A Litany of Rage - The Problem of the Imprecatory Psalms

Andrew Lim

15th November 2005 - TSCF Student Leaders Conference - Palm Grove Christian Camp, Paraparamumu

6 Appoint an evil man to oppose him;
let an accuser stand at his right hand.

7 When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
and may his prayers condemn him.

8 May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.

9 May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.

10 May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven [d] from their ruined homes.

11 May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labour.

12 May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.

13 May his descendants be cut off,
their names blotted out from the next generation.

14 May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD;
may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.

15 May their sins always remain before the LORD,
that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

You cannot read a bible passage like that and not quietly wonder if there is something not quite right about having it in the Word of God.

The Problem

The sentiment reflected in it is a far cry from what we hear from the teachings of our Lord Jesus.

How are we to reconcile the psalmist’s vindictive cursing of his enemies with Jesus’ call to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us? Mt 5:43-46

This type of Old Testament literature is known as the “imprecatory psalms.” In these psalms the psalmists pray for the destruction of their enemies. You will remember that the word “imprecate” carries the meaning “wishing harm on someone” or “invoking evil on someone.”

In these imprecatory psalms, the psalmists call down divine curses and express hatred on the enemies of God.

There are altogether eighteen psalms which have an element of imprecation but only six are officially designated as “Imprecatory Psalms.” These are psalms 55, 59, 69, 79, 109, and 137 (1) [Read: Psalm 69:22-28; 5:10; 10:15; 28:4; 31:17-18; 35:4-6; 40:14-15; 58:6-11; 69:22-28; 109:6-15; 139:19-22; 140:9-10.]

The kind of sentiments expressed in these psalms seems to stand in contradiction to those we hear from the teachings of our Lord Jesus.

Attempted Solutions

Biblical thinkers have offered several explanations for this genre of psalms.

1. There are writers who suggest that the writers of these psalms were speaking in the indicative mood, and not in the imperative mood. They were not making a request to God but were merely describing the end of the wicked people. They were not actively promoting or wishing a specific kind of end for the wicked.

2. Other thinkers hold the view that prior to the time of Christ, people then operated under a sub-Christian ethical system. It was only through progressive revelation that we finally come to see the blossoming of a higher standard of ethics as we see in the teachings of Jesus.

3. Then there are thinkers who believe that these psalms are indeed an accurate reflection of the sentiments of the psalmists. However no divine sanction was given to feelings of this kind. God then would still have us love our enemies.

We deem the above views inadequate.

It fails to take seriously the point that the Author who prompted the psalmists to records their prayers so they may form part of the permanent holy writ was the same Author who inspired the writings of the New Testament. Of course the people in the Old Testament did not have a fuller revelation as those in the New Testament but the progression of revelation is not a movement from error to truth or darkness to light.

Rather, as Gleason Archer alluded to, it is a movement from what was partial to the complete from the obscured to the clear. Moreover it is fallacious to assert that the psalms do not reflect a high view of ethics and morality. The psalms evidentially reflect a view of ethics consistent to that of the writings of the N.T.

We need to remember that our Lord held a very high view of Scripture. Christ affirmed the divine inspiration of the psalms. He accorded Psalm 110 the status of divine inspiration. He confirmed that what was written there was an inspiration of “the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 22:43). He quoted from the Psalms. He accorded to them the same status as the Law and the Prophets cf. Lk. 24:44. And if we hold the view that “every scripture is inspired of God” (2 Tim. 3:16 ) then that includes the psalms.

Plausible Explanations

The first thing we need to note is that not one of these prayers were prayed out of a sense of personal vengeance. The expressions of hatred and judgement as we see in imprecatory psalms are not indicative of the psalmist’s sense of vindictiveness nor his personal desire for vengeance against his enemies. The Old Testament scholar Walter Kaiser rightly observes that David never took revenge on king Saul when he had the opportunity (1 Sam 24:3ff). Neither did he express glee / or gloat over Saul’s death. In fact he executed the Amalekite for rejoicing over Saul’s death and lying about killing him.

