Guest Post: Psalmist’s Interpretation
[Below are the interpretations of the recent terrorist war on Israel as presented by our friend Josh Blumenthal’s brother David who was visiting family in Israel when the war began. -MarqueG]
Psalm 83
1A psalm against our enemies1
2God, do not You be silent!
Do not be still!
Do not be quiet, God!
3Indeed, Your enemies roar.
Those who hate You have lifted up their heads.
4They connive in secret against Your people.
They take counsel against Your treasure.
5They say, "Let us go and wipe them out from being a nation
so that the name of Israel never be mentioned again."
6Indeed, they have put their hearts together.
They have cut a covenant against You.2
They are the arm of the sons of Lot.3 Selah.
10Do to them as You did to Midian, and
to Sisera and Yavin at the stream of Kishon.
11They were destroyed at Ein Dor.
They were dung for the land.
12Make their leaders as ´Orev and Ze'ev.
all their chiefs as Zevah and Tsalmuna´.
13For they have said,
"We shall inherit for ourselves the gardens of God."4
14Oh, God,5
make them as tumbleweed!
as straw blown before the wind!
7The tents of Syrians and the Iraqis,
the Yemenis and the Iranians,
8Hamas, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, and al-Qaeda,
the Palestinian Authority and Hezbollah.
9The Turks, too, have joined them.
15As fire burns a forest,
as flames cause a mountainside to blaze,
16so should You pursue them in Your windstorm
and confound them in Your tempest!
17Fill their faces with humiliation
so that they seek Your Name, Lord!
18Let them be ashamed and confounded forever!
And let them be disgraced and destroyed!
19So that they know that You - Your Name - Lord, are alone,
far above all creation.6
There are enemies, and they are real. They threaten destruction, indeed genocide. The psalmist does not mince words here. This is a prayer for the destruction of one's national enemies. The psalm is divided into two parts, separated by the word "Selah.” The first part opens in prayer and then describes the situation in which enemies surround the people and openly plot their total annihilation (vv. 1-9). The second invokes history and is the psalmist's prayer that God thoroughly defeat the enemies -- politically and morally (vv. 10-19).
Verses 3-6 define the enemy. They are not ethnic entities, or nations, or a religion, or a political group. Rather, they are nations, ethnic entities, and religious or political groups that espouse genocide. They are those who want to "wipe out from being a nation," who intend that "the name of Israel never be mentioned again," who wish "to inherit for ourselves the garden of God." The enemy are those who preach hatred and violence in their public forums and glorify those who sacrifice their lives to embody that teaching. They are those who advocate terror and make heroes of those who practice it. They acknowledge no justification at all for the existence of Israel. They oppose coexistence and do not want peace. Teaching, practicing, and glorifying mass murder make one an enemy.
Verses 7-9 name the enemies. I have substituted modern names for the traditional text which, written in biblical times, reads as follows: "The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagarites. Geval, Amon, and Amalek; Philistia and the residents of Tyre. Assyria, too, has joined them. They are the arm of the sons of Lot. Selah." Hagarites is a synonym for Ishmaelites. The nations of Geval, Amon, and Amalek occupied what is now Jordan. Philistia was located in what is now the Gaza Strip though it covered more territory to the north. Tyre is still in Lebanon. Assyria was northwest of what is now Iraq. The modern names convey the contemporary reality rather than that of ancient history.
Verses 10-12 invoke God's action in history. Here, I have left the biblical names of the defeated foes precisely in order to invoke history and the covenant with God that governs history. Midian is soundly defeated by Gideon (Judges 7-8). The king of Hazor, Yavin, and his general, Sisera, are soundly defeated by Deborah, Barak, and Yael (Judges 5-6). The battle of Ein Dor is not directly recorded in connection with the war against Yavin and Sisera, but Ein Dor is close to Ta´anakh (Joshua 17:11) which is the location of the crucial battle in Deborah's war. ´Orev and Ze'ev are Midianite commanders killed in the battle (Judges 7:25). Zevah and Tsalmuna´ are Midianite kings killed in battle (Judges 8:12-21). The sons of Lot, by incestuous relationship with his daughters, were Moab and Amon (Gen. 19: 29-38). The historical references, thus, are quite real and serve as a powerful precedent for invoking God's protection.
Verses 14-19 are part of the psalmist's prayer but I have set them apart with a space because they can apply to any enemy in any time. The metaphors are very powerful: tumbleweed, straw in the wind, and a raging forest fire. The proper punishment is also strong: humiliation, shame, confounding, and disgrace, followed by destruction. The ultimate purpose, however, is not revenge but the acknowledgement of God's sovereignty over all God's creation. (The "they" in the last verse may refer to the destroyed enemies, or to the surviving enemies and bystanders.)
