The vision of the judgement of unjust rulers who oppress God's people within the nation is followed by a prayer for the judgement of the nations which threaten to destroy God's people as a nation from without. The nations around are represented as joining in an unhallowed confederacy against Israel.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Keep not_&c. O God (_Elôhîm_), keep not still, lit. _let there be no rest to thee. hold not thy peace_ Or, be not silent. Cp. Psalms 28:1; Psalms 35:22; Psalms 39:12. _be not still_ Neither take thou rest, O God (_El_). For the phrases of this verse cp. Isaiah 62:1; Isaiah 62:6-7. God seems to be i... [ Continue Reading ]
An urgent prayer that God will come to the rescue of His people, whom their enemies are conspiring to annihilate.... [ Continue Reading ]
_make a tumult_ A word denoting the uproar and tumult of a throng of people: the substantive for _multitude_, frequently used of a great army, is derived from it: cp. Psalms 46:3; Psalms 46:6; Isaiah 17:12; Isaiah 29:5; Isaiah 29:7-8; 2 Chronicles 20:2; 2 Chronicles 20:12; 2Ch 20:15;... [ Continue Reading ]
_They have taken … and consulted_ They are taking … and consulting together. Jehovah's _hidden ones_are His people whom He conceals in His pavilion in the day of trouble (Psalms 27:5; Psalms 31:20), those to whom He has given an asylum from their enemies. The later Greek Versions (Aq. Symm. Theod.)... [ Continue Reading ]
_from_being _a nation_ Their aim is to obliterate the name of Israel from the map of the world. For the phrase cp. Jeremiah 48:2; and see Psalms 74:8; 1Ma 5:2. _that the name_&c. More accurately, and so the name of Israel shall be remembered no more.... [ Continue Reading ]
_they are confederate against thee_ Lit., against thee do they make a covenant. Cp. Psalms 83:2.... [ Continue Reading ]
An enumeration of the confederate peoples. From the southeast come the Edomites, who inhabited the mountainous region between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Akaba, and the Ishmaelites, who roamed over the deserts from the borders of Egypt to the north-west shore of the Persian Gulf (Genesis 25:18): fr... [ Continue Reading ]
_The tabernacles_&c. The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, i.e. the nomadic Edomites and Ishmaelites who dwell in tents. Cp. Habakkuk 3:7. _of Moab_ Omit _of_.... [ Continue Reading ]
_the Philistines_ Lit. Philistia. In Amos 1:6 ff., Amos 1:9 ff., Philistia and Tyre are censured for surrendering Israelite captives to Edom, which in its turn (Psalms 83:11) is condemned for unbrotherly hostility to Israel.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Assur_ Assyria. The mention of Assyria as an auxiliary of Moab and Ammon seems to imply that it was not yet a leading power, which would fall in with an early date for the Psalm. Assyria is not known to have come in contact with Israel until the reign of Jehu, who paid tribute to Shalmaneser II in... [ Continue Reading ]
Do thou unto them as unto Midian; As unto Sisera, as unto Jabin, at the torrent of Kishon. The victory of Gideon over the confederate forces of the Midianites, Amalekites, and Arabians (Judges 7:8) is referred to by Isaiah as a typical triumph (Isaiah 9:4; Isaiah 10:26). They fell, like Jehoshapha... [ Continue Reading ]
Prayer for their destruction as the Canaanites were destroyed by Deborah and Barak, and the Midianites by Gideon.... [ Continue Reading ]
En-dor is not mentioned in the narrative of Judges, but it was situated in the same valley as Taanach and Megiddo, which are named in Judges 5:19, and is mentioned along with them in Joshua 17:11. as _dung_ Omit _as_. A contemptuous expression for the fate of un-buried corpses. Cp 2 Kings 9:37; Jer... [ Continue Reading ]
The Psalmist returns to Gideon's victory. Oreb and Zeeb (-Raven" and -Wolf") were the princes, i.e. generals, of the Midianites (Judges 7:25; Isaiah 10:26); Zebah and Zalmunna were the kings of Midian (Judges 8:5 ff., Judges 8:12; Judges 8:18 ff.).... [ Continue Reading ]
Who have said, Let us take for ourselves in possession The habitations (or, _pastures_) of God. _Who_refers to the present enemies of Israel, not to the Midianites. God's habitations or pastures are the land which He has given to His people Israel. Cp. 2 Chronicles 20:11. The LXX reads _altar_, or... [ Continue Reading ]
_make them like a wheel_ Rather, like whirling dust or chaff. Anything whirled away before the wind may be meant. Thomson (_Land and Book_, p. 563) thinks that the globular heads of the wild artichoke may be meant. They are light as a feather, and in the autumn when they break off from the parent st... [ Continue Reading ]
Renewed prayer for the dispersion and destruction of the enemy expressed by figures from nature. The final end and object of all is that they may acknowledge Jehovah to be supreme.... [ Continue Reading ]
As fire that consumeth a forest, And as flame that burneth up mountains; So shalt thou pursue them with thy tempest, And dismay them with thy hurricane. God's wrath is a fiery blast which at once kindles and fans the flame (Isaiah 29:6; Isaiah 30:27; Isaiah 30:30; Isaiah 30:33), and pursues and... [ Continue Reading ]
_Fill their faces_with _shame_ Or, disgrace. Let them be disgraced by defeat and disappointed in their project. But this is only as the means to the higher end, that they may seek Jehovah's name, recognising in Israel's God the God of revelation, and submitting themselves to His Will.... [ Continue Reading ]
Let them be ashamed and dismayed for ever; Yea, let them be put to confusion and perish:... [ Continue Reading ]
That they may know that thou, whose name is JEHOVAH, even thou alone, Art the Most High over all the earth. The primary object of chastisement is conversion (Psalms 83:16); but if they will not acknowledge Israel's God as the God of revelation, let them be compelled by reiterated judgements to rec... [ Continue Reading ]