Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John Calvinconsult our own safety by taking shelter under the shadow of the Almighty, and, conscious of ourown weakness, committing our salvation to him, casting it, so to speak, into his bosom.4 They have said, Come and let us cut them off from being a nation. The wickedness of thesehostile powers is aggravated from the circumstance, that it was their determined purpose utterly toexterminate the Church. This may be restricted to the Ammonites and Moabites, who were asbellows to blow up the flame in the rest. But the Hagarenes, the Syrians, and the other nations,being by their instigation affected with no less hatred and fury against the people of God, for whosedestruction they had taken up arms, we may justly consider this vaunting language as uttered bythe whole of the combined host; for having entered into a mutual compact they rushed forwardwith rival eagerness, and encouraged one another to destroy the kingdom of Judah. The prime agentin exciting such cruel hatred was doubtless Satan, who has all along from the beginning beenexerting himself to extinguish the Church of God, and who, for this purpose, has never ceased tostir up his own children to outrage. The phrase, to cut them off from being a nation, signifies toexterminate them root and branch, and thus to put an end to them as a nation or people. That thisis the meaning is more clearly evinced from the second clause of the verse, Let the name of Israelbe no more remembered The compassion of God would in no small degree be excited by thecircumstance that this war was not undertaken, as wars commonly have been, to bring them, whenconquered, under the power of their enemies; but the object which the cruelty of their enemiesaimed at was their entire destruction. And what did this amount to but to an attempt to overthrowthe decree of God on which the perpetual duration of the Church depends.Psalm 83:5-85. For they have consulted with the heart together; they have entered into a covenant 434 againstthee. 6. The tents of Edom, 435 and the Ishmaelites 436 Moab 437 and the Hagarenes. 438 7. Gebal, 439434 The Hebrew is , berith yichrothu, “they have cut a covenant.” The verb is from , carath, he cut, which, with thenoun, , berith, signifies to strike a league, or to covenant The phrase owes its origin to the custom which prevailed, in ancienttimes, of sacrificing an animal at the forming of solemn leagues, and dividing the victim in twain, the contracting parties passingbetween the two pieces; see volume 2, page 264, note. It is then affirmed of these combined enemies of the Jews, that they hadcut the covenant sacrifice; that they had slain a sacrificial victim, divided it in twain, and passed between the pieces’ thus mutuallybinding themselves to accomplish their hostile purpose.435 That is, the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, (Genesis 25:30.) They were a pastoral people, and made great use of tents.436 The Ishmaelites were the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, by Hagar the Egyptian, (Genesis 25:12-18.) They inhabitedpart of Arabia.437 That is, the Moabites, the descendants of Moab, a son of Lot, by one of his daughters, (Genesis 19:37.)438 The Hagarenes or Hagarites were the posterity of Abraham by Keturah, (who is supposed to have been Hagar,) whom hemarried after Sarah’s death. They dwelt on the east of Gilead, in the vicinity of the Euphrates. In the days of Saul war was madeupon them by the Reubenites, who, after having nearly destroyed them and expelled them from their country, dwelt in their tents,(1 Chronicles 5:10.) They seem again to have recruited their strength; but where they afterwards dwelt is not known. “They areprobably the same,” says Cresswell, “as the Saracens.”439 Gebal, which signifies a mountain, denotes, according to some, the Giblites, who inhabited a district on the Phoeniciancoast in the neighborhood of Tyre. They were a tribe of the Aborigines of Canaan, and are mentioned as left by Joshua to beconquered after his death, (Joshua 13:5.) They were of considerable service to Hiram, king of Tyre, in preparing materials forSolomon’s temple, as we learn from 1 Kings 5:18, where the original word for stone-squarers is haggibelim, the Giblites;and it would seem from Ezekiel’s speaking of “the ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof,” (Ezekiel 27:9,) that they roseto no small degree of eminence. The ruins of an ancient city called by the natives Gibyle, situated upon the Mediterranean Sea205