1.
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.
‘THY HIDDEN ONES’
‘They have … consulted against Thy hidden ones.’
Psalms 83:3
I. We may draw sweet and almost inexhaustible instruction from the names given to the children of God in Scripture.—This title of the Lord’s hidden ones is full of consolation. How many a Lazarus is there whom the world in its giddy course of pride, or reclining in its purple luxury, disdains to feed with its superfluous crumbs! And at times the poor sufferer himself may make his moan, ‘I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind.’ It is so different to suffer in an amphitheatre of admiring spectators, and to languish in solitary grief, unwitnessed and unknown. Yet is this no unfrequent badge of discipleship. The servant is not greater than his Lord. ‘He was despised and rejected of men.’ ‘Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.’
II. You see your calling then, concealed saint, one of the Lord’s hidden ones—hidden from the glare and glitter of the world, and the pomps and passions of life: hidden in respect of your tears and trials, your joys and felicities: hidden as to your true inalienable glory—a child of God, an heir of blissful immortality; a king and priest unto our God for ever. Yes, hidden now, and many stormy waves about you; but what a hiding-place! ‘In the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me.’ Those who are admitted to the private apartments of their sovereign, are not wont to complain of their seclusion. And mark the next clause: ‘He shall set me up upon a rock.’ Those who are now hidden in the clefts of the Rock of Ages, shall one day stand thereon and sing.
—Bishop E. H. Bickersteth.
Illustration
‘This psalm may be traced to that terrible crisis in the history of Judah described in 2 Chronicles 20. It was written apparently before the Hebrews had received the assurance of victory, and when the first rumours of the confederacy were bruited abroad. The alliance of the surrounding nations threatened the very existence of the chosen people. Then it was that this psalm pleaded for the interposition of Jehovah, and challenged Him to do again as He had done.’
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.