Today’s reading is Psalm 137.
A Primer on Imprecation
No doubt we’ve covered the nature of imprecations, prayers asking God to curse or punish others, when we’ve come to other imprecatory psalms. However, since this one is the strongest and most difficult of them all, let’s remind ourselves what we’ve learned on our walk through the psalms about imprecation. I apologize, I believe this particular imprecation warrants the full treatment. Today’s reading will be long.
Principle #1: Psalm 7:12-13 should set the stage for all imprecations. “If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and reading his bow; he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts” (ESV). Many suggest Psalm 5 is the first imprecatory psalm. Be that as it may, this early imprecation in Psalm 7 should set the stage for us. All imprecations should be read as a curse on the impenitent. Keep in mind God’s self-revelation in Ezekiel 18:23: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” (ESV). Judgment will come on the impenitent. Such judgment is right and righteous. We who follow God should side with God on that. Yet, the primary desire is repentance. In fact, with some of the imprecatory psalms, we see even in the psalms themselves, the initial reaction to the wicked was not the imprecation but a different approach which was rejected by the stubborn sinners (see Psalm 135:12-13; 109:4). Keep this first principle in mind with each of the following principles.
Principle #2: Understand the nature of the psalms in general and any psalm in particular. The psalms are not doctoral dissertations on theological topics providing us the thorough explanation of any given principle. Psalms are snapshots of the Psalmists’ lives. Therefore, some psalms paint the picture of a psalmist in moments of elation and joy. Others in moments of sadness and despair. But above all, they are real moments. These moments are not soft-peddled or white-washed. The rough edges are not smoothed over. If the psalmist is in a moment of discomfiting disorientation, we see the psalmist in that moment no matter how discomforting it is too us. Imprecations are just such moments. We find psalmists in the moments of pain, anger, even fear. That is precisely what we see in Psalm 137. We all notice vs. 9 and the claim of blessing on the one who kills the children of Edom, Babylon, or both. But don’t miss vs. 8. This is prayer about the wicked nations receiving what they administered. The person who prays blessing on the one who kills Babylon’s infants either witnessed or heard the stories of Babylonians dashing the heads of Israelite infants against the walls. Further, in Psalm 137, after witnessing these horrors, they got to Babylon and their oppressors mocked them and tweaked them with jokes about singing Zion psalms. Put yourself for a moment in the mother’s shoes who had her infant ripped from her arms, watched it dashed against the wall, was hauled off to a foreign land, and the the very soldiers who killed her children laughed, mocked, and begged for Zion songs. In our sanitized offices and rooms, we may find these prayers offensive, but when we put ourselves in those parents’ shoes, can’t we at least understand their outcries? I appreciate the point Craig Broyles makes about this psalm: “Otherwise we abuse the text by ignoring the context, namely that Psalm 137 is in the mouth of powerless victims, not powerful executioners” (“Understanding the Bible Old Testament Commentary on Psalms).
Principle #3: For all the despair, anger, fear of the psalmist, he leaves the vengeance up to God. He prays what seems to us an awful (we even fear it is unlawful) prayer, but he prays. He doesn’t go kill Babylonian children in his anger and despair. We see him in this emotional snapshot, with emotions so raw and violent they frighten us. This psalmist is unable to get to the point of praying like Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive the people who killed my baby, they didn’t know what they were doing.” Would you be able to? But he is taking those desperate, crushing emotions to God in prayer, not to the Babylonians and Edomites in violence and vengeance.
Principle #4: In Genesis 12:3, God promised the patriarch Abraham: “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse” (ESV). When the psalmist pray for cursing on those who have cursed Israel, they are praying for God to do what He has promised. As shocking as it may be, this particular imprecation even more directly prays for God to fulfill His promise. Keep in mind Habakkuk’s response in Habakkuk 1:12-17 when God had told him He was sending the Babylonians (Chaldeans) to enact judgment against Judah. He is stunned. The Babylonians are too violent. They are too wicked. Yes, Israel was bad, but Babylon was worse. God then explains in Habakkuk 2:6ff, He will judge Babylon as well. Their wickedness allows them to be God’s tool of judgment on Judah, but they will be judged for their own wickedness as well. Then see Isaiah 13, in which God promises the coming judgment on Babylon. In vs. 16, God promises ,”Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished” (ESV). Just as Egypt had killed the infants of Israel and so God killed the firstborn, so Babylon killed the infants of Israel and God would repay them in like manner. The psalmist is not simply making up horrific prayer requests in his anger, he is asking God to do as He promised.
Principle #5: In Deuteronomy 19:15-21, we learn God’s law for those who falsely accuse someone. While Psalm 137 doesn’t exactly match that point, the Babylonians had no room to accuse Israel. When someone wrongly and maliciously accused someone, they were to suffer whatever it was they hoped would happen to the one they wrongly accused. Thus, we find in imprecations the request for God to enact justice against those who wrongfully accuse and wrongfully treat Israel.
Principle #6: The relationship underlying imprecations is not expecting God to count my enemies as His. These prayers are not intended to convince God the people I don’t like are worthy of His judgment, condemnation, and punishment. Rather, the imprecations were recognizing God’s enemies, the ones stubbornly impenitent, deserving judgment because of their tenacious wicked rebellion. And then agreeing with God that they deserve judgment. The imprecations are uttered by those who have decided the enemies of God will also be my enemies.
As hard as this imprecatory psalm is to swallow for Christians raised on Jesus’s teaching about praying for our enemies and blessing those who persecute us, may I bring up a modern event which may help us grasp the setting for it. Consider the holocaust in Germany in the 1940s. Do we not believe the impenitent evil perpetrated by Hitler and his Nazi regime deserves judgment and condemnation? Consider the testimony of certain events asserted by S.S. Stubaf Haller as reported in the book A Spy for God by P. Joffrey as he claimed the German soldiers sometimes would “take the Jewish children by their feet and to break their heads by striking against the wall…” (found in Derek Kidners’ Psalm 73-150, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, v 16, p496, fn 93). When faced with this kind of evil, is the kind of prayer we find in Psalm 137 so shocking? Or is it more shocking we don’t find more of those prayers? Isn’t it more shocking how much of Scripture modifies Psalm 137 by saying if people repent they will escape the curses of this psalm? Of course, the real struggle is we all believe sin on the Hitler end of the scale should be so punished. We protest that sin on our end of the scale should not. And this simply demonstrates how little we appreciate the holiness of God and the horror of any and all sins, including ours. Yet, when we do allow the weight of these things to settle in our hearts and minds, we rejoice to learn granting imprecations is God’s last resort, seeking our repentance whereby we can be delivered is His first. Praise the Lord!
No doubt, imprecations are hard to hear. Especially ones as brutal as Psalm 137. But we do need to read them within their context and purpose. And before we start bandying about imprecations in our own prayers, we need to make sure we are actually in the same situation as the writers of Scripture who used them.
Tomorrow’s reading is Psalm 137.
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PATHS:
Discuss Today’s Meditation with Your Family
How does Psalm 137 admonish you?
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