When we come to Scripture we almost expect God's men to act their parts in the same manner as did the western movie heroes of the forties and fifties. Unlike contemporary heroes, their thoughts, actions and words were as pure as the censor's pen imagined them! In this psalm, the gentle shepherd king of Israel shows us the earthy side of his personality. And while the language is by no means profane, certainly the thoughts behind the words would wish the utmost of cursings upon this particular enemy of David.What we sense here is not the ruminations of a gentlemanly Norman Schwarzkopf describing his enemy, but a speech more in character with the ribald expletives of George S. Patton. I remember a very saintly Quaker wife of one of my Seminary classmates. Never did we hear language from her lips unbecoming of a lady. But, once I heard her say, "I'm so mad, I could just spit!" God's people are as human as David in this psalm. Otherwise we would not hear them say "what the heck", "darn", gosh darn", and "shoot" which are all really milder expletives derived etymologically from more common cursings.
In a similar way, what the New Testament will not say directly about the "son of perdition" who betrayed Jesus, it will, through Peter refer our thoughts back to this curse of David on the head of his and Jesus' betrayer.
We are still left with a heated vindictiveness on the part of David that many people would wish not to be part of the Scriptures. One of my commentators recalled the words of C.S. Lewis, that the bitterness of some of the psalmists can be understood "at least in part because they took right and wrong more seriously". So too does our righteous and holy Father in heaven take sin just as seriously. And while we do not consider this psalm to reveal a dark side of God in heaven; we may understand that there is no polite language which adequately describes those who oppose our God and betray our Christ.
Psalm One Hundred and Nine, which we will consider this week and next, may be divided into three portions. Our psalm begins and ends with a heartfelt praise of God. The valley of imprecation lies between. In the first five verses David pleads to be delivered from his betrayer. In verses six through twenty he is seized with a prophetic intensity which describes the utter end of the adversaries of God! In the last portion of verses twenty-one through thirty-one David returns to his prayerful praise of our Father in heaven.
We will consider the first two portions today. David begins with words that would be better translated "O God of my praise". There is confidence in these words even as David prepares to open wide his heartfelt emotions before his Lord. "Do not remain silent," is his solemn request as he is plagued with a traitor in his own household. There is something gripping in these four words. Even as David prays, does the Lord answer his prayer through his own words? Even before we breathe a word in prayer our Father in heaven knows our every need. Will we like David learn to give ourselves wholeheartedly in prayer and trust Him to lead us through dark emotional valleys to a greater appreciation of Himself?
The next few verses describe the situation in which David finds himself. The intrigues of David's court may well rival those of modern soap operas or even our corporate places of work! I have heard many reports of hard working souls whose every effort has been opposed and every success stolen by scoundrels who do not know how to work and whose only desire is success. If you have had any experience remotely like these, then perhaps you know the torments of David's soul as he comes before the Lord in despair.
Have you never wished an accident upon a particularly rude driver? Have you never wanted someone's personality rewarded in kind? If you have, you may well feel yourself at home in David's emotions. David's first wish in verse six is that his betrayer might have someone like minded to oppose him.
He also wishes, as an older translation brings out, that Satan might stand at the right hand of his enemy. The word "accuser" that we see in our translation brings to mind the image of an ancient court room and the practice of Satan in accusing innocent Job. But, David prays that the court will give his betrayer a fair trial, and then hang him! Even that is not enough in David's mind. In that older translation, the second stroph of verse seven reads: "let his prayer become sin." The sense here is not unlike our teaching that only the prayers of God's saints are heard or effective. Will the wicked cry out and be heard unless God allows it?
Verse eight is referred to in the New Testament to justify the appointment of another Apostle to take the place of Judas. And to the memory of Judas the prophetic perfect language of this psalm may very probably refer.
In verses nine and ten we may pick up the Old Testament curse that the sins of the fathers are visited on his children to the third and fourth generations. Recently there was a media report about the effects of criminal punishment upon the families of the criminals. It was a heart wrenching story designed to elicit our sympathy for the victims of our justice system. We don't see that sympathy in this psalm. What we see instead is a plea that justice might come upon the Herods of this world who slaughter innocent children. Or that justice might come upon the Saddams who create misery and carnage. A reporter just back from Iraq finds very little private hatred for what Americans accomplished during the winter. Privately, many of the people in Iraq wished that we had gotten hold of their leader.
In verse eleven David wishes the worst of creditors upon his enemy. Did David envision the unpunished crimes of our own Internal Revenue Service? Such strangers in David's time who plundered the wealth of nations could well learn lessons from our own Congress! With that example, do you begin to appreciate the deep feelings of David? Perhaps I am unkind, but remember, whoever betrayed David was very probably a member of his government. Power and wealth have always attracted the wrong sort of people. Would that we could have a leader of David's sense and purpose.
In verses twelve and thirteen David pleads that the "mercy" and "kindness" of his betrayer be heaped upon the heads of his own family. In verse fourteen we have the most terrible curse of all in this section; may the parents be rewarded with children like themselves. How many times in raising children have you hoped your offspring will have to deal with the same orneriness you have had to put up with. Of course, you are all model parents, so there is a vast difference even on your worst days from David's intent here. Let us be thankful that Hitler had no children and that Stalin's daughter rejected her father's house.
The last verse of these imprecations takes on an eternal nature and we can begin to appreciate the eternity of life in hell. If you consider some or many of these wishes of David to be extreme, let us turn to verses sixteen to twenty to realize the reason for these cursings. In these verses, one of my commentators says that the Hebrew becomes prose instead of poetry. David's desires become statements. The nature of the text may be described as "prophetic perfect" in seventeen to twenty. These words are thus to be taken as though they have already been accomplished. I think this is almost the opposite of the New Testament Greek pluperfect construction for "we are having being saved"! The opposition is not grammatical, but theological. Just as God's Holy Spirit leads us on to be sanctified and finally glorified, so the sinner's thoughts and actions lead him in the opposite direction: to hell.
David notes that his betrayer "never thought of doing a kindness" in verse sixteen. In verse seventeen we further read that "He loved to pronounce a curse". Both of these human vices will be turned upon his own soul. Look at the agony in verse eighteen. Remember how the Greek word for "faith" implies that our heads, heart and hands will be filled with the Spirit of Jesus? Here is the eternal agony of the unrepentant sinner: "He wore cursing as his garment; it entered into his body like water, into his bones like oil." If we are not saved to be sanctified, this is the natural end of man. You have heard of people being all wrapped up in themselves, look at verse twenty and imagine this image of how sinners will spend eternity.
It is important who we see speaking in this psalm. Certainly we have probably wished troubles upon people who regularly make our lives miserable. We sense that David speaks for those emotions that are our very own. And yet, we know that we ought not to breathe similar words since we are under the New Covenant of Christ. We are taught to love our enemies. We do not always succeed. From this psalm may we learn today that there will be within David's judicial vision a reality of payment for all who live like the person who aroused David's anger in this psalm. At the very least, let us reflect upon our sinful condition and hope in Christ that the terrible vindications described by David here might not fall upon our own heads. Amen.
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