Psalm 83
The Lord Most High has many enemies
0 A Song or Psalm of Asaph. 1 Do not keep silent, O God: do not hold your peace, and do not be still, O God. 2 For, behold, your enemies are roaring: and those that hate you have lifted up their head. 3 They have taken sly counsel against your people, and consulted against your hidden ones. 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.
- Satan is God’s first enemy and all those fallen angels that follow him. Then all people on earth who are not with the Lord are His enemies.
- Matthew 12:30 He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathers not with me scatters abroad.
- Psalm 57:1 Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me: for my soul trusts in you: yes, in the shadow of your wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be over.
5 For they have conspired together with one heart: they make a covenant against you: 6 The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; 7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; 8 Assur also has joined them: they have helped the children of Lot. Rest on it. 9 Do to them as to the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison: 10 who perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth. 11 Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb: yes, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna:
- God created all these in His image (Genesis 1:27) and gave them their every breath (Job 12:10).
- 2Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any perish, but that all come to repentance.
12 Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession. 13 O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind. 14 As the fire burns a wood, and as the flame sets the mountains on fire; 15 So persecute them with your tempest, and make them afraid with your storm. 16 Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek your name, O LORD. 17 Let them be confounded and troubled forever; yes, let them be put to shame, and perish: 18 That men may know that you, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, are the most high over all the earth.
- God’s name JEHOVAH speaks of His self-existence which sustains all that He has created.
- The wheel turns endlessly mashing against the ground.
- Stubble before the wind is never seen again.
- The tempest and storm belong to the
Lord.
- Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and fires can all serve God as ways to cause people to return to Him.
- God’s purpose in all is that man seek Him.
- The word ‘name’ means person.
- Acts 17:24 God that made the world and all things in it, since that he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; 25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, since he gives to all life, and breath, and all things; 26 And has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed, and the boundaries of their habitation; 27 That they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might feel after him, and find him, though he is not far from every one of us: 28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being
- 1Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
- Psalm 96:5 For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.
Psalm 84
The LORD is our sun and shield, He withholds nothing from those that walk uprightly
0 To the chief Musician on Gittite harp, A Psalm for the sons of Korah. 1 How lovely are your tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! 2 My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh cries out for the living God. 3 Yes, the sparrow has found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God.
- Lovely, amiable, friendly or sociable, there is no place like God’s house.
- God made us in His image for Himself.
- He alone satisfies the heart of man.
- How precious is our God. How kind and welcoming to all, even sparrows and swallows make their home in His altar.
- John 6:35 And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life: he that comes to me will never hunger; and he that believes on me will never thirst.
- 1Timothy 1:17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
4 Blessed are they that dwell in your house: they will be still praising you. Rest. 5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in you; in whose heart are the ways of them. 6 Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also fills the pools.
- Valley of Baca is the valley of tears.
- Suffering unites a person with God, making him strong in the Lord through faith in His word and the tears become the fountain of living waters springing to eternal life.
- 1Peter 4:1 Since Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind: for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin;
7 They go from battalion to battalion, every one of them in Zion appears before God. 8 O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Rest. 9 Behold, O God our shield, and look on the face of your anointed. 10 For a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather to sit at the threshold of the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. 11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. 12 O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusts in you.
- Unseen enemy forces try to break our faith in it God’s word (Ephesians 6:12).
- Zion symbolizes that place in our hearts where the last enemy of our thoughts has been conquered by faith in God through His word (Romans 10:17), our soul is then pure and we can see God in our hearts now and soon face to face.
- Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they will see God.
- Psalm 16:11 You will show me the path of life: in your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
Psalm 85
The LORD will speak peace to His people; He gives what is good
0 To the chief Musician, A Psalm for the sons of Korah. 1 LORD, You have been favorable to your land: You have brought back the captivity of Jacob. 2 You have forgiven the iniquity of your people; you have covered all their sin. Rest on it.
- God allowed His people to be taken captive by their enemies because they turned away from worshipping Him to worship empty things.
- Man, in his first sin, covered himself with fig leaves.
- That was not acceptable to God.
- He made them coats of skins because without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin (Genesis 3:21, Hebrews 9:22).
- Deuteronomy 30:1 And it will happen, when all these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse that I have set before you, and you will call them to mind among all the nations, where the LORD your God has driven you, 2 And will return to the LORD your God, and will obey his voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart, and with all your soul; 3 That then the LORD your God will turn your captivity, and have compassion on you, and will return and gather you from all the nations, where the LORD your God has scattered you. 4 If any of yours be driven out to the farthest parts of heaven, from there will the LORD your God gather you, and from there will he bring you.
