Psalms 83

Psalms 83:1-18

Victory over the last assault of evil. A Song, a Psalm of Asaph. Israel being now set right within, the tempest may roar against her; but there is no rotten core any more, to make the tree break. Still, she must find, but she shall find, her resource in God. The eighty-third psalm closes the series with a great confederacy of the nations hurling itself against Israel’s shield, only to be dashed in ruin from it; and Jehovah is thus made known in all the earth in His supremacy of power.

1. In the first section the case is stated which demands the intervention of God. The nations of the earth are in rebellion against Him, and the psalmist cries for Him to act and not be still. His enemies are all astir, and full of anticipated triumph. They are in movement against the people of God, through whom alone they can attack Him; but who are hidden from them in a safe place of shelter, which they discern not, -which they must be made to realize. They mean nothing less than to cut off Israel as a nation from the face of the earth, and cause the very memory of them to be lost.
2. The allied foes are now enumerated, compacted together in covenant against God Himself. They are Israel’s immediate neighbors, as far as we know them; and indeed, largely their kindred, with Philistia and Tyre, who were in the borders of their land. One power only beyond these is mentioned, as aiding and abetting, rather than instigating, the attack: and that is Assyria. Israel’s foes are thus all round her: Edom, Ishmael, and Moab in the south; Ammon and Amalek on the east; the Philistines and Tyrians on the west coast; and Assyria to the north. There are two not certainly known, -Gebal and the Hagarenes or Hagarites.

The last stand, in the second member of the sixth verse, over against Ishmael in the first place, and in the same connection with Moab as Ishmael with Edom. Were they, perhaps, as their name might intimate, but a branch of the Ishmaelites themselves, which had attained a similar independence of the original tribe to that which the Amalekites held in regard to Edom? This, which is easily conceivable of these wandering peoples, seems the most probable conjecture, though it is but that. Gebal is only mentioned here, if that in Ezekiel 27:9 (and which was the seat of the Giblites of Jos 13:5.) is different. The names, as a whole, are difficult to connect, as is generally sought, with any event in Israel’s past history, which (if it could be established) would not, of course, prevent an application to that prophetic future with which these psalms are so evidently connected. It is, as we know, the commonest thing, if not the rule, to make some impending historical event the text of a prediction as to the latter days. But it is also difficult in many ways to connect an irruption of these peoples, most of whom have disappeared long since, with Israel’s prophetic history, as far as we have yet come to an understanding of it. That there is a revival of many of the old nations in the last days, and a replacement of them in the positions they occupied of old, is clear, and has begun even to be fulfilled before our eyes, as in the case of the Greek and the Italian kingdoms. Many of the scattered tribes which are classed in general under the common name of Arabs, may be Moabites, Ammonites, and such like. In all this there is no very great difficulty.

On the other hand, while the Assyrian is prominent in Isaiah in connection with Israel’s troubles in the latter day, the list of the nations that come with Gog against her (as given in Ezekiel 38:1-23; Ezekiel 39:1-29) is plainly different, and they are much further off than what are enumerated here. We must leave the precise application of what is here, therefore, in uncertainty. The day will declare it; for of its being a prophecy of the last times there can be no reasonable doubt. Rather than an attack of distant enemies, however, it is an attempted settlement of old scores with Israel on the part of neighboring and kindred races. With the exception of Assyria, Israel is to possess herself of all this territory and such an attack on their part may naturally lead to this. As to the numerical structure, it is not strange that (with so much else uncertain) there should be room for much uncertainty as to the meaning of it. If the Hagarenes are really but an independent section of Ishmael, then those named in the second verse are all of Israelitish kin. The third verse is much more doubtful, as Ammon had her land expressly preserved for her, along with Moab and Edom. This is the main difficulty; for Gebal may after all be the Phoenician Gebal of Ezekiel and Joshua, and would then be within the limits of Israel’s original inheritance; and Amalek, being condemned to utter extinction, would forfeit her land to Israel, and so be within her limits. As to Philistia and Tyre, there can be no question. Finally, the fourth verse seems to have no difficulty in relation to Asshur. Edom and Moab will (with Ammon) lose what had been reserved for them, and Israel possess their territory also, which comes plainly into their final inheritance; but the very attack upon Israel here predicted would be, as before-said, a sufficient reason for this, and thus all would be in harmony. But the exceptional place of Ammon in this enumeration is a difficulty as to all this, to which I have no key, and must leave it as an evident objection. 3. The confederacy is paralleled with Midian’s overflow of the land in the days of Gideon, and with Sisera and Jabin; in the time of Deborah. The psalmist prays that their destruction may be like theirs; and their “anointed ones,” set apart to special place among them; be like the kings that fell by Gideon’s hand. They too would have seized upon the dwelling-places of God in the land, and possessed themselves of His inheritance. 4. He prays that, in the hands of the Mighty God, they may be like chaff or thistledown whirled by the wind; -that, as the fire catches hold of a wood, or the flame of the volcano sets on fire the mountains, so the anger of God may pursue them and His presence terrify them like the breath of the hurricane. But — 5. The end is to be the blessing of man in the exaltation of God, -that man may find his place with God. He must needs be abased for this, and the pride hid from him; that hides the thee of God. Yea, the destruction of His foes is to make Him known as Supreme, who is alone Jehovah, the Immutable because the Perfect One. Thus fittingly the psalms of Asaph close.