Using Imprecatory Psalms

A few thoughts on the use of the imprecatory Psalms-- there always seems to be hesitancy on their appropriateness for the church, whether in private or corporate worship.

I think any hesitancy is only because people aren't understanding that Christ and his Church are the central figures of the Psalms; everything in them must be embraced through that lens in order to understand and make full use of them.

The imprecatory Psalms solemnly proclaim God's just and righteous judgments upon the wicked. They sometimes pronounce those judgments, as in Psalm 109, where the judgment upon Judas the son of perdition is foretold (see Acts 2:15-20). God will judge in the same way all who have despised and persecuted Christ and his Church. The Church, united to her Lord, speaks with his mind in praying for and pronouncing these judgments. And like him, the Church takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11).

The imprecatory Psalms sometimes describe the sad outcomes of those judgments, when man is left to his own cruelty and the innocent suffer as casualties of war, as in Psalm 137:8, 9. These verses are not the voice of the church praying that babies will suffer and die. They were prophecy in the sense that they warned of and foretold the terrible future ahead for the little ones of cruel Babylon, when the equally cruel Medes and Persians overran and conquered them. They are still prophecy, an overarching truth of the consequences of man's pride and hatred toward God. The church is to continue to recount these things for her own sobriety and for the good of a lost world.

There is no sinful desire for revenge expressed in the Psalms. The psalmists' expressions are all prophetic, all of Christ, and all speak to the coming of his glorious kingdom. We can and should make use of them because we are to pray for and speak of the righteous judgments of God.

The History of Psalm Singing

Here is a great resource on the Reformed Books Online web page: a collection of writings from theologians past and present on the use of the Psalms in the singing of the church. The History of Psalm Singing.

Songs Put Into The Mouths Of The People

The songs of the church are unique from the prayers and preaching of the church. Only the songs of the church are words "put into the mouths" of the people:

"Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel" (Deuteronomy 31:19).

This verse serves as the standard for what the songs of the church are to be and to accomplish.

1. They are to be prophetically inspired, the very words of God as given through and by his prophets.

2. They are to be songs! The songs of the church are prophecies dedicated for the purpose of singing.

3. They are to accomplish Deuteronomy 31:19-20 and Deuteronomy 32:44-47; Colossians 3:16; and 2 Timothy 3:16.

Therefore, the songs of the church can only be the inspired and inerrant words of God. 

Only the songs of the church are words put into the mouths of the people of God. Prayers (apart from the reciting of Scripture as prayer) and preaching may be listened to and weighed. Only the one praying aloud or preaching is responsible for what he has said. But when something is put into the mouths of the people it is binding upon all the people. This can only be the Scripture, the very words of God through his prophets.

The New Testament Teaches Us To See Christ In All The Psalms

In Luke 4:11, Satan tempts Christ by quoting to him Psalm 91:11-12, where God "will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone." If this account had not been included in the Gospels, we might never have known that Psalm 91 is all about Christ.

In the book of Acts, Psalm 16:10 is twice quoted by the apostles, and by them it's revealed that Christ is the speaker in that Psalm. Again, if these statements by the apostles hadn't been recorded, we might never have known that Psalm 16 is all about Christ.

Psalms 91 and 16 are typical of the language of many other Psalms. There is no reason to assume that the words and prayers in many other Psalms are not the prayers of Christ, or words about him, I believe that this is what we are to infer from the many other New Testament references to Christ in the Psalms.

The resurrected Christ himself told his slow-to-understand disciples, "These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me" (Luke 24:44).

So, the New Testament lets us know to look for our Good Shepherd in the Psalms; either for his voice in the "first person" or for words about him. 

One common argument against singing only the Psalms in the worship and praise of God is that in singing them we are not singing the name of Jesus. Yet, in singing the Psalms, we're singing both about him and with him. We are singing what he is singing, what he desires to sing in the congregation (Psalm 22:22-25; Hebrews 2:11-13). He will not sing our uninspired words, but will sing his own words, leading the churches in the praising, thanking, and petitioning the Father.

