Psalms 83, 137, 79, 129, 149

Psalms — Steve Gregg

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Psalms 83, 137, 79, 129, 149

PsalmsSteve Gregg

In this discussion, Steve Gregg examines imprecatory Psalms, which involve wishing evil upon someone, and explains that they are not motivated by personal sense of spite, jealousy, or anger. Rather, these psalms express a desire to see wicked men punished for violating God's laws and to see justice done. Overall, the psalmists are not hate-filled or vindictive but rather seek to give God glory by acknowledging that He rewards goodness and punishes wickedness.

Transcript

Okay, today we're going to begin and hopefully cover all of the imprecatory Psalms of which I've made reference on several occasions previously. I don't know if you've been looking forward with anticipation to this. I'm not sure if you even have a clear idea in your mind of what the imprecatory psalms are.

I have, as I said, alluded to them but never really explained them. And today, I'd like for us in today's classes, perhaps in two classes, although it might take three, to cover all of them. There are seven psalms, whole psalms, that are considered imprecatory psalms.

And there are other passages, about 14 other passages in the psalms, which are called imprecatory, which are usually made up of one verse or two verses or something like that. Now, probably the word imprecatory isn't a meaningful word to you. We don't use it in modern English for much of anything.

What it means, an imprecation is a curse that is called down. Wishing evil upon someone. Actually calling for calamity to fall upon a person.

That's what an imprecation is. And the imprecatory psalms are psalms that are characterized by this feature, that they are calling down curses and evils upon evil people. And this kind of psalm has given a lot of problems to Christians for reasons that might be immediately evident, and we'll discuss some of them in a moment.

Let me give you a list, first of all, of those psalms which are considered to be imprecatory psalms. And when you read them, you'll know why they are so considered. And we will study each of them.

They are Psalm 35, Psalm 58 and 59, Psalm 69, 83, 109, and 137 or 137. Those seven psalms are considered imprecatory psalms. And let me give you, this will take a bit of time to run them off for you, but you'll need to have this list if you want to do a thorough study on the subject.

Let me give you the passages, the shorter passages in the psalms which are imprecations that are really part of a larger psalm that isn't characterized generally by those kinds of things. The first one in the Scriptures is chapter 5, verse 10, which we've already studied as part of chapter 5. And the second is chapter 6, verse 10, which we studied as part of chapter 6, though we didn't go into the imprecatory nature of it so much because I wanted to await this opportunity to discuss them more in detail and to analyze them more fully. The next, the third is chapter 28, verse 4, and then is Psalm 31, verses 17 and 18, then chapter 40, verses 18 through 15.

I'm sorry, 14 through 15. I was looking at the previous listing. I wasn't thinking, obviously.

40, 14 and 15. Then chapter 41, verse 10. Chapter 55, there are two verses in it, 9 and 15.

Chapter 55, verses 9 and 15. Then we have chapter 70, verses 2 and 3. And chapter 71, verse 13. Chapter 79, two verses, 6 and 12.

Psalm 129, verses 5 through 8. Psalm 140, verses 9 and 10. Psalm 141, verse 10. And finally, Psalm 149, verses 7 through 9. Now, it's very obvious by the very length of that list that imprecations make up a significant element in the Psalter, in the Psalms.

And it is an element which has stumbled many people. In fact, it may be the one thing in the Psalter that has given many people great trials in even receiving the Psalms as inspired of God. Just saying, how could God inspire such language? Now you say, well, what kind of language is it? Well, some of it is rather mild, calling merely for the destruction of enemies in a vague sort of a way, or for the vindication of the righteous in some way or another, asking that the enemy's paths be made dark and slippery, and that they fall as they come against him, the rider.

Others are quite explicit and almost sound ruthless, as particularly two of them are. One is Psalm 109 and Psalm 137. Those two have perhaps the most offensive language in them, because they appear at first glance to be actually asking for the children of the wicked to be cursed and afflicted as well.

Which doesn't sound just to us. I believe that when we examine those psalms more closely, we'll find that that is not exactly what they're doing. They're not really... we do need to analyze them more closely.

But because of some of the language, and you know, we have statements like, happy is he that shall dash thy little ones against the stones. I mean, that kind of statement always causes people to cringe, you know. And for obvious reasons.

It doesn't sound very Christian. It doesn't sound very loving to the enemies. And there are at least four principles in the New Testament which would seem at first glance to... these would violate those New Testament principles.

One of those principles found in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 45. Matthew 5 and verse 45. Jesus says that you may be the children of your father in heaven, for he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

In other words, it sounds like God does not... it almost sounds like God doesn't punish the evil man. That he sends blessings equally upon good men and evil men. And that God loves all men.

And because he loves all men, therefore it would seem unrealistic or unkind or unlike God to actually call for such horrible things to happen to certain men who are evil. Since God shows his common concern for all men by sending rain and causing the sun to rise on men whether they're good or bad. And there's another principle of the New Testament that sometimes seems to be in conflict with the imprecatory Psalms and that's found in the previous verse in Matthew.

Matthew 5, verse 44. Where Jesus said, but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and who persecute you. Obviously that's not what the imprecatory Psalms are doing.

They're not blessing and loving their enemies or praying for them anything good. They're praying against them. So it would seem to violate that New Testament principle.

Another New Testament principle found in Matthew 6, just the next chapter over, is forgiveness of those who have offended you. The need to forgive. Chapter 6, verses 14 and 15.

Jesus said, for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. So we have the principle of forgiveness in the New Testament.

And we have also in chapter 5 of Matthew and also in Romans 12, the principle of non-retaliation or not taking vengeance. It says in Romans 12, in verse 10, Brethren, avenge not yourselves, but give place to wrath. For God has said, vengeance is mine.

Sayeth the Lord, I will repay. Also in Matthew 5 we have a similar statement in verse 39. But I say unto you that you resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

And it goes on. So we would seem to be in conflict here between these New Testament principles of loving our enemies, of God's common goodness upon evil and good men, of forgiving others and of not avenging ourselves of wrongs that have been done to us. Those are New Testament principles that seem on the first glance, and I would say by a shallow consideration, to be violated by the imprecatory Psalms.

Because they don't seem to be doing those things. They don't seem to be forgiving their enemies. They don't seem to be loving their enemies.

And they seem to be asking for horrible things to happen to their enemies. Now, it's not really enough just to say that the Psalm writers didn't know the New Testament, because the New Testament wasn't written yet. But even though it's not enough just to say that, that can be said anyway.

It doesn't answer the whole problem, but the fact of the matter is that these things we've been talking about were most clearly brought to light in the New Testament by Jesus himself. But that doesn't solve all the problems, because even the Old Testament taught that you should do good to your enemies and show kindness to strangers and to others. Even if you see the ox of your enemy wandering astray, you should take it back to him.