In one imprecatory psalm, the psalmist pleaded with God to send misery upon his enemies. (Psalm 109:6-11), and yet in v.4 he tells us that he loves them and prays for them. The psalmist has a mixture of emotions over his enemies not merely of hatred, but also of love, even to the point of praying for his enemy.
His prayers of imprecation comes not out of a sense of personal revenge. Rather it comes from having an acute understanding of God’s holiness and his wrath against sin. It has been spoken of our Lord that the zeal of His Father’s house has eaten Him up. David, who has been called a man after God’s own heart had that same zeal eating him up from the inside. He does not see these people as his personal enemies so much as the enemies of God.

But the question still begs to be answered. Do the imprecatory psalms contradict the call to love our enemies?

The answer is “No” if we understand the basis of the call to love our enemies. The call to love our enemies is a call that is made in the context of their eternal welfare. So in the gospels there is the call to pray of one’s enemies, to walk the second mile for them, to treat them kindly in return for evil, to feed them and to be reconciled to them. But all with the view to win them over for the sake of the gospel.

But if the person resolutely, defiantly chooses to remain an “enemy of the cross”, then, as Paul warns us, God’s justice when it comes, will be swift, decisive and severe (2 Thess. 1:7-9). And there may come a point when wickedness is so persistent and high-handed and God-despising, that the time of redemption is past and there only remain irremediable wickedness and judgment.

Jesus speaks of unforgivable sin (Matt 12:32); John says there is sin that is “unto death” and adds “I do not say that one should pray for this” (1 Jn 5:16). Paul says, “If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed” (1 Cor 16:22). This imprecation is not unlike those in the Psalms we are discussing. It assumes that there comes a point of such extended, hardened, high-handed hatred toward God that it may be appropriate to call down anathema on it.

The call to love our enemies is not a call that comes with a sentimental note. It was Alexander McClaren who challenged our modern lopsided sentimentality which favours gentleness and goodness at all cost.

This is what he writes: “Perhaps, it would do modern tenderheartedness no harm to have a little more iron infused into its gentleness and to lay to heart that the King of Peace must first be King of Righteousness” (2)

There is no nobility in a love for good which does not correspond to a hatred for evil. John Stott reminds us that just as truth becomes harsh if it is not softened by love, love becomes sentimental if it is not strengthened by truth. Love for truth must lead inevitably to a hatred of error as the prophet Amos reminds us in Amos 5:15. C.S. Lewis in his book God in the Dock warns us saying to be careful, lest “along with the power to forgive we have lost the power to condemn”. (3)

I have a second response to the problems of the imprecatory psalms

And that is this. If those psalms shock our sensitivity and provoke us to feel a need for a response, could it be that we are no longer capable of an immediate and proper response to sin. Would it be ill-conceived to say that there is not much of hatred of evil around the place because sin has been depleted of its full meaning?

But then again why should we be surprised that the word “sin” has become an empty concept. For “sin” has no meaning except in relation to the holiness of God. If God isn’t holy, sin is no big deal. If God isn’t pure, and if He does not demand purity on our part, then murder, if it is deemed wrong, is only so because it happens to breach some people’s personal puritanical social etiquette; or perhaps an expression of a bad behaviour. But nothing more.

When we fail to see God as holy, then much of the words we say and sing in our worship are some empty rhetoric, some pious window dressing, if deep in our heart and mind we remain casual about coming before a terrifying God.

The Pulitzer Prize author Annie Dillard said: “If we don’t feel a certain terror in His presence, if we can come here in our velvet hats when we should be wearing crash helmets instead; if we can sit here casually when we should be begging that we be lashed to our pews, lest God should wake and take offence against our irreverence", if we can do all that then it must be because we have become totally insensitized to what true worship is.

And precisely because the psalmist has grasped the holiness of God, he does not look on sin as merely some bad behaviour but as a defiance against the holy will of God.

