Lissa Wray Beal
Internet trolls. If we haven’t encountered them personally, we’ve heard about them. Suddenly in the midst of a thoughtful exchange (and yes, they can happen on Facebook feeds!)—even in the midst of expressed disagreement—an individual jumps in with hateful words. Beyond name-calling, they belittle and demean. They doubt you are even Christian, and pronounce God’s judgment upon you. Everyone involved in the exchange (and those who are simply over-listening) draws a collective, shocked breath; heart rates go up. In the worst-case scenario, anger erupts and the exchange descends into egregious attack.
Similar hateful speech is reported in the daily news, and we see it proclaimed on placards and in shouting matches in the midst of otherwise peaceful protests. In a world of internet anonymity, partisanship, and crushing global and local issues, hateful speech has become de rigeur.
Hearing the Imprecatory Psalms
The cursing, or imprecatory, psalms in the Psalter present some incredibly shocking words. Rage, ill-will against enemies, curses. Some might even consider these psalms a model for hateful speech! But they are not. Rather than avoid them or become inured to their shocking language, the imprecatory psalms call for a revisit, especially in a world soaked in hateful speech.
We like most of the psalms, especially those that encourage faith (e.g., Pss 11; 23; 27), model praise (e.g., Pss 29; 103), reveal wisdom (e.g., Pss 1; 19; 119), and accompany pilgrim people (e.g., Pss 120–134). John Calvin’s description of the Psalter as “An Anatomy of All Parts of the Human Soul” is apt.1 No wonder the Psalter is a treasure in the church, synagogue, and private prayer-closet. The Psalter speaks to life’s goodness, but it also speaks to suffering that calls forth lament. In fact, psalms of lament are the single most frequent type or genre of psalm in the Psalter. Laments name the pain, petition God for release, and find their way to praise.2 Their inclusion in the Psalter affirms the appropriateness of such words as prayer. They also remind us—even if we are not in pain—that when we recite, pray, or read them, we stand with and give voice to the pain of sufferers in our church and our world.
A subcategory of lament is imprecatory or cursing psalms. These psalms express lament and then petition God to curse the enemy. They are laments on steroids. They comprise only five percent of the Psalter,3 and the curse may be only a verse or two within a lament psalm.4 Yet they expose the underbelly of prayer and are so raw they shock us. For instance, Psalm 109 laments an enemy’s hatred, attack, and accusation. In response, the psalmist petitions God:
May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.
May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven from their ruined homes;
May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.
May his descendants be cut off,
their names blotted out from the next generation.
May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD;
may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
May their sins always remain before the LORD,
that he may blot out their name from the earth. (Ps 109:8–15)
Elsewhere, the psalmist petitions God’s curse on a whole community of enemies:
Break the teeth in their mouths, O God;
LORD, tear out the fangs of those lions!
Let them vanish like water that flows away;
when they draw the bow, let their arrows fall short.
May they be like a slug that melts away as it moves along,
Like a stillborn child that never sees the sun…
[Then] the righteous will be glad when they are avenged,
when they dip their feet in the blood of the wicked. (Ps 58:6–8, 10)
As a final example, Psalm 137 has the exiled community in Babylon resisting their captors’ demand for a song. Instead, the exiles pledge loving remembrance of Jerusalem, and in a shocking parting word against their captors, they petition:
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you,
according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks. (Ps 137:8–9)
We recoil from such gruesome, graphic language as a matter of course. When it appears in inspired Scripture—and within a book that provides models for prayer and praise—the recoil is greater. We generally avoid these psalms, expunging them from our public and private prayers and readings. This is unfortunate. Imprecatory psalms need careful consideration and thoughtful use, but because of (not despite) their invocation of curses, they have a role in the life of faith. More, they are “God-breathed and…useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16–17). As inspired scripture, we are called to “hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.”5
Confronted by Imprecation
Imprecatory psalms bring us face-to-face with several realities.
First, they remind us that life can really get this bad. Pain and suffering can leave the sufferer feeling no recourse but to demand action—even vengeance. In the movie Steel Magnolias,6 a modern imprecation occurs at a crucial moment. Sally Fields plays M’Lynn. Her daughter Shelby tragically has died too young and left behind a loving husband and small toddler. M’Lynn stands at the graveside with her friends after all other mourners have left. She has tried to put on a brave face, but when her friends press her about her feelings, she begins to lose it, moving from grief to denial to anger: “It makes no sense! I’m fine! So mad. Shouldn’t happen this way. Why? Why? I want to know why? I don’t understand. I can’t take it!” Then, as her lament climaxes, it moves to imprecation: “I want to hit someone! I want to hit someone hard. I want them to feel as bad as I do!”
