What About the Awkward Psalms?
Editor’s Note: This article is from the forthcoming book, God Is Our Refuge and Strength: 150 Devotionals Through the Psalms, by Bill Boekestein and Rob Ventura (The Banner of Truth, October 2026).
What do you do with prayers that ask God to let the children of the wicked become vagabonds (Psa. 109:10)? Or with verses that seem too harsh to read in a public gathering without explanation (e.g., Psa. 137:9)? To benefit from these psalms, we must understand their place in God’s unfolding plan of salvation.
Consider Psalm 58, which helps us to see the heart of judgment psalms: the reality of radical injustice and God’s response to it. Its author, David, was a righteous man who communed closely with God in Christ but was persecuted by the wicked. This man after God’s own heart shared God’s hatred of sin. Imprecatory psalms will make little sense to nominal Christians, but they resonate profoundly with those who, like David, grieve over injustice. Far from being embarrassing remnants of an outdated theology, these psalms help us live faithfully before God’s face in a world where evil still thrives. Here are some actions they can help believers practice.
Hate Injustice
Tim Keller’s comment on Psalm 58 is helpful: ‘Those leading comfortable lives may be troubled by verses 6-10 but the Psalms refuse to allow us to get used to the scandal of evil in high places.’[1] The Bible is clear: God loves justice and hates injustice (Isa. 61:8). The judgment psalms teach us to share his outlook on right and wrong.
Believe that God’s Justice Is Right and Balanced
Expressions in imprecatory psalms are strong: ‘O God, break the teeth’ in the mouths of the wicked (Psa. 58:6). But they aren’t too strong—they are appropriate. Psalm 7 captures a theme woven throughout these psalms: for a wicked and unrepentant person, ‘his mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends’ (verse 16). Divine justice is not arbitrary; it is measured. When God repays the unjust he simply gives them exactly what their actions confirm they deserve.
Don’t Take Vengeance. Pray for Justice
The judgment psalms give striking testimony to Paul’s instruction that believers should never avenge themselves but rather leave vengeance ‘to the wrath of God’ (Rom. 12:19). Considering the historical backdrop in Psalms 57 and 59, David likely wrote Psalm 58 while Saul was hunting him down to kill him. If this psalm is against Saul and others who sought David’s life, it’s remarkable that David, despite multiple opportunities, refused to take justice into his own hands (1 Sam. 24:1-7). The judgment psalms teach us to entrust justice to God rather than seeking revenge ourselves.
Be Encouraged by God’s Promise of Justice
How does this sentence sit with you? ‘The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked’ (Psa. 58:10). If this is hard to hear, consider the context. Most imprecatory psalms, like this one, are written against higher-up agitators of injustice (Psa. 58:1), those seemingly out-of-reach of punitive consequences. But it is a comfort to know ‘there is a God who judges on earth’ (Psa. 58:11). Jesus himself warned that those in power who lead others into sin would be better off drowned than face God’s judgment (Matt. 18:6). These strong psalms remind us of the final judgment. Sin is so terrible that without hell, justice remains unanswered. Paul found strength in this truth, fixing his eyes on the ultimate restoration of all things—including the defeat of evil—as he pressed ‘toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus’ (Phil. 3:14, 20, 21).
Apply Imprecatory Psalms to Yourself
It is easy to direct judgment psalms outward—to see injustice in others while ignoring our own sin. But these psalms urge us to self-examination (Psa. 32:5) and grief over what we find in our own hearts (Psa. 51:1-5). After the 2012 Newtown school shooting, John Piper wrote, ‘The murders of Newtown are a warning to me and you. Not a warning to see our schools as defenseless, but to see our souls as depraved.’[2] The judgment psalms should work on us in a similar way.
Psalm 58 warns not just the obviously wicked but also those who remain silent in the face of injustice (verses 4-5). Paul echoes this, applying the image of poisonous vipers not just to corrupt leaders, but to all of us (Rom. 3:13; cf. Psa. 140:3). Apart from grace, we are no better (Rom. 3:9).
Yet for us who have trusted in Christ, the judge is also our Savior. He is not only righteous but merciful—our sacrificial and protective older brother (Heb. 2:11).
Plead for the Revival of the Unjust
In Psalm 83, Asaph repeatedly asks God to make his enemies ashamed of their attempts to sabotage his plans—not merely as retribution, but as a means of awakening them. He prays that the reality of God’s good, sovereign purposes would break through their hardened hearts. His ultimate hope is that, humbled and ashamed, they would seek God’s name (Psa. 83:16) and come to know that God ‘alone, whose name is the Lord, [is] the Most High over all the earth’ (Psa. 83:18). Our heart towards God’s enemies should reflect his own—a heart that longs for both justice and redemption.
Imprecatory prayers are also intercessory prayers. The alternative to heeding Jesus’ gentle invitation—‘Come to me’ (Matt. 11:28-30)—is to one day find oneself under his heel (1 Cor. 15:25). We should desire all people to ‘serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling’ lest the Son’s wrath be kindled against them (Psa. 2:11, 12). Therefore, it is right to apply such prayers to the enemies of the church today.[3] Jesus promises that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her (Matt. 16:18). We may pray, therefore, for the downfall of any person, movement, or system, that seeks to overthrow his church. Why should we be any less passionate about the church’s victory than the faithful generations who have come before us?
In summary, some themes in the psalms may seem foreign to us. But just as travelling to another country offers fresh perspective on home, immersing ourselves in them grants clarity about our own lives. Our prayer is that this book, as a humble servant and exposition of the psalter, will help you to hope, sing, pray, trust, and grieve biblically, and, above all, grasp the immense gift that God in Christ has provided for you in all of life’s difficulties.
[1] Timothy Keller, with Kathy Keller, The Songs of Jesus: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms (New York: Viking, 2015), 124.
[2] John Piper, ‘A Lesson for All from Newtown.’ Desiring God. December 15, 2012. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-lesson-for-all-from-newtown.
[3] For a different perspective, see Michael Horton’s, ‘Should Christians Pray for God to Judge their Enemies?’ https://corechristianity.com/resource-library/articles/should-christians-pray-for-god-to-judge-their-enemies. Horton acknowledges that there are imprecations also in the New Testament, but that none of them ‘call down God’s judgment on particular individuals without also offering a way out through repentance and faith in Christ.’ But we should note that the early Christians not only took solace in the truth of Psalm 2 when they were persecuted by Jewish leaders, but also called God to ‘look upon their threats’ (Acts 4:23-31), the very thing often prayed for in imprecatory psalms.
