Psalms 83:13

13 My God, make them like whirling dust, like chaff driven by the wind.

Psalms 83:13 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 83:13

O my God, make them like a wheel
Which, as the Targum adds, is rolled, and goes on, and rests not in a declivity; let them be as fickle and inconstant as a wheel; being in high, let them be in slippery places, and brought down to desolation in a moment; like a wheel set running down hill, so let them swiftly and suddenly come to ruin; or be in all kind of calamities, and continual troubles ^F11 as the wheel is always turning: some think there is an allusion to the wheel by which bread corn was bruised; see ( Isaiah 28:28 ) ( Proverbs 20:26 ) , but the word ^F12 signifies a rolling thing before the wind, as a wisp of straw or stubble, which is easily carried away with it: Jarchi interprets it of the tops or down of thistles, which fly off from them, and roll up, and are scattered by the wind; see ( Isaiah 17:13 ) , and which agrees with what follows:

as the stubble before the wind;
which cannot stand before it, but is driven about by it here and there; and so wicked men are, as chaff and stubble, driven away in their wickedness, with the stormy wind of divine wrath and vengeance, and chased out of the world, which is here imprecated.

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FOOTNOTES:

F11 "Vide Suidam in voce" (trocou) .
F12 (lglgk) "rem in levem quae turbine circumagitur", some in Amama; "pappos", i.e. "lanuginem carduorum", so some in Grotius; "as a rolling thing", Ainsworth.

Psalms 83:13 In-Context

11 Make their leaders like 'Orev and Ze'ev, all their princes like Zevach and Tzalmuna,

12 who said, "Let's take possession of God's meadows for ourselves."

13 My God, make them like whirling dust, like chaff driven by the wind.

14 Like fire burning up the forest, like a flame that sets the mountains ablaze,

15 drive them away with your storm, terrify them with your tempest.