John Calvin Commentary Psalms 83:4

"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." — Psalms 83:4 (ASV)

They have said, Come and let us cut them off from being a nation. The wickedness of these hostile powers is aggravated by the fact that it was their determined purpose to exterminate the Church utterly. This may be restricted to the Ammonites and Moabites, who were like bellows fanning the flames among the others.

But the Hagarenes, the Syrians, and the other nations, being through their instigation filled with no less hatred and fury against the people of God (for whose destruction they had taken up arms), we may justly consider this boasting language as uttered by the entire combined army. For, having entered into a mutual pact, they rushed forward with competing eagerness and encouraged one another to destroy the kingdom of Judah.

The prime agent in inciting such cruel hatred was undoubtedly Satan, who, from the very beginning, has continually exerted himself to extinguish the Church of God. For this purpose, he has never ceased to stir up his own children to commit outrage.

The phrase, to cut them off from being a nation, means to exterminate them root and branch, and so to put an end to them as a nation or people. That this is the meaning is more clearly shown by the second clause of the verse: Let the name of Israel be no more remembered.

God's compassion would be greatly aroused by the fact that this war was not undertaken, as is common in wars, merely to bring them, once conquered, under the rule of their enemies. Instead, the cruel aim of their enemies was their utter destruction.

And what did this amount to, if not an attempt to overthrow the decree of God on which the perpetual duration of the Church depends?