THE IMPRECATORY PSALMS
Praying Imprecatory Prayers
The Definition of an Imprecatory Psalm and an Imprecatory Prayer
An imprecatory prayer is a prayer that imprecates or invokes damnation, judgment, calamity, or curses upon the enemies of God and God’s people. Although many of the Psalms contain an imprecatory prayer, the Imprecatory Psalms are those which are in and of themselves imprecatory prayers.
The Imprecatory Psalms are Psalms 7, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69, 109, and 139, which were written by David, as well as Psalms 79, which was written by Asaph, and Psalm 137, which the Septuagint attributes to Jeremiah.
Imprecatory prayers prayed in other Psalms are found in: 5:10; 6:10; 9:19-20; 10:2, 15; 17:13; 28:4; 31:16-18; 40:14-15; 41:10; 54:5; 63:9-10; 68:1-2; 70:2-3; 71:13; 83:9-18, 94:1-4; 97:7; 104:35; 119:84; 129:5-7; 139:18-22; 140:8-11; 141:10; and 143:12.
The Imprecatory Psalms
PSALM 7 — The first of the Imprecatory Psalms was written by David in response to Cush the Benjaminite, who had apparently slandered David before Saul as a traitor to the crown.
PSALM 35 — The second of the Imprecatory Psalms was probably written by David when Saul hunted him over hill and dale, and when those who fawned upon the cruel king, slandered the innocent object of his wrath.
PSALM 55 — The third of the Imprecatory Psalms was probably written during Absalom’s rebellion and Ahithophel’s betrayal.
When the foremost foe of one’s country is one’s fellow countrymen, one’s country truly hangs in the balance. When a country’s greatest threat is not found without, but in turmoil within, it’s predicament is most precarious. In such turbulent times, one may need to pray as David did, without timidity and against his own countrymen, who’ve become his country’s most formidable foe. While they may pretend patriotism, treason is in their hearts. Therefore, since the endangering evil is in them, and they refuse to fear God and repent, the only way to pray for the deliverance of your country is to pray for the death of your treasonous countrymen.
PSALM 58 — The fourth of the Imprecatory Psalms, like the second, was probably written by David when Saul hunted him over hill and dale, and when those who fawned upon the cruel king, slandered the innocent object of his wrath.
PSALM 59 — The fifth of the Imprecatory Psalms was written by David when Saul sent men to watch David’s house’ and kill him.
PSALM 69 — The sixth of the Imprecatory Psalms was written by David. Although we cannot be sure when David wrote it, the general consensus is it was written during the time of Absalom’s rebellion. The special significance of this Psalm is seen in the silhouette of Christ on the cross, which may be seen in it, as shown to us by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. Psalm 69:9 is referred to in John 2:17 and Romans 15:3. Psalm 69:4 is referred to in John 15:25. Psalm 69:21 may be seen in Matthew 26:34, 48; Mark 15:23; and John 19:29. And Psalm 69:25 may be seen in Matthew 23:38 and Acts 1:20. Most significant for our study, however, is the difference between David’s imprecatory prayers against his enemies and Jesus’ prayer for the pardon of His enemies (Luke 23:34)! Before dismissing this difference between David’s prayers and the Son of David’s as the difference between divinity and humanity, we should add that Stephen prayed pretty much the same prayer for those who stoned him that Christ prayed for those who crucified Him (Acts 7:60).
PSALM 79 — The seventh of the Imprecatory Psalms, unlike the preceding Imprecatory Psalms, was authored by Asaph, not David. Asaph was assigned by David as one of the musical leaders at the tabernacle (1 Chronicles 6:31-32, 38). He appears to have continued to serve as a musical leader at the temple as well. He is referred to in 2 Chronicles 29:30, along with King David, as a writer of psalms, as well as a “seer.” The Psalms attributed to Asaph are 50 and 73-83. However, this Psalm is believed by many to have been authored by a later Asaph, since it appears to be addressing the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC. Another possible explanation is that it is prophetic, the seer Asaph is peering into the future at Jerusalem’s coming destruction at the hands of her enemies.
