"A Song. A Psalm of Asaph.
O God, do not keep silence;
do not hold your peace or be still, O God!
2 For behold, your enemies make an uproar;
those who hate you have raised their heads.
3 They lay crafty plans against your people;
they consult together against your treasured ones.
4 They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation;
let the name of Israel be remembered no more!”
5 For they conspire with one accord;
against you they make a covenant—
6 the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
Moab and the Hagrites,
7 Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,
Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8 Asshur also has joined them;
they are the strong arm of the children of Lot. Selah
9 Do to them as you did to Midian,
as to Sisera and Jabin at the river Kishon,
10 who were destroyed at En-dor,
who became dung for the ground.
11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb,
all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,
12 who said, “Let us take possession for ourselves
of the pastures of God.”
13 O my God, make them like whirling dust,
like chaff before the wind.
14 As fire consumes the forest,
as the flame sets the mountains ablaze,
15 so may you pursue them with your tempest
and terrify them with your hurricane!
16 Fill their faces with shame,
that they may seek your name, O Lord.
17 Let them be put to shame and dismayed for ever;
let them perish in disgrace,
18 that they may know that you alone,
whose name is the Lord,
are the Most High over all the earth."
Psalm 83
The Psalmist, however, did not fall into either of the temptations mentioned in the previous Note: he neither was discouraged, nor precipitate. Rather, he prayed: he poured it all out to God in prayer. And we see in the Psalm how he did so and what it led to. The rehearsal, in 2-8, of the gathering of the enemies is very impressive, and the sense of their plotting and scheming, dark, sinister and devilish, is solemn indeed. But the answer to such organised malevolence is not to pay back in its own coin. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. What the Psalmist does is to pray (9-18). Nor does he give way to panic reaction in face of the undoubted pressures and dangers. Faith is operative throughout, as we see from the reiterated emphasis on 'thy' and 'thine'. It is God's battle: they are His enemies and the enemies of His work and His purposes. It is not a personal thing against Israel but against Israel's God, and this in itself is an assurance that He will look after the situation. The phrase in 3, 'Thy hidden ones' expresses the consciousness in the Psalmist that he was in God's hands and in His secret place. Maclaren says that the idea of 'preciousness' as well as that of 'protection' is included in the word, and he adds, 'Men store their treasures in secret places; God hides His treasures in the secret of His face, the glorious privacy of light inaccessible'. Well, that is a thought for some saint under pressure today, is it not!