Psalm 83:13

Verse 13. Make them like a wheel. That is, cause them to fall into such great calamities that they can find no counsel or remedy for their misfortunes, and that they may run hither and thither like a wheel or a ball, and yet see not where they ought to stop, ot whither they ought to escape. Such are the minds of wicked men in calamities, wherever they turn they find no harbour wherein to rest, no certain consolation can they discover. They are tossed with perpetual disquietude; by running hither and thither and seeking various remedies they but weary themselves the more and plunge themselves the more deeply in their woes. This must necessarily happen to those who seek to cure evil with evil. Therefore Isaiah also says, the wicked are like the troubled sea. Mollerus.

Verse 13. Like a wheel. Mortals, like cylinders, are rolled hither and thither, oppressed with innumerable ills. Aurea Carmina. -- Pythagoras

Verse 13. There is no greater evidence against error, than that it is not constant to itself, no greater argument against these pretended great spirits, than that they cannot sit, know not where to fix, are always moving, as if the psalmist's curse had taken hold of them, as if God had made them like a wheel and as stubble before the wind, that can sit nowhere, rest at nothing, but turn about from one uncertainty to another. The Holy Spirit is a spirit that will sit still, and be at peace, continue and abide. Mark Frank.

Verse 13-14. In imagery both obvious and vivid to every native of the gusty hills and plains of Palestine, though to us comparatively unintelligible, the psalmist describes them as driven over the uplands of Gilead like the clouds of chaff blown from the threshing floors; chased away like the spherical masses of dry weeds which course over the plains of Esdraelon and Philistia -- flying with the dreadful hurry and confusion of the flames, that rush and leap from tree and hill to hill when the wooded mountains of a tropical country are by chance ignited. William Smith, in "A Dictionary of the Bible." 1863.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 13-15. The instability, restlessness and impotence of the wicked; their horror when God deals with them in justice.