To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Miktam of David.
Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?
Do you judge the children of man uprightly?
No, in your hearts you devise wrongs;
your hands deal out violence on earth.
The wicked are estranged from the womb;
they go astray from birth, speaking lies.
They have venom like the venom of a serpent,
like the deaf adder that stops its ear,
so that it does not hear the voice of charmers
or of the cunning enchanter.
O God, break the teeth in their mouths;
tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!
Let them vanish like water that runs away;
when he aims his arrows, let them be blunted.
Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime,
like the stillborn child who never sees the sun.
Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns,
whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!
The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.
Mankind will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
surely there is a God who judges on earth.”
(Psalm 58)
Hopefully you have seen by now that the Psalms speak to every category of human experience. We are currently witnessing outrage at injustice that has occurred in our nation. The Psalms speak to this experience as well. These are what are known as imprecatory Psalms.
Psalm 58 is an imprecatory Psalm. That is, in the Psalm David calls down curses or imprecations on his enemies. As we read imprecatory Psalms, several ideas must be kept in mind. For one, David is primarily concerned for God’s reputation, not his own. Another is that these are warnings and therefore implicit appeals for repentance. David wrote them for his enemies’ sake. And finally, we must remember that these prayers are ultimately the prayers of Christ made through David and as such are upright cries for justice.
Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind” (Jn 9:39). Furthermore, he said that his Holy Spirit would remain behind as his representative convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (Jn 16:10,11). The nature of his judgment was to face men with God’s salvation such that they had to accept or reject him. If they rejected him, they in effect condemned themselves. That is the message of the incarnation. God put his Son in the world’s face and said, “No more games. You can’t ignore me. I am here. If you accept me, you will live forever. If you reject me, you condemn yourself.”
This Psalm, written long before the arrival of God in the flesh, confronts us with Gospel justice too: receive it and live or reject it and die. More particularly, it calls us to confront the world with it. As you process current events and consider the biblical way to respond, let’s walk through this psalm that cries out again injustice and learn how to pray in such times.
Prayer
Ask God to guide you in how to pray against injustice.
Artez Henderson recently wrote a letter to majority culture believers on how they can love and encourage minority brothers and sisters. You can read it here: https://www.2pc.org/media/responding-to-recent-racial-atrocities/.