Dear God, Please Kill Babies. Amen.: Hyperbolic Art

This series so far:

• Dear God, Please Kill Babies. Amen. (or, my thoughts on the Imprecatory Psalms)
• Dear God, Please Kill Babies. Amen.: Justice Is At The Core
• Dear God, Please Kill Babies. Amen.:Imagine A Cross-less World

Continuing my musings on the imprecatory psalms, I now come to a consideration that seems far more weighty than the ones previously mentioned. The core desire for justice and the pre-cross worldview may be foundational to making sense of these psalms, but the level of moral disturbance generated by them is still present (for me at least) until I come to this consideration. Namely, we must remember that the Psalms are art.

Art is, by its very nature, an abstract expression of reality, not a concrete one. Much of scripture is written in more concrete terms such as doctrinal statements, historical accounts, and legal codes. The narrative accounts in Scripture often bridge the gap between the concrete and the abstract by containing elements of both. But more than any other portion of Scripture, the psalms are purely artistic. They are poetry. They are lyrical. They are musical. They are abstract.

Moreover, the reality that the psalms express is often emotional reality. With the psalmists, we rise to mountaintops of spiritual ecstasy, but we also join them in the pits of despair. We get caught up in their wave of praise flowing forth from divinely wrought victory, but we also join their all-to-human seething, vengefulness, and anger. The purpose of the psalms is not to teach us how to feel. Rather, they were written, compiled, and divinely preserved to show us what to do with those feelings.

Also, as abstract, artistic writings, the psalms often use figurative language to get their point across. One of the frequent figures of speech used in the psalms is hyperbole (exaggeration for the sake of emphasis). One of my early instructors used to define hyperbole as “truth standing on its head in order to get attention.” So while the psalmist prays for some pretty horrible things, we cannot therefore conclude that those literal actions were the actual desires of his heart. To be sure, we also can’t conclude that they were NOT the actual desires of his heart. Nevertheless, this consideration should give us reason to at least pause in our judgment of the psalmist.

An illustration: I have been known at various points in my illustrious career as a licensed operator of a motor vehicle to become quite irritated at my fellow motor vehicle operators. At times when I feel especially wronged by a driver who performs a dangerous maneuver in traffic, putting me and my family in danger, I have been known to call out wishes for that driver to have misfortune come his way. “I HOPE HE WRECKS HIS CAR AND BREAKS BOTH LEGS!!!” might be a phrase that would aggressively and loudly come out of my mouth during such a moment. Now, if I were to write a position paper (a concrete form of communication) on what I really desired for that man, it would not include a desire for him to have a wreck and break both of his legs. However, in the emotion of the moment, such a hyperbolic statement is the only way to adequately express the very real emotions of that experience. If I said in a flat tone, “I really do hope that that chap corrects his dangerous actions and henceforth refrains from putting himself and others at risk” it simply would not convey accurately the emotional element of the moment. Therefore, although factual, it would not be an accurate/truthful expression of my experience in the moment. So I increase my volume, exaggerate my language, and blurt out something emotional. In some ways it is a more truthful form of communication than a dry factual statement would be.

I think that illustration fairly closely parallels what may be happening with the psalmist in the imprecatory psalms. To try to write a poem made only of dry facts would not accurately convey the emotional/spiritual reality of the moment. So he does the literary equivalent of shouting in orderly to convey his pain, anger, frustration, confusion, etc. more adequately.

I will close this post with a quote from Derek Kidner’s commentary on the Psalms in which he makes some similar observations. He writes:

Such immoderate language has an air of irresponsibility which cries out for criticism, yet it would be a mistake to wish it away. It has as valid function in this kind of context as hyperbole has in the realm of description : a vividness of communication which is beyond the reach of cautious literalism.

This brings us close to the heart of the matter, which is that the psalms have among other roles in Scripture one which is peculiarly their own: to touch and kindle us rather than simply to address us. The passages on which we may be tempted to sit in judgment have the shocking immediacy of a scream, to startle us into feeling something of the desperation which produced them. This is revelation in a mode more indirect but more intimate than most other forms (Psalms 1-72, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, pp. 27-28).

More to come …

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