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.
The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagarites;
Psalm 83 prays against a group of nations joined together to destroy Israel. Verse 6 starts naming them, and two questions follow: why does Edom come first, and who are these tribes?
The names are not a random list. Taken in order, they trace a circle around the land.
Edom and the Ishmaelites in the south seem to stand out. The alliance then spreads northward to Moab and the Hagarites in the east, and to Gebal, near Lebanon, in the north. Ammon comes next in the east, and Amalek joins in the south-west. Then follows the whole coastline — Philistia, with the people of Tyre. These match the nations named first, so the whole nation of Israel is ringed by enemies who have a footing in the land.
These enemies are not strangers. Most of them are Israel's own relatives, and one writer thinks the fourth name in the verse may belong to the same family line.
As far as we can identify them, they are Israel's closest neighbours — and mostly their relatives too — along with Philistia and Tyre, who lived on the borders of their land… Two of them we cannot identify for certain: Gebal, and the Hagarenes or Hagarites. The Hagarites stand in the second half of verse 6, matching Ishmael in the first half, and paired with Moab just as Ishmael is paired with Edom. Were they perhaps, as their name may hint, only a branch of the Ishmaelites themselves…?
That is only a guess. A Bible dictionary is more careful about the Hagrites — also spelled Hagarites.
A people in Arabia whom the two and a half tribes fought. The great plunder taken from them shows that they were a wealthy tribe. 1 Chr. 5:10, 19-22; Ps. 83:6. Where the name comes from, and where they lived, is not known. In this psalm they are kept distinct from the Ishmaelites.
Edom heads the list. Why does a lesser power come first?
In the alliance against Israel we find "the tents of Edom." Edom is the first power named — of course not as the strongest, but as the one urging the others on to Israel's ruin. As neighbours they would know the people and their land better, so they would be the more dangerous, quite apart from the moral side of the case… So the Spirit of God places Edom among Israel's final enemies, just as He had already done through Moses and Joshua with Israel's earliest ones.
One writer reads these names as a line-up still to come — the same old neighbours, regrouped.
There is the Near Eastern League, made up of Israel's ancient enemies — Edom, Ammon, Moab and others — and you will find it in Psalm 83. These powers will appear again on the political stage when Israel appears again, and they will show the same murderous hatred towards Abraham's descendants that marked them long ago.
Commentators differ on how closely these names fit any event, past or future. One of them says so plainly.
It is also hard, in many ways, to connect a sudden invasion by these peoples — most of whom vanished long ago — with Israel's prophetic history, as far as we understand it so far… So we must leave the exact application of this passage uncertain. The day will make it clear, for there can be no reasonable doubt that it is a prophecy of the last times… This is not an attack by distant enemies. It is an attempt by neighbouring and related peoples to settle old scores with Israel.
The psalm does not stop at the names. It ends with what God's judgment proves.
In Psalm 83 we have the last conspiracy of the Assyrians and of those who live inside the borders of the land. There the judgment shows that Jehovah is Most High over all the earth.
- Named. Verse 6 opens the roll-call of allies. Edom, the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites all live close to Israel's borders.
- Related. Most of them are Israel's own relatives. Two names, Gebal and the Hagrites, we still cannot place.
- Ringed. Through verse 8 the names circle the land: south, east, north, then the coast. Every enemy has a footing near Israel.
- Ringleader. Edom stands first, not as the strongest, but as the one urging the rest on. A close neighbour knows the people and the land best.
- Ruined. The last conspiracy ends in judgment, and that judgment shows Jehovah is Most High over all the earth.
Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia, with the inhabitants of Tyre;
Psalm 83 is a prayer against a league of nations that has agreed on one aim: to wipe Israel out of existence. Verse 7 adds more names to that alliance. Who are these peoples, and why does Scripture list them?
The names are not random. Read as a map, they draw a circle around the land. This verse closes it.
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 comes next on the east, with Amalek joining on the south-west. The whole coastline follows — Philistia, with the inhabitants of Tyre. These match the nations named first. So enemies with a foothold in the land surround the whole nation of Israel. From outside the land, Assyria adds her help to Moab and Ammon.
Some of these peoples are well known. Others are not. One commentator maps out the region, then admits where the evidence runs out.
They are Israel's closest neighbors, as far as we know them — and mostly their relatives too, along with Philistia and Tyre, who lay on the borders of their land... So Israel's enemies are all around her. Edom, Ishmael, and Moab are in the south; Ammon and Amalek on the east; the Philistines and Tyrians on the west coast; and Assyria to the north. Two of them we do not know for sure — Gebal and the Hagarenes, or Hagarites... Gebal appears only here, if the Gebal of Ezekiel 27:9 (the home of the Giblites of Joshua 13:5) is a different place.
Commentators differ: Whybrow places Gebal near Lebanon in the north, while Grant leaves it unidentified.
Amalek once held a leading place among the nations. Here it appears again, as one name among many.
Israel's ancient enemies are all united, and Amalek appears among them. Amalek is only one of the group. It no longer holds the leading place it once had as "the first of the nations." It is there to receive its final judgment from the Lord at His coming.
Commentators read Amalek as a picture of something in us that God refuses to negotiate with.
Amalek is a type of the flesh, and with flesh God can make no terms. In it dwells no good thing (Rom. 7:18); God condemned the sin that belongs to it in the sacrifice of Christ (Rom. 8:3). Scripture views Christians as having themselves "crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal. 5:24), which means they have accepted God's sentence against the evil thing.
The Philistines were not a distant power. They lived inside the land itself.