PSALM 109 — This eight of the Imprecatory Psalms was written by David and may be called the most imprecatory Psalm of the Imprecatory Psalms. It is “one of the hard places of Scripture,” as Spurgeon calls it, so hard that “the soul trembles to read” it. One author has even ventured to call it a Psalm of "pitiless hate” and “refined and insatiable malignity." However, since it was penned under divine inspiration and intended to be sung in worship, such cannot possibly be the case. Instead, we must learn from this Psalm a hard lesson; namely, that it is impossible to pray for the well-being of the incorrigible enemies of God and God’s people. To pray for the overthrow and destruction of wicked wretches, who are not only a scourge on all humanity, but also the perpetrators of the most inhumane indignities against the innocent, is to pray out of love for one’s fellowman and with the righteous indignation of God.
To justify the harsh curses called upon the incorrigible targets of this sever imprecatory prayer, Peter identifies one of them as Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:20). Consequently, the Psalm is often called the “Judas Psalm” or “Iscariot Psalm.”
PSALM 137 — The ninth of the Imprecatory Psalms is believed to have been penned, like Psalm 79, in latter times. In fact, it may be pinpointed to have been penned when the people of God were captives in Babylon, and being incessantly insulted by their proud oppressors. For this reason the Septuagint makes this Psalm out to be one of the lamentations of Jeremiah, naming him, the Weeping Prophet, as its author.
PSALM 139 — The title of the tenth and final Imprecatory Psalm—“For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David”—first appears in the book of Psalms in Psalm 109, which is another another Imprecatory Psalm. Both Imprecatory Psalms, therefore, were intended to be sung in worship, despite the fact that they herald David’s hatred of the wicked and his calling down of harsh curses upon them. However, as in Psalm 109, this Psalm also justifies such absolute malevolence on the basis of the absence of any malignant motive. As long as the heart is free of malignity, and found by an omniscient and omnipresent God, to be solely motivated by one’s selfless desire for the good of man and the glory of God, his hatred of beastly men and blasphemers of God is commendable rather than condemnable. That these Imprecatory Psalms were intended to be sung in worship, makes perfect sense, since the end of all inhumanity and impiety is certainly an incitation to rapturous worship?
The Psalm's Imprecatory Prayers
Let them be snared in their own schemes. (Psalm 5:10)
May they be disgraced and terrified, forced to turn tail in shame. (Psalm 6:10)
End the evil of the wicked and exonerate the righteous. (Psalm 7:9)
Arise, O Lord, do not let mortal men defy you, but make them tremble by reminding them that they are merely human. (Psalm 9:19-20)
Hunt down those who arrogantly hunt down others and snare them in their own snares. (Psalm 10:2)
Break the arms of evildoers and bankrupt them of their ill gotten gain. (Psalm 10:13)
O Lord, rise to your feet against the wicked and bring them to their knees. (Psalm 17:13)
Pay them back for their evil and give them a taste of their own medicine in proportion to the evil they’ve both perpetrated and prescribed. (Psalm 28:4)
Let your favor shine on the godly, so that they will never be disgraced, but let their accusers be disgraced, and their lying lips silenced in Sheol. (Psalm 31:16-18)
O Lord, oppose those who oppose me and fight those who fight me. (Psalm 35:1)
Humiliate those who want to harm me. Blow them away like chaff in the wind and shove them down a dark a slippery path. (Psalm 35:4-6)
Let those who’ve set a trap for me, be caught in their own trap, and those who’ve dug a pit for me fall into their own pit. (Psalm 35:7-8)
Don’t let those who slander me, mock me, and snarl at me, even though they don’t know me, glory and gloat over me. (Psalm 35:15-16, 19)
Exonerate me, O Lord, and embarrass those who want to exalt themselves over me. (Psalm 35:24-26)
Let those who wish to harm me be humiliated, those who crow over my troubles be turned back and confounded, and those who say to me “Aha” end up ashamed. (Psalm 40:14-15; 70:2-3)
Repay my enemies by raising me up. Make your mercy to me their comeuppance. (Psalm 41:10)
Because of your faithfulness, O God, and the evil of my adversaries, annihilate them. (Psalm 54:5)
Let death stalk those who pose from within the real danger to my homeland, those within whom evil is at home. (Psalm 55:9-11, 15)
May those who twist my words, who plot against me, and who spy upon me, in hopes of destroying me, be brought down by you, O God, in your indignation. (Psalm 56:5-7)
O Lord, smash the fangs of the venomous snakes who try to strike me. Tear out the teeth of the ferocious lions who try to tear me to pieces. Make their weapons useless against me. May they disappear faster than rain is soaked up by parched soil or than a pot heats up over burning thorns. May they get nowhere, like slugs moving in slime or stillborn children. I, like all the righteous, will rejoice when I see divine retribution and am able to wash my feet in the blood of the wicked. Then, at last, everyone will know that there is a reward for those who live for the Lord and that there is a God who justly judges over all the earth. (Psalm 58:6-10)