- 1John 1:9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
3 You have taken away all of your wrath: You have turned yourself from the fierceness of your anger. 4 Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause your anger toward us to stop. 5 Will you be angry with us forever? Will you draw out your anger to all generations? 6 Will you not revive us again: that your people may rejoice in you? 7 Show us your love, O LORD, and grant us your deliverance.
- Psalm 57:10 For your love is great unto the heavens, and your truth to the clouds.
8 I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace to his people, and to his saints: but do not let them turn again to folly. 9 Surely his deliverance is near those that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land. 10 Love and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. 11 Truth will spring out of the earth; and righteousness will look down from heaven. 12 Yes, the LORD will give what is good; and our land will yield her increase. 13 Righteousness will go before him; and will set us in the way of his steps.
Psalm 86
The LORD’S love toward us is great; He has delivered us from the lowest hell
0 A Psalm of David. 1 Bow down your ear, O LORD, hear me: for I am poor and needy. 2 Preserve my soul; for I am holy: O you my God, save your servant that trusts in you.
- Only God can preserve the soul.
- Psalm 36:6 Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep: O LORD, You preserve man and beast.
3 Be merciful to me, O Lord: for I cry to you daily. 4 Rejoice the soul of your servant: for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. 5 For you, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive; and abundant in love to all that call on you.
- 1Peter 2:24 Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, would live to righteousness: by whose wounds you were healed.
6 Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications. 7 In the day of my trouble I will call on you: for you will answer me. 8 Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord; neither are there any works like your works. 9 All nations whom you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; and will glorify your name. 10 For you are great, and do wondrous things: you alone are God.
- Psalm 96:5 For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.
11 Teach me your way, O LORD; I will walk in your truth: unite my heart to fear your name. 12 I will praise your O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify your name for evermore. 13 For great is your love toward me: and you have delivered my soul from the lowest hell. 14 O God, the proud have risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul; and have not set you before them. 15 But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in love and truth. 16 O turn to me, and have mercy on me; give your strength to your servant, and save the son of your handmaid. 17 Show me a token for good; that those who hate me may see it, and be ashamed: because you, LORD, have helped me, and comforted me.
- The Lord has more strength than we need.
- Psalm 33:6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all their host of by the breath of his mouth. 9 For he spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.
Psalm 87
God’s foundation is in His holy mountains
0 A Psalm or Song for the sons of Korah. 1 His foundation is in the holy mountains. 2 The LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
- Zion was the enemy fortress that David captured from the Jebusites at Jerusalem.
- The Jebusites were the last enemies to conquer in
the promised land.
- The spiritual meaning is understood by remembering that Jacob was the name of Israel before God taught him to walk by faith.
- God loves victory over the enemy more than the defeat of unbelief.
- 1John 5:4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
- Romans 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
3 Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God. Rest. 4 I will mention Rahab and Babylon to them that know me: behold Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia; this man was born there.
God is the highest of all forever; He establishes Zion
5 And of Zion it will be said, This and that man was born in her: and the highest himself will establish her.
- Psalm 92:8 But you, LORD, are most high forevermore.
- 1Peter 5:10 the God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.
6 The LORD will count, when he writes up the people, that this man was born there. Rest. 7 As well the singers as the
players on instruments will be there: all my springs are in you.
- John 4:14 But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I give him will be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Psalm 88
0 A Psalm or Psalm for the sons of Korah, to the chief Musician on Mahalath Leannoth, an instructive poem of Heman the Ezrahite. 1 O LORD God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before you: 2 Let my prayer come before you: turn your ear to my cry; 3 For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draws near the grave. 4 I am counted with those that go down to the pit: I am as a man that has no strength: 5 Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom you remember no more: and they are cut off from your hand. 6 You have laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. 7 Your wrath lies hard upon me, and you have afflicted me with all your waves. Rest.
- Psalm 119:67 Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now I have kept your word.
- Isaiah 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bore them, and carried them all the days of old.
8 You have put away my acquaintance far from me; you have made me an abomination to them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth. 9 My eye mourns by reason of affliction: LORD, I have called on you daily; I have stretched out my hands to you. 10 Will you show wonders to the dead? Will the dead arise and praise you? Rest.
The Lord’s love is excellent; His faithfulness is beyond compare
11 Will your love be declared in the grave? Or your faithfulness in destruction? 12 Will your wonders be known in the dark? And your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? 13 But to you have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning my prayer will come before you. 14 LORD, why do you cast off my soul? Why do you hide your face from me? 15 I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer your terrors I am distracted. 16 Your fierce wrath goes over me; your terrors have cut me off. 17 They came round about me daily like water; they totally surround me. 18 Lover and friend you have put far from me, and my acquaintance into darkness.
