Ps. 83.5 (Even against you)

For they have consulted together / with one mind
even against you / they are making a covenant. 

Here we come, in many ways, to the crux of the psalm as it pertains to the enemies. What we come to see in this verse is that, through the covenant they make with each other, the enemies become the enemy. They are of ‘one mind’. The covenant makes of their multiplicity a unity. This is not Israel versus another nation. It is Israel versus a single entity (call it the beast or dragon with ten horns). Perhaps most troubling is the fact that Yhwh himself has become the object of their attack. Previously, these nations were designated as enemies of Yhwh, however, their attack and their taunt were directed solely at Israel; she was the one they wanted to exterminate. There is an important shift, however, in this verse. The covenant these nations are entering into is “even against you”. There is something of a note of shock in the psalmist’s wording. Even he is taken aback by their aim. We might even say that what we see here is not an ‘anti-Christ’ but the ‘anti-Yhwh’. They are going after Yhwh and they are doing it as a united, covenanted and terrifying force.