שִׁיר מִזְמוֹר לְאָסָף׃ - A song, a psalm of Asaph.
The Malbim, along with the other commentators, explains that this psalm was composed in the days of King Yehoshaphat. The children of Moav and the children of Ammon marched against him in war, joined by a vast multitude of nations, as we will see later in the psalm. King Yehoshaphat prayed to Hashem and proclaimed a fast. The spirit of Hashem then rested upon Yachaziel, a descendant of Asaph, in the midst of the congregation, and he encouraged the people, saying: Do not fear, for the battle is not yours, but God's; you will not need to fight in this - stand firm and see the salvation of Hashem. These events are described in II Chronicles, chapter 20, where it relates how the battle was ultimately decided when the enemies destroyed one another: Hashem confounded them, utter turmoil erupted, and they slaughtered each other. In this way, Israel won the war.
אֱלֹהִים אַל־דֳּמִי־לָךְ אַל־תֶּחֱרַשׁ וְאַל־תִּשְׁקֹט אֵל׃ - O God, do not keep silent; do not hold Your peace, and do not be still, O God.
"Do not keep silent [al domi lach]" - let there not be silence from You; do not cease Your involvement in this time of distress, when the enemies are harming us. The Malbim explains these three expressions and the distinctions between them. "Do not cease [al tidom]" means: do not abandon what You have been doing until now. The root d-m-m always refers to something that was previously active and then halted; as people say, "the engine died down" - meaning it had been running until that moment. Similarly, "so that my soul may sing to You and not be silent [velo yidom]" means it will continue singing without interruption. Thus, to become silent (lidom) means to discontinue an activity that was already underway.
"Do not hold Your peace [al techerash]" - the Malbim explains that holding one's peace (hachrashah) is the opposite of answering. One who fails to respond is "holding his peace." In other words: do not remain unresponsive; now is the time to answer. This matter, as we will soon see, touches upon Your very honor, Master of the Universe, and You should not remain silent.
"And do not be still [ve-al tishkot]" - the difference between holding peace (hachrashah) and being still (shekitah) is that holding peace is refraining from speech, whereas stillness is refraining from action. As in the phrase "its waves grew still" - the sea is normally active, churning with waves, and the waves become calm and still; this obviously does not mean they stopped speaking. The opposite of speech is holding peace, and the opposite of action is stillness. Thus: do not refrain from answering, and do not remain still from taking action.
כִּי־הִנֵּה אוֹיְבֶיךָ יֶהֱמָיוּן וּמְשַׂנְאֶיךָ נָשְׂאוּ רֹאשׁ׃ - For behold, Your enemies make an uproar, and those who hate You have lifted up their head.
"Make an uproar [yehemayun]" - we have already noted several times that the term hemyah refers to any noise produced by a crowd (hamon). And why is a multitude called a hamon? Because when many people gather, there is a hum, a murmur throughout the crowd; the gathering buzzes with sound. For this reason, the word hamon derives from hemyah. "Your enemies make an uproar" - they are stirring against me, gathering against me, speaking and scheming against me. Therefore, Master of the Universe, do not hold Your peace - answer them, respond to them!
"And those who hate You have lifted up their head" - as we have explained several times, an enemy (oyev) is one who harbors ill will in his heart, whereas a hater (soneh) is one who lifts his head to inflict actual harm. Behold, Your haters have already lifted their heads - they raise their heads to cause real injury and march against You, and You must wage war against them.
עַל־עַמְּךָ יַעֲרִימוּ סוֹד וְיִתְיָעֲצוּ עַל־צְפוּנֶיךָ׃ - Against Your people they devise cunning plots, and take counsel against Your sheltered ones.
"Against Your people they devise cunning plots" - they gather in secrecy and counsel, one nation approaching another, planning how to harm us. The Malbim points out that it does not say "against Israel," but rather "against Your people." It is a general principle in his commentary that wherever an expression appears with such an inflection, it refers to them specifically by virtue of being Your people. That is to say: what bothers them is the very fact that we are the people of the Holy One, blessed be He, and not simply that we are Israel.
"And take counsel against Your sheltered ones" - the Jewish people are called "Your sheltered ones" (tzfunecha), because they are hidden away in Your shelter, as King David says in Psalm 31: "You hide them in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." We see that Israel's character is like those kept in the innermost recesses of the heart of the Holy One, blessed be He. Yet the Malbim explains that "Your sheltered ones" is not merely another title for "Your people," but rather refers to the hidden matters of the Divine - those concepts that belong to the realm of the concealed: the faith in divine unity, that Hashem is One, whereas the nations believed in multiple powers; as well as the bond and divine providence of the Holy One, blessed be He, over the Jewish people, which are also hidden matters; and our Torah and mitzvot, which are likewise a concealed matter between us and Hashem. Their ultimate goal is to tear us away from the Torah and mitzvot.