- God is a wonderful Father.
- He doesn’t let us continue on reckless pathways but allows difficulties that will guide us back to His place of blessing.
- All suffering is either like Job, who God used as an example to prove Satan wrong, or instructive discipline that we have brought on ourselves by bad choices.
- Psalm 36:6 Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep: O LORD, You preserve man and beast.
- Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Psalm 89
God is our defender; the Holy One of Israel is our King
0 An instructive poem of Ethan the Ezrahite. 1 I will sing of the love of the LORD forever: with my mouth will I make known your faithfulness to all generations. 2 For I have said, Love will be built up forever: You will establish your faithfulness in the very heavens. 3 I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn to David my servant, 4 Your seed I will establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations. Rest on it.
- Revelation 21:7 He that overcomes will inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he will be my son.
5 And the heavens will praise your wonders, O LORD: your faithfulness also in the congregation of the saints. 6 For who in the heaven can be compared to the LORD? Who among the sons of the mighty can be like the LORD? 7 God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be revered by all them that are about him. 8 O LORD God of hosts, who is a strong LORD like you? Or to your faithfulness round about you? 9 You rule the raging of the sea: when its waves arise, you still them. 10 You have broken Rahab/pride in pieces, as one that is slain; you have scattered your enemies with your strong arm.
- Rahab means proud boaster. None will boast in God’s presence (Ephesians 2:8, 9).
11 The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours: as for the world and its fullness, you have founded them. 12 The north and the south you created them: Tabor and Hermon will rejoice in your name. 13 You have a mighty arm: strong is your hand, and high is your right hand. 14 Justice and judgment are the habitation of your throne: love and truth go before your face.
- Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
15 Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they will walk, O LORD, in the light of your countenance. 16 In your name/person they will rejoice all the day: and in your righteousness they will be exalted. 17 For you are the glory of their strength: and in your favor our horn will be exalted. 18 For the LORD is our defense; and the Holy One of Israel is our king. 19 Then you spoke in vision to your holy one, and said, I have laid help on one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. 20 I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him: 21 With whom my hand will be established: my arm also will strengthen him. 22 The enemy will not take tribute from him; or the son of wickedness afflict him. 23 And I will beat down his enemies before his face, and plague them that hate him. 24 But my faithfulness and my love will be with him: and in my name will his horn be exalted. 25 I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers. 26 He will cry to me, You are my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. 27 Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.
28 I will guard my love for him for evermore, and my covenant will stand fast with him. 29 I will make his seed endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. 30 If his children forsake my law, and do not walk in my judgments; 31 If they break my statutes, and do not keep my commandments; 32 Then I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with wounds. 33 But I will not utterly take my love from him, or allow my faithfulness to fail.
- God’s love and faithfulness is greater than our failures.
- Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
34 I will not break my covenant with him or alter what has gone out of my lips. 35 Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie to David. 36 His seed will endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me. 37 It will be established forever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Rest. 38 But you have cast off and abhorred, you have been furious with your anointed. 39 You have made void the covenant of your servant: you have profaned his crown by casting it to the ground. 40 You have broken down all his hedges; you have brought his strong holds to ruin. 41 All that pass by the way spoil him: he is a reproach to his neighbors. 42 You have set up the right hand of his adversaries; you have made all his enemies rejoice. 43 You also have turned the edge of his sword, and have not made him to stand in the battle. 44 You have made his glory to cease, and cast his throne down to the ground. 45 The days of his youth you have shortened: you have covered him with shame. Rest.
- God is angry for sin and the ruin that it causes.God does these things to turn man’s heart back to Him so that He can bless.
46 How long, LORD? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire? 47 Remember how short my time is: why have you made all men in vain? 48 What man is he that lives, and will not see death? Will he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Rest. 49 Lord, where are your former loving kindnesses that you swore to David in your truth? 50 Remember, Lord, the reproach of your servants; how I bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people; 51 With which your enemies have reproached, O LORD; with which they have reproached the footsteps of your anointed. 52 Blessed be the LORD for evermore. Amen, and Amen.
- God’s loving kindness is better than life.
- Psalm 63:3 Because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips will praise you.
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SUMMARY: Psalms 83-89
- The LORD Most High has many enemies
- The LORD is our sun and shield
- He withholds no good thing from those who walk uprightly
- He will speak peace to His people
- He gives what is good
- His love toward us is great
- He has delivered our souls from the lowest hell
- God's foundation is in the Holy mountains
- He is the highest of all forever; He establishes Zion
- The LORD'S love is excellent; He is faithful beyond compare
- He is our defender
- The Holy One of Israel is our KING
- His love to us is forever
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