John Calvin Commentary Psalms 83:5

"For they have consulted together with one consent; Against thee do they make a covenant:" — Psalms 83:5 (ASV)

For they have consulted with the heart together. The numerous armies that combined their strength to oppose the Church of God and to bring about her downfall are listed here. As so many nations, formed into one powerful alliance, were determined to destroy a kingdom not particularly distinguished by its power, the miraculous aid of God was absolutely essential for the deliverance of a people who, in such dire circumstances, were completely unable to defend themselves. In circumstances apparently as hopeless, good King Asa expressed that truly noble thought:

Lord, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God! For we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude (1 Chronicles 14:11).

The same Spirit who inspired that devout king with such unconquerable courage dictated this psalm for the benefit of the whole Church, to encourage her with unhesitating confidence to turn to God for help. And in our own time, He presents these words to us, so that no danger or difficulty might prevent us from calling upon God. When the whole world may conspire together against us, we have, so to speak, a wall of brass for the defense of Christ’s kingdom in these words, Why do the heathen rage? etc. (Psalms 2:1).

It will be very profitable for us to contemplate this as an example in which we see reflected, as in a mirror, what has been the lot of the Church of God from the beginning. If we reflect on this properly, it will keep us today from being unduly dejected when we witness the whole world arrayed against us. We see how the Pope has inflamed the whole world against us with diabolical rage. Therefore, wherever we turn our eyes, we meet with so many hostile armies seeking to destroy us.

But once we have arrived at a settled conviction that nothing strange is happening to us, the contemplation of the Church's condition in ancient times will strengthen us to continue in the exercise of patience until God suddenly displays His power, which is perfectly able, without any created help, to frustrate all the world's attempts.

To remove from the minds of the godly all doubts about whether help from heaven is readily available to them, the prophet distinctly affirms that those who harass the Church are guilty of making war against God, who has taken her under His protection. The principle upon which God declares that He will be our helper is contained in these words:

He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of mine eye (Zechariah 2:8).

And what is said in another psalm concerning the patriarchs is equally applicable to all true believers:

Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm (Psalms 105:15).

He intends the anointing with which He has anointed us to be, so to speak, a shield to keep us in perfect safety. The nations listed here did not openly make war against Him; but since, when He sees His servants unjustly assaulted, He interposes Himself between them and their enemies to bear the blows aimed at them, they are here justly represented as having entered into a league against God. The case is analogous to that of the Papists in the present day.

If anyone were to ask them, when they hold consultations for the express purpose of accomplishing our destruction, whether they were stronger than God, they would immediately reply that they had no intention whatever of assaulting heaven in imitation of the giants of old.

But since God has declared that every injury done to us is an assault upon Him, we may, as from a watchtower, behold in the distance by the eye of faith the approach of that destruction which the followers of Antichrist will eventually experience sadly and mournfully.

The expression, to consult with the heart, is explained by some as, to deliberate with the greatest exertion and earnestness of mind. Thus, we commonly say that something is done "with the heart" when it is done with earnestness and passion. But this expression is rather intended to signify the secret, cunning schemes mentioned earlier.

Some interpreters refer the tents of Edom to military equipment, and understand the words to mean that these enemies came well-equipped and supplied with tents for prolonging the war; but the allusion seems rather to be to the custom prevalent among those nations of dwelling in tents. It is, however, a hyperbolic expression, as if it had been said, so great was their eagerness to engage in this war, that they might be said even to uproot their tents from the places where they were pitched.

I do not intend to enter minutely into a discussion concerning the respective nations named here, as most of them are familiarly known from the frequency with which they are spoken of in the sacred Scriptures. When it is said that Assur and the rest were an arm to the sons of Lot, this is evidently an additional aggravation of the wickedness of the sons of Lot.

It would have been an act of unnatural cruelty for them to have aided foreign nations against their own kindred. But when they themselves are the first to sound the trumpet, and when on their own initiative they invite the aid of the Assyrians and other nations to destroy their own brethren, ought not such barbarous inhumanity to call forth the deepest detestation?

Josephus himself records that the Israelites had passed through their borders without doing them any harm, sparing their own kin according to the express command of God. When the Moabites and Ammonites then knew that their brethren the Jews spared them, remembering that they were of the same blood and descended from a common ancestor, ought they not also to have reciprocated such kindness on their part as not to have embarked in any hostile action against them?

But it is, so to speak, the destiny of the Church, not only to be assailed by external enemies, but to suffer far greater trouble at the hands of false brethren. At the present day, none are more furiously enraged against us than counterfeit Christians.