ENDNOTE: Prayer is serious business; it is not speech. To speak is to express, to externalize a thought or feeling. Prayer is performative speech; it is talking that intends action. A prayer for retribution is, therefore, not just an externalized emotion; it is speech moving toward power. As such, a prayer for retribution is ethically permissible; it is real prayer, one we fervently hope God will fulfill.
Serious prayer, however, is not serious action. One may pray "take now my life" (Jonah 4:3) but one may not commit suicide. One may pray that God kill one's enemies, as in this psalm, but one may not commit murder. Prayer, then, is more than speech and less than action. The psalm is serious prayer but it is not a call to action.
Happy are you if you do not know what this psalm is about. But we, as a people, do have enemies. And they do hate us. And they do really want to annihilate us. They do say, "Let us go and wipe them out from being a nation so that the name of Israel / America never be mentioned again." In the face of such hatred, love is not the answer. There is a time for love and understanding, but war is not one of those times. There is a time for reason and negotiation, but an environment of incitement and ongoing terror is not one of those times, even if the enemy dresses terror in national liberation. Rather, we must pray for the sound and thorough defeat of our enemies. We ask God to annihilate them, if there is no other choice -- and sometimes there isn't. (For more on this see, “Make Them as Tumbleweed,” here.)
[Blogger afterword: We thank Josh and David for sharing their perspective. For those who have not followed along in the comment section, that is where Josh has been posting updates from his brother along with more details of life in Israel under the state of emergency. The comment section for each newsletter welcomes everyone, so please do stop by.
This blog will otherwise return to its intended schedule of one newsletter each Monday from me, and a daily thread for open comments for anyone who checks in on the home page at 6:00 a.m. eastern time. Feel free to stop by and tell us what’s on your mind.
Finally, if anyone has anything they’d like to share as a newsletter, whether Monday or any other day, just get in touch with me by replying to this newsletter’s email and letting me know. We welcome fresh perspectives.
—MarqueG]
Finished a copyediting assignment this morning, now am cleaning out fridge and putting away groceries. Going to get back to it in a minute.
But have been keeping an eye on news reports. House Republicans nominated Scalise in secret ballot over Jordan, but it was close. Now they are having whatever discussions they have to have before a floor vote, which may come today or tomorrow. Apparently Jordan has endorsed Scalise, but other Rs have who knows what issues. I hope Gaetz got figuratively slapped around a lot. I hope the lesson was learned why it's best not to try to mess up the functioning of the federal government for your own amusement.
I think, given that they are acting like adults enough to try to fast-track this thing because the House has to be able to address an international crisis, that I'd take Scalise over Trump-endorsed (and Liz-denounced) Jordan. (Cassidy Hutchinson has said Jordan knew more about January 6 in advance. Gotta check if she says it in the book.) Scalise has been a Trump supporter, but seems like he knows how to be Speaker of the House and wants to be serious and get back to business. He is youngish (not 60 yet) and his cancer is one of the treatable kinds. I don't know if I like him better than McCarthy, but maybe I will.
I'm no expert on the math, but it seems that if they can't get enough Rs to vote for Scalise, the Dems could elect Jeffries. I looked up the latter and he also knows how to be Speaker of the House, and is considered a centrist, bipartisan type of Dem. So if the GOP can't get their act together enough to settle on Scalise, who would not be quite the worst kind of R, then we'll get a Dem who would be far from the worst kind of Dem, in a way that I most want to see take hold among the body politic. If the GOP can't even make a slight motion in the direction of center-right, I'll take center-left in a minute. It'll bring the GOP up sharp, that's for sure!
Presumably they all realize what the actual choice is about. And it occurs to me that the voting choice for House members is not going to be strictly binary, but bears more resemblance to a nonpartisan final-4 primary (although with 3 possibilities) rather than the regular kind, and these newer approaches tend to pull people away from extremes. Or do I have that wrong? It's been a long day.
It's near midnight in Jerusalem. A little while ago I sent an email to my nephew to ask about my brother, since there was no second email today. " All as well as can be expected here. He was just exhausted and went to sleep... "
There have been months that passed without communication between David and me but I was concerned and am relieved. I've been sharing David's emails because I find them compelling. I did not stop to think about all of your responses but I do want to say thank you to all of you for your sincere wishes and prayers. If they would let us, this CSLF family, we could work out a solution in one day, I'm sure. People need to get along and we know how to do that. Thank you, all of you.