Today’s Passage: Psalm 83
This is a prayer for the times when heaven seems to hold its peace. Asaph looks out at a whole coalition of nations gathered against the people of God, ten of them named, with one thing on their minds: to wipe Israel from memory so that its name is remembered no more. So he prays, and he does not pray softly. He asks God to do to them what He once did to Midian, to cover their faces with shame, to let them perish in their disgrace. It is a hard prayer, and the psalm never softens it. But notice where it is aimed. Asaph does not take the sword into his own hands; he hands the whole matter over to God. And notice where it ends: that these enemies, brought low, might seek God’s name and know that He alone is the Most High over all the earth. The psalm teaches us how to bring even our anger to God, honestly, without dressing it up and without pretending it away.
As you read, hold this: O God, be not silent.
Psalm 83:1-8 (BSB)
A song. A Psalm of Asaph.
¹ O God, be not silent; be not speechless; be not still, O God. ² See how Your enemies rage, how Your foes have reared their heads. ³ With cunning they scheme against Your people and conspire against those You cherish, ⁴ saying, “Come, let us erase them as a nation; may the name of Israel be remembered no more.” ⁵ For with one mind they plot together; they form an alliance against You— ⁶ the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, of Moab and the Hagrites, ⁷ of Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek, of Philistia with the people of Tyre. ⁸ Even Assyria has joined them, lending strength to the sons of Lot. Selah
Three times over he pleads with God not to keep quiet: be not domi, pronounced doh-MEE. Strong's H1824, silence, stillness. The psalm opens with three pleas against that quiet. This is not patient waiting dressed up in bold language. It is the insistence of a heart that will not let God’s silence be the last word. , be not speechless, be not still. The enemies he names are not shadows or figures of speech. They are real peoples, ten of them, and their aim is plain, to erase Israel as a nation. Whether they came in one great battle or gathered across many years, the danger was real, and Asaph brings it to God exactly as it is.
Context The names
Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites, Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek, Philistia and Tyre, and behind them all the great power of Assyria. No other psalm lists its enemies quite like this. Some readers think of a single crisis that the history books never recorded; others hear many foes from many years gathered together into one song. Either way, the point Asaph makes is the same: for all their scheming against His people, the alliance is finally an alliance against God Himself.
Psalm 83:9-12 (BSB)
⁹ Do to them as You did to Midian, as to Sisera and Jabin at the River Kishon, ¹⁰ who perished at Endor and became like dung on the ground. ¹¹ Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, and all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna, ¹² who said, “Let us possess for ourselves the pastures of God.”
Asaph is not asking for some new kind of rescue; he is asking God to do again what He has already done. Midian and Sisera, Jabin, Oreb and Zeeb, Zebah and Zalmunna, the book of Judges still holds the memory of those days when God brought proud commanders to nothing. The words are blunt, even ugly, bodies left like dung on the ground, and the psalm makes no attempt to clean the picture up. This is what it looks like when God overthrows those who set themselves against Him.
Psalm 83:13-16 (BSB)
¹³ Make them like tumbleweed, O my God, like chaff before the wind. ¹⁴ As fire consumes a forest, as a flame sets the mountains ablaze, ¹⁵ so pursue them with Your tempest, and terrify them with Your storm. ¹⁶ Cover their faces with shame, that they may seek Your name, O LORD.
He piles up pictures of things the wind carries off: tumbleweed and chaff, fire sweeping through a forest, a tempest driving across the mountains. Then, in the same breath, comes something unexpected. He asks that their faces be covered with shame so that they may seek God’s name. Let both halves of that verse stand together. The longing that they might turn and seek God does not cancel the storm, and the storm does not silence the longing. Judgment and mercy are held together in the one prayer.
Psalm 83:17-18 (BSB)
¹⁷ May they be ever ashamed and terrified; may they perish in disgrace. ¹⁸ May they know that You alone, whose name is the LORD, are Most High over all the earth.
The words are heavy again: let them be ashamed and terrified, let them perish in their disgrace. And then the psalm lifts to its true goal, the reason underneath every hard petition, that they may know that God alone, whose name is the LORD, is Most High over all the earth. That final line is where the whole prayer has been heading. It does not bless the harshness of the middle; it aims past it, to the day when every rival is unmasked and God alone is seen to be God.
Study notes Every knee
Paul takes up that same word, knowing, and tells us it will not stop with one ancient coalition.
"that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Philippians 2:10-11 (BSB)
One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord. He is Lord now, and He is coming. The exact timetable is not ours to work out today. What we can do is what Asaph did, and pray: O God, be not silent.
O God, be not silent.