O Lord God of Heaven’s armies, rise up and punish our foreign combatants and show no mercy to our treasonous fellow-countrymen. (Psalm 59:5)
Let my enemies slowly stagger into the grave, after having been brought by you to their knees O God. Let them be pulled down by their pride and hung out to dry by their lies. Then, they will serve as a sure sign of your sovereignty over the affairs of men. (Psalm 59:11-13)
May those who devise a plot against God’s anointed be brought down to destruction in the depths of the earth. (Psalm 63:9)
Rise up Jehovah Nissi, may your enemies be scattered in my life and may your foes flee before you. Blow them away like smoke in the wind, melt them like wax in the fire, and cause them to perish in your presence. Then, I, along with all the righteous, will praise you in your presence. (Psalm 68:1-4)
O Lord, don’t let those who trust in you be ashamed or humiliated under the hatred and insults of those who hate and insult you. Safe us from those who hate us and seek to destroy us with lies, while we endure their insults for your sake. Pile up their sins against us before you and erase all their names from the Book of Life, so that their names will be neither recorded nor remembered in the eternal record. (Psalm 69:4, 6-7, 14, 22-28)
May those who seek my harm be humiliated and all of my accusers end up ashamed of themselves. (Psalm 71:13)
O Lord, why should pagan nations be allowed to hurl scorn at you and to scoff at us, your people? For the glory and honor of your name, show us your vengeance against the nations that refuse to acknowledge you or call upon your name. Then, we your people will thank and praise you forever! (Psalm 79:4, 6, 9-10, 12-13)
O God, do not keep silent and quiet, do not be deaf and blind. Do you not hear the uproar of your enemies? Do you not see their arrogant uprising against you and their crafty schemes against your people. They conspire against us, saying, “Let us wipe them out and erase the memory of their existence.” Yes, they are unanimous in their animosity against us. So do to them what you did to the Midianites, Sisera, and Jabin, destroy them and make their decaying corpses fertilizer (manure) on the ground. Let their mighty men and leaders be scattered like tumbleweed and chaff before the wind. As a fire burns through a forest and flames set mountains ablaze, chase them with your fierce storm and terrify them with your tempest. Utterly disgrace them until they drop to their knees at the declaration of your name, and let them die in disgrace, to be ashamed and terrified forever. Then, at last they will know that you alone are Lord, Most High, and Supreme over all the earth! (Psalm 83:1-18)
Rise up O Lord, the God of vengeance, repay the proud, silence the gloating and boasting of arrogant evil people. (Psalm 94:1-4)
Disgrace the worshipers of idols, by bringing down the false gods about whom they brag and boast. (Psalm 97:7)
With all my being I will praise the Lord when the wicked vanish from the face of the earth and disappear forever. (Psalm 104:35)
I pray that the days of those who try to destroy me with false accusations, as well as send against me false accusers, may be few upon the earth. Rescue me O Lord my God from their slander and scorn for your own name’s sake. Although they attempt to curse me, I pray you’ll bless me, so that your hand on me will humiliate them. (Psalm 109:4, 6, 8, 21, 25-29)
How long, O Lord, must the godly wait before you punish those who persecute us? (Psalm 119:84; see also 2 Timothy 3:12 and Revelation 6:9-11)
May all who hate Jerusalem, be like grass on a roof, withered and worthless, as well as unattended and unblessed. (Psalm 129:5-7)
Happy will the people of God be when their tormentors, who taunted them, are finally destroyed, along with their descendants, the future tormentors and taunters of God’s people. (Psalm 137:1-4, 8-9)
Search my heart, O God, and know that it is out of love for you that I hate those who hate you with a perfect hatred. I despise those who defy you and abhor those who blaspheme you. Destroy them and rid my life of them all. (Psalm 139:19-24)
O Lord, do not let evil people take pride in getting their own way nor in the success of their evil schemes. Don’t let liars live prosperously. Instead, destroy them with their own evil devices. (Psalm 140:8-11)
O Lord, help me escape the nets of the wicked, but ensnare them in their own nets. (Psalm 141:10)
Because of your unfailing love for me, your servant, silence, O God, all my foes. (Psalm 143:12)
Praying Imprecatory Prayers
No less authority than the Lord Jesus Himself attributed the Psalms to divine inspiration (Luke 24:44). In addition, He, along with Peter and Paul, quoted Imprecatory Psalms in the New Testament. In John 15:25, Jesus quotes both Psalm 35:19 and 69:5. In Acts 1:20, Peter quotes Psalm 69:25 and 109:8. And in Romans 11:9-10, Paul quotes Psalm 69:22-23. When you add to this New Testament imprecations on the enemies of God, such as: Luke 10:10-16; Galatians 1:8; 5:12; 1 Corinthians 16:21-22; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10; 2 Timothy 4:14; Revelation 6:10, and 19:1-2, it counters the popular present-day contention that Imprecatory Psalms, or at least the imprecatory prayers found within them, are not divinely inspired, but sinful and selfish prayers of revenge, which present-day saints are prohibited from praying.
