Psalm 83

The world is full of controversy, and the people of God have always had detractors and persecutors. We long for God to decisively speak, to settle every matter, and to restrain every enemy. The Lord's congregation sings out to Him, “O God, do not keep silence; do not hold your peace or be still, O God!”

God may seem very silent to His people, but our enemies are clearly not quiet. They are making an uproar. In case we are not hearing them, they wave their arms with aggression so that we can notice them by sight.

The evil that we hear and see is the fruit of secret scheming. Their goal is to destroy Israel, or to destroy the people of the Jewish Messiah.

We are people of a covenant. The Lord is faithful to us forever. His faithfulness and compassion will never fail, though He disciplines those He loves.

The enemies of the Lord have made a covenant as well, but it is very different from the covenant of God that we celebrate. They have made a covenant to destroy the Lord's people. Among the nations listed in this covenant are neighbors to Israel and nomadic enemies within Israel. Some are connected with historic individuals, identifying themselves with Esau, Ishmael, or Lot. Some were probably nomadic peoples that were against Israel, such as the Hagrites, Gebal, and Amalek. Ammon is a country identified with its chief city, Rabbah, site of the modern city of Amman, the capital of Jordan. Philistia refers to the cities of the Philistines that are in the area today known as the Gaza Strip, bordering on Egypt to the south. Tyre was in the area of modern Lebanon to the north. Asshur refers to the Assyrian empire to the north and the east. The children of Lot were the ancient nations of Moab and Edom to the east and south. If all of these people groups are placed on a map, we would return to the most obvious observation, that they comprise all the neighboring nations and even people groups within Israel without an established homeland that together consider themselves covenant allies against Israel. Their cry has always been, “Let us take possession for ourselves of the pastures of God.”

The people of the Lord cry out to Him for help against all who would destroy them. They remember back to the period of Judges in the early history of Israel when Deborah and Barak led the people by God's strength to defeat Sisera, or when God used fearful Gideon as a mighty man of valor and led His people to victory against Mideon.

They do not sing about there own ability to defeat the nations united against them. They call on God to humble those foes in the dust, and to fill their faces with shame. And for what purpose? Amazingly, “that they may seek Your Name, O Lord,” and “that they may know that you alone, whose name is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth.”

As these allied people groups pursue their hatred against the Lord's people, many will perish. But the hope of the righteous is that some will seek the Name of the God of Israel.

The psalm is not a plea for our own military strength so that we can annihilate the foe. The cry of the righteous is for God to come and work His saving purpose. The goal is for the nations to bow before the God of Israel, not merely to be left alone to live and practice our religious customs in peace.

Many have rejected Jesus as the Jewish Messiah because He did not bring the victory they were expecting. That day will come. They ignore the many prophesies that have to do with a suffering Messiah. The first such word is not in Psalm 22 (“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”) or Isaiah 53 (“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, but we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our tansgressions.”). The earliest Word was in the Torah, in the center of Genesis 3, when the Lord pronounced judgment upon the serpent. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

The longed-for offspring of the woman, the Son of David through a woman, and the eternal Son of God, has come to defeat our worst adversaries through His death. He is the Passover Lamb.

Now He is on high, directing the fulfillment of every detail of His promises, including the events of Psalm 83. If you want to see Him fulfill the prophesies of a strong and victorious Messiah, you should not have to wait very long.

He is the Word. He speaks. His sheep hear His voice. They know Him, and they follow Him. He will deliver His people from all of their enemies.