Bible Strands
Psalms 83:15
so pursue them with Your tempest, and terrify them with Your storm.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist speaks to God, petitioning for divine action against a coalition of nations conspiring to destroy Israel. This request follows a description of God's past judgments and precedes a prayer that the enemies be shamed into seeking God's name.
The words — The verse centers on תִּרְדּ֫פֵם (tirdephem, "you will pursue them") and תְבַהֲלֵם (tevahelem, "you will terrify them"), directly linked to בְּסַעֲרֶךָ (besaarekha, "with your storm") and בְּסוּפָתְךָ (besufatekha, "with your storm-wind"). These terms describe the requested divine action as a relentless, violent pursuit.
The thread — The text's storm imagery parallels Job 9:17, where God crushes with a tempest, and Psalm 50:3, where a tempest rages around the approaching God. It also aligns with the sweeping destruction motif in Psalm 58:9, where God drives away enemies like burning thorns.
Why it lands — The text states that God will actively pursue and terrify opposing forces using storm and tempest, not human effort. It requires the reader to acknowledge that divine judgment operates through overwhelming, unstoppable force rather than negotiation or delay.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.
Cross-references
- Job 9:17 For He would crush me with a tempest and multiply my wounds without cause.
- Psalms 50:3 Our God approaches and will not be silent! Consuming fire precedes Him, and a tempest rages around Him.
- Psalms 58:9 Before your pots can feel the burning thorns—whether green or dry—He will sweep them away.
- Isaiah 28:17 I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the level. Hail will sweep away your refuge of lies, and water will flood your hiding place.
- Job 27:20 Terrors overtake him like a flood; a tempest sweeps him away in the night.
- Psalms 11:6 On the wicked He will rain down fiery coals and sulfur; a scorching wind will be their portion.
- Matthew 7:27 The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its collapse!”
- Hebrews 12:18 For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom, and storm;
- Isaiah 30:30 And the LORD will cause His majestic voice to be heard and His mighty arm to be revealed, striking in angry wrath with a flame of consuming fire, and with cloudburst, storm, and hailstones.
- Ezekiel 13:11 tell those whitewashing the wall that it will fall. Rain will come in torrents, I will send hailstones plunging down, and a windstorm will burst forth.