Ps. 83.4 (a call to destruction)

They say
Come / let us exterminate them / as a nation
and the name of Israel / will be remembered no more 

In and of itself this call for nation extermination and name destruction is ambivalent, meaning it is something that Israel calls for (and practices) and her enemies call for (and practice). The question that needs to be addressed is how, in this psalm, the call for destruction is employed. First, there is no prior act of injustice that is recounted. In the psalms wherein the psalmist calls for extermination it is responsive, not initiative. Further, at least in the psalms, the call for extermination is never, as here, simply a ‘land grab’. Again, it is rooted in justice, not acquisition. There is another important difference: in this psalm, the call for nation destruction originates by a consensus of nations, not from a single nation. This may seem trivial, but I don’t think it is. These nations are in agreement only over one thing—Israel’s destruction. Their ‘covenant’ is one built not on a type of ‘kinship-concern’ for each other but on their mutual hatred; it is a ‘covenant of hate’. The very source and heart of their unity is destruction, death and extermination; nothing else. Once Israel is destroyed, they dissipate back into their respective territories. It is this ‘unity through hatred’ that is portrayed in apocalyptic literature as a “great beast”. There is something ‘wholly unholy’ about their union, from beginning (the covenant of hate) to end. A final note in this regard—I realize that the phrase “Come, let us…” is probably not standard. However, it is I think interesting to note that in the psalms the phrase is, to the best of my recollection, a call to unity through liturgy. It is a call for everyone to unite so that they can enter into God’s presence and there serve him and praise him. Here, the nations unite, they ‘call out’ saying “Come, let us…” but it is not for the purposes of liturgy but of annihilation. It is, in this way, a liturgy of darkness and chaos. Perhaps more telling still is that this unity of theirs is, in fact, a calling to ‘covenant’. It is, in some sense, a covenant ceremony (almost, a liturgy). It will be this primal act of covenanting that will create this unified ‘beast’; the covenant will be what creates this ten-headed (or, ten-horned) dragon.