Remember the story in I Chronicles 13. King David made plans to move the ark of God to its rightful place to the Holy of Holiness in the tabernacle. Now the ark was the throne of God a place symbolic of God’s presence / where God sat so to speak. David placed the ark on a cart drawn by two oxen and there began the joyous procession back to Jerusalem. At a point in the journey the ark was jostled on the bumpy road, the oxen stumbled, the ark tilted and came in danger of toppling over. And Uzzah reached out, put his hands on the ark to keep it from toppling onto the mud. It must surely have been and instinctive reaction on his part. But God killed him right there. Scripture records these words for us: “The anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah because he put his hand on the ark”.

Uzzah might have been a good man. But the fact remains that he was still a filthy creature when compared to the holiness of God.

If you are puzzled over this, remember David was too It has been recorded for us that “David was angry at the Lord for what He had done to Uzzah and he named the place “The Outbreak Against Uzzah” (I Chronicles 13:11)

But if we’re puzzled over this, it is partly because we cannot for the life of us come to grips with what God’s holiness must mean to God. If God is utterly, totally pure, then as the prophet Habakkuk says: “His eyes are too pure to look on evil.” ( Hab 1:13) and even the smallest taint is such a terrible violation of His awesome purity.

Really when we ask “Is it fair that Uzzah should be struck dead?” we ask the wrong question. Hans Kung, the Catholic theologian says that the mystery is not that he was struck dead. Rather the mystery is why we haven’t all been struck dead for all our vile offences.

Jonathan Edwards asks the troubling question. “O sinner, can you give any reason why since you have risen from your bed this morning, God has not stricken you dead?” R.C. Sproul writes us: “When [God’s] divine judgment fell on Nadab or Uzzah, the response was shock and outrage. We have come to expect God to be merciful. From there the next step is easy: we demand it. When it is not forthcoming our first response is anger against God coupled with the protest: “It isn’t fair”. We soon forget that with our first sin we have forfeited all rights to the gift of life. That I am drawing breath this morning is an act of divine mercy
God owes me nothing. I owe him everything”

Stephen Charnock, the 17th century reformed pastor who wrote the classic Character and Attributes of God wrote: “Holiness is God’s beauty and glory. When God would be drawn - as much as He can be He is drawn in this attribute of holiness. "Power is God’s hand or arm, omniscience His eye, mercy His bowels, eternity His duration, but holiness is His beauty"

Charnock informs us that the word “Holy” is used more often as a prefix to God’s name than any other attribute. Holiness is God’s crown. Jerry Bridges asks us to imagine for a moment that God possesses omnipotence, having infinite power; omniscience , having complete and perfect knowledge; and omnipresence, the power to be present everywhere at the same time; but without perfect holiness, Bridges concludes, “such a one could not be described as God”.

No other attribute is celebrated before the Throne of Heaven than his holiness. The seraphim crying, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts" (Isa. 6:3).

Charnock again writes: “As it seems to challenge an excellency above all His other perfections, so it is the glory of all the rest; as it is the glory of the Godhead, so it is the glory of every perfection in the Godhead; as His power is the strength of them, so His holiness is the beauty of them; as all would be weak without almightiness to back them, so all would be uncomely without holiness to adorn them. Should this be sullied, all the rest would lose their honour; as at the same instant the sun should lose its light, it would lose its heat, its strength, its generative and quickening virtue. As sincerity is the lustre of every grace in a Christian, so is purity the splendour of every attribute in the Godhead. His justice is a holy justice, His wisdom a holy wisdom, His arm of power a "holy arm" (Ps. 98:1), His truth or promise a "holy promise" (Ps. 105:42). His name, which signifies all His attributes in conjunction, "is holy," (Psalm 103:1)

The psalmist has a keen sense of the breadth of God’s holiness. There is the consistent acknowledgement of God’s holiness in the psalms. “You are enthroned as the Holy One you are the praise of Israel (22:3). “The Lord is the 'Holy One of Israel': I will sing praises to you, O Holy One of Israel (71:22).

