Psalm 83
Where possible I like to put these psalms into their historical settings. Today’s Psalm 83 fits best with II Chronicles 20, where we see Moab, Ammon, and Edom (vv. 6-7) all gathered against Israel, with Assyria mentioned only as an ally (v. 8), not the powerful foe that destroyed the Northern Kingdom. Often we see I and II Chronicles retelling the events of I and II Kings, but there is no account of the battle of II Chronicles 20 in the Kings writings.
I was intrigued by verse 2: For behold, Your enemies make an uproar; those who hate You have raised their heads. The psalmist makes the enemies of Israel out to be God’s enemies also. Maybe that’s the case; all of these nations have their own gods that they worship; they see victory or defeat as the result of their gods acting in strength or weakness, so they may well have hated the God of Israel. But I tend to think of them hating the nation Israel, not the God of Israel. In present-day terms, it’s like Moslem extremists hating our Christian God, when in reality (it seems to me) they hate our American culture and all that they see as evil. Not a serious point to ponder, but an intriguing point to me…