And if the ass bearing the load that belongs to your enemy falls down, him that hates you, you should help it back up and so forth. And the Scripture, even in the Old Testament, teaches kindness to enemies. So, it's not enough just to say they didn't know the New Testament, because they certainly would have known the Old Testament.

So, how do we understand these imprecatory Psalms? Do they reflect inspired Scripture? Do they reflect the mind of God and His attitude and His heart? I believe they do. And I believe that we can understand them better if we recognize that these imprecations are nothing more or less than simply cries to God for Him to cause His justice to prevail in the earth. Now, we pray, and Jesus taught us to pray, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Now, for the kingdom to come, that is for righteousness to prevail in the earth, we must realize that that requires that wickedness and evil actually be overthrown and punished. There's no way that right can prevail in the earth unless evil is overthrown, because evil presently dominates much of the earth, and for right to take the place of evil, that evil has to be overthrown in principle, and the perpetrators of it must be punished, because that's what justice is. Now, we don't desire for God to be unjust.

It's true we do desire to be merciful, but we also know that not all will respond to His mercy, and that the time must come when men will be punished. And I believe that there's a sense in which these psalms are merely crying out for the inevitable punishment not to be delayed, really. If these men are going to be punished by God, why wait? Why let them continue doing their damage against the kingdom of God? These are actually prayers for the overthrow of evil so that righteousness can prevail.

That was a concern of the Old Testament writers. It is also a concern of the New Testament writers. We actually have New Testament passages that contain imprecations.

In fact, Jesus himself pronounced an imprecation on a tree, on a fig tree. He cursed it and said that it should not bear any more fruit ever again. Some feel like this might have even been symbolic with reference to Israel, but whether it were or not, we find that Jesus didn't always bless everything He touched.

If something was worthy of cursing, then He was as willing as the next person to pronounce the appropriate curse upon it. The Apostle Paul, as we've observed when we were studying Galatians, was willing to pronounce imprecations on those who were standing in the way of the advance of the kingdom of God. Not that he didn't wish for them to be saved, but he did wish that they would be not permitted to continue in their defiant works.

If the kingdom of God is going to come and God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, then there must be a rooting out of evil, which of course throughout the Bible, we're told that's exactly what God is going to do. He's going to root out the evil. And these imprecatory psalms are simply asking God to do it, to do what He has declared He's going to do, and to ask Him to do everything right.

In Galatians 1, verses 8 and 9, we have a New Testament example of such imprecations, this time uttered by Paul. Galatians 1, 8 and 9, Paul says, But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed, or anathema. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be anathema, a curse.

Now, he's actually calling down curses on people. People who are preaching a gospel contrary to that which he has preached. Now, this isn't just a vague sort of a, he doesn't have sort of a faceless mass out there that he's calling curses on.

There's specific people he's thinking of. The Galatians had actually been approached and perverted by Judaizers in the church who had come and perverted, as Paul said, the gospel of Christ. And those are the very people he has in mind when he's pronouncing these curses.

These people who are seeking to overthrow the kingdom of God with their perverted kind of gospel. And he's wishing there to be a curse upon them. Later in Galatians, we saw that he wished for the same people that if they're going to be going about circumcising themselves, he wished they'd even castrate themselves.

That's certainly not wishing a blessing upon people, but it shows that Paul, who had the heart of God for the sheep, a shepherd must go out and smite the wolf that comes after the sheep. And that's where Paul stood. He was wishing for them to be cursed as they deserved to be cursed.

Actually, he has more of a general kind of an anathema or imprecation that he pronounces in 1 Corinthians chapter 16 and verse 22. 1 Corinthians 16, 22, he says, If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema or a curse. Now, of course, that probably should be understood as those who not only don't love him, but those who are resistant to him and who despise him and so forth, as opposed to just everyone.

You know, people, if they're ignorant and haven't learned about Jesus yet, and therefore they don't love him yet, I doubt if those are the ones that Paul really intends. But he's talking about those who are resisting Christ, I believe. And he has a specific example of an individual that he names and anathematizes or pronounces an imprecation on in 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 20.

These are not the only examples from the New Testament. A few others will come up probably later in the study on other points. But actually, rather than this one, we should probably look at 2 Timothy 4.14. There is one in 1 Timothy 1.20, but I'll save that for later.

But 2 Timothy 4 and verse 14, he said, Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward him according to his works. Now, the Lord reward him according to his works is actually a quote from one of the imprecatory psalms.

And therefore, Paul is pronouncing an imprecation on this man, Alexander the coppersmith, who had done much damage. Now, he says he's done me much evil, which may sound like Paul is just vindictive against someone who opposed him. But it's quite evident from Paul's own spirit that he is not vindictive against personal enemies.

He's more concerned about the work. If the man is overthrowing the work of the gospel and seeking to resist the kingdom of God, he says, may God resist him, may God reward him according to his works. The reason we know that Paul isn't just vindictive about people who don't stand with him, is that two verses later, in verse 16, he says, that my first answer, meaning the first time he came to court to give an answer for himself, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me.

I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Now, notice, all his friends deserted him when he came to court. But those whom he might have expected to give him support and encouragement, they realized there was danger there and they all fled and they forsook him.

And he says, I pray that God won't lay that to their charge. He didn't pronounce any imprecations on them, because they're not resisting the gospel, they're just weak people. Just weak, cowardly Christians.

But the man Alexander was a different kind of case. He was actively resisting the gospel, and therefore Paul called down such curses as he felt would be appropriate upon the man. All right.

Now, these imprecations, by the way, none of them, although some of them may appear to be, none of them really are motivated by a personal sense of spite or jealousy or envy or anger. Well, anger, but not anger about wrongs done to the individual. It's true that David, in some of his imprecations, does name people who have done him wrong.

But I'll explain why that fits into the whole picture when we get to those particular psalms that he wrote that are imprecations. But realize that the real thrust of the imprecatory psalms is not a desire for personal vengeance, but a desire that God's glory be maintained, that God's justice in the earth might prevail. It is our desire to see justice prevail.

It is true that in the case of any individual sinner, we really wish for him to be saved. But even while we wish that, we know that there are many people, the Bible tells us, many people will not be saved. Many people will resist God to their death.

And such people, we know because the Bible tells us, will come under God's wrath. And that we could actually wish for that to happen sooner so that they might cease to pervert the right ways of God, as Paul said to Elemas the sorcerer, and he pronounced a curse upon him, causing him to become blind. That is not unchristian.

It is Christian to love our personal enemies, those who harm us. But those who will resist the kingdom of God to their death and will not repent, we can with the psalmist wish for their quick destruction and for their elimination, because right cannot prevail in triumph unless those who are committed to evil are overthrown or conquered. Either they have to convert or they have to be destroyed in order for right to prevail.

