Psalms 83:1

¶ A Song [or] Psalm of Asaph. Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.

A Song {H7892} or Psalm {H4210} of Asaph {H623}. Keep not thou silence {H1824}, O God {H430}: hold not thy peace {H2790}{H8799)}, and be not still {H8252}{H8799)}, O God {H410}.

A song. A psalm of Asaf: God, don't remain silent! Don't stay quiet, God, or still;

O God, be not silent; be not speechless; be not still, O God.

O God, keep not thou silence: Hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.

Psalms 83:1 KJV Commentary: An Urgent Cry for Divine Intervention

Context of Psalms 83:1

Psalm 83 is attributed to Asaph, one of the three Levitical choirmasters appointed by King David (1 Chronicles 16:5). Asaph's psalms often reflect profound national distress, pleas for justice, and meditations on God's character. This particular psalm is a desperate prayer for God to act against a confederacy of nations threatening Israel. Verse 1 serves as the urgent opening, setting the tone for the entire psalm's plea for divine intervention against impending destruction. It reflects a moment when God's people felt abandoned or unheard, facing overwhelming odds.

Key Themes and Messages

  • Urgent Supplication: The repetition of "Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God" underscores the intense urgency and desperation of the psalmist's prayer. It's a fervent cry for God to break His perceived inaction.
  • Perceived Divine Silence: This verse articulates a common human experience of feeling that God is silent or unresponsive in times of crisis. The psalmist appeals to God's active presence and power, seeking His immediate engagement with the situation.
  • Trust in God's Sovereignty: Despite the plea, there's an underlying confidence that God is indeed sovereign and capable of intervening. The prayer is not a doubt of God's power, but an appeal to His will and justice, echoing similar cries found in other psalms of lament, such as Psalm 44:23.

Linguistic Insights

The Hebrew original uses three distinct verbs to express the psalmist's plea for God to cease His inactivity:

  • 'al-teḥĕrash (אל-תחרש): "Keep not thou silence" – carries the sense of not only being silent but also remaining passive or deaf to the cries.
  • 'al-tiqšob (אל-תקשב): "hold not thy peace" – implies not being attentive or not lending an ear.
  • 'al-tišṭoq (אל-תשׂתק): "be not still" – suggests not remaining idle or inactive.
This powerful threefold negation intensifies the plea, emphasizing the psalmist's desire for God to actively respond and intervene, not merely to hear but to act decisively.

Practical Application

Psalms 83:1 offers profound encouragement for believers today who face overwhelming circumstances or experience a season where God seems silent.

  1. Permission to Lament: It validates the human experience of distress and the right to cry out to God with raw honesty, even questioning His perceived inaction. God invites us to bring our deepest fears and frustrations to Him.
  2. Persistence in Prayer: The urgency in Asaph's prayer models persistent and fervent intercession. Even when answers are not immediate, we are called to continue seeking God's face and His intervention, trusting in His perfect timing and wisdom, as seen in Luke 18:1.
  3. Trust in God's Character: Ultimately, the plea rests on the psalmist's enduring faith in God's character—His justice, power, and faithfulness to His people. This verse reminds us to anchor our hope in who God is, even when His actions are not immediately clear.

Note: Commentary was generated by an advanced AI, utilizing a prompt that emphasized Biblical fidelity over bias. We've found these insights to be consistently reliable, yet we always encourage prayerful discernment through the Holy Spirit. The Scripture text and cross-references are from verified, non-AI sources.

  • Psalms 28:1

    ¶ [A Psalm] of David. Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, [if] thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

  • Psalms 35:22

    [This] thou hast seen, O LORD: keep not silence: O Lord, be not far from me.

  • Psalms 50:3

    Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.

  • Psalms 109:1

    ¶ To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise;

  • Psalms 109:2

    For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.

  • Isaiah 42:14

    I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, [and] refrained myself: [now] will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once.

  • Psalms 44:23

    Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast [us] not off for ever.

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