A Psalm We Do Not Want to Read

Scripture: Psalm 109

Sermon: A Psalm We Do Not Want to Read

Topics: imprecatory, prayer, translation, evil, wrath, forgiveness

Preached: Nov. 20, 2011

Rev. Mike Abma

Psalm 109

¹ Do not be silent, O God of my praise.

² For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me,

speaking against me with lying tongues.

³ They beset me with words of hate,

and attack me without cause.

⁴ In return for my love they accuse me,

even while I make prayer for them.<sup>*

5</sup> So they reward me evil for good,

and hatred for my love.

⁶ They say,^* ‘Appoint a wicked man against him;

let an accuser stand on his right.

⁷ When he is tried, let him be found guilty;

let his prayer be counted as sin.

⁸ May his days be few;

may another seize his position.

⁹ May his children be orphans,

and his wife a widow.

¹⁰ May his children wander about and beg;

may they be driven out of^* the ruins they inhabit.

¹¹ May the creditor seize all that he has;

may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil.

¹² May there be no one to do him a kindness,

nor anyone to pity his orphaned children.

¹³ May his posterity be cut off;

may his name be blotted out in the second generation.

¹⁴ May the iniquity of his father^* be remembered before the Lord,

and do not let the sin of his mother be blotted out.

¹⁵ Let them be before the Lord continually,

and may his^* memory be cut off from the earth.

¹⁶ For he did not remember to show kindness,

but pursued the poor and needy

and the broken-hearted to their death.

¹⁷ He loved to curse; let curses come on him.

He did not like blessing; may it be far from him.

¹⁸ He clothed himself with cursing as his coat,

may it soak into his body like water,

like oil into his bones.

¹⁹ May it be like a garment that he wraps around himself,

like a belt that he wears every day.’

²⁰ May that be the reward of my accusers from the Lord,

of those who speak evil against my life.

²¹ But you, O Lord my Lord,

act on my behalf for your name’s sake;

because your steadfast love is good, deliver me.

²² For I am poor and needy,

and my heart is pierced within me.

²³ I am gone like a shadow at evening;

I am shaken off like a locust.

²⁴ My knees are weak through fasting;

my body has become gaunt.

²⁵ I am an object of scorn to my accusers;

when they see me, they shake their heads.

²⁶ Help me, O Lord my God!

Save me according to your steadfast love.

²⁷ Let them know that this is your hand;

you, O Lord, have done it.

²⁸ Let them curse, but you will bless.

Let my assailants be put to shame;^* may your servant be glad.

²⁹ May my accusers be clothed with dishonour;

may they be wrapped in their own shame as in a mantle.

³⁰ With my mouth I will give great thanks to the Lord;

I will praise him in the midst of the throng.

³¹ For he stands at the right hand of the needy,

to save them from those who would condemn them to death.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

Psalm 109 starts out in a fairly clear way.

It is the prayer of someone who has been betrayed and attacked and lied about.

Even though the person praying this prayer has tried to be loving,

all they have received in return is hate.

Even though they have tried to act in good faith,

they have only received evil treatment in return.

And that gets us to verse 6.

Verses 6 to 19 is the most troublesome section of this psalm.

It is troublesome for all kinds of reasons.

It is troublesome and distressing because it sounds so vengeful, so angry, so bitter.

In commenting on this Psalm, C.S. Lewis says that reading these verses is like opening an oven and being blasted by its heat.

Any of you who have ever used the dishwasher in the Ministry Center may have had a similar experience. Open that door after a cycle is done, and if your face is too close, you get scalded by the hot humid air.

Reading these verses is a bit like that.

The spirit of hatred is so hot, it is practically scalding.

It is a prayer not for the best of another, but for the worst.

It is to pray that a person on trial be found guilty.

It is a prayer that they lose all their possessions,

are abandoned by all they love,

and are surrounded by people who mistreat them.

This kind of prayer is called an imprecatory prayer.

It is a prayer that asks that someone evil get what they deserve:

evil, or injury, or insult.

Now here is the problem.

It rubs us totally the wrong way.

Every moral fiber in our bodies reacts to this kind of prayer:

it sounds too vindictive, too vengeful, too violent.