In the light of this, the Psalmist sees his sin as an enormous affront to God. David was not unaware that he’d sinned against Uriah, against Bathsheba, against his trusted counsellors and against his people. But he is keenly aware in his heart that ultimately every sin is a sin against the utterly holy God. He sees it as first, and foremost, a sin against God: “Against you, and you only, have I sinned.” The psalmist has this grave sense of a holy God.

We will be greatly helped in understanding the expressions of the imprecatory psalms, when we bear in mind what God’s holiness must mean to Him.

Perhaps the clearest way to understand the imprecatory psalms is to look at it this way. When we come face to face with some immorality of a grave perverse measure, we respond with deep outrage. We feel that only a curse of some supernatural dimension can meet the nature of the crime. Some deeds demand not only condemnation but damnation. Our sins provoke God not merely to condemn us but to damn us. The imprecations in the psalms may be explained by the fact that as humans we are capable of deep anger against atrocious crimes and demand their punishment. And close to this sentiment is the sense of justice. When a grave crime goes unpunished, we feel indignant for we feel that justice has been defrauded of its dues. We feel that justice has been violated and public order disturbed. And we find a voice within us calling imperatively for retribution.

Should we Pray Imprecatorily?

If we hold the view that there can be absolutely no legitimacy, no biblical warrant whatsoever for imprecatory prayers, then we will find ourselves in a dilemma over some NT passages. What will you do about our Lord’s “curse” upon Capernaum (Mt. 11:23-24); Paul’s prayer of anathema upon false teachers (Gal. 1:8-9)’ the apostle’s denunciation of Alexander the coppersmith (2 Tim. 4:14); and the prayer of those martyrs asking for vengeance from the Lord (Rev. 6:10)?
C.S. Lewis is right when he tells us that “[T]he ferocious parts of the Psalms serve as a reminder that there is in the world such a thing as wickedness and that . . . is hateful to God” (4)

But having said that I believe we are not able to pray imprecatorily.

This is not that it is inherently wrong to do so. Rather it our own spiritual shortcoming which renders us quite incapable of praying such prayers. And I make that conclusion in the light of our own corrupt inability to hate as we ought. I don’t believe I hate evil with a pure hatred. Could it be that David was able to pray those psalms because he was one of the few who hated evil with such a hatred that renders him to evoke such cries of vindication from his heart. Psalms 119:104 gives us a glimpse of how he his heart sees evil. He says “I gain understanding from your precepts therefore I hate every wrong path.”

The more we grow in holiness the more hatred we should be growing in our hearts for sin. We often like to say: “God hates sin but he loves the sinner”. Jerry Bridges says that is blessedly true, but too often, we quickly rush over the first half of this statement, in order to get the second. We may trifle with sin, we may excuse sin. But God hates sin. And so long as we have this corrupt inability to hate sin as we ought, I believe we cannot pray imprecatorily. But having said that there is something that does not sit quite right the saying “Hate the sin but love the sinner”. Rightly we should both hate the sinner and love the sinner. Sinners are people made in God’s image. Moreover they are our neighbors whom we are to love and pray for. But on the same breath we also hate sinners for they are enemies of God. The imprecatory psalms fall from the lips of people who have this hatred for the sinner.

God’s hatred for sin is pure hatred for reason of His own honour. We cannot hate as God hates. While there is unforgivable sin for which we are not to pray
we are told to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us and return good for evil. We need to learn to tremble. Let us tremble before a holy God, lest we fail and find ourselves on the other side of the curse.

When people confronted our Lord with the slaughter of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, He answered them: “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? No I tell you but unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:2-3)

But for those who confess their sins, broken relationship may be restored. From the psalmist we do know that God hears this prayer and forgives. The last word is not our sinfulness before a holy God. The last word is the assurance that God will not despise a broken and contrite spirit (Ps 51:17).