Psalm 83 · a question people ask
"Make them like tumbleweed, like chaff before the wind" (83:13), and "let them be confounded and perish" (83:17). How can a psalm pray that?
First, what the verses say. The psalm gives its reasons before it prays: the enemies "conspire with cunning against your people" (83:3), they say, "let’s destroy them as a nation" (83:4), and "They form an alliance against you" (83:5). The prayer is spoken to God: "Do to them as you did to Midian" (83:9), "My God, make them like tumbleweed" (83:13), "so pursue them with your tempest" (83:15). The psalmist doesn't say he will act against them himself. And the prayer says what it is for, twice: "Fill their faces with confusion, that they may seek your name, LORD" (83:16), and "that they may know that you alone, whose name is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth" (83:18). The psalm puts those words beside "let them be confounded and perish" (83:17) and doesn't say how they fit; these notes don't choose a way to fit them. Psalm 83 is not the only psalm that prays against enemies, and Christians read these prayers in more than one way. The chapter on Psalm 109 sets out the main readings, each resting on its verses, and chooses none. These notes don't choose either.
The verses
“They conspire with cunning against your people. They plot against your cherished ones. “Come,” they say, “let’s destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.” For they have conspired together with one mind. They form an alliance against you.”
“Do to them as you did to Midian, as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon;”
“My God, make them like tumbleweed, like chaff before the wind. As the fire that burns the forest, as the flame that sets the mountains on fire, so pursue them with your tempest, and terrify them with your storm. Fill their faces with confusion, that they may seek your name, LORD. Let them be disappointed and dismayed forever. Yes, let them be confounded and perish; that they may know that you alone, whose name is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth.”
“For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. God of my praise, don’t remain silent, for they have opened the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of deceit against me. They have spoken to me with a lying tongue. They have also surrounded me with words of hatred, and fought against me without a cause. In return for my love, they are my adversaries; but I am in prayer. They have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.”