Psalms for Tumultuous Times - Psalm 83: Free from the fear of our enemies

Psalm 83[1]

¹            O God, do not keep silence;
              do not hold your peace or be still, O God!
²              Even now your enemies are in tumult;
              those who hate you have raised their heads.
³              They lay crafty plans against your people;
              they consult together against those you protect.
⁴              They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation;
               let the name of Israel be remembered no more.”
⁵              They conspire with one accord;
              against you they make a covenant—
⁶              the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
              Moab and the Hagrites,
⁷              Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,
              Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;
⁸              Assyria also has joined them;
              they are the strong arm of the children of Lot.                                  Selah

⁹           Do to them as you did to Midian,
              as to Sisera and Jabin at the Wadi Kishon,
¹⁰           who were destroyed at En-dor,
              who became dung for the ground.
¹¹           Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb,
              all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,
¹²           who said, “Let us take the pastures of God
              for our own possession.”

¹³         O my God, make them like whirling dust,
              like chaff before the wind.
¹⁴           As fire consumes the forest,
              as the flame sets the mountains ablaze,
¹⁵           so pursue them with your tempest
              and terrify them with your hurricane.
¹⁶           Fill their faces with shame,
              so that they may seek your name, O Lord.
¹⁷           Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever;
              let them perish in disgrace.
¹⁸           Let them know that you alone,
              whose name is the Lord,
              are the Most High over all the earth.

The silence of God is as terrifying as being surrounded by crafty, conspiring bloodthirsty enemies. This is the setting of this psalm. Freedom from enemies is one of the central features of a thriving life. Freedom from fear and a freedom to worship God are two of the tenets of the Benedictus, the staple prayer of morning worship in the Anglican tradition:

1           Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel,  
             who has come to his people and set them free.
2           He has raised up for us a mighty Saviour, 
             born of the house of his servant David.
3           Through his holy prophets God promised of old
             to save us from our enemies,
             from the hands of all that hate us,
4           To show mercy to our ancestors,  
             and to remember his holy covenant.

5           This was the oath God swore to our father Abraham:
             to set us free from the hands of our enemies,

6           Free to worship him without fear,  
             holy and righteous in his sight
             all the days of our life.

Contrast this prayer of longing for freedom and rescue from enemies with Psalm 83 and what do you notice? Both the psalm and the Benedictus (the prayer of Zechariah, father of John the Baptist) were composed in a time of occupation by brutal powers. It is thought that the psalm was written sometime during the Assyrian occupation of northern Israel in the 8^th century BC. Zechariah’s prayer, written in the Gospel of Luke, was of course composed against the backdrop of the Roman Empire’s occupation of Palestine.

It is remarkable to realise how much of the bible was written by people who were experiencing the desperate reality of having no power and feeling surrounded by oppressors at every point.

The psalm’s theological response is not to find ways of instigating an insurrection or rebellion, but to call upon God to step out of the bubble of divine silence and take action. Luke’s praising father Zechariah, while also recognising the reality of enemies who hate, reaches back to the covenant of God to Abraham and reaches forward to the hoped for Messiah. The past and the future make sense of the present.

The silence of God very much is as terrifying as the reality of flesh and blood brutality. In verses 13-17, the psalmist, fuelled by a sense of real vengeance, asks God to turn the terror of their own experience on to enemies. Having named a host of historical enemies (listed in the book of Judges and the prophets) he calls on God to blow them all away like a hurricane! By contrast, the ‘mighty saviour’ of the Benedictus is Christ Jesus – who calms wild storms, who heals traumatised victims of military brutality (Legion in Mark 5), who sets free the lame and the blind from the captivity of their conditions and sets out the way of life which receives and gives shalom.

Free from fear and the tumult of plotters. Holy and righteous in God's sight already. This is the inheritance of the needy. 

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[1] New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.