I long believed that not only was it wrong to pray for the demise of our enemies, but that God wouldn’t even answer such prayers. But as I followed the text of the day in Psalm 109 from the Sabbath School lesson last year, what I previously believed regarding prayers for (or even about) one’s enemies was turned upside down.
The Plea for Judgment in Psalm 109
There are many other psalms in which the writer complains to God about what the righteous suffer at the hands of the wicked, praying for God to avenge him and protect him from going the way of the oppressor, lamenting about how life never seems to go his way, and asking why all he seems to get is rain while his enemy basks in undeserved sunshine. But Psalm 109 is unique in that it largely abandons the repeated cry found in other psalms of “Why me, God?” and instead screams for God’s judgment.
As I read the passage, my mouth, already agape, opened wider as David pleaded with God to make his enemy’s life a living nightmare. “When he is judged, let him be found guilty” (Ps. 109:7); “Let his days be few” (verse 8); “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow” (verse 9); “Let the creditor seize all that he has” (verse 11); “Let there be none to extend mercy to him” (verse 12); let his sins “be continually before the Lord” (verse 15). In plain terms, not only did David want his enemy and those dear to him to suffer—he wanted God to do it.
Whew. The introduction to the passage spoke to why David felt so bitter. He had been lied about, tormented without cause, and was at his wit’s end—reason enough to want to inflict revenge, some would say. I was baffled. If David could so openly pray for the worst outcome for his enemy, had we then missed other opportunities to let God know exactly what we wanted to happen to those who had obvious malicious intent toward us, simply because we didn’t know that we could?
Psalm 109 is unique in that it largely abandons the repeated cry found in other psalms of “Why me, God?” and instead screams for God’s judgment.
What Justifies Such Petitions?
Scripture teems with enough evidence to support all I had been taught growing up about not praying for the downfall of others, deserved or not. A simple flip of the pages will see Jesus admonishing His followers to turn the other cheek (Matt. 5:38-48), forgive (Matt. 18:21), and pray for our enemies in love (Luke 6:28). And the apostle James’s admonishment to those lamenting that their prayers weren’t being answered gives asking with evil motives as the reason for their quandary (James 4:3). So what would justify the petitions of David in Psalm 109?
For weeks I grappled with the question, reading commentary from various sources to see if there was something I had missed. Thankfully, I happened upon a 1994 article from the Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, titled “Inspiration and the Imprecatory Psalms,” by Ángel M. Rodríguez.* In his analysis of the imprecatory psalms, the author posits that some of the language used in these psalms mirrors the language used by God Himself in His pronouncements upon the wicked (Deut. 26:19, Isa. 13:11, 49:26, Jer. 30:16-20), and even to His people in times of apostasy (Lev. 26). Therefore, the strong language used by the psalmist could be interpreted as a hurt child’s plea to an almighty Father, “Do what You have done before, and what You have promised to do to those that hurt the ones You love.”
Additionally, despite all the things that David requests from God against his enemies, not once does David say to God, “I will [insert revenge here].” After all, the caution is plain in the same collection of the Psalms: “For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous reach out their hands to iniquity” (Ps. 125:3). Knowing that trying to take matters into his own hands for what many would consider a “good reason” would not only make him guilty but leave him open to the judgment the Lord metes out on the wicked, he was left with only one place to go—to God, who says, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay” (Rom. 12:19; see also Deut. 32:35).
All of this helped to put things into perspective for me. Maybe the true essence of Psalm 109 is not attempting to use God as a weapon that we can wield around in the faces of those who make life uncomfortable for us, but more aboutknowing whom to run to when the attacks of those who mean us no good have become unbearable. The Person we can crawl to in seeming defeat; to cry, complain, and wallow in self-pity, even if just for a while, but knowing that, as the saying goes, “When they go low, we go high,” so high, that our heavenly Father will fight and win on our behalf. Vengeance is His, after all.
* Ángel Manuel Rodríguez, “Inspiration and the Imprecatory Psalms,” Journal of the Adventist Theological Society 5, no. 1 (1994): 40-67, https://www.atsjats.org/angel-rodriguez-
inspiration-and-the-imprecatory-psalms.pdf.