Psalms 83:13

13 My God, put thou them as a wheel; and as stubble before the face of the wind. (My God, put thou them into a whirlwind; yea, make them like the dust in 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 Put thou the princes of them as Oreb and Zeeb; and Zebah and Zalmunna. (Make thou their princes, or their leaders, like Oreb and Zeeb; and like Zebah and Zalmunna.)

12 All the princes of them, that said, Hold we by heritage the saintuary of God. (Yea, all their princes, or their leaders, who said, Let us take for ourselves the land that belongeth to God/the land that belongeth to God's people.)

13 My God, put thou them as a wheel; and as stubble before the face of the wind. (My God, put thou them into a whirlwind; yea, make them like the dust in the wind.)

14 As fire that burneth a wood; and as flame burning hills. (Like the fire that burneth a wood; and the flames that burn the hills,)

15 So thou shalt pursue them in thy tempest; and thou shalt trouble them in thine ire. (so shalt thou pursue after them with thy tempest; and thou shalt made them afraid with thy storm winds.)