And what is the distinction between "devise cunning plots" (ya'arimu sod) and "take counsel" (yitya'atzu)? The Malbim explains: once there is a secret plot, its ultimate outcome is the counsel. Counsel means determining what to do next with this secret, how to translate it into action. They devise a cunning plot, and the actionable plan is "and take counsel," to carry it into practice against Your sheltered ones.
אָמְרוּ לְכוּ וְנַכְחִידֵם מִגּוֹי וְלֹא־יִזָּכֵר שֵׁם־יִשְׂרָאֵל עוֹד׃ - They said: "Come, let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more."
"Let us cut them off from being a nation" - the meaning is that whoever remains of the Jewish people should be few, fleeing and scattered, no longer called a nation, with their name forgotten. They have no issue with us being scattered and assimilated among the nations, as long as we cease to be a distinct people. Therefore they said, "let us cut them off from being a nation" - that the designation of a nation, the status of a people, should no longer apply to them.
And why specifically seek to eradicate the name "Israel"? The Malbim explains: "Israel" denotes a lofty spiritual governance, an expression of dominion - that we are supervised by the Holy One, blessed be He, through direct providence, and that the Holy One, blessed be He, identifies His Name with us. They seek to abolish this: "that the name of Israel may be remembered no more," so that no vestige of the name Israel remains. Thus, their primary objective was directed against "Your sheltered ones" - against the concealed and hidden matters, against divine service, and against Your people Israel, who are sheltered close to Your heart.
כִּי נוֹעֲצוּ לֵב יַחְדָּו עָלֶיךָ בְּרִית יִכְרֹתוּ׃ - For they have consulted together with one heart; against You they make a covenant.
Rashi explains: this covenant is against You, to make Your Name forgotten. You are called the God of Israel, and this is what they wish to blot out from memory. For the moment "the name of Israel is remembered no more," Your Name, too, will naturally cease to be remembered - because who mentions Your Name in the world? Who teaches and spreads Your Name in the world? Israel. Consequently, the moment they eradicate Israel, Your Name will no longer be remembered. Therefore, "against You they make a covenant," and not merely against us: we are only the instrument. They wish to take vengeance against You, and therefore they persecute us.
This is comparable to someone who wants to take revenge on a particular political faction, and so targets the Charedim: the target is not really us, but the opposing side, and how do they strike at them? By harassing us. Indeed, media commentators have stated more than once that they will continue to target the Charedi community as long as the Charedim continue aligning with the right: choose the right side, and we will leave you alone; but as long as you persist, you will pay the price in media smears and character assassination. The best proof of this is people who crossed lines from one camp to the other, and the media backed off from them entirely and turned them into darlings, even though they had previously spoken against them and dragged their names through the mud. As long as you stood with that side - open files, investigations, exposés; the moment you started speaking against the Charedim - you shifted your stance, you are in the right camp, and suddenly there are no more exposés and no more "public interest." The same is true here: "They said, 'Come, let us cut them off from being a nation... for they have taken counsel together with one heart; against You they forge a covenant'" - Master of the World, we are merely the instrument through which they fight against You; they fight against us so that the Name of God will not be remembered, for we are the ones who proclaim His Name.
Radak explains "for they have taken counsel together with one heart": they resolved to unite and forge a covenant - those who until now were enemies to one another form an alliance to wage war against Israel, declaring that You cannot save us. There is a saying that there is nothing like a common enemy to turn foes into friends: the moment two nations share a common enemy, they suddenly become allies - not because they love each other, but because it is better to hang together than to hang separately.
A simple example: the Abraham Accords. For decades they refused to recognize us, spoke against us with extreme rhetoric, and supported and aided terrorist organizations - and suddenly the Gulf States, Morocco, and all those nations seek closeness with us. Why? There is a common enemy: they feel threatened by Iran and imagine that if anyone can act against it, it is us. To some degree there was substance to this when Trump was in office in the United States and we had access to his ear, and so it was worthwhile for them to align with us. But this is not because they love us, nor have they undergone a true change of heart.
The Malbim brings proof from the words "they have taken counsel together with one heart" that their primary objective was directed against the divine realm. Consider: among those who came were disparate nations - some neighboring the Land of Israel, and some far from it. When we examine the objective of a neighboring nation versus a distant nation in any war in history: a neighboring nation goes to war because it fears and feels threatened by the nation beside it, and seeks to conquer territory. A distant nation, however, has no interest in territory - what use to it is a plot of land far away? It comes to take spoil, vast wealth, and gold, for a nation's power was measured by its wealth.
