They take crafty counsel against thy people, and consult against thy hidden ones
Psalm 83 begs God not to stay silent. Verse 3 says why: the enemies are not marching in the open but sitting in council, plotting against the people God calls His own — the "treasured ones" whom an older translation calls "Your hidden ones."
The verse describes plotting that God seems to ignore. Writers call that silence a test faith has to carry — and a silence with a time limit.
God stays silent and does not step in while men do evil and His people suffer. That is a great test for faith. Still, faith knows that God must act at His own due time, when evil is ripe. So comes the appeal that God would keep silent no longer.
The phrase does not describe people who are in hiding. It describes people God has put somewhere safe. The enemies plot in secret; God shelters His own in secret. That shelter holds while the plotting goes on and no rescue is in sight.
The godly person looks ahead to the last great alliance of the nations against God and His people. He sees that such wickedness calls for judgment. God's enemies take their chance from His patience and His silence. They raise their voice against God and lift themselves up. This hatred of God comes out against God's people — His hidden ones, whom God has sheltered in secret, even if for a time He does not step in openly for them (compare Psalm 31:20).
Others make the same link to that psalm, noting simply that the meaning of "hidden ones" is found there — where God hides His own "in the cover of your presence" (Psalm 31:20).
As to "hidden ones," see Psalm 31:20, 23.
The plotting in verse 3 targets Your people. That one word runs through the psalm, and it moves the whole quarrel onto God.
Everything that happens in the psalm centres on God Himself; the people are only the occasion of it. The enemies are His enemies, and He is the One they hate (vv. 1, 2). The people are His too — His hidden ones (v. 3). So the alliance against them is an alliance against Him, formed to seize the places where He dwells.
The hatred has a cause, and the cause is God's own choice of them.
The last attack of God's enemies on Israel will be determined and vicious. It calls for urgent pleading by the godly that God would keep silent no longer. They realize that these are not only their own enemies but, more importantly, God's enemies. Israel is hated because they are God's chosen people (vv. 1-2). The uproar at the end of the great tribulation will be greater than ever before. Even today the nations surrounding Israel are more and more united in their hostility to her very existence, and, as verse 3 tells us, they take crafty counsel against the people God has chosen.
Writers connect this psalm with a future gathering of nations. The plan of verse 3 runs its course — and then meets its answer.
One great aim of the gathered nations is to crush and overthrow Israel (Psalm 83:3-5). But God steps in. He destroys them completely and delivers His own, just as He did in the early days of the judges.
One writer names who joins that alliance, and says what the judgment is for.
This is the last alliance of the nations around Canaan, with Assyria helping them. … God carries out judgment so that the rebellious nations may seek Jehovah's name. It is not, know the Father, nor, know that there is a God; but, know Jehovah.
- Hidden. The phrase names God's own act — these are people "whom God has sheltered in secret," not people who found a hiding place of their own.
- Hidden, not helpless. The shelter holds even when God "does not step in openly for them." No visible rescue does not mean no God.
- Hidden ones are His. The people belong to God, so "the alliance against them is an alliance against Him."
- Hidden means hated. The hostility grows out of that relationship: "Israel is hated because they are God's chosen people."
- Hidden until He speaks. The silence ends. God "destroys them completely and delivers His own," so that the rebellious nations seek Jehovah's name.
They say, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, and let the name of Israel be mentioned no more.
The words of verse 4 are the settled decision of a hostile alliance: erase a people, and erase even the memory that they existed. Commentators read this as more than ancient politics. They hear a hatred that aims past Israel at God Himself. Can such a plan ever work?
The enemies want more than a win. They want Israel wiped out and forgotten.
The intention of the enemy is to cut off Israel as a nation from the face of the earth, with the desire that their very memory may perish.
The name itself is the target. One writer explains why a name stirs such fury.
When the chief sinner appears (2 Thess. 2), he will aim his main strength at the only rival he has any cause to fear. The very name of Israel denies everything he claims, for his power and honour come from himself. Rule and the obedience of the nations were claimed long ago for Judah's royal tribe (Gen. 49:10). This self-made ruler and god of the whole earth will try to put out the light of Israel's hope, just as the ruler before him tried, who was a picture of him (Matt. 2:16).
The people under threat are God's hidden ones. He shelters them, even when He stays silent for a time.
The godly soul looks ahead to the last great alliance of the nations against God and His people, and sees that such wickedness calls for judgment. God's enemies take advantage of His patience and His silence. They raise their voice against Him and lift themselves up. This hatred of God shows itself against God's people — His hidden ones, whom God has sheltered in secret, even if for a time He does not step in openly for them (cp. Ps. 31:20).
The psalm calls these people God's enemies. The plot strikes at His name and at what belongs to Him.
Here is another page of Israel's history in the land. The nations inside the land and along its borders band together, with the Assyrian joining to help them. Their aim is to cut off Israel — now recognised as a nation there — from being a nation, so that the name of Israel is remembered no more... The appeal goes up to God for His name and His honour. They are His enemies, and they mean to take the houses of God for themselves.
Haman was an official in Persia who got a decree passed to destroy all the Jews. One writer hears this verse in him.
