83:4 They say, “Come on, let’s annihilate them so they are no longer a nation! 1
Then the name of Israel will be remembered no more.”
83:5 Yes, 2 they devise a unified strategy; 3
they form an alliance 4 against you.
83:6 It includes 5 the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
Moab and the Hagrites, 6
83:7 Gebal, 7 Ammon, and Amalek,
Philistia and the inhabitants of Tyre. 8
83:8 Even Assyria has allied with them,
lending its strength to the descendants of Lot. 9 (Selah)
83:9 Do to them as you did to Midian 10 –
as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the Kishon River! 11
83:10 They were destroyed at Endor; 12
their corpses were like manure 13 on the ground.
83:11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, 14
and all their rulers like Zebah and Zalmunna, 15
83:12 who said, 16 “Let’s take over 17 the pastures of God!”
49:1 The Lord spoke about the Ammonites. 18
“Do you think there are not any people of the nation of Israel remaining?
Do you think there are not any of them remaining to reinherit their land?
Is that why you people who worship the god Milcom 19
have taken possession of the territory of Gad and live in his cities? 20
1:13 You should not have entered the city 21 of my people when they experienced distress. 22
You should not have joined 23 in gloating over their misfortune when they suffered distress. 24
You should not have looted 25 their wealth when they endured distress. 26
1 tn Heb “we will cause them to disappear from [being] a nation.”
2 tn Or “for.”
3 tn Heb “they consult [with] a heart together.”
4 tn Heb “cut a covenant.”
5 tn The words “it includes” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
6 sn The Hagrites are also mentioned in 1 Chr 5:10, 19-20.
7 sn Some identify Gebal with the Phoenician coastal city of Byblos (see Ezek 27:9, where the name is spelled differently), though others locate this site south of the Dead Sea (see BDB 148 s.v. גְּבַל; HALOT 174 s.v. גְּבַל).
8 map For location see Map1-A2; Map2-G2; Map4-A1; JP3-F3; JP4-F3.
9 tn Heb “they are an arm for the sons of Lot.” The “arm” is here a symbol of military might.
10 tn Heb “do to them like Midian.”
11 sn The psalmist alludes here to Gideon’s victory over the Midianites (see Judg 7-8) and to Barak’s victory over Jabin’s army, which was led by his general Sisera (Judg 4-5).
12 sn Endor is not mentioned in the accounts of Gideon’s or Barak’s victories, but both battles took place in the general vicinity of the town. (See Y. Aharoni and M. Avi-Yonah, The Macmillan Bible Atlas, 46, 54.) Because Sisera and Jabin are mentioned in v. 9b, many understand them to be the subject of the verbs in v. 10, though they relate v. 10 to Gideon’s victory, which is referred to in v. 9a, 11. (See, for example, Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 263.)
13 tn Heb “they were manure.” In addition to this passage, corpses are compared to manure in 2 Kgs 9:37; Jer 8:2; 9:21; 16:4; 25:33.
14 sn Oreb and Zeeb were the generals of the Midianite army that was defeated by Gideon. The Ephraimites captured and executed both of them and sent their heads to Gideon (Judg 7:24-25).
15 sn Zebah and Zalmunna were the Midianite kings. Gideon captured them and executed them (Judg 8:1-21).
16 tn The translation assumes that “Zebah and Zalmunna” are the antecedents of the relative pronoun (“who [said]”). Another option is to take “their nobles…all their rulers” as the antecedent and to translate, “those who say.”
17 tn Heb “let’s take possession for ourselves.”
18 sn Ammonites. Ammon was a small kingdom to the north and east of Moab which was in constant conflict with the Transjordanian tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh over territorial rights to the lands north and south of the Jabbok River. Ammon mainly centered on the city of Rabbah which is modern Amman. According to Judg 11:13 the Ammonites claimed the land between the Jabbok and the Arnon but this was land taken from them by Sihon and Og and land that the Israelites captured from the latter two kings. The Ammonites attempted to expand into the territory of Israel in the Transjordan in the time of Jephthah (Judg 10-11) and the time of Saul (1 Sam 11). Apparently when Tiglath Pileser carried away the Israelite tribes in Transjordan in 733
19 tc The reading here and in v. 3 follows the reading of the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions and 1 Kgs 11:5, 33; 2 Kgs 23:13. The Hebrew reads “Malcom” both here, in v. 3, and Zeph 1:5. This god is to be identified with the god known elsewhere as Molech (cf. 1 Kgs 11:7).
20 tn Heb “Does not Israel have any sons? Does not he have any heir [or “heirs” as a collective]? Why [then] has Malcom taken possession of Gad and [why] do his [Malcom’s] people live in his [Gad’s] land?” A literal translation here will not produce any meaning without major commentary. Hence the meaning that is generally agreed on is reflected in an admittedly paraphrastic translation. The reference is to the fact that the Ammonites had taken possession of the cities that had been deserted when the Assyrians carried off the Transjordanian tribes in 733
21 tn Heb “the gate.” The term “gate” here functions as a synecdoche for the city as a whole, which the Edomites plundered.
22 tn Heb “in the day of their distress.” The phrase is used three times in this verse; the Hebrew word translated “distress” (אֵידָם, ’edam) is a wordplay on the name Edom. For stylistic reasons and to avoid monotony, in the present translation this phrase is rendered: “when they experienced distress,” “when they suffered distress,” and “when they endured distress.”
23 tn Heb “you, also you.”
24 tn Heb “in the day of his distress.” In this and the following phrase at the end of v. 13 the suffix is 3rd person masculine singular. As collective singulars both occurrences have been translated as plurals (“they suffered distress…endured distress” rather than “he suffered distress…endured distress”).
25 tc In the MT the verb is feminine plural, but the antecedent is unclear. The Hebrew phrase תִּשְׁלַחְנָה (tishlakhnah) here should probably be emended to read תִּשְׁלַח יָד (tishlakh yad), although yad (“hand”) is not absolutely essential to this idiom.
26 tn See the note on the phrase “suffered distress” in the previous line.