Asaph’s Prayer Against a Coalition of Nations and for the LORD’s Name to Be Known

Psalm 83 is Asaph’s urgent plea for God not to remain silent while hostile nations conspire against God’s people and aim to erase their name. The coalition is presented as more than political hostility—it is rebellion against God’s order and His covenant purposes. Asaph asks the LORD to intervene as He did in past deliverances, recalling defeats of enemies in Israel’s history (Midian, Sisera, Jabin, and others). He prays for the enemies’ plans to be thrown into confusion, their pride humbled, and their strength broken. The ultimate goal is not revenge but that people would seek the LORD’s name and recognize that He alone is Most High over all the earth.

Psalms 83:1 – 83:18

  1 A Song [or] Psalm of Asaph. Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.
  2 For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.
  3 They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.
  4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from [being] a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
  5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:
  6 The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
  7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre;
  8 Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.
  9 Do unto them as [unto] the Midianites; as [to] Sisera, as [to] Jabin, at the brook of Kison:
  10 [Which] perished at Endor: they became [as] dung for the earth.
  11 Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb: yea, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna:
  12 Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.
  13 O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind.
  14 As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire;
  15 So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.
  16 Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O Lord.
  17 Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish:
  18 That [men] may know that thou, whose name alone [is] Jehovah, [art] the most high over all the earth.