Dear God, Please Kill Babies. Amen. (or, my thoughts on the Imprecatory Psalms)
If you were to ask the average Christian what the Psalms are about, I suspect that she would likely answer praise, comfort, peace, etc. The psalms encourage us, inspire us, and comfort us. They ease our pain and stress, sending us into green pastures and loving arms, even when our lives are in very dark places. As a spiritual caregiver to the sick, dying, and grieving, I refer to the psalms more than any other part of Scripture for this very reason.
As examples of the comfort offered by the psalms, consider the following:
You gave us up to be devoured like sheep
and have scattered us among the nations.You sold your people for a pittance,
gaining nothing from their sale. …Our hearts had not turned back;
our feet had not strayed from your path.But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals
and covered us over with deep darkness. …Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.Why do you hide your face
and forget our misery and oppression?We are brought down to the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.Rise up and help us;
redeem us because of your unfailing love.
~Psalm 44:11f, 14, 18f, 23-26
Can you feel the peace coming over you? I sure can! Let’s look at another one:
Appoint an evil man to oppose [my enemy];
let an accuser stand at his right hand.When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
and may his prayers condemn him.May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven from their ruined homes.May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.May his descendants be cut off,
their names blotted out from the next generation.May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD;
may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.May their sins always remain before the LORD,
that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
Psalm 109:6-15
I have never felt so encouraged in all my life!! Now lets close with praise:
O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
Psalm 137:8-9
OK, so all of the psalms aren’t as positive and uplifting as we may like to think after all. In fact, some of them seem downright cruel, hateful, and (dare I say) ungodly! These are known as the “Imprecatory Psalms,” and there are several of them (7, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69, 79, 109, 137, and 139). This label comes from the word “imprecate,” which means “to invoke evil upon; to curse.” So they are psalms which are about cursing or calling for evil to come upon another. Perhaps C.S. Lewis put it best (as is often the case) when he said,
In some of the Psalms, the spirit of hatred which strikes us in the face is like the heat from a furnace mouth. (Reflections on the Psalms, p. 20)
So they strike us on the surface as being all that we believe is opposed to godliness. This impression is only bolstered when we look at the teachings of Jesus. Consider the following:
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Jesus, Matthew 5:44).
But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you (Jesus, Luke 6:27-28).
If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head (Jesus, as quoted by Paul, Romans 2:20).
The tension between the psalms and the teachings of Jesus are truly perplexing. I’m not sure that I have it worked out in an air-tight way just yet. However, I have come to realize a few things about these psalms which help me to make sense of their place in Scripture and even see some applicable principles that can be gleaned from their presence in Scripture. In my next few posts, I’ll go through some of the things that help me as I try to make sense of the imprecatory psalms.
Until I get to my next post, I am curious to know how others make sense of them. Please share in the comments.
