Imprecatory Prayers

Today I was reading the psalms and I noticed the imprecatory prayers. I wondered why David called judgment down upon his enemies, but he also prayed for them.

So, I looked a few things up on the Internet and here are some quotes from an article on the imprecatory psalms by David Powlison.

Two things goof up the imprecatory psalms.

The first is to see myself as righteous, and to view others as the bad people over there, or those people who don’t do what I like, or those people who aren’t part of my group or nationality. Those are the bad people and I’m perfectly content to allow God’s wrath to be on them. But I am the good. That’s standing outside the problem of evil, rather than as a participant.

The second view is to say, “I’m just too nice and kind of a human being to go for all that primitive, un-Christian venting of violent emotion.” Those who believe the Bible is the Word of God are embarrassed about those sentiments, and apologize for them. The people who criticize the Bible reject the imprecatory Psalms as primitive, barbaric, un-Christian sentiments. Either way, we put ourselves outside the problem of evil. The fact is, we cannot understand the imprecatory psalms unless we stand inside the problem.