If so, usually this would not be called "taking counsel together with one heart," for their hearts are not unified: the nearby nations march out of fear of a threat or for territory, while the distant ones march for gold. Here, however, both the near and the far marched with a single goal - "they have taken counsel together with one heart." This proves that they had a unified purpose: set aside money, set aside territory - none of that interested them. What did interest them? "Against You they forge a covenant": the divine realm. They set out to wage war against Hashem. They resent the spread of the Holy One, Blessed is He's Name throughout the world, which is accomplished through Israel; therefore, they come to cut off Israel from being a nation, so that the name of Israel will no longer be remembered, and consequently the Name of Hashem will be eradicated from the lips of mankind.
אׇהֳלֵי אֱדוֹם וְיִשְׁמְעֵאלִים מוֹאָב וְהַגְרִים׃ - The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites.
Here the verse describes the nations that came to wage war. Why does it say "the tents of Edom" rather than simply "Edom"? Because they came to wage a prolonged war, and therefore arrived with their tents - so that they would have dwellings throughout the protracted campaign.
"And the Hagrites" - Ibn Ezra, Radak, and other commentators explain that they were descendants of Hagar, whether through Avraham or through another husband, and are therefore called "Hagrites." Yet this raises a difficulty: where do we ever find a nation named after a mother? People are always named after the father - the sons of Edom are the sons of Esav, the Ishmaelites are named after Ishmael. However, we have already seen that when the mother is of great stature, the sons are named after her, such as the sons of Tzeruyah - Yoav the son of Tzeruyah, Avishai the son of Tzeruyah, and Asahel the son of Tzeruyah - because their mother Tzeruyah was the sister of David, the sister of the king, and so she was prominent and her sons were designated by her name. Ibn Ezra explains similarly here: the sons traced their lineage to her because she had been the maidservant of Avraham. Avraham was renowned - "you are a prince of God in our midst" - and anything associated with him was more precious in their eyes than silver and gold. Consequently, Hagar attained tremendous prestige, and as a woman of stature, her descendants traced their lineage through her. He brings an additional example from the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, who due to their prominence are mentioned in their own right.
The Malbim highlights this division: Edom lived near the Land of Israel, while the Ishmaelites were distant; Moab neighbored the Land of Israel, while the Hagrites were far from it - yet they all came with one objective: to cause Your Name to be forgotten.
גְּבָל וְעַמּוֹן וַעֲמָלֵק פְּלֶשֶׁת עִם־יֹשְׁבֵי צוֹר׃ - Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek, Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre.
"Gebal" refers to the Giblites, and all of these - Gebal, Ammon, Amalek, Philistia, and the inhabitants of Tyre - were already immediate neighbors of the Land of Israel.
גַּם־אַשּׁוּר נִלְוָה עִמָּם הָיוּ זְרוֹעַ לִבְנֵי־לוֹט סֶלָה׃ - Even Assyria has joined with them; they have become an arm to the children of Lot, Selah.
Why is the expression "joined" (nilvah) used specifically regarding Assyria? Because it was far from the Land of Israel; it was not one of the neighboring nations, but merely attached itself as one arriving from afar. "They have become an arm to the children of Lot" - the children of Lot are Ammon and Moab, who were the primary combatants, while all the others served as an arm for them, acting as their extended hand. "Selah" - the conclusion of the matter.
Radak explains that Assyria was farther from the Land of Israel than the other nations, which is why the verse says of it, "joined with them" - meaning the Malbim's explanation is already mentioned in Radak. However, Radak also cites an explanation in the name of his father: "Even Assyria" - who still persisted in its wickedness and did not remember its downfall. Which downfall? When the angel of Hashem went out and struck down the Assyrian camp. Such a crushing defeat should have been seared into its flesh as a grim reminder never to act insolently again, yet see what happened: the very same Assyria that suffered that blow - even it joined with them. From this, Radak deduces according to his father's interpretation that this battle took place after the era of Chizkiyahu, for Scripture states "even Assyria," indicating that they failed to learn from what had happened in the past, which necessarily means this war occurred later.
Radak also cites a Midrash from Bereishis Rabbah that takes "even Assyria" in a positive direction initially: even Assyria, who was originally accustomed to good deeds, having separated himself from the counsel of Nimrod, as it is written, "From that land went forth Asshur" - for when Nimrod arose and rebelled against Hashem and offered evil counsel, Asshur was unwilling to be with him and departed from there, severing himself from his evil counsel - yet now he reverted to wickedness and joined with them to destroy Your House. That is to say: even one who originally knew how to withdraw from evil counsel, this time joined with them and came with an evil scheme to destroy the House of Hashem.