James E. Adams On Praying The Imprecatory Psalms

Do you use the Psalms as your own prayer book? Are the people to whom you minister learning to pray from the Psalms? Most Christians are in the habit of entering into the spirit of some of the Psalms as prayers of their own. Probably every human passion or emotion is expressed in the Psalms. So on any given day a Christian may pick up the Psalms and find a vivid expression of his feelings of the moment, whether discouragement, ecstasy, or simply “hanging in there.”

Seeing the Psalms as prayers of the Lord Jesus Christ will deepen your understanding of His heart, His sufferings, and His victory on your behalf. But how do these prayers of Christ become your own personal expressions to God? And how can you who are pastors help the sheep of your flocks to pray the imprecatory psalms?

You may say, “This is the last thing my church needs! If our hearts are lazy and cold to pray for those we love, how can we think of praying for enemies, as we find in the Psalms?” But I would challenge you, isn’t this the cause of our lack of prayer? We have not learned from the Lord Jesus how to pray!

Many Christians are like little children who don’t ever want to acknowledge being taught anything by another. You will often hear them say, “I know that!” Or, if you ask them where they learned something, they will answer, “I just know it!” as though knowledge began within themselves. Do we have the maturity to recognize that even as Christians we do not pray rightly simply by instinct? The very disciples who were constantly in our Lord’s physical presence for instruction felt their need for help in learning to pray. How much more do we need to confess that we are totally unable to pray on our own and humbly ask with those disciples of old, “Lord, teach us to pray!”

Read the article in its entirety here.

The Psalms Teach Us To Think And To Speak

The Letter of Athanasius of Alexandria to Marcellimus, on the Interpretation of the Psalms 

...[The Psalter] is like a picture, in which you see yourself portrayed, and seeing, may understand and consequently form yourself upon the pattern given. You find depicted in it all the movements of your soul, all its changes, its ups and downs, its failures and recoveries. Moreover, whatever your particular need or trouble, from this same book you can select a form of words to fit it, so that you do not merely hear and then go on, but learn the way to remedy your ill.

Prohibitions of evil-doing are plentiful in Scripture, but only the Psalter tells you how to obey these orders and abstain from sin. Repentance, for example, is enjoined repeatedly; but to repent means to leave off sinning, and it is the Psalms that show you how to set about repenting and with what words your penitence may be expressed... it is in the Psalms that we find written and described how afflictions should be borne, and what the afflicted ought to say, both at the time and when his troubles cease: the whole process of his testing is set forth in them and we are shown exactly with what words to voice our hope in God. 

Or take the commandment, "In everything give thanks"(1 Thess 5:18). The Psalms not only exhort us to be thankful, they also provide us with fitting words to say. We are told, too, by other writers that all who would live godly in Christ must suffer persecution (2 Tim 3:12); and here again the Psalms supply words with which both those who flee persecution and those who suffer under it may suitably address themselves to God, and it does the same for those who have been rescued from it.

We are bidden elsewhere in the Bible also to bless the Lord and to acknowledge Him: here in the Psalms we are shown the way to do it, and with what sort of words His majesty may meetly be confessed. In fact, under all the circumstances of life, we shall find that these divine songs suit ourselves and meet our own souls' need at every turn.

Bonar On The Solidarity Of Christ With His Church In The Psalms

Andrew Bonar, "Christ and His Church in the Book of Psalms"

Now in the early ages men full of the thoughts of Christ could never read their Psalms without being reminded of their Lord. They probably had no system or fixed theory as to all the Psalms referring to Christ; but still, unthinkingly we might say, they found their thoughts would wander unto their Lord, as the one person in whom these breathings, these praises, these desires, these hopes, these deep feelings, found their only true and full realization.

Hence Augustine said to his hearers, as he expounded to them this book, that "the voice of Christ and his church was well nigh the only voice to be heard in the Psalms." And on another occasion, "Everywhere diffused throughout is that man whose Head is above, and whose members are below. We ought to recognize his voice in all the Psalms, either waking up the psaltery or ordering the deep groan; rejoicing in hope, or heaving sighs over present realities...We cannot err far, therefore, if we keep our left eye on David, while we have our right eye full on Christ."

In some instances, the Head exclusively speaks, or is spoken of; and in a few others the Members alone; but generally, the strain is such in feeling and matter, that the Head and Members together can use the harp and utter the song. And so important are these holy songs, that nearly 50 of them are referred to in the New Testament, and applied to Christ.