“Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.”
Psalm 83 opens as a communal lament addressing national threat: "O God, do not keep silence; do not hold your peace or be still, O God!" The urgent appeal for God to abandon silence and inaction emphasizes the gravity of the crisis. The repetition of God's inactivity (silence, peace, stillness) suggests that the chief problem is not God's active judgment but God's apparent indifference. The imperative tone demands immediate divine intervention.
Church Fathers on Psalms 83:1
1. Of this Psalm the title is, “A song of a Psalm of Asaph.” We have already often said what is the interpretation of Asaph, that is, congregation. That man, therefore, who was called Asaph, is named in representation of the congregation of God's people in the titles of many Psalms. But in Greek, congregation is called synagogue, which has come to be held for a kind of proper name for the Jewish people, that it should be called The Synagogue; even as the Christian people is…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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