Psalm 83--O God, Do Not Keep Silence

ORDPsalm 83
English Standard Version

O God, Do Not Keep Silence
A Song. A Psalm of Asaph.
83 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 forever;
    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.

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Last time, Asaph asked God how much longer until He judged the nations.  This time, Asaph cries out wondering how long until the LORD gives justice and answers their cries for help--another common theme of Asaph, because they are two sides of the same coin.  Don't miss that biblically salvation for God's people coincides with judgment for God's enemies--many times with entire people groups being destroyed, specifically so that the LORD could give them the inheritance that He promised to them.

Ever since then, the other nations have tried to destroy them and/or remove them from the Promised Land.  Their attack is less against the people of God than it is against God Himself.  See if these words don't sound like exactly what has been happening in Israel in recent days, "For behold, your enemies make an uproar; those who hate you have raised their heads.  They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against your treasured ones.  They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more!” (verses 2-5).  I stopped there only because the list of nations are names of people groups that we no longer use today, but they are the people of the regions that we call "The Middle East," starting closest to the boundaries of Israel (see the map I've hot linked to that has the names of these nations and peoples in red overlayed on the map of what the nations look like today.

You can see that the Psalmist is crying out because the people of Israel are surrounded on all sides by enemies.  (Some of this is their own doing for disobeying God's command to completely and totally destroy some of these nations at the time of the Conquest, but other nations are the ones that filled the vacuum after the Canaanite nations were destroyed.  That makes the next part of the prayer make sense.  "Do to them what you did to Midian."  He specifically cites the story of Sisera and Jabin from the book of Judges (from the period of Deborah as judge).  All the people that gathered together with them were destroyed, even though they had superior numbers and weaponry according to worldly standards.  The world learned nothing when the LORD utterly destroyed Egypt, the super-power at that time that was completely and utterly destroyed by the LORD.

Asaph prays both for the destruction of their enemies and their salvation.  Specifically, he prays for God to move in such a mighty way to save His people by the destruction of some that others would see this and repent and turn to the LORD and trust in Him alone for salvation.  This too is my prayer for the peoples that we have seen as enemies of Israel and the Church.  It may be that God needs to use judgment to get the attention of the world (this is the predecessor to revival sometimes), but ultimately, I want revival where the hearts of the people are changed.  Then the LORD's name will be lifted high and worshiped among all the nations.