TheBibleNet: Psalm 83

Psalms:

Bk 1: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Bk 2: 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Bk 3: 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

Bk 4: 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

Bk 5: 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119a 119b 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132
133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150

Additional Psalms: 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 Samuel Chronicles

Essays: Intro - Music - Form & Language

KJ merges verse 1 into the title and adjusts its numbering accordingly; see my brackets.

83:1 SHIR MIZMOR LE ASAPH

שִׁיר מִזְמוֹר לְאָסָף

KJ (King James translation): (A Song or Psalm of Asaph.) Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.

BN (BibleNet translation): A song with musical accompaniment, for Asaph.

ASAPH: see previous notes.

83:2 ELOHIM AL DAMI LACH AL TECHERASH VE AL TISHKOT EL

אֱלֹהִים אַל דֳּמִי לָךְ אַל תֶּחֱרַשׁ וְאַל תִּשְׁקֹט אֵל

KJ (83:1): as above

BN: Elohim, do not stay silent, do not pretend to be deaf. Do not sit still and do nothing, El.

DAMI: One of the most complex words in the Yehudit language, and surprising that it does not come up far more often as one of the word-games through which these Psalmists and Prophets explore ideas.

a) DAM = "blood", from which the ODEM, the blood-red stone; the land of EDOM, whose land (think of Petra especially) is precisely that colour; ADAM, the first male human; ADAMAH, the red earth; and obviously ADOM, the colour red.

b) DEMUT: "likeness", but not the one from which Adam was made, in Genesis 1:27; that was a TSELEM, and, as Maimonides tells us in his Principles of Faith, and as we sing on Friday evenings in the setting of Maimon's essay as Yigdal, EYN LO DEMUT HA GUPH VE EYNO GUPH" - the point of the TSELEM being that the deity is metaphorical nor physical, the protons and neutrons that create life in all its forms.

c) DUMAH: "silence", and especially "The Land of Silence", which is one of the many names for Death. Cf Hosea 4:5, Jeremiah 6:2. Though it is also used for "death-within-life", which is to say the many forms of anguish and depression; cf Lamentations 3:49, Jeremiah 14:17.

And which one is it here? That depends on how we understand its two parallels, which are TECHARESH and TISHKOT.

TECHARESH: literally "to cut" or "engrave", as in Genesis 4:22, but that makes no sense at all here. Cutting and engraving are the works of an artificer, someone who uses tools to transform one thing into another: a block of stone into a sculpture, a piece of dead land into furrowed-and-seeded farmland. Cf 1 Chronicles 4:14 and Isaiah 3:3 and you will understand why I have rendered this as "pretending to be deaf" rather than "staying silent".

TISHKOT: Whereas this one should really be translated as "stay silent". "SHEKET!" being the equivalent of "shut up!" in Ivrit. But the word tends, Biblically anyway, to be used for "having rest" in the broader sense - cf Joshua 11:23, Judges 3:11.

EL: Strange to find this word at all in the Psalm - El being the head of the Kena'ani (Cana'anite) pantheon; but he gets mentioned frequently, allowing us to assume that the Temple cult has absorbed pieces from other shrine-liturgies, adapting them as needed: Christianity does exactly the same with these Psalms. But this is not the oddity: it may simply be grammatical, but the word/name hangs at the end of the verse, without any obvious context besides the musical harmonisation with Elohim at the start.

Making it "O God", as KJ does, superimposes a context, but that context is not present in the Yehudit. I am tempted to wonder if this is not in fact EL the preposition, rather then EL the deity, and that a concluding word is simply missing; except that the logic of the sentence does not work for this explanation either. And see verse 17, which ends with YHVH in apparently the same formulation; so it really must be there to make bookends with Elohim, as a poetic device, or perhaps as a musical device, though we cannot know that as we do not have the score: and so it is El, the Kena'ani deity.

83:3 KI HINEH OYEVEYCHA YEHEMAYUN U MESAN'EYCHA NAS'U ROSH

כִּי הִנֵּה אוֹיְבֶיךָ יֶהֱמָיוּן וּמְשַׂנְאֶיךָ נָשְׂאוּ רֹאשׁ

KJ (83:2): For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.

BN: For, see, your enemies are in uproar; and those who hate you have lifted up their heads.

A call to the gods to defend themselves against the atheists and anti-theists who, it turns out, did exist in those days, despite my insistence in the notes to the previous psalm that it was surely too early in human development for Nihilism!

