Ps. 83.6 (night)

The tents of Edom / and the Ishmaelites
Moab / and the Hagrites
Gebel / and Ammon / and Amalek
Philistia / with the inhabitants of Tyre
Also, Assyria is joined with them
they have become the arm / of the sons of Lot. 

These verses can be lost in a haze of obscurity and historical particularity. In fact, it is not even clear exactly who all these parties are, or even whether the psalmist regards them as literal or representative. It may be, for example, that ‘Assyria’ is merely representative of a massive and looming enemy. Be that as it may, one thing that does seem to emerge from this list of peoples is the fact that they are arrayed around Israel. Their covenanted unity, then, is one of a boa-constrictor as they steadily exert pressure upon Israel from all sides simultaneously and in concert. This (probable) fact increases the sense of menace and dread that pervades the psalm. Not only are the enemies acting as a single enemy (a single ten-headed beast) but there is no avenue of escape. This is something that is, in many ways, unique. Often Israel would play itself off against one power by siding with another. Here, however, there is no one to run to. The darkness is not only looming but encompassing. It is as if the night were to emerge from every direction, rising from the ground, like some rising blanket of chaos and death. We must pause on this—to Israel it appears as if the four-corners of the earth have united in a single concerted effort to exterminate her, to wipe her name off of the earth, indeed to wage war against her god directly.