June 28, 2020
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Psalm? Here’s today’s reading:
Psalm 109 (ESV)
Help Me, O Lord My God
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
1 Be not silent, O God of my praise!
2 For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me,
speaking against me with lying tongues.......Continue Reading
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Help me, O Lord my God!
Oh, save me according to Your mercy,
That they may know that this is Your hand—
That You, Lord, have done it!
Let them curse, but You bless;
When they arise, let them be ashamed,
But let Your servant rejoice.
Let my accusers be clothed with shame,
And let them cover themselves with their own disgrace as with a mantle.
I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth;
Yes, I will praise Him among the multitude.
For He shall stand at the right hand of the poor,
To save him from those who condemn him.
Imprecatory Psalms are tough because they run counter to the idea of forgiveness and doing good to those who despitefully use us or abuse us.
However, when we are falsely accused or feel oppressed, our help and hope come from God and we entrust our care into His steadfast love and deliverance. We do not take things into our hands but rest wholly in His hands.
Well if there is one thing about the Psalms and the Bible as a whole, it deals with the whole of life and the range of human emotion but it is a good thing that vengeance is mine saith the Lord, that He will repay. On some level we can understand why David would say what he does. Dealing with evil people is hard and even worse when they threaten and attack us and others. To vent these thoughts to God and let Him sift through them and decide what is fitting is one way to see these things in a favorable light. The thoughts are not even inconsistent with the Old Testament description of what God will do in the presence of evil. But Jesus does lead us to a different and better way. We are to love our enemies and do good to those despitefully use us. But we do that with the awareness. that God cares about justice, that He is our defender, and we place evil people in His hands to do with them what He knows to be right in accomplishing His greater plan. This is especially true when a person’s evil threatens others and particularly the weak and vulnerable as David seems to indicate here. We just operate from a better perspective when we too are people of prayer, when we make sure we are operating from a position of righteousness so we can promote our cause to God and then allow His kingdom to come and His will to be done one earth as it is in heaven.
20May this be the reward of my accusers from the Lord,
of those who speak evil against my life!
I AM LEAVING MY DESIRED VENGENCE IN YOUR HANDS O LORD …
21But you, O God my Lord,
deal on my behalf for your name’s sake;
because your steadfast love is good, deliver me!