And so let me show you some examples from the Imperatory Psalms where the motive of the psalmist comes out as not being a desire for personal vengeance or vindication, so much as a desire for God's glory. Psalm 83 is one of those psalms. Psalm 83 in verse 18, that's the very end of the psalm.

And the whole psalm has a lot of impercations against these enemies, but the last two verses says, Let them be confounded and troubled forever. Yea, let them be put to shame and perish. Well, that's just the end of a long string of impercations.

Now he gives his reason. Verse 18, that men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth. In other words, as long as wicked men prevail on the earth, people wonder whether God's really in control.

And David's saying, or not David, but Asaph in this case, is saying, I want to see these wicked men punished. I want to see good triumph so that men may know that there's a good God who rules the universe. When we hear of all kinds of child molesting and child abuse that goes on and atrocities that are done by insane people in political power and so forth, we wonder, you know, why does God permit this? And then if God does something about it, people sometimes say, well, let's put it this way, we rejoice when God puts down such a person, but if we wish for him to be put down, we almost feel guilty because we feel like, oh, maybe I should just be loving him and praying for him.

Well, we should pray for such people until we know that they can't be changed. Some people won't be changed. But the point is that the psalmist is wishing for the evil people to be overthrown so that God will have glory, so that people will know, so that men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth.

Another psalm that shows that the motivation is really for God's glory to prevail is in Psalm 79. And in verse 12, for instance, it says, And render unto our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom their reproach. This is the end of the imprecation.

Wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord. In other words, the reason he wants them punished is not because they've reproached him, the writer, but because they've reproached God. God, stand up for yourself.

I want to see you stand for your own glory. And in fact, the fact of the matter is the very first imprecation in the psalm, Psalm 510, makes it very clear that it's not just because people have made themselves David's enemies, but because they are violators of God's laws that he wants to see justice done. He knows that God must do justice and execute justice on those who break his laws.

He's just asking that it would happen soon enough that the evil people can't do any more damage in the meantime. But in Psalm 510, it says, Destroy thou them, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels.

Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against thee. Not because they persecuted David, but because they've rebelled against God. He says, they are living in transgression of your laws.

They're rebelling against you. In order for righteousness to prevail, you must overthrow these people, destroy them, or convert them. But of course, in David's day, most people of that type didn't convert to Judaism or didn't convert over to the Lord.

So he just wished rather that they be removed so that God's ways could continue to be, would not continue to be perverted by such people. In Psalm 58, another statement that shows the motive of the psalmist. Psalm 58 verses 10 and 11.

It says, The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, so that a man shall say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous. Verily, he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

In other words, the righteous man is going to rejoice to see the wicked judged, because men will then be able to say and will have to say, there truly is a reward for righteous people. That is, God does reward goodness and he does punish wickedness. Verily, he is a God that judges in the earth.

That is truth. That's the truth of God. But men don't see it until God brings such judgment.

When Hitler was taking over all of Europe and threatening the whole world, I'm sure there were many people who thought, why doesn't God stop this? Now, of course, Hitler was stopped through the ordinary ways that tyrants are often stopped, through war. Nonetheless, most of us are willing to believe. In fact, probably a lot of unbelievers actually felt when he fell that God had come to the rescue and probably rejoiced.

They were probably rejoicing to hear that that evil man had fallen. And no doubt they felt, well, God had vindicated himself. If God had let Hitler take over the world, they might have said, where is God? Isn't there a God who judges wicked men? But now, because God has overthrown him, and that was a long time ago now, and there's new tyrants who have come up since, some of whom have been overthrown.

When people see that God has judged the wicked, they say, oh, there is a God who judges the world. That's good to know. And it gives God the glory that's due his name.

It gives him the credit he deserves. One other case in Psalm 69, where we see the motive of the imprecator. Psalm 69, and verse 6. It says, let them that wait on thee, O God of hosts, be ashamed.

Let them not be ashamed for my sake. Let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel. Now, what he's saying here is that he has fallen prey himself.

Though he's a righteous man, he has fallen prey to the devices of wicked men. Later in the same Psalm, especially verses 22 through 27, he calls down imprecations on those wicked men. Asks God to judge them and thwart their purposes and overthrow them.

And his purpose here is seen in verse 6. He doesn't want righteous people, or those who wait on the Lord, to be disappointed. He doesn't want those who are seeking him, seeking the Lord, that is, to be confounded or confused. When people look at David's case and see that he's being wrongfully treated, and yet God doesn't come to his rescue, people get confused and say, well, where's God? Why isn't God helping David? And David is saying, I want you to judge these evil men so that these people won't be confused about it.

So they'll just see that there is justice. So it's not even so that David would be relieved of his problems, although I'm sure he wished for that as well, but he was concerned also that if things go badly for him, people might wonder about God. And it would confound people, even who tend to be seeking God.

I've sometimes thought that way about, you know, if this ministry collapsed or something someday, I don't think so much about what that would do to me, because I have a lot of other places I could go. But I think of what testimony would that be to the people abandoned? What about those people who put their hope that God has brought finally a ministry in here who can maybe challenge the forces of hell and maybe possibly be a catalyst for revival or something? You know, there are people who are putting their hopes in this thing and see God as being in it, and if it for some reason fell prey to the enemy and either was perverted or collapsed for one reason or another, it wouldn't be so much a trial to any of us as individuals, because we could always go somewhere else. But what about those people who would say, well, why did God let that happen? You know, it would sort of dash their hopes down, and that's what David was thinking.

You know, don't let these evil men have the victory over us, over me particularly, because that's going to really confound people who are seeking you. It's going to really confuse them. Those who are awaiting on you will be ashamed, really.

And so we can see that David and the other writer of the imprecatory Psalms, Asaph, are not writing these things simply because they're angry at their enemies and they want vindication and they want revenge, but they do want vindication. That is, they do want God to come forth and show that their cause was the right one, but they want it so that God's justice will prevail and God's glory will not be maligned by people who are confused by the situation or who wonder whether there's really a God who judges the wicked or not. So, it's a concern for God's glory.

These imprecations, even though some of them are very severe, are probably to be best understood as nothing more than the psalmist taking God's side against sinners and expressing the very thing that's on God's heart toward these people. Now, it's true that God would desire all men to repent, and He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Nonetheless, He is angry at transgressors every day.

We read in one of the Psalms, He's angry at sinners every day. And that anger is felt by His people as well. Those who are near the heart of God feel that same anger.

It makes me angry when I hear of some of the people who've been here being ripped off by cultic-type guys, you know. To me, that makes me angry, and I think it makes God angry, to tell you the truth. And that's how the psalmist felt.

They took God's side. They said, Lord, it makes me mad to see these people spitting in Your face. Taking God's side is better.