He is marked by pride that nothing can control, by the wish to lift himself up and make himself a god, and by terrible hatred against the people of God and against the man who stands for them. To get revenge on that one man, the enemy sacrifices the whole nation... In a word, he is wickedness itself, in person. Is he not the same one who says, "Come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more!"? (Ps. 83:4)
Commentators also hear these words in living speech, not only in old records.
In our day Israel has become a nation again in the promised land, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 18. Even now we hear the Arab nations use the words of this psalm... The spirit of Haman is alive today. These words, spoken today, will be spoken again at the end, if they are not repeated all the way until the end.
One writer sets this plan against God's promise about Israel's name.
They make no secret that they would like to see Israel wiped out completely, and along with others who think the same way, they will plan it together (v. 4). What a hopeless plan! Isaiah writes to that nation, "For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain" (Isa. 66:22).
The psalm answers with prayer. It looks back to two battles God had already won.
So when the great alliance rises (Ps. 83), the godly remnant will cry to their God for the complete defeat of their foes, who are set on wiping the very name of Israel off the earth (4)... Long ago Jehovah had subdued the Midianites (Judges 8:28), and earlier still He had subdued the Canaanites, who had gathered under the leadership of Sisera (Judges 4:23-24)... Their prayer for this is given in prophecy (13-18), so that the alliance may learn, when God steps in, that He whose name alone is Jehovah is the Most High over all the earth.
- The plan — the goal is not defeat but erasure: Israel cut off as a nation and its memory gone.
- The target — behind the nation stands its God. The psalm calls the enemies His, and the houses they want are His.
- The shelter — those threatened are His hidden ones, kept safe by Him even during a long silence.
- The echo — Haman spoke this plan, and voices repeat it in our own day.
- The end — God has promised that Israel's name will remain. The plan fails, and Jehovah is known as Most High over all the earth.
For they have consulted together with one heart they have made an alliance together against thee.
Israel's neighbours have been making threats. Here the threats harden into an agreement: separate peoples reach one mind and sign. And the psalm points the pact in a startling direction — not against Israel, but against God Himself.
The psalm has already called these peoples God's enemies. The alliance targets a nation, yet faith names the real opponent. One writer notes how the faithful among Israel read the situation:
This psalm recognises the national rising of a confederacy against Israel, now looking to God again in the land. We already have the list of the confederacy. The Spirit in the remnant says in faith, "Your enemies"; "against You they make a covenant." It is all national. It is Jacob, Israel (not Messiah) and Jehovah. Israel is just being established as a nation, and they come to cut them off from it.
The verses that follow put names to the agreement. The names form a ring that closes in from every side:
The people are also His — His hidden ones (v. 3), and the confederacy against them is against Him, to take possession of His dwelling places. Edom and the Ishmaelites on the south appear to be prominent. The alliance spreads northward to Moab and the Hagarites on the east, and to Gebal, near Lebanon, on the north. Ammon is then introduced on the east, Amalek joining on the south-west. The whole seaboard follows — Philistia, with the inhabitants of Tyre. These run parallel to the nations mentioned first, and the whole nation of Israel is surrounded by enemies who have a footing in the land. Outside of it, Asshur adds her help to Moab and Ammon.
These peoples are old rivals. One shared aim pulls them into a single body:
In seeking to achieve this end the nations confer together, forming themselves into a confederacy against God. The nations directly surrounding the land of Israel are listed. The Assyrian from the north helps them.
The psalm shows no anxiety about the outcome. Israel has a resource, and the united force meets a shield it cannot break:
Israel is now set right within, so the storm may roar against her; there is no rotten core left to make the tree break. Still, she must find her resource in God — and she will find it. The eighty-third psalm closes the series with a great confederacy of the nations throwing itself against Israel's shield, only to be smashed to ruin off it. And so Jehovah is made known in all the earth as supreme in power.
That defeat has a purpose. The psalm closes by naming the God the nations must come to know:
At the close of the psalm the cry goes up to God simply as God, because Israel is not yet established in covenant blessing; then Jehovah's name is brought in. Judgment will be carried out, so that the rebellious nations may seek Jehovah's name. It is not, know the Father, nor, know there is a God; but, know Jehovah. When His judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Men will know that He whose name alone is Jehovah — He who is, and was, and is to come — is the Most High over all the earth.
A covenant of many nations invites an obvious answer: build a rival covenant. The psalm points anyone who feels outnumbered somewhere else:
We read throughout the Scriptures of confederacies against Israel. The destruction of them will be complete, like chaff driven away from the summer threshing floor. And the Israel of God behave here as Isaiah instructs them. They do not trust in a counter-confederacy, but set the Lord apart in their hearts and make Him their object.
- Covenant — The peoples do not just agree. They bind themselves by covenant, and the party they sign against is God.
- Against you — Faith reads the attack right. The enemies are His enemies and the people are His hidden ones, so an assault on Israel is an assault on Him.
- Surrounded — The named allies close in from the south, the east, the north and the seacoast. Assyria adds help from outside the land.
- Shattered — The combined force throws itself at Israel's shield and breaks. Then all the earth sees His supremacy in power.
- Known — The judgment has a goal: the nations seek His name. They learn that He whose name alone is Jehovah is Most High over all the earth.