Our Lord, in His model prayer, taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10). Of course, this is an invoking of divine judgment on all other kingdoms, as well as on all who oppose the reign of Christ over their lives and over this world. Even Jesus Himself, our perfect example (1 Peter 2:21), invoked imprecatory language during His earthly sojourn; see Matthew 23:13, 15, 16, 23, 24, 27, 29; and especially Matthew 23:33.
In light of the above, we cannot parse the Imprecatory Psalms from the rest of the Psalms as though they were the product of some kind of sinful human vindictiveness rather than the product of sacred divine inspiration. Furthermore, knowing that all seeming contradictions in the Scripture exist in our minds rather than in the Bible, we can also be assured that Imprecatory Psalms are in no way in conflict with New Testament teaching.
While most Christians believe imprecatory prayers, like David prayed in the Psalms, are prohibited from being prayed in present-day prayer closets or prayer meetings, this erroneous belief is based on a misunderstanding of prayer itself. Since prayer is partnering with God in the carrying out of His plans and purposes in this world, and in the fulfilling of His good, acceptable, and perfect will in our lives, as well as in the lives of others, imprecatory prayers are permitted in our prayer closets and prayer meetings as long as we are praying, as David did, in God’s Spirit, according to God’s revealed will, and for God’s glory. Otherwise, we should, as Jesus taught, pray for our enemies; that is, for their salvation rather than their damnation, lest we be guilty of praying sinful prayers, in our flesh and for our vengeance, rather than praying in partnership with God, in the power of His Spirit and for the sole purpose of His glory!
Prerequisites to Praying Imprecatory Prayers
Before praying an imprecatory prayer, which can only be prayed in the Spirit, out of love for one’s fellowman, and for the glory of God, never out of hatred or for the purpose of personal vengeance, one should first pray that God save the target of the imprecatory prayer, as He did Saul of Tarsus. After all, the conversion and transformation of Saul, the chief persecutor of the church and former pupil of Gamaliel, into Paul, the chief preacher of Christ and missionary apostle to the Gentiles, was proof positive of Christ’s resurrection and the truth of the Gospel, since there was no other explanation for such an inexplicable thing than: “This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:23; Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:11).
Second, one should pray for God to use the target of the imprecatory prayer in whatever way He has predestined them for His use in the carrying out of His plans and purposes in this world. After all, the Bible teaches that God let’s the hardhearted and stuff-necked, like Pharaoh, live so that He can use them to show His power and to magnify His name in all the earth (Exodus 9:13-16; Romans 9:14-18).
If, and only if, one can pray an imprecatory prayer in the Spirit, as well as with pure motives—love for one’s fellowman and for the glory of God—and, if, and only if, the target of the imprecatory prayer is not numbered among God’s elect and has served out his or her usefulness to God, then, and then only, can a imprecatory prayer be prayed!
The Importance of Imprecatory Prayers in the Perilous Times of the Last Days
We’ve entered “the perilous times of the last days” (2 Timothy 3:1). Our fallen world is in its downward spiral into the Biblically predicted end-time scenario, and no angel in Heaven, man on earth, nor devil in Hell can stop it. Evil men will wax worse and worse (2 Timothy 3:13). Sin will abound and the love of many wax cold (Matthew 24:12). All who loved not the truth will be swept away in strong delusion and believe lies (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12). The truth will become intolerable and all who proclaim it insufferable (2 Timothy 4:3). And if not for the cutting short of these evil last days by Christ’s Second Coming, no flesh nor faith would be left upon the earth (Matthew 24:22; Luke 18:8).
