Psalm 83: Prophecy or Lament?

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

Audio for this article here: SermonAudio.com/StudyGrowKnow

I’ve been reading about the difference of opinions surrounding Psalm 83. There appear to be two main camps; one believes Psalm 83 is unfulfilled prophecy; a future war between Israel and Arab nations. The other camp believes Psalm 83 is merely a lament with imprecatory tones, like the kind David wrote (Psalm 55:15, 69:28, and 109:8, etc.). Which view is the correct view? For what it’s worth, I’ve decided to add my voice and opinion to the situation.

Each student of Scripture is obligated to research and be the best researcher of Scripture they can be to ultimately learn God’s intended meaning on this and every other area of Scripture. I say that as a reminder that the Scripture was ultimately penned by God (through roughly 40 different human authors), and what we have in the Bible is God’s Words to us, regardless of the human instrument. Because these are God’s Words to us, it is exceedingly important that we come away with His meaning that He intended to provide. Anything other than that is eisegesis, which means reading our meaning into the text, based on our cultural context and worldview.

Psalm 83 has a total of 18 verses and Asaph the writer, speaks of ancient enemies of Israel and what he would like God to do about those enemies. Bill Salus in his book Israelestine, believes Psalm 83 is a prophetic passage of Scripture describing a yet future conflict between Israel and Arab nations. He looks to the time (soon), when the events of this Psalm are fulfilled. He further believes that this coming Psalm 83 conflict between Israel and her enemies, will usher in the needed peace and security for Israel, necessary for the coming Northern Invasion of Ezekiel 38-39 after the Psalm 83 war.

1 Do not keep silent, O God!
Do not hold Your peace,
And do not be still, O God!
2 For behold, Your enemies make a tumult;
And those who hate You have lifted up their head.
3 They have taken crafty counsel against Your people,
And consulted together against Your sheltered ones.
4 They have said, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation,
That the name of Israel may be remembered no more.”
5 For they have consulted together with one consent;
They form a confederacy against You:
6 The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites;
Moab and the Hagrites;
7 Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek;
Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8 Assyria also has joined with them;
They have helped the children of Lot. Selah
9 Deal with them as with Midian,
As with Sisera,
As with Jabin at the Brook Kishon,
10 Who perished at En Dor,
Who became as refuse on the earth.
11 Make their nobles like Oreb and like Zeeb,
Yes, all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,
12 Who said, “Let us take for ourselves
The pastures of God for a possession.”
13 O my God, make them like the whirling dust,
Like the chaff before the wind!
14 As the fire burns the woods,
And as the flame sets the mountains on fire,
15 So pursue them with Your tempest,
And frighten them with Your storm.
16 Fill their faces with shame,
That they may seek Your name, O Lord.
17 Let them be confounded and dismayed forever;
Yes, let them be put to shame and perish,
18 That they may know that You, whose name alone is the Lord,
Are the Most High over all the earth. (NKJV)

Psalm 83 as Prophecy
One of the main reasons Bill Salus and others believe Psalm 83 to be predicting an actual future war with Israel is based on the groups mentioned in the Psalm itself. They are:

• EDOM
• ISHMAELITES
• MOAB
• HAGRITES
• GEBAL
• AMMON
• AMALEK
• PHILISTIA
• TYRE
• ASSYRIA

Note that even though Egypt itself is not mentioned in the above list, Bill Salus connects the Hagrites with Ancient Egypt. Joel Richardson notes that during the time of Asaph having written this particular Psalm, Egypt was a very well known nation. Why did Asaph not include Egypt by name, versus referring to it as Hagrites, as Salus believes?

When this psalm was written in the 10th century B.C., the Hagarites were a people who lived in the region of northern Jordan, east of Gilead (based on 1 Chronicles 5:10) [1]

If you follow this link at the end of this sentence, you’ll find a transcript of Salus’ on set interview regarding this very subject: Lion & Lamb with Bill Salus

Salus believes as noted that this coming conflict is different from the Ezekiel 38-39 Gog/Magog or Northern Invasion, which will happen after the fulfillment of Psalm 83. I’ve written quite a few articles on Ezekiel 38-39 which can be viewed at this link: Ezekiel 38-39 articles and generally speaking, there’s a good deal of information about these chapters, but we cannot be clear on the timing either.

Though Salus appears certain that this particular Psalm is fully prophetic, let me interject this though. Take the time to read Ezekiel 38-39, then read Psalm 83. Then read both again. Then start to do some comparisons. When I read Ezekiel 38-39, I come away with a definite, clear picture prophecy. Why is that? It is unmistakable because of language used and images conjured up, specifically pointing to a future period from Ezekiel’s perspective.

God speaks through the prophet and says He is going to do certain things and is extremely specific about what He is going to do when Gog gathers his forces and tries to attack Israel. In fact, it’s also very clear that God gives Gog the idea in the first place, though Gog thinks he thought it up. There is much about these two chapters in Ezekiel that indicate to us we are reading prophecy. Many (like me), believe the prophecies included in these two chapters are still yet future because we cannot look back and point to a specific time when these chapters might’ve been fulfilled. Others see them as already having been fulfilled, normally by allegorizing them a bit here and there.