Jesus said, “Pray for those who persecute you,”

He did not say “Pray that they be persecuted!”

TRANSLATION DECISION

So you can see the troubles these verses pose.

What the translators of the NRSV did was they made an interpretive decision.

They asked the question:

Who is actually saying these blazing, scalding words of verse 6 – 9?

Is it the persecuted one who began the prayer,

or is it the persecutor, the one oppressing the person praying?

Is it the hurting victim,

or is it the victimizer, the one causing the hurt?

Verse 6-9 are so blazing hot,

the NRSV translators assumed they must be the words of the

persecutors, those doing the hurting.

So verses 6-9 are prefaced with the words, They say.

The “They” are the “they” of verse 5 — those who reward evil for good.

They are the enemy, the accusers, the liars.

And the “he” is the victim, the one praying this psalm.

So the words within the quotation marks that begin at verse 6 and end at verse 9,

these hot, blazing words

are the words of these accusers, liars, and oppressors.

PROBLEMS WITH THIS TRANSLATION

I can see why the translators have done this.

I can understand why they want these blazing hot words in the mouth of the enemy rather than in the mouth of the psalmist.

But there are several problems with this approach.

1. Problem Number One: They have had to invent the words, They say.

See the little footnote “b” at verse 6?

Footnote b says the Hebrew text lacks the words “They say.”

So that is the first problem.

The translation goes beyond the text and makes assumptions of the text.

2. Problem Number Two: There is another problem.

Placing verses 6-15 in the mouth of the enemies may make sense — they are after all, very hot, and vindictive words.

However, once we get to verse 16, things change.

There we read:

For he did not remember to show kindness

but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted to their death.

He loved to curse; let curses come on him….

Suddenly the Psalmist, the victim, the “he” in this section

is portrayed as unloving, uncaring, unmerciful.

That can’t be right.

3. There is another problem with the NRSV translation.

If this were the only place where an imprecatory prayer like this was on the Psalmist’s lips, or in the prayer book of Israel, that would be one thing.

But it is not.

Approximately 100 different verses in the Psalms are imprecatory.

They are found in 32 different Psalms.

And these types of prayers are not only found in the Psalms.

They are found in the Prophets.

They are found throughout the Old Testament.

They are even found in the New Testament.

In Revelation 6, when John sees a vision of the 5^th seal being opened,

he sees the souls of those who were martyred for their faith,

and they are all praying,

crying for vindication from God,

crying that their blood is avenged.

Therefore, although I can understand why the NRSV translates the way it does, in the end, I cannot agree with it.

And it isn’t only me.

I could not find another translation going in this NRSV direction.

So here is the reality.

In reading this Psalm, we need to accept that these terribly hot,

vindictive, even violent verses are spoken by someone

who deeply loves God.

We need to accept that evil can still be so terrible,

people can be so merciless,

their actions can be so horrendous,

that people of God will pray this kind of prayer.

THE REALITY OF EVIL

When I listen to the BBC news on the radio

When I read different news stories from across the world

I realize we live a privileged and in many ways protected life.

I read of a young man in India who belonged to the Dalit caste – the lowest cast there is, often called the Untouchable caste.

He eloped with his girlfriend – a girlfriend from a higher caste.

The girl’s family hunted them down and killed them both.

They had brought dishonor to the family.

What a heart-breaking story.

Last week was the week designated to recognize the plight of the persecuted church in the world.

Recently churches have been burned in Nigeria and Afghanistan,

Preachers have been imprisoned in Iran and Eritrea;

A young convert to Christianity was beheaded in Somalia.

Terrible, terrible injustice.

Only this week I read of a Roman Catholic Nun in southern India by the name of Sister Valsa John. She belonged to the sisters of Charity. She was like Mother Theresa. She immersed herself in trying to help the poorest of the poor.

She worked hard to bring basic health care, and literacy, and human rights to these impoverished people.

A number of years ago, a large mining company began displacing large numbers of these poor people. Sister Valsa brought the mining company to court. She won. The company had to pay damages and compensation. That was in 2007.

