Psalm 83--Commonplace Book (from my readthrough of the Bible)

From the Jerusalem Bible, Psalm 83 begins:

God, do not remain silent;

do not be umoved, O God, or unresponsive!

See how your enemies are stirring, see how those who hate you rear their heads.

Weaving a plot against your people,

conspiring against those you protect, they say

"Come, we will finish them as a nation,

the name of Israel shall be forgotten!"

Unanimous in their plot,

they seal a treaty against you;

the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,

Moab and the Hagrites,

Gebel, Ammon, Amalek,

Philistia and the Tyrians;

and now Assur has joined them to reinforce the sons of Lot.

The footnotes in the Jerusalem Bible reads:

The names are those of ten traditional enemies of Israel.  Three of them are not immediately familiar from the historical books: "Hagrites", the sons of Hagar, are Transjordianian nomads; "Gebal" is Gablene in Idumaea; "Assur" may be either Assyria or the Asshurite tribe.

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I wanted to note this briefly here, because I just found it interesting that the Psalms include 3 "traditional enemies" of Israel that get completely left out of the historical books.  It's a reminder that that the historical books were a very selective history, and there must have been tons of stuff that got left out.  We get glimpses of some of that other stuff in books like Psalms.

Also, I googed "the Asshurite tribe" to try to find out who they were.  There's not a lot of information about them online, but I did find this from: https://biblehub.com/topical/a/asshurites.htm

The Asshurites are a group mentioned in the Old Testament, specifically in the context of the early monarchy of Israel. The term "Asshurites" is derived from "Asshur," which is often associated with Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. However, in the biblical context, the Asshurites are not directly linked to the Assyrian Empire but rather appear as a distinct group within the narrative of King David's reign.

The primary reference to the Asshurites is found in 2 Samuel 2:9, where they are listed among the territories over which Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, was made king by Abner, the commander of Saul's army. The verse states: "He made him king over Gilead, Ashuri, Jezreel, Ephraim, Benjamin, and all Israel" . The term "Ashuri" is often understood to refer to the Asshurites, indicating a region or people under Ish-bosheth's rule.