Mazmur 83:8-10

83:8 Even Assyria has allied with them,

lending its strength to the descendants of Lot. ¹  (Selah)

83:9 Do to them as you did to Midian ²  –

as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the Kishon River! ³ 

83:10 They were destroyed at Endor; ⁴ 

their corpses were like manure ⁵  on the ground.

[83:8]  ¹ tn Heb “they are an arm for the sons of Lot.” The “arm” is here a symbol of military might.

[83:8]  sn The descendants of Lot were the Moabites and Ammonites.

[83:9]  ² tn Heb “do to them like Midian.”

[83:9]  ³ sn The psalmist alludes here to Gideon’s victory over the Midianites (see Judg 7-8) and to Barak’s victory over Jabin’s army, which was led by his general Sisera (Judg 4-5).

[83:10]  ⁴ sn Endor is not mentioned in the accounts of Gideon’s or Barak’s victories, but both battles took place in the general vicinity of the town. (See Y. Aharoni and M. Avi-Yonah, The Macmillan Bible Atlas, 46, 54.) Because Sisera and Jabin are mentioned in v. 9b, many understand them to be the subject of the verbs in v. 10, though they relate v. 10 to Gideon’s victory, which is referred to in v. 9a, 11. (See, for example, Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 263.)

[83:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “they were manure.” In addition to this passage, corpses are compared to manure in 2 Kgs 9:37; Jer 8:2; 9:21; 16:4; 25:33.