An example of this attitude, which is not found in an imprecatory psalm, but is in another psalm, Psalm 139, is this, Psalm 139, verses 19 through 22. Psalm 139, verses 19 through 22, it says, Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God, depart from me therefore, ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.

Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And not I grieve with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies. Now, look at that.

You might say, well, that doesn't sound very loving. Aren't you supposed to love your enemies? Well, these aren't David's enemies. They're God's enemies.

David did love his enemies. He did show mercy to Saul, and to Absalom, and Shimei, and others who were his personal enemies. He always showed mercy and compassion to them, and he grieved whenever he heard of their death.

But he's not talking about people who are just his enemies. He's talking about people who are taking the name of God in vain. People who are bloody men.

People who speak against God wickedly. Those people who hate God. He says, those people I hate.

I count them my enemies because they're your enemies. I'm taking your side in this matter. I hate them with perfect hatred, which probably means there's not any selfishness mixed in here.

I don't hate them because of any personal interest on my part. It's just a pure hatred of those. I'm just feeling the same anger that God must feel about those people who are spitting in his face.

And so, we find that David here is really taking God's side against sinners. And he vows to take God's side against all evildoers, even though, you know, sometimes some evildoers can be very convenient to have as allies for a politician. Now, David was a politician.

He was a king. And when you consider it, a lot of politicians are heavily supported by some fairly wicked people who want to, you know, give them brides or want them to do evil things. I mean, not everyone who's wicked is necessarily inconvenient to have as an ally.

In fact, sometimes it's very convenient to have wicked people as allies. They have money. They have power.

They'll strike out for you against your enemies and so forth. But David was saying, regardless of how convenient or inconvenient it may be for me, I'm going to take the side against all evildoers. So, it's not as though David is vindictive against his own enemies.

He's just agreeing with God, really, about people who hate God. So, we can see it's not a selfish kind of thing. These imprecatory psalms offend us largely because we have a rather sentimental idea about the love of God.

We know that God is love. We know that God loves all men. He so loved the world, He sent His only begotten Son, and so forth.

He showed Himself in this. The love of God was commended. He commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, He died, Jesus died for us.

So, we can see that God loves all men and desires all men to be saved. But that does not mean that His wrath is non-existent. He has wrath.

He is slow to anger and plenteous in mercy, Psalm 103 tells us. But He does have anger and He does, there is an end to His mercy. When the people in Noah's day, their thoughts were always evil continually, the Bible says, God said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, I'll give him another 120 years.

He was slow to wrath, but He knew that He'd eventually have to bring judgment. And it is not contrary to His love to have to do that. As we've said on other occasions, in fact, it's the most loving thing to do for society, to rid it of the people who destroy it.

Like taking a cancer out of a body. It's a loving thing to do to the body, to remove the cancer. Though it doesn't help the cancer any, it certainly helps the body.

And human society is corrupted and destroyed by people who violate the laws of God. And therefore the removal of such people is good for society and good for the average citizen. So it's out of God's love that He does bring judgment on wicked people eventually.

And so it's not unloving for us to wish that He would do it. When we see people who are victimized by other people, then it's not contrary to love God for us to wish that God would bring justice to the situation. And so that is what the imprecatory psalms actually do.

And they are actually praying in the inevitable judgment that God must ultimately bring. We see that in Psalm 149, verses 7 through 9. One of the imprecatory passages that we listed. Psalm 149, verses 7 through 9. Actually 6 through 9. It says, Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, that is in the people of God, and a two-edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance upon the heathen and punishments upon the people, to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron.

Now it sounds kind of nasty really. He's saying let the people of God have the praises of God on their lips and a sword in their hand to go and execute vengeance on the enemies of God. And it says, To execute, verse 9, to execute upon them the judgment written, this honor have all the saints.

Now the judgment written means that God has already written what kind of judgment must come to people who commit such acts. And He's just praying that that judgment would come about. God's already determined it.

It's already been written that certain judgment must come on such people. Now He's just saying let's get it done. Now in this case, of course, it's different than us because in those days, many times God would actually lead His people to take their literal swords and go out and be agents of His justice.

Whereas the church, of course, does have a different calling than that. It doesn't mean that it's wrong. For instance, if the United States goes and liberates some country, I guess, if there's some oppressor there, I wouldn't call that wrong or unjust, although I would just say that's not the church's business to be involved in.

If the government does that, the Bible says in Romans 13, God has raised up the state to do such things. They bear not the sword in vain. They are ministers of God for righteousness.

And if a government is involved in a just kind of a war, if that's possible to imagine, and if there's a just cause and it's righteous, then I'm not going to decry it. But I will say the church has a different role than to go out and fight. The church has other enemies of the world to fight against, and that is spiritual enemies.

And so the effect of Psalm 149, the passage we read, for us would apply more to the spiritual foes, taking spiritual sword in our hands, the Word of God, and executing vengeance on the devil and to execute upon him the judgment that's written against him. There are certain judgments written against the devil, aren't there, in the New Testament. And, for instance, for this cause of the Son of God manifested that it might destroy the works of the devil.

Well, we could take our two-edged sword and go about slaying, you know, the powers of darkness, not human beings, but evil spirits. So there is a sense in which even these more warlike psalms apply to us in a spiritual sense. But they did apply physically in those days because sometimes God's own people, with their swords and their spears, would be the agents that God would use to bring judgment.

David's own sling was used as God's tool to bring down Goliath and to defeat the Philistines, and his sword on other occasions was. So, what I'm pointing out here, though, is in Psalm 149, verse 9, that the judgment, or the vengeance that's being suggested, is not something that's dreamed up by the suffering party. It's something that God has already determined must take place.

It's a judgment that's been written. And they're saying, well, let's see it come about then. And so the imprecatory psalms are actually prayers that are trying to bring in that which is already inevitable.

It's been determined by God that such judgment must come. Now they're just saying, bring it. Do it.

You know, vindicate yourself and your great name and your righteous people. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that particular attitude. In fact, we have that attitude expressed twice at least in the New Testament.

In Luke chapter 18, this is from the lips of Jesus, actually. Luke 18, verses 7 and 8. This is at the end of the story. The unjust judge.

You remember how the widow went to this judge and she sought to get justice from him, get him to vindicate her cause, and he wouldn't do it because he didn't care about her. And yet she kept pestering him and pestering him. So he finally says, well, just to get her off my back so she doesn't keep coming to my house and ringing the doorbell and calling me every day and, you know, standing on the courthouse steps and holding on to my robes as I walk in saying, vindicate me.

Just to get her off my back, I'll do what she wants. Now that's what the unjust judge does. Of course, God's not unjust.

