1 O God, let there be no rest to Thee, Be not dumb, and keep not still, O God. 2 For, behold, Thy enemies make a tumult, And they who hate Thee lift up the head. 3 Against Thy people they make a crafty plot, And consult together against Thy hidden ones. 4 They say, Come, and let us cut them off from [being] a nation, And let the name of Israel be remembered no more.
5 For they consult together with one heart, Against Thee they make a league: 6 The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagarenes, 7 Gebal and Ammon and Amalek, Philistia with the dwellers in Tyre; 8 Asshur also has joined himself to them, They have become an arm to the children of Lot. Selah.
9 Do Thou to them as [to] Midian, As [to] Sisera, [to] Jabin at the brook Kishon, 10 [Who] were destroyed at Endor, [Who] became manure for the land. 11 Make them, their nobles, like Oreb and like Zeeb, And like Zebah and like Zalmunnah all their princes, 12 Who say, Let us take for a possession to ourselves The habitations of God.
13 My God, make them like a whirl of dust, Like stubble before the wind, 14 Like fire [that] burns [the] forest, And like flame [that] scorches [the] mountains. 15 So pursue them with Thy storm, And with Thy tempest strike them with panic. 16 Fill their face with dishonour, That they may seek Thy name, Jehovah.
17 Let them be ashamed and panic-struck for ever, And let them be abashed and perish; 18 And let them know that Thou, [even] Thy name, Jehovah, alone Art the Most High over all the earth.
This psalm is a cry for help against a world in arms. The failure of all attempts to point to a period when all the allies here represented as confederate against Israel were or could have been united in assailing it, inclines one to suppose that the enumeration of enemies is not history, but poetic idealisation. The psalm would then be, not the memorial of a fact, but the expression of the standing relation between Israel and the outlying heathendom. The singer masses together ancient and modern foes of diverse nationalities and mutual animosities, and pictures them as burying their enmities and bridging their separations, and all animated by one fell hatred to the Dove of God, which sits innocent and helpless in the midst of them. There are weighty objections to this view; but no other is free from difficulties even more considerable. There are two theories which divide the suffrages of commentators. The usual assignment of date is to the league against Jehoshaphat recorded in 2 Chron. xx. But it is hard to find that comparatively small local confederacy of three peoples in the wide-reaching alliance described in the psalm. Chronicles enumerates the members of the league as being the children of Moab and "the children of Ammon, and with them some of the Ammonites," which last unmeaning designation should be read, as in the LXX., "the Me'unim." and adds to these Edom (2 Chron. xx. 2, corrected text). Even if the contention of the advocates of this date for the psalm is admitted, and "the Me'unim" are taken to include the Arab tribes, whom the psalmist calls Ishmaelites and Hagarenes, there remains the fact that he names also Philistia, Amalek, Tyre, and Asshur, none of whom is concerned in the alliance against Jehoshaphat. It was, in fact, confined to eastern and south-eastern nations, with whom distant western tribes could have no common interest. Nor is the other view of the circumstances underlying the psalm free from difficulty. It advocates a Maccabean date. In 1 Macc. v. it is recorded that the nations round about were enraged at the restoration of the altar and dedication of the Temple after its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes, and were ready to break out in hostility. Cheyne points to the occurrence in Maccabees of six of the ten names mentioned in the psalm. But of the four not mentioned, two are Amalek and Asshur, both of which had been blotted out of the roll of nations long before the Maccabees' era. "The mention of Amalek," says Cheyne, "is half-Haggadic, half-antiquarian." But what should Haggadic or antiquarian elements do in such a list? Asshur is explained on this hypothesis as meaning Syria, which is very doubtful, and, even if admitted, leaves unsolved the difficulty that the subordinate place occupied by the nation in question would not correspond to the importance of Syria in the time of the Maccabees. Of the two theories, the second is the more probable, but neither is satisfactory; and the view already stated, that the psalm does not refer to any actual alliance, seems to the present writer the most probable. The world is up in arms against God's people; and what weapon has Israel? Nothing but prayer.