NAS'U ROSH: "Lifted their heads above the parapet", as in "ceased to accept the status quo passively", would be the modern idiom.

83:4 AL AMCHA YA'ARIYMU SOD VE YITYA'ATSU AL TSEPHUNEYCHA

עַל עַמְּךָ יַעֲרִימוּ סוֹד וְיִתְיָעֲצוּ עַל צְפוּנֶיךָ

KJ (83:3): They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.

BN: They are plotting conspiracies against your people, devising strategies against your treasured ones.

TSEPHUNEYCHA: The expression "chosen people" really belongs to Deuteronomy 14:1 and 2, though the phrase used there is AM SEGULAH, which infers something akin to "indentured labourers" - a people who become the property of their lord and master by signing a contract, or in this case a covenant. But "chosen people" is what is meant here, simply by means of a different adjective. How do we know? By seeing where else the word is used, and finding ourselves, first, with Yoseph in his Viziership in Mitsrayim, and then the birth of YHVH's chief Vizier Mosheh at the very start of Exodus 2.

83:5 AMRU LECHU VE NACH'CHIYDEM MI GOY VE LO YIZACHER SHEM YISRA-EL OD

אָמְרוּ לְכוּ וְנַכְחִידֵם מִגּוֹי וְלֹא יִזָּכֵר שֵׁם יִשְׂרָאֵל עוֹד

KJ (83:4): 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.

BN: They have said: "Let us go and cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Yisra-El shall never again be remembered."

The motto of the Nazi Party in Germany - the German word is Judenrein - and of HAMAS still today: yesterday's headline in the main Iranian newspaper. Why are the Jews the only people in the world whose entire history continuously contains statements of this sort by one people or another? (No, sorry, not true. I forgot one other people: the Roma).

83:6 KI NO'ATSU LEV YACHDAV ALEYCHA BERIT YICHROTU

כִּי נוֹעֲצוּ לֵב יַחְדָּו עָלֶיךָ בְּרִית יִכְרֹתוּ

KJ (83:5): For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:

BN: For they have conspired together single-mindedly against you; they have even signed a pact.

83:7 AHALEY EDOM VE YISHME-ELIM MO-AV VE HA GERIM

אָהֳלֵי אֱדוֹם וְיִשְׁמְעֵאלִים מוֹאָב וְהַגְרִים

KJ (83:6): The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes;

BN: The Bedou of Edom and the Yishma-Elim, Mo-Av, the Hagarim.

YISHMA-ELIM: See the link.

MO'AV: See the link.

AHALEY: Meaning those who dwell in tents, which is to say nomads, which, in that part of the world, means the Bedou.

HAGARIM: the Masoretic text actually renders this as HA GERIM, with a Sheva not a Qamats under the Gimmel; which should then get translated as "strangers" or "foreigners" (see for example Leviticus 19:34). But unpointed the context wants this to be HAGARIM. Hagar was the concubine of Av-Raham, with whom he parented Yishma-El, and Yishma-El will marry into the tribe of Edom. Mo-Av lies to the south-east of the Dead Sea, that area of modern Jordan which provides a pilgrim-route to Mecca, the route which Hājar and Ismail followed, in the Moslem version in the Qur'an. So a combination of the four makes sense, and this was presumably the view of the translators of the KJ, because they render it as Hagarenes, though today they would probably have gone for Hagarites, as a parallel for Ishmaelites.

83:8 GEVAL VE AMON VA AMALEK PELESHET IM YOSHVEY TSUR

גְּבָל וְעַמּוֹן וַעֲמָלֵק פְּלֶשֶׁת עִם יֹשְׁבֵי צוֹר

KJ (83:7): Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre;

BN: Geval, and Amon, and Amalek; Peleshet with the inhabitants of Tsur.

And the list of named peoples continues, making it even more certain, surely, that what was intended in the previous was HAGARIM and not the generality of HA GERIM.

GEVAL: Strabo (16:755) makes mention of a Phoenician city of this name, in the mountainous region between Tripoli and Berytus, and the reference to Tsur in the same verse makes this a possibility (Yechezke-El speaks highly of them as sailors in Ezekiel 27:9, and 1 Kings 5:32 admires their architects). But Tsur comes after Amon and Amalek, and those are in the same eastern side of Kena'an as Edom et al in the previous verse; so more likely this is the other GEVAL, the mountainous region to the south and east of the Yam ha Melach (Dead Sea), inhabited by Edomites.