Imprecations arise out of devastating suffering. Whether as intimate as domestic violence, as public as George Floyd’s last gasping minutes, or as systemic as the oppression of our First Nations—people, governments, and systems act in ways that cause suffering to devastating effect. The imprecatory psalms stand as prayers that give powerful voice to those who suffer. More, they call us to consider our own actions: might someone be praying these psalms against us? These psalms thus call us to mourning, to repentance where needed, and to act for change.
Second, these psalms reveal a desire for justice and the conviction that God is a just king who can provide that justice. Several psalms attest to God’s justice (e.g., Pss 97; 98) and God’s desire to act on behalf of the needy and poor. The call for imprecation effectively says, “You are a powerful and just God who cares; no one else can help; I’m complaining to the only one who can act rightly, and this action feels like it would be justice!” In a backhanded way, complaint and imprecation is praise, for it acknowledges that God’s power and justice stand beyond all earthly courts. The psalmists feel there is nowhere else to turn, so they turn to the only one they understand cares and has power to act.
Third, imprecatory psalms remind us of the “violence that nests in every human heart.”7 Our enemies might not be those of the psalmists, but we might wish to lash out against our own enemies in similarly shocking ways. Our desired action against our oppressor may not be aligned with God’s desires, but our desires can be viscerally real. A venerable Benedictine Sister objected to reciting the imprecatory psalms: “I can’t say those things in church!” Another Sister blurted out, “I don’t know why you can’t say them in church. You say them in the hall!”8 Yes. We all can wish terrible things against our enemies. Honest acknowledgement in prayer (of what God already knows we think) is a route to removing such violence from our hearts.
Fourth, imprecatory psalms remind us that we might (in our secret hearts) wish bad things against our enemies, but vengeance does not belong to us. The psalmist takes seriously God’s injunction that vengeance belongs to him alone (Deut 32:35–36). The psalmist only asks God to bring about the petitioned curses; never does the psalmist himself or herself act out the violence. Assured that God is just, these psalms direct us to “throw the sword to God,”9 leaving it with him to act rightly, whether that right action aligns with our wishes or not.
Longing for the Kingdom
Imprecatory psalms are not a license for hateful speech. Certainly, these psalms are difficult to read. But for those in deep distress and experiencing sustained injustice, they give a powerful pastoral voice to suffering, acknowledging the precious dignity of God’s creation. They are a reminder that our world is sinful and that individuals, groups, and systems can act unjustly, and inflict suffering. For all God’s people, these cursing psalms remind us in the midst of a broken world that we long for God’s eschatological kingdom where sorrow, crying, and pain will be no more. As God’s people, we can stand with those who suffer, working in hope of that longed-for kingdom and being shaped by its values in our lives, speech, and action.
An abbreviated version of this article was previously published in Rupert’s Land News, March 2020.
The Rev’d. Dr. Lissa M. Wray Beal completed her Ph.D. at Toronto School of Theology (Wycliffe College) and serves as Professor of Old Testament and Chair of the Bible and Theology Department at Providence Theological Seminary. She is an ordained priest in the Anglican Church of Canada.
Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, David in Prayer
- John Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, Author’s Preface; available online at https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom08/calcom08?queryID=1368276&resultID=1086.[↩]
- Only the lament of Psalm 88 never moves to praise.[↩]
- Approximately 8 psalms are considered imprecatory: Pss 35; 59; 69; 83; 88; 109; 137; 140.[↩]
- For instance, petitioned curses take up 6 of 28 verses in Psalm 35, and 8 of 11 verses in Psalm 58, but only 1 verse in Psalm 137.[↩]
- A familiar line from a traditional Collect which is set for the Second Sunday in Advent and attested to in many prayer books; it can be found in the Book of Common Prayer (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1962), 97.[↩]
- Steel Magnolias, Tri-Star Pictures, 1989.[↩]
- Irene Nowell, Pleading, Cursing, Praising: Conversing with God through the Psalms (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2013), 31.[↩]
- Ibid.[↩]
- Reed Lessing, “Broken Teeth, Bloody Baths, and Baby Bashing,” Concordia Journal 32 (2006): 370.[↩]