We have truly entered the climatic battle of the ages, between good and evil, Heaven and Hell, light and darkness, and God and Satan. The battle lines are drawn over the immortal souls of men. All of God’s army must report for duty on the front lines. We must stand steadfast and courageously to fight to the death, never cowering nor deserting in fearful flight. The time has come to arm ourselves with mighty weapons from God, such as prayer. After all, the army of God is the only army that advances on its knees.
In 1 Peter 4:7, the Apostle Peter writes, "But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." Prayer is an end-time essential, which must be employed most soberly and solemnly. There is, of course, no more sober or solemn a prayer that we could ever pray than an imprecatory prayer. Furthermore, the praying of imprecatory prayers against the enemies of God and His people, in an end-time world possessed by the spirit of antichrist and hellbent on stamping out the church of Christ, as well as silencing the Gospel of Christ, may prove to be as important a weapon as we will have in our spiritual arsenal in these evil days of the end-time. How else can we hope to continue to contend for our faith and for the immortal souls of men against unredeemable men relentlessly resolved to obstruct us, apart from praying to God for their obliviation?
In Galatians 1:8-9, the Apostle Paul invoked such an imprecation against evildoers who were imperiling men's immortal souls in his day. He not only prayed for them to be "accursed"; that is "anathematized" or "eternally damned," but repeated his anathematizing of them, so as to leave no doubt about his sincere intention or divine inspiration in doing so. Paul, unlike most Christians today, understood the egregious evil of those who either corrupted the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ or preached a false gospel in its place. They were imperiling men's immortal souls and leading them to eternal destruction. If the taking of a man's mortal life is a capital offense, as Scripture clearly teaches (Genesis 9:6), how much more so is the imperiling of men's immortal souls, by either preaching a false gospel or by preventing the preaching of the true Gospel altogether. Truly, there is no greater crime that a man can commit than serving as the devil's accomplice in the murdering of immortal souls. Remember, the devil, as Jesus Himself taught, has been a "murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44).
The story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a pertinent one when it comes to the importance imprecatory prayers may play in these perilous times of the last days. Bonhoeffer's story is a most intriguing one. It is the story of a pacifist who played a part in a planned assassination. It is the story of a peace-loving theologian who reluctantly came to the conclusion that for the good of humanity Adolf Hitler needed to be eliminated.
Bonhoeffer was one of the few German clergymen who courageously stood against Adolf Hitler. He famously said: "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." Bonhoeffer also insisted that it was not enough "to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice," but that one also needed to "drive a spoke into the wheel itself." Practicing what he preached, Bonhoeffer worked as a double agent within the Abwehr, Hitler's military intelligence organization, where he not only smuggled Jews out of Germany to safety, but also participated in a plot to assassinate Hitler in his secret headquarters, known as the Wolf's Lair. For his part in this assassination attempt he was arrested, imprisoned, and finally hanged on April 9, 1945 at the Flossenburg concentration camp, just eleven days before the camp was liberated by U.S. troops.
There is no doubt that the eventual death of Adolf Hitler, at his own hand in his underground Fuhrer bunker in Berlin, was a blessing to the whole world. There is also no doubt that no Christian in his right mind could have ever prayed for the spiritually reprobate and demon possessed Adolf Hitler to be blessed, but only for him to be obliviated. Unbeknownst to most people today, there was a group of serious intercessors, led by Ress Howells, at the Bible College of Wales, who were dedicated to praying such imprecatory prayers during World War II against Adolf Hitler, as well as against His Axis Alliance, the German, Italian, and Japanese armies. According to Norman Grubb, the author of the book, Res Howells Intercessor, it is a little known fact that intercession played an important part in turning the tide in World War II.
The Doctrine of Just War
The Christian doctrine of Just War teaches us that war is justified when fought in defense of our lives, land, and liberties. If, therefore, military weapons may be justly wielded against an aggressive adversary threatening men's mortal bodies, why can't imprecatory prayers be wielded against end-time antichrists threatening men's immortal souls? If the former can be used in defense of our country and Constitution, why can't the later be used in defense of Christ's church and Great Commission?