And the idea is if even people who are not just will do the righteous thing when they're pressed, how much more will God, who loves righteousness, do the righteous thing if we pray and press him for it. But verses seven and eight at the end of that parable says, And shall not God avenge his own elect which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? Now notice, without respect to the last line that we read there, that he says that God shall avenge his elect who cry unto him day and night.

Well, these imprecatory psalms are the kinds of cries that are asking God to avenge his elect. And Jesus said he will. He will.

Whether it means through temporal judgments where the man who actually comes and smites you on one cheek and you turn the other cheek and then he walks off and gets hit by a car, we say, well, God avenged you. On the other hand, maybe he'll live prosperously and live on a bed of riches and die an old man and all, but he'll still have to be avenged at the judgment day. God will eventually avenge.

And it is God's desire to do so, although he doesn't take pleasure in it, but it is his desire that justice be done to those, especially those who oppose his people. Another New Testament passage that shows this concern is in Revelation chapter 6, verses 9 through 11. Revelation 6, 9 and 11.

Now this was when the fifth seal was opened of the seven sealed book. Revelation 6, 9. And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them.

And it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled. Now here we see the martyrs, their souls, under the altar in heaven. And they're asking God, How long will it be before you avenge our blood? Now, it's not likely that the martyrs are vengeful.

I mean, the only martyrs that are listed for us in the Scripture whose reactions are told in the New Testament are Jesus and Stephen. And we know that Jesus said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.

And Stephen said, Father, lay not this sin to their charge. Nonetheless, though the martyrs don't personally have wicked feelings toward their oppressors, they realize that until vengeance is brought forth, God's justice will never fill the earth. And they're wondering how long that'll be.

How long will it be that righteous blood can cry to the ground from the ground like ables for vengeance and God not respond? That's what they want to know. And he says, Well, a little longer, a little longer. There's more to come like you.

There's more going to be beheaded, too. So God's purposes will be fulfilled in due time, in which case vengeance will be meted out to the wicked. And these Psalms are a lot of times just cries of people wishing that that would happen sooner than it is happening, apparently.

But when we take God's holiness seriously, we cannot rule out these emotions because to realize that God isn't just a mushy, sentimental God who just loves everybody like a big grandfather, regardless of what they do. But he's a holy God who cannot countenance sin and must judge sin. Then these implications are quite in line with with other principles, even New Testament principles.

You see, many times implications are uttered with a mind to seek the rehabilitation of the evil person. Sometimes, in other words, it's even the desire of the psalmist to see the evil person repair. And that's why he wishes for certain judgments to come upon him.

One of the imprecatory Psalms that does this is Psalm 83, Psalm 83 and verse 16. In the midst of this imprecation, he says, Psalm 83, 16, fill their faces with shame that they may seek thy name, O Lord. In other words, make their life hard, fill their faces with shame so that they'll seek you.

A lot of times people won't seek God until things start going wrong. So he says, well, they're opposing you now and it must be because they're prospering. Therefore, turn everything against them so that they'll seek after you.

This is echoed in at least two passages in the New Testament. Both of them refer to delivering someone over to Satan. In First Corinthians, Chapter five, delivering a person over to Satan apparently refers to excommunicating them from fellowship and just putting them out from under the covering and the protection of the church, out where Satan can get at them.

But concerning a notable sinner in the church of Corinth, Paul says in First Corinthians 5, 5, deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. So he wants this man to be buffeted by Satan, to be delivered over where destruction can come upon him in the physical sense so that spirit, his spirit may be saved. That is, hopefully he'll be driven to repentance by such treatment from God's hand or from the devil, really.

Another instance of that is one that I mentioned earlier. First Timothy 120. First Timothy 120.

It says, of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander? Remember Alexander, he's the one that Paul wished that he'd be rewarded according to his deeds in Second Timothy 4, 14. It says, of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. In other words, he wants them to learn not to blaspheme.

He wants them to change. Therefore, he delivers them over to Satan, which basically is what some of the imprecatory Psalms do. There's one of them in particular, I think it's Psalm 109.

Let me show you this one. That actually are turning their enemies over to Satan. That's what they're actually wishing for.

The word Satan means an adversary in the Hebrew. And therefore, we might consider it's not talking about the devil so much as just send an adversary to their life. But in Psalm 109 and verse 6, this is one of the more severe imprecatory Psalms.

Psalm 109, 6, it says, set thou a wicked man over him and let Satan stand at his right hand or let an adversary stand at his right hand. In other words, he's saying, sick the devil on him. He's turning the person over to Satan for certain calamities to come upon him.

And in a sense, turn him over to God. But see, God uses Satan as his agent so many times of bringing evils upon people who deserve it or who need to be tested by it. So we can see that it's a concern often for the rehabilitation of the person.

It's not always unloving to wish for evil things to happen. None of these things that are mentioned, by the way, nowhere do these imprecatory Psalms wish a person to be damned, only that great calamities would come upon them, either for their own rehabilitation or for God's glory to be seen, for God's justice to prevail in the world, to be unhindered by such wicked men. Another thing, too, if we object that they ought to show compassion and mercy and forgiveness and so forth, a lot of these Psalms come from people or they actually make reference to the fact that they have already done that, that they have shown mercy to this person, but the person has turned on them and abused it.

And now there's nothing left but to ask for judgment upon them. And of course, there is such a thing as forgiving 70 times 7, but Jesus said that in the context, if your neighbor sins against you and repents seven times in one day, forgive him seven times and so forth. That to forgive someone again and again and again, Jesus indicated is proper to do if they repent each time.

If they repent, then you should say, well, I guess even though you've done it 489 times, you're still repentant, so I'll forgive you again. But if a person, if you forgive them just out of the goodness of your heart for wrongs done and they just abuse the mercy, you give them opportunity to go at liberty and they just abuse it further, and it's clear that they're not going to repent, then, of course, imprecations are in order. Let me give you a few psalms that show that that is the case, that in some cases the people have already been extended mercy, but I've abused it.

Psalm 35, verse 12. Psalm 35, verse 12 says, They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul. That means I did good to them, but they rewarded me with it by doing evil to me.

In Psalm 69, another case of the same kind of thing. 69.4 says, They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. They that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty.

Then I restored that which I took not away. I gave to them things that they demanded, even though I hadn't stolen them in the first place. I did good to them, and they wrongfully, without cause, made themselves enemies of mine and turned against me in that way.

Psalm 109.5 is another case that tells us that mercy had already been extended and neglected or abused. It says, Psalm 109, verse 5, And they have rewarded me evil for good and hatred for my love. I've given them love, and they've rewarded me with hatred.

It calls down some of the most severe imprecations found in the Bible upon them. So, realize that there are New Testament principles that have to do with personal forgiveness of enemies and showing mercy and loving your enemies and wishing them well and praying for them and blessing them and all. But there are also principles of justice.

