Psalms 83:17

May they be humiliated and continually terrified! ¹  May they die in shame! ² 

May they ever be ashamed and dismayed; may they perish in disgrace.

Let them be ashamed and dismayed forever, And let them be humiliated and perish,

Let them be ashamed and terrified forever. Make them failures in everything they do,

Bring them to the end of their rope, and leave them there dangling, helpless.

Let them be overcome and troubled for ever; let them be put to shame and come to destruction;

Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever; let them perish in disgrace.

Let them be confounded and dismayed forever; Yes, let them be put to shame and perish,

May they be humiliated and continually terrified! ¹  May they die in shame! ² 

¹ tn Heb “and may they be terrified to perpetuity.” The Hebrew expression עֲדֵי־עַד (’adey-’ad, “to perpetuity”) can mean “forevermore” (see Pss 92:7; 132:12, 14), but here it may be used hyperbolically, for the psalmist asks that the experience of judgment might lead the nations to recognize (v. 18) and even to seek (v. 16) God.

² tn Heb “may they be ashamed and perish.” The four prefixed verbal forms in this verse are understood as jussives. The psalmist concludes his prayer with an imprecation, calling severe judgment down on his enemies. The strong language of the imprecation seems to run contrary to the positive outcome of divine judgment envisioned in v. 16b. Perhaps the language of v. 17 is overstated for effect. Another option is that v. 16b expresses an ideal, while the strong imprecation of vv. 17-18 anticipates reality. It would be nice if the defeated nations actually pursued a relationship with God, but if judgment does not bring them to that point, the psalmist asks that they be annihilated so that they might at least be forced to acknowledge God’s power.