Lately that company began expanding in new territory.

Sister Valsa again began organizing so the poor farmers would be treated justly.

Clearly, the mining company did not want to put up with her anymore.

Thugs were hired and they hacked her to death in her sleep this week.

Hearing these kinds of things,

don’t we all want God to notice?

Don’t we all want God to get righteously angry?

Don’t we want Him to intervene in some way,

maybe even to come down and throttle some people?

Or at least have these horribly violent people get a taste some of their

own medicine?

Isn’t a prayer like Psalm 109

at least more understandable in the light of such horrendous evil?

WRATH OF GOD

The theologian Miroslav Volf writes that there was a time when he used to complain about the wrath of God.

But after witnessing horrendous evil in the fighting in his home country – the former Yugoslavia – he now writes that he would rebel against God if God was not wrathful against the evil done.

Volf writes that we want a God of wrath against the wicked,

but not against us;

We want a God of judgment against the evil,

but not a God who judges us.

But can God be God if he is only angered by the most horrendous evils

and seemingly turns a blind eye to lesser ones?

Can God be God if he only judges the terribly wicked,

but pays no attention to the mildly wicked?

No, God is a God of justice.

And justice demands that evil, all evil, is met with God’s wrath.

Justice demands that wickedness, all wickedness, is met with his judgment.

IMPRECATORY PSALMS

Here is the thing about this psalm that disturbs me the most.

After realizing that yes, evil must meet with God’s wrath.

Yes, wickedness must meet with his judgment.

Yes, someone deserves to pay the curses of verses 6-19,

After realizing that,

I suddenly saw Jesus enter this Psalm.

There he stood in the place of the wicked and the liars.

There he stood with accusers standing on his right and left.

There he was put on trial and found guilty.

There he was, his days on earth cut short.

There he was, losing all he had, even the clothes on his back.

There he was, abandoned and forsaken by all.

Suddenly I saw Jesus in this Psalm

Jesus, the recipient of all the curses of this Psalm,

Jesus the recipient of God’s judgment and his wrath.

For me, that is the most terrifying thing about Psalm 109.

While we were God’s enemies,

Jesus steps in to take all the curses that deserve to fall us,

the very wicked and the mildly wicked.

Jesus steps in

to take the anger and wrath we deserve,

to take all the accusations of the Grand Accuser, that would stick,

Jesus steps in to take it all in,

and in return

he gives us what we do not deserve,

the gift of grace,

the gift of forgiveness,

the gift of being treated,

as if we had never sinned

or been sinners.

That for me is the most unnerving thing about this Psalm.

It is only the cool, refreshing water of God’s grace

that makes a blazing hot Psalm like Psalm 109

something we can read,

and pray,

and even, dare I say, love.

CONCLUSION

The novelist Carlos Eire wrote his memoirs in the form of a book called Waiting for Snow in Havana. It is the story of a boy living an idyllic life in Havana until age 11. It was then that he was suddenly ripped from his family, ripped from his home, and airlifted out of the country.

He was brought to the United States — a land he did not know.

He was surrounded by strangers he had never met.

It was extremely painful.

The ones he blames most are the members of Fidel Castro’s regime – a regime he feels ruined his home country Cuba

and ruined his idyllic life.

In this memoir, he calls Castro the Lizard of lizards.

Carlos Eire prays a version of Psalm 109 against this regime.

He prays an imprecatory prayer,

full of blazing hot vengeance.

But the book does not end there.

You see, Carlos Eire knows Jesus.

The book is all about his sense that vengeance, though deeply desired,

is not the answer.

The book is all about his hard and difficult journey towards redemptive forgiveness.

He has a graphic way of describing forgiveness.

It is all about being able to kiss the lizard – kiss the lizard.

Not easy, but for the sake of his soul, necessary.

We can only read Psalm 109 in light of the cross.

We can only read Psalm 109 in the knowledge

that vengeance multiplies evil,

and it is only forgiveness that overcomes evil.

But forgiveness comes at a cost.

It is the cost of justice.

It is the price of love.

It is what Jesus stepped into the world to pay.

It is what Jesus sends us out into the world to live.

Amen