We're not just to get mushy. We're not just to get sentimental and say, Oh, it's okay. It doesn't matter what people do.

I'm just going to tolerate it. Because there is a case where God wants us to move forward in battle using prayer as our weapon. And by the way, note that none of the people who pronounce the imprecations actually take up the sword themselves.

As near as we can tell, with the possible exception of Psalm 149, where it says, Let the two-edged sword be in their hand and so forth. But the sufferer is not usually the one who's going to be bringing vengeance. They're actually committing their case to God, saying, God, you do it.

And we see this in David's life so clearly because he had opportunity at least twice to kill Saul when Saul was pursuing him wrongly. And some of these imprecations are probably uttered against Saul. But David was not willing to take the law into his own hands.

He was not willing to get revenge for himself, but to leave it in God's hands, which is exactly what Paul tells us to do in that passage in Romans 12.10. Brethren, avenge not yourselves, but give place to wrath. That is, give God a chance to move, to bring wrath. Because God has said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay.

In other words, don't avenge yourself because God will avenge you. And you can ask God to avenge you. That's certainly within Christian boundaries, since God has certainly said he's going to do so.

A lot of times the things he said he's going to do are done only when we begin to pray and ask him to do it. We shouldn't mistake forgiveness with condoning things that really call for condemnation. Certain activities really call for condemnation and for the Christian to condone them.

See, forgiveness is one thing. You can forgive a person. But if they totally do not repent in any sense, and you just keep forgiving them, what you're actually doing is condoning them.

You're just letting them do it and you're not raising a voice against it or resisting it in any way. And I believe that the voice of the church is supposed to be speaking reconciliation to the world, but it's also supposed to be condemning the works of darkness. It says, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but reprove them.

And so the call for the condemnation of certain acts and those who perpetrate such acts, when they have been forgiven and they've abused it and so forth, is not out of keeping with Christian conduct. So, you know, it's a funny thing that a lot of people who are offended by these prayers, these imprecations, are quite hypocritical about it because they don't like to hear the psalmist say these things about their enemies, but those same people sometimes will take up a sword and go out and kill their own enemies at war, where the psalmist, at least, were saying, God, you take care of it. You defend me.

You avenge me. But some of the people who feel like that's not a very Christian attitude think that it's Christian enough to go out and kill your enemies, you know, at war. In other words, they take the law into their own hands rather than putting it in God's hands.

So the psalmists are really doing the thing that's more Christian than what a lot of Christian people who object to imprecations do themselves. It's kind of a strange phenomenon, really, isn't it? Okay, I'd like to look at five of these imprecations before the end of this class. Well, we might not really get through five, but we're going to start looking at them.

The imprecatory psalms divide into two groups. The one group has five. The other has more.

Now, I said there are only seven imprecatory psalms, but realize there are 21 imprecatory passages when you include the seven imprecatory psalms and 14 shorter passages. There are 21 imprecations, we might say, or imprecatory passages in the Psalter. And five of those 21 were not written by David.

That means 16 of them were. 16 of them were written by David, and we'll study those as a separate group. These five that we want to consider were not written by David.

They were written not by any individual about personal enemies at all, but they are national psalms. They are speaking up for the nation, Israel, and asking God to bring judgment upon the nation's enemies. Not a matter of personal grudges between two parties, but a matter of the nations that are trying to stomp out Israel.

Now, Israel, remember, of course, was God's manifestation of his kingdom in the earth in those days, though it didn't really live up to that high calling very often. The Israelites didn't. Nonetheless, their existence was God's beachhead in the world.

God's sphere of outreach and his sphere of activity was in Israel, and therefore his kingdom on earth was in Israel. And the nations that tried to stomp out Israel were resisting God's kingdom. And so these five passages we want to talk about are in psalms that are written about the national enemies of national Israel.

It has nothing to do with personal grievances or personal grudges, okay? Two of their psalms, two of the imprecatory psalms are of this kind, and then three other passages. The first one to consider is Psalm 83, which we've already taken a few passages from for illustration of various points. This is not a psalm of David, but a psalm of Asaph, as are some of the others, and it is a cry for God to help Israel, not so much the individual rider.

He says, Keep not thou silence, O God. Hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. For lo, thine enemies make a tumult, and they that hate thee have lifted up their head.

There it is again, the people who hate God, not so much who hate the rider. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones. I don't know why he calls them his hidden ones, though it's interesting that the Bible does say that our life is hid with Christ in God, but that was certainly not an Old Testament reality.

But apparently he's referring to the same thing that perhaps some of the other psalms talk about. For instance, in Psalm 27.5, about God will hide me in the shadow of his pavilion. Or in Psalm 91, they who dwell in the secret place of the Most High shall dwell under the shadow of the Almighty.

The ones that God has hidden under his wing to protect them. He says the wicked people have taken counsel against them, and consulted against them. Verse 4, They have said, Come and let us cut them off from being a nation.

Clearly it's talking about the nation Israel as a nation, not an individual. That the name of Israel may no more be in remembrance. That's the plot.

These nations want to destroy the nation of Israel. In other words, they want to obliterate all the light that God has in the earth at this time. For they have consulted together with one count's consent.

They are confederate against thee. The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites of Moab, and of the Hagarines, Giebel and Ammon, Amalek, the Philistines, and the inhabitants of Tyre, Asser also, which is probably Assyria, is joined with them, and they have helped the children of Lot. The children of Lot were the Moabites and the Ammonites.

So here's a list of some of the various historic enemies of the Jews. The Edomites, the Ishmaelites, Canaanites of various kinds, Moabites, Philistines, Amalekites, Moabites, and Ammonites. So we really have quite a few of the groups that we've seen in earlier parts of the Scripture.

These are the enemies of the Jews. He lists them. Then he says, Do unto them as unto the Midianites, as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Chison.

Now, the Midianites, remember Sisera was the king that got a tent peg driven through his head in the book of Judges, in the battle which Deborah and Barak led the Israelites in. He was the commanding officer who was assassinated treacherously by a woman named Jael. He says, Do unto them like you did to him.

In other words, he was our enemy, and you defeated him. Do that to our other enemies, too, who are trying to stamp out our existence. He says, Which perished at Endor, they became as dung for the earth, their bodies that were just left out to rot.

Make their nobles like Oreb and like Zeb, yea, all their princes as Zeba and Zamuna. Now, these are Midianite princes that were put to death by Gideon in Judges chapters 7 and 8, when Gideon led the people of Israel against their enemies. These names are the names of princes of the Midianites that were defeated by Gideon.

He says, Make their nobles like these ones. In other words, repeat for us what we've seen in history. In the books of the Judges, you used to come out to our aid and do justice to us against our oppressors.

Do so again. Speaking of these nobles who were put to death, who said, Let us take ourselves the houses of God in possession. O my God, make them like a wheel, as the stubble before the wind.

