Psalm 83:5-8a

Psalm 83:5-8a

Unhelpful ancestry!

These verses have to be studied together because they provide a list of the nations that had threatened Israel at the time Psalm 83 was written. We start with those whose roots were in the historic ancestry of the Jews. 

Ishmael was the son of Abram and Hagar, Abram’s wife’s maidservant. Hagar was Egyptian and she conceived after childless Abram and Sarah decided to circumvent God’s covenant promises and provide their own heir. Ishmael went on to sire 1 daughter and 12 sons, and Islamic tradition names these as the 12 Princes or the 12 tribes of Ishmael. Ishmael’s descendants – the Arabs, and Isaac’s offspring – the Jews, have been enemies for centuries.

When the kingdoms of Israel and Judah controlled the land of Canaan, the kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom ruled east of the Jordan. Edom was located in the south of what is Jordan today and as the text tells us, the Edomites lived in tents and occupied land around the Gulf of Aqaba. The Edomites were direct descendants of Esau who was Jacob’s twin and Isaac’s oldest son, and so they were from the same family tree as Israel. The Edomites were later to be called Idumeans, from which nation Herod was appointed to be king of Israel just before Christ was born.

Who were the Ammonites? In the Bible, they are described as being descendants of Ben-ammi, who was the son of Lot (Abraham’s nephew) and Lot’s younger daughter (Genesis 19:38). Ben-ammi was conceived as a result of an incestuous plot by Lot’s daughters who got their father drunk so that they could sleep with him and have heirs. The modern Jordanian capital, Amman, gets its name from the Ammonites who occupied territory to the east of the Jordan River.

Lot’s elder daughter was also involved in the incestuous scheme to have a child by her father and her son was called Moab and his family grew to occupy the land south and north of the Arnon River, (which today is called Wadi Mujib.)

Some of Israel’s immediate neighbours were, therefore, the offspring of illicit sexual encounters that, at the time, seemed harmless enough. Years later those encounters produced nations that were always going to be a thorn in the side of the Jews and this has continued right to this very day! We need to learn that our actions and alliances, however secret or well meaning they may be, carry consequences, maybe for many generations. 

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