Scripture Daily

Context No. 102 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 83:1-18: in context

1God, don’t keep silent. Don’t keep silent, and don’t be still, God. 2For, behold, your enemies are stirred up. Those who hate you have lifted up their heads. 3They conspire with cunning against your people. They plot against your cherished ones. 4“Come,” they say, “let’s destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.” 5For they have conspired together with one mind. They form an alliance against you. 6The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab, and the Hagrites; 7Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre; 8Assyria also is joined with them. They have helped the children of Lot. Selah. 9Do to them as you did to Midian, as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon; 10who perished at Endor, who became as dung for the earth. 11Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, yes, all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna, 12who said, “Let’s take possession of God’s pasture lands.” 13My God, make them like tumbleweed, like chaff before the wind. 14As the fire that burns the forest, as the flame that sets the mountains on fire, 15so pursue them with your tempest, and terrify them with your storm. 16Fill their faces with confusion, that they may seek your name, LORD. 17Let them be disappointed and dismayed forever. Yes, let them be confounded and perish; 18that they may know that you alone, whose name is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth.

Psalm 83 is a national prayer under threat, and its opening is a demand for noise. God, do not keep silent, do not hold your peace, do not be still. The complaint is not that God is absent but that he is quiet while something is being organized.

Then the psalm does something unusual: it names the coalition. Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites, Gebal, Ammon, Amalek, Philistia, Tyre, and Assyria backing them. Ten peoples, and the list is a ring of Israel's neighbors on every side. Their stated aim is quoted directly: let us wipe them out as a nation, so the name of Israel is remembered no more. The threat is not defeat but erasure.

The prayer that follows asks God to do to them what he did to Midian and Sisera and Jabin in the old stories, and the imagery gets violent, chaff and wind and fire on the mountains. Then the last verse turns somewhere unexpected. Fill their faces with shame, it says, so that they will seek your name. Let them be put to shame and perish, that they may know that you alone are the Most High. Even in this prayer the desired end is that the enemies would know. What do I actually want to happen to the people I am most afraid of?

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