Can we curse Putin?

“I find myself turning again and again to the imprecatory psalms,” wrote Tish Harrison Warren this week at Christianity Today. 

“Each morning I’m praying Psalm 7:14–16 with Vladimir Putin in mind: ‘Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends’ (ESV).”

Like Warren, 

“I don’t usually know what to do with” poetry that comes from a source I regard as divinely inspired, perfect, and authoritative, yet “[calls] down destruction, calamity, and God’s judgment on enemies.” Like her, and I’d guess most people who follow Jesus, “I am often uncomfortable with the violence and self-assured righteousness found in these psalms.”

Perhaps even more so than her; I can’t say I’ve been praying imprecations on Vladimir Putin, much as I despise his actions. But I understand her argument that the cursing psalms have value: They “name evil. 

They remind us that those who have great power are able to destroy the lives of the weak with seeming impunity”; and they give words to our hearts’ longing “for judgment against the wickedness that leaves fathers weeping alone over their silent sons.”

WHAT ARE IMPRECATORY PSALMS?

They are individual psalms in the Book of Psalms in which the authors call for misfortune and disaster to strike their enemies. The writers of the psalms were often persecuted by ungodly people, so they prayed that God would pour out His wrath and righteous judgment upon their foes. Only by doing so, they believed, could God’s love and justice strike a proper balance. Some examples of imprecatory psalms are Psalms 5, 11, 17, 35, 55, 59, 69, 109, 137, and 140.

First of all, let’s define imprecatory prayer. To imprecate means “to invoke evil upon or curse” one’s enemies. King David, the psalmist most associated with imprecatory verses such as Psalm 55:15, 69:28, and 109:8, often used phrases like, “may their path be dark and slippery, with the angel of the LORD pursuing them” (Psalm 35:6) and “O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!” (Psalm 58:6).

Psalms 7, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69, 109, and 139 were written by David to ask God to bring judgment upon his enemies. (The other two imprecatory psalms, 79 and 137, were written by Asaph and an unknown psalmist.) These prayers were written not so much to exact revenge upon one’s enemies, but rather to emphasize God’s abhorrence of evil, His sovereignty over all mankind, and His divine protection of His chosen people. Many of these prayers were prophetic and could be seen taking place later in the New Testament in actual historical events.

When David prayed for God to shatter the teeth of his enemies, likening them to young lions pursuing him to his death, he was making the point that God is holy, righteous, and just, and He will ultimately judge the wicked for the evil they do. Jesus quoted some of the imprecatory psalms during His earthly ministry. In John 15:25, Jesus quotes Psalm 35:19 and 69:4, and Paul did so as well in Romans 11:9–10, which is a quote of Psalm 69:22–23. Since Jesus and Paul quoted verses from these imprecatory psalms, it proves those psalms were inspired by God and removes all doubt that they were sinful or simply selfish prayers of revenge.

Using imprecatory prayers for our circumstances today is unjustifiable, as it would require taking these prayers out of context. In the New Testament, Jesus exhorts us to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44–48; Luke 6:27–38), but praying for their death or for bad things to happen to them isn’t what He meant. 

Instead, we are to pray for their salvation first and foremost, and then for God’s will to be done. There’s no greater blessing than a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and that’s what Jesus means by praying for and blessing those who curse us.

Praying in that manner allows God to work in our own lives to soften our hearts toward our enemies so that we’ll have compassion on them for their eternal destiny, and to remove bitterness and anger from our hearts. Praying for God’s will to be done means we agree with God and are submitting ourselves to His divine sovereignty, despite not always understanding perfectly what He’s doing in a particular situation. 

And it means we have given up the idea that we know best and instead are now relying on and trusting in God to work His will. If a personal wrong has truly been done to us, we seek God in prayer about it, and then leave room for God’s judgment and trust Him to do what is best. That is the way to be at peace with God and all men (Romans 12:17–21).

DIG DEEPER

One reason the psalms have had so much appeal to God’s people in all ages is their comprehensiveness of language. A full range of human emotion, even extreme emotion, is found. No matter how sad you are, the psalmist helps you express your sadness, with abject pathos if necessary (e.g., Ps 69:7–20; 88:3–9). No matter how glad you are, the psalmist helps you express that as well (e.g., Ps 23:5–6; 98; 133). The obviously exaggerated language (hyperbole) is hard to outdo!

Now sadness and gladness are not sinful. But bitterness, anger, and hatred may lead one to sinful thoughts or actions, such as the desire or the attempt to harm others. It is surely true that expressing one’s anger verbally—letting it out in words, as it were—is better than letting it out in violent actions. Parts of certain psalms help us in just this way, and with an added dimension. They guide or channel our anger to and through God verbally rather than to or at anyone else—verbally or physically. Psalms that contain verbalizations to God of anger at others are sometimes called imprecatory psalms.

Why deny that we sometimes have such anger toward others? Through the imprecatory psalms, God invites us to “be angry, but sin not” (Ps 4:4 RSV). We must fulfill the New Testament teaching, “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold” (Eph 4:26–27), by expressing our anger directly to and through God rather than by seeking to return evil to those who have done evil to us. Imprecatory psalms harness our anger and help us express it (to God) by using the same sorts of obvious, purposeful exaggeration known to us from other types of psalms.

The imprecatory parts of psalms are almost always found in laments. Psalm 3, described in detail above, contains in verse 7 an imprecation that, like most others found in the book of Psalms, is brief and therefore not likely to be highly offensive. But some imprecations are rather lengthy and harsh (see parts of Pss 12; 35; 58; 59; 69; 70; 83; 109; 137; 140). Consider, for example, Psalm 137:7–9:

    7 Remember, LORD, what the Edomites did

      on the day Jerusalem fell.