AMON: See the link.

AMALEK: See the link.

PELESHET: Interesting to note this identification of two Hittite people, the Pelishtim of Azah (Gaza), previously Cheret (Crete), linked to what was probably their source (and Dan's too, and King Hu-Ram), in Tsur (Tyre).

TSUR: See the link.

83:9 GAM ASHUR NILVAH IMAM HAYU ZERO'A LIVNEY LOT (SELAH)

גַּם אַשּׁוּר נִלְוָה עִמָּם הָיוּ זְרוֹעַ לִבְנֵי לוֹט סֶלָה

KJ (83:8): Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.

BN: Ashur too has joined with them; they have lent a hand to the Beney Lot. (Selah)

ASHUR: See the link.

Almost all of these are Genesis references. BENEY LOT, on a list of Arabian peoples, adds weight to my conviction that LOT was originally al-Lat, one of the three daughters of al-Lah, absorbed into the Yisra-Eli cult and then masculinised.

SELAH: The indication of a musical break - but it seems to me that, on this occasion, the musical break is itself the indication of an end of the opening section. The picture has been painted: Yisra-El surrounded by an entire Arabia of enemies, sworn to its destruction, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in the Beqa'a Valley, Assad threatening from Syria, The Islamic State in Iraq... or at least their historical equivalents. And in section two, picking up the call in the the first two verses: not a call to the Yeshivot to send their young men for military conscription alongside the already-trained or training, but a call to their deity to act on their behalf because they couldn't possibly exchange the passivity (NASU ROSH in verse 3) of committed study for the putting of their tefilinned heads above the parapet. And no, this is not me taking the opportunity for some politics; this is the inference and insinuation of the language of the Psalm.

83:10 ASEH LAHEM KE MIDYAN KE SIYSRAH CHE YAVIYN BE NACHAL KIYSHON

עֲשֵׂה לָהֶם כְּמִדְיָן כְּסִיסְרָא כְיָבִין בְּנַחַל קִישׁוֹן

KJ (83:9): Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison:

BN: Do to them what you did to Midyan, what you did to Siys-Ra, what you did to Yavin, at the Kiyshon Brook...

SIYS-RA...YAVIN: The full story is told in Judges 4, but in fact we had already heard about Yavin in Joshua 11.

KIYSHON: The scene of the defeat of Siys-Ra in Judges 4, but also the final scene of the defeat of the priests of Ba'al by Eli-Yah (Elijah) in 1 Kings 18:40. If this second event is the one intended in the Psalm, then we would need to date it at no earlier than the 9th century BCE.

83:11 NISHMEDU VE EYN DOR HAYU DOMEN LA ADAMAH

נִשְׁמְדוּ בְעֵין דֹּאר הָיוּ דֹּמֶן לָאֲדָמָה

KJ (83:10): Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth.

BN: ...to those who were destroyed at Eyn Dor; they were turned into mulch to compost the earth.

EYN DOR: Best known for the scene that Shakespeare borrowed for Macbeth (Act 1 Scene 3): Sha'ul's visit to the oracular witch in 1 Samuel 28. But it was at Eyn Dor, four miles south of Mount Tavor, that the defeat of Yavin and Siys-Ra was completed - see my notes to Judges 4 which explore in detail the connection between the two Eyn-Dor references.

83:12 SHIYTEMO NEDIYVEMO KE OREV VE CHI ZE'EV U CHE ZEVACH U CHE TSALMUN'A KOL NESIYCHEMO

שִׁיתֵמוֹ נְדִיבֵמוֹ כְּעֹרֵב וְכִזְאֵב וּכְזֶבַח וּכְצַלְמֻנָּע כָּל נְסִיכֵמוֹ

KJ (83:11): Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb: yea, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna:

BN: Make all their nobles like Orev and Ze'ev, and all their princes like Zevach and Tsalmun'a.

Internal rhymes; repeated sounds (KE...CHE... ZEV...): who are these people? Most of them are creature-names, are they not, and the tales therefore mythological: the raven, the wolf? See Judges 7:25 for the demise of Orev and Ze'ev, Judges 8:5 for Zevach and Tsalmun'a, and see my commentaries on each of those chapters for a fuller explanation of this reference. But also see this link to Zevach for a very different, though probably connected, explanation of why these names; and then follow it through by looking at Leviticus 7:11 ff.

