Let Your Wrathful Anger Take Hold of Them

I’ve grown up in churches that love the book of Psalms: it is one of the Old Testament books I have heard preached on most frequently, and by far the majority of the songs we sing in worship are psalms. Yet I cannot remember ever hearing a sermon on one of the imprecatory¹ psalms, and I cannot remember ever singing one of these psalms in corporate worship. In my experience, the Old Testament imprecations are largely absent from the prayers of New Testament believers.

But shouldn’t it be so? After all, aren’t we commanded in this new covenant to love even our enemies?

It might, perhaps, be reasonable to conclude that the appropriate place of imprecatory prayers is limited to the old covenant if it could be shown that imprecations were absent from the prayers of believers in the New Testament. Yet New Testament believers, even Jesus Christ Himself, quoted these psalms without shame or embarrassment (e.g. John 2:17, 15:26, Acts 1:20, Romans 11:9-10, 15:3). Moreover, Peter curses the former sorcerer Simon (Acts 8:20), Paul curses the high priest Ananias (Acts 23:3) and prays for Alexander the coppersmith to be repaid for the harm he did (2 Timothy 4:14), and the apostle John hears martyred saints, as well as a voice from heaven, uttering imprecations (Revelation 6:10, 18:6). Clearly, then, imprecations were never meant to cease with the advent of the new covenant.

How, then, can we take the imprecatory psalms on our lips and at the same time obey Jesus’ righteous command to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44)? I offer here a number of thoughts about the imprecatory psalms and the psalmist who prays them righteously, before tying them together into an attempt to answer this question.

1.       The psalmist is not self-righteous: he acknowledges his own guilt (Psalm 69:5) and appeals in faith to the mercy and love of God (Psalm 69:16). Thus the imprecatory prayers arise from an attitude of humble contrition, not judgemental arrogance.

2.       The psalmist asks for nothing more than what God has already promised to do for His covenant people: “I will curse him who curses you” (Genesis 12:3).

3.       The psalmist is suffering unjustly for God’s sake: “for Your sake I have borne reproach… zeal for Your house has eaten me up, and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me” (Psalm 69:7, 9).

4.       The psalmist’s primary concern is for justice to be done, which is a noble concern because it reflects the heart of God Himself. It is right for the psalmist to hate what the Lord hates and to love what the Lord loves.

5.       The psalmist does not take justice into his own hands, but shows love even to those who reward it with evil and hatred (Psalm 109:4-5).

The Lord has promised that justice will be administered: evil will be punished and evildoers will receive their just reward (see Psalm 75:8). Therefore, it is right and good for God’s people to be angry when His standards are flouted. It is right and good for them to hate every whiff of injustice and to place their hope in the fulfilment of God’s promise that every injustice will be rectified. 

Yet at the same time we have been commanded:

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:17-21 ESV).

To take justice into our own hands is to lay claim to the throne of God, for vengeance is His; repayment is the exclusive role of the Judge of all the earth. Therefore, when we have been cruelly wronged we pray and desire for that evil to be rewarded, but we don’t take it upon ourselves to mete out punishment. Through the transforming power of the Spirit we continue to stretch out a hand of love and reconciliation to those who offer only hatred and evil in return. We do not allow ourselves to be blinded and consumed by the bitter rage of revenge. We lay aside our own sinful agendas of personal vindication and vengeance and submit to the will of God.

To submit to the will of God means that our imprecatory prayers must be conditional. We pray that if the evildoer should persist in his rebellion against God and his rampage against God’s people, that he would then “be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous” (Psalm 69:28) – and we would rejoice in the just wrath of our God. Yet we also pray that if the evildoer should turn from his evil ways and repent with humble sorrow and genuine commitment to change, that the punishment for his sin would then fall upon the shoulders of Jesus Christ – and we would rejoice in the just mercy of our God, remembering that we too would be forever damned if we did not take shelter beneath the cross of Calvary.

Peter’s imprecation against Simon the former sorcerer sets such a pattern for us to follow:

Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:18-23 ESV).

Simon’s response is a beautiful testimony to the power of the grace of God:

“Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me” (Acts 8:24 ESV).

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¹ That is, psalms which pray for God’s curse on enemies, e.g. Psalms 69:22-28, 109, 137, 139:19-22.