Cover their faces with shame, that they may seek Your name, O LORD.
This psalm was written when King Jehoshaphat faced a dreadful confederacy of enemies, not only Ammonites and Moabites, but forces mustered from Syria and distant lands that nearly overwhelmed Judah. The poet enumerates these many nations to show how urgent the prayer for God's aid must be, and to stir us to greater confidence that He will defend His Church against all who conspire to extinguish it.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 83:1-18
Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O Lord. Shame has often weaned men from their idols, and set them upon seeking the Lord. If this was not the happy result, in the present instance, with the Lord's enemies, yet it would be so with his people who were so prone to err.
Let the enemy's fate be what befell Midian, Sisera, and Jabin: total rout. God is unchanging toward His people and unchanged against their foes. The Midianites were routed by their own terror more than by Gideon's three hundred; Sisera's army became as dung on the earth. So shall these confederates perish, and Israel be preserved.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 83:9-18