83:13 ASHER AMRU NIYRASHAH LANU ET NE'OV ELOHIM

אֲשֶׁר אָמְרוּ נִירֲשָׁה לָּנוּ אֵת נְאוֹת אֱלֹהִים

KJ (83:12): Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.

BN: Who said: "Let us obtain as our own property the habitations of Elohim".

NE'OV: The KJ translation makes it sound like it connects to NOV of pre-Yeru-Shala'im; but what is meant here is a take-over of the shrines; the reversal, in fact, of the religious conquest perpetrated by Mosheh and Yehoshu'a.

83:14 ELOHAI SHIYTEMO CHA GALGAL KE KASH LIPHNEY RU'ACH

אֱלֹהַי שִׁיתֵמוֹ כַגַּלְגַּל כְּקַשׁ לִפְנֵי רוּחַ

KJ (83:13): O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind.

BN: O my gods, make them like the whirling dust;, like stubble before the wind.

GALGAL: And then, following what might be Nov, what might be Gil-Gal, though again it isn't. I wondered earlier (but then deleted the thought) if this Psalm was playing around, like Freemasonry, in a realm where words have esoteric alongside daily meanings, and these last two verses give me the same frisson.

83:15 KE ESH TIV'AR YA'AR U CHE LEHAVAH TELAHET HARIM

כְּאֵשׁ תִּבְעַר יָעַר וּכְלֶהָבָה תְּלַהֵט הָרִים

KJ (83:14): As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire;

BN: Like fire that burns the forest, like the flame that sets the mountains ablaze.

83:16 KEN TIRDEPHEM BE SA'ARECHA U VE SUPHAT'CHA TEVAHALEM

כֵּן תִּרְדְּפֵם בְּסַעֲרֶךָ וּבְסוּפָתְךָ תְבַהֲלֵם

KJ (83:15): So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.

BN: So pursue them with your tempest, and terrify them with your storm.

God as a human-like creature, Santa Claus with an army of angels and cherubim... no, that is a much later, and very much a Gnostic, Zoroastrian, eventually Christian fantasy of the deity. This is Nature itself, which fights with the only weapons that it has: plagues, storms, droughts, avalanches, tectonic plates...

And of course it is a very effective weapon to conscript, if you are able to, when your land is being attacked on all sides, and your men are sitting in the Beit Midrash studying. Lord, you couldn't just happen to cause an earthquake, could you, right where the nuclear plant has been set up in Iran? And the sort of glacial winter that goes on for months and leaves the Beqa'a Valley uninhabitable? Thank you, Lord. And now, boys, back to Rashi.

83:17 MAL'E PHENEYHEM KALON VIYVAKSHU SHIMCHA YHVH

מַלֵּא פְנֵיהֶם קָלוֹן וִיבַקְשׁוּ שִׁמְךָ יְהוָה

KJ (83:16): Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O LORD.

BN: Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek your name, YHVH.

YHVH: Structurally, this appears to end the same way that verse 2 ended; but though it does indeed end with the god-name, here it is a logical and grammatical component of the sentence. Tough we should also add that it appears to be an addition: as so often, the need to include YHVH in a Psalm that clearly pre-dates his pre-eminence by centuries.

83:18 YEVOSHU VE YIBAHALU ADEY AD VE YACHPERU VE YO'VEDU

יֵבֹשׁוּ וְיִבָּהֲלוּ עֲדֵי עַד וְיַחְפְּרוּ וְיֹאבֵדוּ

KJ (83:17): Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish:

BN: Let them suffer shame and fear for ever; let them be so embarrassed that they die of it;

83:19 VE YED'U KI ATAH SHIMCHA YHVH LEVADECHA ELYON AL KOL HA ARETS

וְיֵדְעוּ כִּי אַתָּה שִׁמְךָ יְהוָה לְבַדֶּךָ עֶלְיוֹן עַל כָּל הָאָרֶץ

KJ (83:18): That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.

BN: And so that they may know that it is you alone whose name is YHVH, {N} the Most High over all the Earth. {P}

This statement, made in Yeru-Shala'im where El Elyon was the head of the pantheon in Av-Rahamic times, completes the take-over of the shrine, or, if you prefer, the absorption of the cult of El Elyon into the cult of YHVH - which is very ironic in the light of verse 13: exactly what the Psalm fears will happen to the cult of the Beney Yisra-El, achieved by them in its name.

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