URC Daily Devotion 1st June 2025
Psalm 83
O God, do not keep silent,
do not be dumb and unmoved, O God,
defor your enemies raise a tumultte.
Those who hate you lift x up their heads.
They plot against your people,
conspire against those you love.
They say: “Come, let us destroy them as a nation;
let the name of Israel be forgotten.”
They conspire with a single mind,
they make common alliance against you,
the camps of Edom and of Ishmael,
the camps of Moab and Hagar,
the land of Ammon and Amalek,
Philistia, with the people of Tyre.
Assyria, too, is their allyd ze
and joins hands with the sons of Lot.
Treat them like Midian, like Sisera,
like Jabin at the River Kishon,
those who were destroyed at Endor,
whose bodies rotted on the ground.
Make their captains like Oreb and Zeeb,
all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,
those who said: “Let us take
the fields of God for ourselves.”
My God, scatter them like chaff,
drive them like straw in the wind!
As fire that burns away the forest,
as flame that sets the mountains ablaze,
drive them away with your tempest
and fill them with terror at your storm.
Cover their faces with shame,
till they seek your name, O Lord.
Shame and terror be theirs for ever;
let them be disgraced, let them perish!
Let them know that your name is the Lord,
the Most High over all the earth.
Reflection
There’s nothing quite like a good rant for making yourself feel better, to have a go against others for the iniquities and injustices they have visited upon you.
There’s no holding back. In anger, which originates in fear, the Psalmist is unconstrained by the rules of politeness many of us usually observe. Those who would wipe out the writer’s nation should themselves be destroyed – dung for the ground, chaff before the wind, reduced to ashes in the flames of God’s anger.
Or at least God’s anger as understood by the writer of the psalm. God remains silent. It’s hard to discern what the LORD thinks about this heartfelt plea for others’ destruction.
Hopefully, God is understanding. It’s understandable that when someone does something terrible to you (“you” as an individual, a group or a nation), you respond in an extreme way. The flames of anger burn bright, but if left unchecked they destroy not only one ‘s enemies, but all that is good in the one who is angry.
If the one who calls upon the LORD here gets their way – total destruction of the others – they will become the sort of person, group or nation that they think deserves God’s condemnation.
Perhaps in the concluding verses, doubt (or insight) begins to set in; the bright flame of anger splutters a little. Yes, the writer calls for others to ‘perish in disgrace,’ but this is sandwiched between a desire that shame will lead them to ‘seek your face, O LORD,’ and that they will acknowledge who is ‘the Most High over all the earth.’ Enemies will no longer exist, not because God has destroyed them, but because knowing God has led them to become people who are no longer our enemies.
Prayer
O God, hear me when I burn with anger at what others do to me and those I love, but restrain me, so that I do not become the thing I hate. Protect me, and reveal yourself to others, so that we might all live in friendship and in peace. Amen.