ANNOUNCER: Why are there imprecatory psalms? And what does that word mean anyway? How many of them are there and why do they exist? And since they do exist, would it be okay with God if I had an imprecatory thought or prayer of my own? Thanks for listening, friend. We’re glad you’re here today. This is the Grace Evangelical Society’s program, Grace in Focus. Find us at faithalone.org. And on that site, you can find our blogs and events that we may be involved in. There is also a place to give to our ministry right there on the site. It’s faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s discussion about imprecatory psalms, here are Bob Wilkin and David Renfro. 

BOB: So David, I think you being an Old Testament guy, I got his ThM and Old Testament from Dallas Seminary, and considered doing doctoral work and getting a PhD in Old Testament, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about something that’s rarely talked about. And these are called the imprecatory psalms. And first up is, that’s an awful big word, “imprecatory.” It’s not used in common speech. I mean, if you turn on CNN today, I doubt you’re going to hear the word imprecatory. In fact, if you go for the whole last 365 days, I wouldn’t be surprised if CNN or Fox News or NBC never used the word imprecatory. What does imprecatory, what’s an imprecatory psalm? What does that mean? 

DAVID: Imprecatory psalms are ones that focus on, it’s a crying out to the Lord to destroy the enemies of the psalmist, make their life miserable, whatever. In other words, do harm to the people that are trying to do harm to God’s holy people. The reason why that some people think that the problem is because even in the Old Testament, love one another. And even Jesus said, love your enemies. And so how do you harmonize, oh Lord, throw these people into the pit or whatever. 

BOB: Well, if some of them talk about breaking their teeth and talk about destroying them, killing them and not elating them, wiping out their children. But the imprecatory Psalms aren’t simply a statement of “destroy all these people.” There’s a whole lot more to the imprecatory psalms besides judging the wicked. Don’t we see something, even though these aren’t called praise Psalms, there are separate genre of psalms called the Hallel psalms or the praise psalms. 

DAVID: Yes, scholars over the years have, and I think this is helpful too, they have categorized the psalms like praise, lament. And here we go with imprecatory. 

BOB: But there’s some overlap between these because the imprecatory Psalms have praise elements. 

DAVID: As a matter of fact, most scholars that I’ve read say there is not one of those 150 psalms that does not have at least a word of praise in it. So if that’s true, and I think it is, how important is praising the Lord even in the worst times that you’re going through? 

BOB: Okay, don’t get me started, but let me make a quick comment there. People will say hallelujah or they’ll say praise the Lord or we used to sing a song, “Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah, praise ye the Lord.” And people thought they were praising the Lord by singing that psalm. No, all they’re doing is commanding people to praise the Lord. If I want to praise the Lord, I would say God is good. I would say God is eternal. God is all knowing. God is all powerful. 

So to praise Him is to say something about Him that is praiseworthy. It’s not to say “praise the Lord.” That drives me nuts. Because if people say praise the Lord, okay, now go ahead and praise Him. For example, when I’m singing that song, I’m trying to think God is good. God is great. God is eternal. Right? God is all knowing. God is all powerful. God is unchanging. I try to think through some of His attributes while we’re singing the song. Because otherwise, haven’t you noticed that a lot of people, especially in these with the big worship teams, that singing is designed to give a feeling and that feeling is worship, instead of I’m bowing my heart before God and I’m lifting up my heart to Him and I’m acknowledging His goodness and His grace and His mercy and you know what I mean? 

DAVID: Well, yeah, what gets me is both the Greek and Hebrew word for worship literally means to bow down. It doesn’t mean jump up and wave your hands and scream and holler and roll around in the aisles of the church and all that stuff. 

BOB: Which literally happens in some churches. 

DAVID: The idea of worship. This is the way I say it. Worship is essentially get your mind off of yourself and on the hymn. And that means, and by the way, you know, worship is not, but if you have some emotional experience, that doesn’t mean you’ve worshiped. You know, it’s because worship is not based upon emotion. It’s based upon what’s going through your mind and like what you were saying, the psalmist does this. He describes the Lord and what the scholars that have categorized, they’ve said, there’s two kinds of praise psalms. There’s declarative praise and descriptive praise. What that means is declarative praise praises God for what He’s done. Lord, you saved me from this. You delivered me from this. 

BOB: You parted the Red Sea. You did this. 

DAVID: You did all of this stuff. And then the descriptive praise is praising God for who He is. 

BOB: His character and nature. 

