Psalms 83:12

Let - To hinder or obstruct.

Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession - Nearly the words spoken by the confederates when they came to attack Jehoshaphat. They come (says the king in address to God) to cast us out of thy possession which thou hast given us to inherit. See 2 Chronicles 20:11.

Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession - The houses of God here mean the habitations of God, or the places where he dwelt among the people. As there was but one ark, one tabernacle, and one temple, or one place of constituted public worship, this must refer to other places where God was worshipped, or where he might be supposed to reside; either to synagogues (see the notes at Psalm 74:8), or to the private dwellings of the people regarded as a holy people, or as a people among whom God dwelt. This may, therefore, imply that their dwellings - their private abodes - were also dwelling-places of God, as now the house of a religious family - a place where God is regularly worshipped - may be regarded as an abode of God on the earth. The language here is not to be understood as that of Oreb and Zeeb, of Zebah and Zalmunna, but of the enemies referred to in the psalm, who had entered into the conspiracy to destroy the Hebrew nation. They had said, "Let us inherit the houses of God;" that is, Let us take to ourselves, and for our possession, the dwellings of the land where God is supposed to reside.