Psalm 83 Feb. 17 A song. A Psalm by Asaph.  1God, don’t keep silent. Don’t keep silent and don’t be still, God. 2For, behold, Your enemies are stirred up, those who hate You have lifted up their heads. 3They conspire with cunning against Your people, they plot against Your cherished ones. 4Come, they say, and let’s destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more. 5For they have conspired together with one mind, they form an alliance against You. 6The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab, and the Hagrites; 7Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre; 8Assyria also is joined with them. They have helped the children of Lot. Selah. 9Do to them as You did to Midian, as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon; 10who perished at Endor, who became as dung for the earth. 11Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb; yes, all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna; 12who said, Let us take possession of God’s pasturelands. 13My God, make them like tumbleweed; like chaff before the wind. 14As the fire that burns the forest, as the flame that sets the mountains on fire, 15so pursue them with Your tempest, and terrify them with Your storm. 16Fill their faces with confusion, that they may seek Your name, Yahweh. 17Let them be disappointed and dismayed forever. Yes, let them be confounded and perish; 18that they may know that You alone, whose name is Yahweh, are the Most High over all the earth.   

Commentary

83:13 Like chaff before the wind- The language of Dan. 2:35,44 about the destruction of the ten toes of the image, representing Israel’s latter day enemies, at Christ’s return. Psalm 83 likewise features ten nations who will be bound together against Israel and then be dramatically destroyed by direct Divine intervention. It is tempting to equate these ten nations with the ten toes of the image of Dan. 2, and the ten horns of the latter day beast which we meet in Daniel and Revelation. These ten nations are geographically located in the peoples which currently surround the state of Israel, and the rhetoric they are prophesied as using is exactly the same as that used by the Palestinians and Israel’s Arab enemies. The situation around Israel is therefore a sure sign that Christ will soon return.
83:16 That they may seek Your name- The latter day judgments against Israel’s enemies, like all God’s judgments, are so that those nations may repent and come to relationship with God; they aren’t a mere outbreak of anger from an exasperated God.