They appear to me to represent the power of the enemy acting within the circle of God's people. They were in the territory of the Israelites — within the land, and even on this side of the Jordan. They were not, like the Egyptians or Assyrians, enemies from outside. They were always hostile to Israel, the people God had appointed to hold the promised land. They were all the more dangerous because they were always close by, and because they claimed the country as their own. So the Philistines picture the power of the enemy working from inside.
The last name on the list stands apart. Tyre's hostility grew from a different root.
The lesson is all the more serious because Tyre does not seem to have acted out of plain hatred for Israel. It was commercial greed. Tyre saw a chance to profit from the disasters of the chosen people. That greed drew the city into hostility toward Israel, and Jehovah resented it. His chastening of His people gives no one a right to the selfish greed that would profit from their troubles or their downfall.
Naming them has a purpose. The alliance stands so that judgment on it may teach the earth something.
It is the last confederacy of the nations surrounding Canaan, with Assur helping them. At the close of the psalm the cry is to God as such, because Israel is not yet settled in covenant blessing. Even so, the psalm brings in the name Jehovah. God will execute judgment, so that the rebellious nations may seek Jehovah's name... 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.
- Surrounded. These names close the circle. Hostile peoples surround Israel on every side, most with a foothold inside the land.
- Unknown. No one can identify Gebal and the Hagarites for certain, and commentators say so plainly.
- Inside. Philistia was dangerous because it was near — the enemy at work inside the land God had given.
- Greed. Tyre joined for profit, not from plain hatred. God resents those who cash in on His people's troubles.
- Named. The ring closes, then God breaks it. The nations learn what the psalm aims at: He whose name alone is Jehovah is Most High over all the earth.
Asshur also is joined with them they are an arm to the sons of Lot. Selah.
Psalm 83 names a ring of enemies who have banded together to wipe Israel out. The list closes with a power from far outside that ring. So the verse raises three questions. Who is Asshur? Why are Moab and Ammon called "the children of Lot"? And what does it mean that Assyria becomes their "strong arm"?
The first name in the verse is not a new nation but an older spelling of a familiar one.
Another form of Asshur or Assyria. Ezra 4:2; Ps. 83:8.
The other nations in the list all sit close to Israel, in a circle around her. Assyria does not. One writer traces the sweep of the list and then marks where Assyria stands:
Edom and the Ishmaelites on the south appear to stand out. The alliance spreads north to Moab and the Hagarites on the east, and to Gebal, near Lebanon, on the north. Ammon comes in next on the east, and Amalek joins on the south-west. Then the whole coastline follows — Philistia, with the people of Tyre. These match the nations named first. So enemies with a foothold in the land ring the whole nation of Israel. Outside it, Asshur adds her help to Moab and Ammon.
The verse does not say "Moab and Ammon." It names their ancestor. Those two nations began with Abraham's nephew Lot, and both are in the coalition:
The two sister-nations, Moab and Ammon, go by the name "the children of Lot" (Deut. 2:9). Both came from incest (Gen. 19:37-38). They have always been bitter enemies of God's chosen nation, and they will never relent. They will belong to the coming great alliance of nations that the revived Assyrian power will form. Its aim is to destroy the children of Israel and to blot their very name off the earth (see the prophecy in Psalm 83:4-8).
Of the whole list, one name carries the greatest weight, and the family tie is the sad note:
Of all of these, the most important is Assyria, the King of the North. He will come like a whirlwind against Israel (Dan. 11:40), and bring ruin and destruction such as has never been before. One sad fact is that these enemies were once close relatives of the Israelites. Verse 8 links Lot with them, and Lot was the nephew of Abraham.
The verse calls Assyria the strong arm of the children of Lot: a great power lending its strength to its neighbours' plan. One writer names the goal of the alliance, and shows who is on stage in this scene and who is not:
Here we have another page of Israel's history while in the land. The nations inside the land and along its borders band together, and the Assyrian helps them. He joins them to cut off Israel — now recognised as a nation there — from being a nation, so that no one remembers the name of Israel any more. This is not about the Jews or the Antichrist, and the Spirit is not moving in that line of thought. The beasts are not on the scene at all. Israel is in the land, and the appeal goes up to God for His name and His honour. They are His enemies, they will have "the houses of God in possession."
Prophecy gives the northern power other names too. One writer warns against pressing the links too hard:
In the prophet Daniel we find another title, "the King of the North," and in Ezekiel, "Gog." It would not be wise to speak too firmly about how far to identify these with the Assyrian. Daniel does not use that name, but several of the other prophets speak of him often… In Psalm 83 and other passages various nations join with the Assyrian, just as the ten kings stand with the chief of the Roman Empire in Revelation 13 and 17… Whatever power or group of powers this name points to, it is clear that they come from the regions north of Palestine.
The alliance of verse 8 works to erase a name. The psalm ends by making a name known:
This is the last alliance of the nations surrounding Canaan, with Assur helping them… God will execute judgment, so that the rebellious nations may seek Jehovah's name. The point is not to know the Father, nor to know there is a God, but to know Jehovah… 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.
- Name erased. The whole alliance has one aim: to blot out Israel's name for good.
- Name lent. Asshur is Assyria. It stands outside the land and lends its strength to the neighbours pressing in on Israel.
- Name shared. Moab and Ammon are called "the children of Lot" — Abraham's nephew — so the attackers are relatives.
- Name uncertain. Writers agree the Assyrian comes from the north. They warn against tying him too firmly to other names in prophecy.
- Name known. The judgment on this alliance leaves one name standing: Jehovah, the Most High over all the earth.