DAVID: Lord, You are holy. You are the Sovereign One. You are the Great One of the earth. And I love all that. 

BOB: So see, you got me started. But we’re supposed to be talking about imprecatory psalms. 

DAVID: Well, that’s all your fault. 

BOB: I know. So let’s come back. 

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BOB: How about read us part of an imprecatory psalm? 

DAVID: And based upon our previous little discussion, most of these imprecatory psalms and there’s about 13 or 14 of them, have some word of praise in them. But there’s like three of them that are entirely imprecatory. 

BOB: Okay. But not entirely in the sense because you said all 150 will have at least a word of praise here or there. 

DAVID: Yeah, but it might not even be a whole verse and be a phrase of the verse. You know, that kind of thing. For example, just one of the regular imprecatory psalm, Psalm 5, he calls out to the Lord. Psalm 5 verse 1, “Give ear to my words, oh Lord, consider my meditation, give heed to my voice, my King and my God. For to You, I will pray.” And then he goes on, “You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness. Nor shall evil dwell in You.” See, he’s acknowledging. 

BOB: He’s praising there. 

DAVID: But then in verse 5, “You hate all workers of iniquity.” Verse 6, “You shall destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.” And then he’ll go on and on and he’ll describe, lead me Lord in your righteousness because of my enemies, make your way straight for there is no faithfulness in their mouth. See how he constantly, for like a better word, criticizes these godless people that he is surrounded by? And he is acknowledging that Lord can do this and he’s pleading with the Lord. Let me live a decent life in the midst of these people. And then he ends the Psalm. I love this too. He says, for you, oh Lord, Yahweh, will bless the righteous with favor, you will surround him as with the shield. I love that. 

And that’s the way, but most of the psalm, and you see praises and acknowledgement of who God is. But a lot of that psalm is, I’m surrounded by a bunch of jerks. I’m surrounded by horrible people. And I know these are based on what they do and what they say. I know Lord, You hate them too. That’s his attitude. 

BOB: And the psalmists, a lot of the people he’s talking about were people that were so ruthless and so wicked that they were like a lot of the atrocities done by the Nazis in the concentration camps and things. They were very vicious, wicked people and they would torture people, etc. And so what he’s really, what the psalmists are calling for is justice.

DAVID: Yeah. And in their point of view, these horrible people, the Lord’s letting them do this. And so they’re calling out to the Lord. I mean, even these ones that I say are entirely imprecatory, they’re still a calling out to the Lord, “Lord, do something about this.” I mean, we all go through periods in our lives where we’re surrounded by evil and imposed on by bad people. And where should we go? In fact, that’s why I think the Lord makes us go through this. When you are oppressed like the psalmists are in these imprecatory psalms, where should you go for help? 

BOB: Let’s go to the Lord. 

DAVID: Yeah. And see, keep in mind, this was, you know, back in these days, there were a lot of people that were still worshipping pagan gods and goddesses. And so they literally had a choice of what God to go to. And I think the Lord allows us to go through this to allow us to choose Him as our deliverer from this horrible situation. 

BOB: Amen. Except in the case where you’re dealing with an army like the psalmist being the king and he’s in charge of an army, he might be asking God to give them victory over these evil people. But except for that, they’re looking for God to be the deliverer. For God to be the one that exercises the judgment. 

DAVID: Right. And what the Lord, what they may do or what the Lord may do is use the army for the victory over the evil people. And we see this all all over the place in the Old Testament and especially, but there are some times the Lord uses His people to accomplish his will. And then there’s some times He interrupts natural history and does it Himself. 

BOB: Yeah, very good. And I would encourage each of you to look up this concept of imprecatory psalms and look at these. You say there’s 12 or 13 of them?  And look them up and read through these psalms and you can find, we’re going to be coming out with a commentary that will be our volume three on the Old Testament. In fact, when you were talking about Psalm 5, I was like, wait a minute, I wrote a commentary on Psalm 5. I better go back and see what I put. 

DAVID: I’ll edit it for you. 

BOB: Yeah, very good. But that will be volume three, which is supposed to come out in May of 2028. And next May of 2027, we’re coming out with the Nevi’im, which is the Prophets. And then the Ketuvim is the Writings and the Psalms fall in the Writings. So we’ll be there in around May of 2028, Lord willing, and if the Rapture doesn’t come.

Well, thanks so much, David. And thank you all for joining us. And remember, keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: why do some people think that God is cruel? Hope you join us for it. And in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.