God Almighty makes His intentions of love with clarity when His people are under duress from other pagans. Again the psalmist declares to God:
Psalm 83:3 They (the enemies) make shrewd plans against Your people, and conspire together against Your treasured ones.
What an honor and privilege to be considered and called His “treasured ones.” Or a variant reading says hidden ones. It’s the Hebrew word tsaphan, pronounced “sapan.”
But in the end, while their evil plan amounts to nothing for us as we’re delivered into His heavenly kingdom, it means destruction for them and the lake of fire.
One of my favorite commentaries, The Complete Biblical Library, puts it so well:
It is “thy people” who are the object of their crafty conspiracy, and it is implied that these are thus hated because they are God’s people. Israel’s prerogative, which evokes the heathen’s rage, is the ground of Israel’s confidence and the plea urged to God by it. Are we not your “hidden ones”? And shall a hostile world be able to pluck us from our safe hiding place in the hollow of your hand? The idea of preciousness, as well as that of protection, is included in the word. Men store their treasures in secret places; God hides his treasures in the secret of his face, the glorious privacy of light inaccessible. How vain are the plotters’ whisperings against such a people!
And in the midst of our sufferings as a result of their plans, we are the recipients of His comfort (2 Cor. 1) before the deliverance. The enemy can never remove us from that secure position: [Read more…]