    “Tear it down,” they cried,

      “tear it down to its foundations!”

    8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,

      happy are those who repay you

      according to what you have done to us.

    9 Happy are those who seize your infants and dash them against the rocks.

Psalm 137 is a lament for the suffering endured by the Israelites in the exile; their capital, Jerusalem, had been destroyed, and their land had been taken from them by the Babylonians, aided and encouraged by the Edomites (cf. the book of Obadiah), who greedily helped themselves to the spoils. 

Heeding God’s Word, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay” (Deut 32:35; cf. Rom 12:19) the composer of this lament calls for judgment according to the covenant curses (see the discussion in ch. 10). Included in these curses is provision for the annihilation of the whole wicked society, including family members (Deut 32:25; cf. Deut 28:53–57). Nothing in Scripture teaches, of course, that this temporal judgment should be seen as indicating anything about the eternal destiny of such family members.

What the psalmist has done in Psalm 137 is to tell God about the feelings of the suffering Israelites, using hyperbolic language of the same extreme sort found in the covenant curses themselves. The fact that the psalmist seems to be addressing the Babylonians directly is simply a function of the style of the psalm—he also addresses Jerusalem directly in verse 5. 

It is God who is the actual hearer of these angry words (v. 7), just as it should be God, and God alone, who hears our angry words. Understood in their context as part of the language of the laments and used rightly to channel and control our potentially sinful anger, the imprecatory psalms can indeed help keep us from harboring or displaying anger against others (see Matt 5:22).

The imprecatory psalms do not contradict Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies. We tend wrongly to equate “love” with “having a warm feeling toward.” Jesus’ teaching, however, defines love actively. It is not so much how you feel about a certain person but what you do for that person that shows love (Luke 10:25–37). The biblical command is to do love, not to feel love. 

In a related way, the imprecatory psalms help us, when we feel anger, not to do anger. We should honestly express our anger to God, no matter how bitterly and hatefully we feel it, and let God take care of justice against those who misuse us. The foe who continues to do evil in the face of our forbearance is in big trouble indeed (Rom 12:20). 

The proper function of these psalms, then, is to help us not to be “overcome by evil” but to free us from our anger, that we might “overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21).

A final word: The term “hate” in the book of Psalms has been commonly misunderstood. 

• While this Hebrew word does in some contexts mean “despise,” it can also mean “be unwilling or unable to put up with” or “reject” (as God toward Esau in Mal 1:3). 
• Both are standard definitions in the Hebrew lexicons for this word. Thus when the psalmist says, “I have nothing but hatred for them” (Ps 139:22), he is expressing in the strongest possible way his utter dismay and inability to put up with those who hate God. 
• Therefore, on this account as well there should be no presumption that the language of the imprecatory psalms violates the Bible’s teaching elsewhere, including Matthew 5:22.

Some Concluding Hermeneutical Observations

Since Christians for generations have almost instinctively turned to the Psalter in times of need, perplexity, or joy, we hesitate to offer a “hermeneutics of the psalms,” lest we somehow make them too pedestrian. Nonetheless, some observations are in order—hopefully so as to make them still greater joy to read, sing, or pray.

First, we should note that the Christian “instinct” (common sense) just alluded to provides the basic answer to the question with which we began this chapter: 

How do these words spoken to God function for us as a Word from God? The answer? Precisely in the ways, they functioned for Israel in the first place—as opportunities to speak to God in words he inspired others to speak to him in times past.

Three Basic Benefits of the Psalms

From the use of the psalms both in ancient Israel and in the New Testament church, we can see three important ways in which Christians can use them.

First, the psalms can serve as a guide to worship. By this we mean that the worshiper who seeks to praise God or to appeal to God or to remember God’s benefits can use the psalms as a formal means of expression of his or her thoughts and feelings. A psalm is a carefully composed literary preservation of words designed to be spoken. When a psalm touches on a topic or a theme that we wish to express to the Lord, it can help us express our concerns in spite of our own lack of skill to find the right words.

Second, the psalms demonstrate to us how we can relate honestly to God—how to be honest and open in expressing joy, disappointment, anger, or other emotions. On this point they do not so much provide doctrinal instruction as they give, by example, instruction in the godly articulation of even our strongest feelings.

Third, the psalms demonstrate the importance of reflection and meditation on things that God has done for us. They invite us to prayer, to controlled thinking on God’s Word (that is what meditation is), and too reflective fellowship with other believers. 

Such things help shape in us a life of purity and charity. The psalms, like no other literature, lift us to a position where we can commune with God, capturing a sense of the greatness of his kingdom and a sense of what living with him for eternity will be like. 

Even in our darkest moments, when life has become so painful as to seem unendurable, God is with us. “Out of the depths” (Ps 130:1) we wait and watch for the Lord’s deliverance, knowing we can trust him in spite of our feelings. To cry to God for help is not a judgment on his faithfulness but an affirmation of it.

A Caution

We conclude this chapter with a very important caution: The psalms do not guarantee a pleasant life. It is a misunderstanding—an overliteralization—of the language of the psalms to infer from some of them that God promises to make his believers happy and their lives trouble-free. 

David, who expresses in the book of Psalms God’s blessing in the strongest terms, lived a life that was filled with almost constant tragedy and disappointment, as 1 and 2 Samuel describe. Yet he praises and thanks God enthusiastically at every turn, even in laments, just as Paul advises us to do, even in the midst of hard times (Col 1:12; 2:7; 3:17). God deserves praise for his greatness and goodness in spite of and in the midst of our misery. This life holds no certainty of freedom from distress.