Psalm 109 and Imprecation

"[W]hen persecution bursts upon the Church… where Christian pastors and their flocks have been subjected to torture, inhuman indignities and death, when the faith of God's people is severely tried by the enemies of the Lord, Christians instinctively have turned to these psalms. Some people may have considered the Imprecatory Psalms an offense in better days, but their relevancy has been brought home to them, when the forces of evil have persecuted and tortured them because of belief in God and faith in the Lordship of Jesus Christ." ~ Raymond F. Surburg

Several posts ago, I wrote a short review of a book called Crying for Justice: What the Psalms Teach Us About Mercy and Vengeance in an Age of Terrorism. It is about the imprecatory psalms and their usefulness for the Church. Recently, I wrote a paper for a class on Psalm 109, the "the 'imprecatory' psalm par excellence," as some have called it. In examining this psalm closely the reader will get a taste for the imprecatory psalms in general and how to handle them. In the paper I argue that Psalm 109 is a legitimate and righteous prayer of imprecation not only for David in his OT setting but for God’s people today in extreme circumstances of sustained injustice and oppression. If you are interested, you can read the paper here. I pray it is a blessing to you and helps you to understand the Psalms better, for God's glory and your good.

By His Grace,
Taylor