Perhaps the wheel, I don't know exactly what's referred to there. But a stubble before the wind means like dry grass just blown away. As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire, so persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.

Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek thy name, O Lord. Again, the passage that makes it clear he wishes for them to convert, not just to be destroyed senselessly. Let them be confounded and troubled forever.

Yea, let them be put to shame and perish, that men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth. A verse we already commented on. That he's wishing all these evils, not just for his own safety or for his own vindictiveness to be satisfied, but because he's concerned about the name of God being maligned.

As long as God allows evil men to go unpunished, there's always the danger that his name will be impugned. And it is impugned, in fact, because of it. If we turn now to Psalm 137, another national psalm.

This was written by an unnamed psalmist during the Babylonian captivity. A very different situation. The enemies here are not the Moabites and the Edomites and the Ishmaelites, but here we have the Babylonians who have taken the Jews captive.

They've destroyed Jerusalem. They've killed many thousands of Jews. They've taken most of the rest of them into Babylon, where they are now in captivity, where they've remained, of course, for 70 years.

And this psalm is about that. And the last words are quite strict and severe and very difficult for us to handle, perhaps, in some ways. It says, By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.

Or we remembered Jerusalem before it was destroyed. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. Their harps were instruments they used to play when they'd rejoice.

And now they have nothing to rejoice about, so they hung up their instruments and they don't play and sing anymore. For they that carried us away captive required of us a song. And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

So their captors said, Hey, we've heard about your music. Why don't you sing us one of those Israeli folk songs? Those people who wasted us, those people who carried us away captive, of all the nerve, they ask us to sing one of our songs to entertain them. But he responds to their request, saying, How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land, a strange land? Either because they're too sad to sing those songs, which tended to be a more celebrating type song, or because they refused to sing the holy songs of Zion in the ears of Gentile dogs.

For one reason or another, they say, While we're in this land, we're not going to sing those songs. In spite of their requests. Then he says, and notice, before he calls imprecations on the Babylonians, he calls imprecations on himself if he forgets Jerusalem.

He says, If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

So, in other words, if I don't put God's interests and God's city first in my life, then may my right hand lose its ability to make a living. May I, in other words, become a beggar, because my right hand would cease to be able to bring support to me. May it lose its cunning.

May my tongue cleave to my jaw. If I'm not praying to God for Jerusalem, then I don't have the right to speak at all. He says, If I don't prefer Jerusalem above everything else, all my other joys in life.

Now, this of course we could actually apply to the new Jerusalem, the church. If we don't love the church, and if we aren't praying for the church, and if we forget to intercede for the church, it's a similar thing. We're not necessarily going to call these specific curses on ourselves, but it shows an attitude, of course.

And maybe this is something I should mention before we go any further. And that is, the imprecatory psalms sometimes use language that is not intended to really convey actual punishments that they really want to see happen. And that's important for us, especially when we read this psalm in Psalm 109.

It's not as though they really, literally want to see all these things happen to people. This is more like an expression of outrage. Remember, the psalms are poetry.

And poetry is written as poetry because it's not just supposed to inform us or just supposed to address us. It is seeking to move us. It's seeking to touch us.

It's seeking to kindle in us something. That's what poetry is for. And these outrageous cries are in order to kindle the same kind of rage within us toward evil.

As the psalmist is feeling this outrage about the enemies of God who are transgressing the laws of God and eating up his people as bread and so forth, he wants the reader to feel that outrage too. And so he uses very expressive language, which may not really, literally mean what he hopes to see happen. I doubt if he really wanted his right hand to shrivel up and his tongue to cleave to the roof of his mouth.

He was just trying to express his outrage. Just like Job, for instance. Job in Job chapter 3. He's pronounced an imprecation, but he pronounced an imprecation about the day he was born.

Remember, he said, Cursed be the day that I was born. And he says, I don't want the sun to shine on that day. I don't want the moon or the stars to give their light on that day.

In fact, I want that day totally removed from the calendar, you know. Now, obviously, he didn't literally expect or wish for those things to happen. What consolation would it be to him if the sun didn't shine on his birthday or if the day was taken off the calendar? Obviously, it was not a literal thing he wanted.

He was just expressing his outrage that he would be born into a world that would bring him so much trouble. And so we have to realize that such poetry is not always intended to be taken strictly literally. And that will help us with a few of the more radical statements that we read.

In Jeremiah chapter 20, we have another example because he pronounces an imprecation here. But it's obvious that he can't be meaning it in a very strictly literal sense. Jeremiah 20 verses 14 through 17.

He says, Cursed be the day when I was born. He was obviously in a bad mood. He says, Let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.

Then he said, Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father saying, A man child is born unto thee, making him very glad. And let the man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew and repented not. And let him hear the cry in the morning and the shouting at noontide, because he slew me not from the womb, or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.

Now what he's saying, he's pronouncing some kind of a destruction upon the man who brought news to his father that he had been born and made his father glad. And the man who didn't slay him from the womb or who didn't murder his pregnant mother. Now obviously he can't be literally saying, That man deserves to be cursed.

And I doubt that he intended in any sense for God to take that literally. What he's trying to do is express his outrage that he even just hadn't been born. And he might speak in more graphic and flowery language than we would do or see as normal.

But we can be very clear in our own minds that this is not to be taken as a literal spelling out of punishments that he intends for the man who brought that news. He's very clearly just saying, I wish I'd never been born. And he's saying it stronger.

I mean, that's the strongest language he can use. And so the psalmist did the same thing. So when he says, If I forget Zion, may my right hand lose its cunning.

May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. He doesn't really want that to happen to him. Even if he does forget Zion, he probably doesn't want that to happen to him.

But he's just saying, I should never, ever forget Jerusalem. And the same thing for any other Jew. We should never do it.

We'd be worthy of the worst curses that we can imagine. Then he goes on to some of the more difficult passages here in Psalm 137, verse 7. Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem who said, Raise it, raise it, which means burn it down, even to the foundation thereof. So the children of Edom joined with the Babylonians and were rooting for the Babylonians to burn down Jerusalem.

That says, O daughter of Babylon, who art thou? I'm sorry, who are to be destroyed? Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou has served us. Happy shall he be that taketh and dashes thy little ones against the stone. Now, that's probably the most objectionable statement in the imprecatory Psalms.

Happy is the man who takes your children, your babies, and dashes their heads against the rocks. Now, how can that be justified? How could that be part of inspired Scripture? Well, there are some things we need to consider. First of all, that's exactly what eventually did happen to Babylon.

Those ancient societies, the Persians who overthrew Babylon, and the Babylonians themselves commonly treated their defeated foes that way. They'd go in, they'd disembowel pregnant women, they'd cruelly just dash children against the walls and kill them, they'd take them by the feet and smash them up against the walls. I mean, those things are documented.

