Do I not Hate Those who Hate You

In Psalm 139, David proclaims his hatred for those who hate God. May we sing that? Now that Christ has come among us and told us, “You shall love your enemies?”  For those who argue for the “singing of the Psalms,” these types of psalms, known as Imprecatory Psalms, often come up.  Should we sing these Psalms as well?   In the Psalms, David seems to express a different spirit than the one Jesus has in the New Testament. I argue that we should sing these songs.

These songs look to God to provide vengeance.They allow the Christian to look to God’s justice for dealing with oppression and evil.  We can think of the Boko Haram and ISIS.  We look at them with pity and desire their salvation.  At the same time, we are angry at the magnitude of their wickedness.  We desire that God will rescue those who suffer under their hand.

With that in mind, here are a couple of things to keep in mind when you run across such a verse whether in your readings or when you are singing in church.

1. First, remember to read carefully.  In Psalm 139, David specifies the types of people he hates. He hates God’s enemies.  In Matthew 5, Jesus asks those who are listening to love their enemies.  These are not God’s enemies.  They are your enemies.  David is praying in his role as a servant of God.  Your enemy might not be God’s enemy.
2. In Matthew 23, Jesus calls down “woes” upon the Pharisees and Scribes, who have perverted God’s law.  His anger at the Pharisees is coupled with a desire for their salvation.  At the end of Matthew 23, he says, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.”
3. Remember that vengeance belongs to God.  God wants us to release our desire for personal vengeance so that we “love our enemies.”  We do this by relying on God for vengeance.  Some Christians deal with a great amount of suffering.  Men oppress and attack them in a way that Christians in the west have a hard time imagining.  God gives them a way to seek vengeance in the words of this Psalm.  God responds to such a prayer in two ways: by breaking them on the rock or crushing them under the rock.  The rock is Christ.  God saves you when he breaks you on the rock.  If God crushes you under the rock, you are lost.
4. Finally, we need to understand David’s hate.  It is possible that his hatred for the extreme violence and evil committed by his enemies exists alongside a pity for their fate before God.  This fate is one that they have chosen, but it is a pitiable one.

These are meant to be helpful comments to give us confidence in singing the Psalms before God.  These are prayers that God has given us in order to teach us how to pray.  We should learn how to pray from them.