Salus is clear that he believes Israel is not living securely now, which he thinks, will eventually usher in this Psalm 83 Israel-Arab conflict and produce that “security” for Israel. He says the Hebrew “yashab betach” means a “…security that is accomplished through military defeat.” Salus even states, based on this thinking that “…at this point and time I don’t see that Israel exists.” The problem is that author, Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum says otherwise, that essentially Israel is secure in their ability to defeat their enemies, just as they did during the Six Day War (my paraphrase, from his book The Footsteps of the Messiah). Israel most certainly exists and even the ungodly UN admits that fact. Israel appears secure in the sense of being able to defend itself against her enemies as we’ve seen in recent history time and time again.

Psalm 83 has hardly anything in it that would clearly indicate to us that it is prophetic at all. In fact, one of the things Salus does is point to the fact that Asaph is a “seer.” Okay, yes, he was considered a seer, someone who could predict future events by God’s power and for God’s glory. But that does not mean that everything Asaph ever stated was meant as prophetic and that he only spoke in prophetic language.

Asaph is credited with writing 12 of the Psalms, many of which are laments, hymns, songs of thanksgiving, wisdom and liturgies. Some of his writings do forecast judgment to come like Psalm 50, but often Asaph wrote in general terms and likely looks toward the end of this age when we see Jesus Messiah coming as Lord, King and Judge of this earth and when all wrongs will be righted and injustices dealt with perfectly.

Likewise, the apostle Paul revealed a number of “mysteries” in his writings, revealed to Him directly by our Lord. Things like the “church,” “the Rapture,” and other things were presented as subjects and events that were to yet occur in the future but were unknown previously. However, this does not mean that everything Paul taught was prophetic. In fact, much of what Paul taught was simply Bible truth, telling us the relationship we have with Christ through the Holy Spirit and how we are to actually live as ambassadors of Christ in this life, for the main purpose of presenting the Gospel to the lost of this world. While that might include highlighting aspects of either past or future prophecy in the transmission of the Gospel, the emphasis is not on prophecy.

There is actually much more in Psalm 83 that supports the idea that this particular Psalm was essentially a lament of Asaph, not prophecy. Asaph is lamenting a number of things in that Psalm. He is vexxed in his spirit and wants God to do something about it, but he is of course, leaving all of that up to God’s perfect will.

Psalm 83:5-6 might seem on the surface to presage a coming conflict, but is that going to happen or is Asaph simply again talking in general terms regarding the way the Arab nations hate Israel; always have and always will until God physically judges them?

For they have consulted together with one consent; They form a confederacy against You…

Ultimately, each reader can make up their own mind. But this leads me to another sore spot. The End Times is big business for many. These folks often make a decent living from their books and speaking engagements. I’m not knocking that, but what I am knocking or questioning is the way they always tend to introduce a new theory. It’s always via spectacular wording like, “long lost prophetic verses finally unlocked!” or “learn the secret meaning of Bible verses which finally shed the light on today!”

The truth is that when we see this type of hype, it may be best to move on past it. I’ve spent some amount of time investigating these things and too often, they come to absolutely nothing meaning the the reality doesn’t live up to the hype or worse, many of these “new” reveals are little more than repackaged Gnosticism, masquerading as God’s revealed intentions. We need to do better and be better about not tagging along with every new wind of doctrine that comes out today.

One last thing for now. If you are feeling as though you are all by yourself and most people have no clue what you’re talking about when you speak of the Great Reset, Internment Camps and the like, it’s probably best not to continue talking with those people. While they’ll accuse you of having a cognitive dissonance that won’t allow you to see the truth (because you’re ostensibly a conspiracy theorist), they refuse to acknowledge that the same thing they accuse you of operates in them.

Society has gotten to a point where people are clearly divided over many things. Whether it’s theology or Eschatology or what is happening in the world right now that may affect all of humanity in the near future or something else, it’s very clear people have dogmatic positions they hold dear. Get used to being called a “conspiracy theorist.”

We see Jay Inslee of Washington hiring “strike teams” for “isolation and quarantine” camps.[2] We read a bill going through New York State Senate describing how the state will deal with people whom they consider to be public health threats. [3] The truth is that in spite of facts and information out there, some will always look at it and go, “So what’s the problem? They’re just thinking of our health and safety.”

Finally, read Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s new book, The Real Anthony Fauci. I’ve ordered it and will be highlighting it in an upcoming article. You want to know the truth or at least the alleged truth about Fauci? It’s in there. The only way to know whether or not the accusations against Fauci are true is whether we see a lawsuit for defamation coming from Fauci. Why am I thinking that’ll never happen?

We’ll be back with more on Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 soon.

[1] https://joelstrumpet.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Psalm-83.pdf

[2] https://gellerreport.com/2021/09/gov-inslee-setting-up-covid-internment-camps-in-washington-state-issuing-job-listings-for-strike-team-coordinator.html/

[3] https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/a416

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective