ammon ; the Philistines, long since humbled and driven back to their narrow strip of territory by the sea, yet still apparently forformidable, even Tyre forgetting her ancient friendship—all are on the march, all, like hunters, are hemming in the lion who holds them at bay. It is against this formidable confederacy that the Psalmist prays. He prays that it may be with them as with the other enemies of Israel, with Jabin and Sisera, in days of old. But he prays for more than deliverance or victory. He prays that the name of Jehovah may be magnified, and that all may seek that name. Two expressions, in fact, give the key to the Psalm—show us the attitude of the poet in presence of the danger : v. 5, “They are confederate against Thee;” v. 18, “Let them know that Thou art most high over all the earth.”

The Psalm consists of two principal divisions : the first describes the magnitude of the danger, and enumerates the foes who are gathering on all sides, hemming in Judah, and intending by mere force of numbers utterly to crush and destroy it (vs. 1-8). The next contains the prayer for their complete overthrow, with an appeal to God’s former mighty acts on behalf of His people when threatened by their enemies (vs. 9-18). P.

TITLE. A Song. A Psalm. By Asaph. To the general description (mizmôr), there is here prefixed a more specific one (shûr), which designates the composition as a song of praise or triumph. The same combination occurs above, in the title of Psalm 48, a composition which was probably occasioned by the victory of Jehoshaphat over the Moabites, Ammonites, and their confederates, as described in 2 Chr. 20. This agrees well with the hypothesis, conclusively maintained by Hengstenberg, that the Psalm before us has relation to the same event, and that as the forty-seventh was probably sung upon the field of battle, and the forty-eighth after the triumphant return to Jerusalem, so the eighty-third was composed in confident anticipation of the victory. A.—Our Psalm is a true picture of the state of feeling which prevailed throughout the people during the danger under Jehoshaphat. According to the history of Chronicles, they praised God at that time, in the midst of their danger, with loud voice (v. 19) ; and here in the title the Psalm is called a song of praise ; and it is such in reality, although it bears the form of a prayer—a song of triumph sung before the victory—no contest, no doubt, the distress is simply committed to God. Hengstenberg.

4. That the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. This desperate scheme and wretched design took not effect ; but, on the contrary, the several nations mentioned in this conspiracy are no more, and have not had a name in the world for many hundreds of years; while the Jews are still a people, and are preserved in order to be called and saved, as all Israel will be in the latter day (Rom. 11: 25). So Diocletian thought to have rooted the Christian name out of the world, but in vain. Gill.

5. Against Thee, as in v. 3 “against Thy people.” God and His people are one. So our Lord says to Saul, “Why persecutest thou Me?”

6-8. The enumeration of the confederate tribes. First, those on the south and east. Then, those on the west, Philistia and Tyre. Lastly, the Assyrians in the north, not yet regarded as a formidable power, but merely as allies of Moab and Ammon. P.—The enemies of Israel, as enumerated by the Psalmist, fall into four main divisions: First, those most nearly connected with the Israelites themselves by the ties of blood-relationship, the descendants of Esau and Ishmael; secondly, the two branches of the descendants of Lot, along with their respective Arabian auxiliaries—viz., the Moabites, who had engaged the assistance of the Hagarenes, and the Ammonites, who had gathered round their standard the Giblites and Amalekites; thirdly, the inhabitants of the coast, the Philistines and Tyrians; fourthly, the more distant Assyrians. Thrupp.

8. Assur is also joined with them. It was then a rising power, anxious for growth, and it thus early distinguished itself for evil. What a motley group they were! A league against Israel is always attractive, and gathers whole nations within its bonds. They have holpen the children of Lot. All these have come to the aid of Moab and Ammon, which two nations were among the fiercest in the conspiracy. There were ten to one against Israel, and yet she overcame all her enemies. S.

9. Here is the prayer. The historic allusions to previous victories over these or similar enemies had in themselves an inspiration of hope. Why shouldst not Thou, O God, re-enact those ancient deliverances of Thy people, and again overwhelm Thy foes in judgment? As unto the Midianites by the hand of Gideon (Jud. 7); as to Sisera and Jabin (Jud. 4, 5). C.

11. Oreb and Zeeb, the two “princes,” or probably “generals of the army,” while Zebah and Zalmunna have the title of “kings” (Jud. 7: 25; 8: 5, 6). The allusions here and in Isa. 10: 26 help us to complete the narrative in Judges. Isaiah implies that the slaughter must have been awful beyond anything that history records, for “he places it in the same rank with the two most tremendous disasters recorded in the whole of the history of Israel—the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, and of the army of Sennacherib.” Here the discomfiture and flight of the Midianites is prominent. “In imagery both obvious and vivid to every native of the gusty hills and plains of Palestine, though to us comparatively unintelligible, the Psalmist describes them as driven over the uplands of Gilead like the clouds of chaff blown from the threshing-floors; chased away like the spherical masses of dry weeds which course over the plains of Esdraelon and Philistia—flying with the dreadful hurry and confusion of the flames, that rush and leap from tree to tree and hill to hill when the wooded mountains of a tropical country are by chance ignited.” (Grove.) P.

16-18. The object with which the Psalmist prays for the Divine judgment upon the foes who are gathering to swallow up his people is remarkable. It is “that they may seek the name of Jehovah, that they may know (v. 18) that He is most high over all the earth.” This is the nobler aspiration which mingles with the prayer for vengeance. The man who loves and fears Jehovah desires to see others, even his enemies, love and fear Him too. The end of all God’s judgments, as of all history, is the same, that all should confess that Jehovah is One, and His name One (Zech. 14: 9). P.

That which we should earnestly desire and beg of God for our enemies and persecutors is, that God would bring them to repentance, and we should desire their abasement in order to this; no other confusion to them than what may be a step toward their conversion. H.