That's the way wars were fought in the old days. First you kill off the army, then you go in and do every kind of cruelty you can think of today and have it into the city. And what he's saying here, he didn't say... I mean, it's true that he wishes for this, perhaps, in his own heart, but he doesn't say that.

He says, happy will the man be who does that. In a sense, he could even be saying that for your children to be dashed against the stones and suddenly snuffed out in that way would be more merciful than the things that are really going to happen to them if they live to see the overthrow that you're going to have. He could be actually saying the man who would actually do this to your children would be more friendly.

He'd be doing you a favor. He'd be doing your children a favor. Because better that they die quickly like that than that they experience the carnage and so forth.

You know, when we remember how when Jerusalem fell, the horrible thing that went on in the city for a full year before it fell, and just the wars that went on inside, the torture, the starvation, the sickness, the plagues that ran through. The people died anyway, eventually. Many of them probably wished that they were just dashed against the stones in a momentary thing.

And he could be saying here, listen, your destruction, Babylon, is going to be so great that you'll bless the man who puts your children out of their misery quickly. Now, at the same time, we have to realize that the psalmist himself, there's always a certain human element in the psalms as well. Their own thoughts and their own feelings come in.

But we don't find him really wishing evil on the children. He's saying, essentially, what you did to us, may that happen to you. Really, he's not specifically aiming his vindication at the children.

He's just saying, in verse 8, he says, O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed, happy shall he be who rewards thee as you served us. The way you treated us, let them do to you. That's what the Babylonians did to the Jews.

They took their children, dashed their heads against the stones, and so forth. Did these horrible, horrible things. And he's just saying, all the cruelty you measured out to us, it's going to happen to you.

And saying, happy is the man who gets to do it. It'll be an I'll cheer for him kind of a thing. Now, it's not, like I said, it's not specifically directed against the children.

And like I said, we can't always take it totally literally. Basically, he's just expressing his outrage and saying, you dashed our children against the stones. Happy is the man who'll do the same thing to you, kind of a thing.

So, although that's a trouble, I mean, it's a hard passage to read and to appreciate, of course. Nonetheless, we can see, perhaps, that it's not really wishing evil on the children, particularly. It's more like just a statement of outrage at the Babylonians for the abuse and the cruelty that they showed to the Jews when they burned their city to the ground.

But again, that's a national psalm. It's not a person wishing something against his personal enemies, but it's the whole nation gone into Babylon. And as the voice of the nation, the psalmist writes and says, you know, may I never forget Jerusalem and happy is the man who destroys Babylon.

By the way, the New Testament echoes the same thing about Babylon, though probably a different Babylon. In Revelation 17 and 18, it talks about Babylon has fallen, has fallen, and talks about the utter destruction of Babylon, which is probably spiritual Babylon in that case. Nonetheless, it sort of echoes the same thoughts here, that happy is the man who gets to be God's instrument of judgment on that wicked system, that wicked city.

Going now to Psalm 79, we have two verses to consider. Psalm 79, verses 6 and 12. Now this is another psalm of Asaph, and it too is written after the fall of Jerusalem.

And so probably it would seem the Babylonians are the ones to consider here, because it says in verse 1, O God, the heathener, come into thine inheritance, that is into Jerusalem. Thy holy temple have they defiled, they have laid Jerusalem on heath. That's the Babylonians.

Now concerning them, he pronounces certain imprecations. Verse 6, pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name. The apostle Paul sort of echoes this statement, but he doesn't call out for such wrath, he only predicts it.

In 2 Thessalonians 1.8, where Paul's talking about the second coming of Jesus Christ, and what will happen to the heathen who know not God at that time, it says that Jesus will come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he's talking about not just people who are ignorant, but people who have been disobedient, people who are willingly ignorant. But notice he echoes sort of the words from this imprecatory psalm.

It says, whereas David, or Asaph, calls out for this to happen, Paul predicts it will happen. When Jesus comes, he'll come in flaming fire, and he will take vengeance on those that know not God. That's what Psalm 79.6 is asking for.

Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee. Going down to verse 12, and render unto our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord. Again, note that even though the writer has suffered at the hands of these people, he's not vindictive for them having reproached him or his people so much as they've reproached God, and that's what causes him such rage.

He does not want to see such actions go unpunished. He wants God's name to be honored and defended. And so he doesn't defend it himself.

He calls on God to do so. He asks God to do so. Another of these national psalms that contains such a passage is Psalm 129, verses 5 through 8, which we'll have to cover quickly.

Psalm 129, verses 5 through 8. It says, Let them all be confounded. Well, we could actually read verse 4 to get this setting. The Lord is righteous.

He hath cut in half the cords of the wicked. Let them all be confounded and turn back that hate Zion or hate Jerusalem. Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth before it grows up.

You know, there's grass that grows up in between the cracks of a cement building or an adobe building. It doesn't have any root or anything, so it withers when the sun comes up. That's what he wants them to be like, the wicked men who hate Zion, who hate Jerusalem, hate Israel.

Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves in his bosom. Now, there's this grass on the housetops. No one mows it and collects it to feed to his animals.

He doesn't bind it together as crops. It's worthless. Worthless grass that grows out of the cracks in the housetops and no one gathers it.

No one has any interest in it. It's not of any value. It just withers when the sun comes up.

That's what he wants these people to be like. It says, neither do they which go by say the blessing of the Lord be upon you. We bless you in the name of the Lord.

So, this is a rather mild imprecation, just saying let them be confounded and let them be like the grass that withers. In other words, let their career be temporary. Let them not last long.

Let them be like the grass that has no root, which withers away and which no one blesses. No one pronounces the blessing of the Lord upon it. Okay, one last psalm.

We don't even have to talk about it again because we've already talked about it. But that is of this category, wishing a destruction upon the national enemies of Israel. It's Psalm 149, verses 7 through 9. And I'll read that passage again for our memories.

But we've already discussed it. Psalm 149, again we can start at verse 6 and go through the end, verse 9. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand to execute vengeance upon the heathen and punishments upon the people. To bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron.

To execute upon them the judgment written, this honor have all his saints. Praise ye the Lord. So this final imprecatory psalm is basically calling for the people of God to rise up against the enemies of God.

And in our case, we could apply that directly to spiritual warfare. That Satan has reproached God. Satan has ruled the world.

Satan has persecuted the church so long. Let us rise up with the weapons of praise of God in our mouth. And the word, the two-edged sword of the word of God in our hand.

Because the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword according to Hebrews 4.12. And in Ephesians 6.17 we're told that we're to take the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. Ephesians 6.17. Okay, so that covers that first group of imprecatory psalms. I hope to cover the rest in our next class after we take our break.

So why don't we do that. We'll break now.