Psalm 109 is, perhaps, not the best place to
begin reading the Psalms after a break. This psalm is full of that hatred of
one’s enemy that we have already seen elsewhere in the Psalms. C. S. Lewis
notes rightly that, “the spirit of hatred which strikes us in the face is like
the heat from a furnace mouth.” He suggests that Psalm 109 is perhaps the
supreme example of this hatred in the Psalms.
The poet prays that an ungodly man may rule over
his enemy and that “Satan” may stand at his right hand (5). This probably does not mean what a Christian reader naturally
supposes. The “Satan” is an accuser, perhaps an informer. When the enemy is
tried, let him be convicted and sentenced, “and let his prayer be turned into
sin” (6). This again means, I think,
not his prayers to God, but his supplications to a human judge, which are to
make things all the hotter for him (double the sentence because he begged for
it to be halved). May his days be few, may his job be given to someone else (7). When he is dead may his orphans be
beggars (9). May he look in vain for
anyone in the world to pity him (11).
Let God always remember against him the sins of his parents (13).
What use can be made of such a Psalm in our
devotional life? Lewis notes helpfully, first, what use we must not make of it….
…we must not either try to explain them away or
to yield for one moment to the idea that, because it comes in the Bible, all
this vindictive hatred must somehow be good and pious. We must face both facts
squarely. The hatred is there—festering, gloating, undisguised—and also we
should be wicked if we in any way condoned or approved it, or (worse still)
used it to justify similar passions in ourselves. Only after these two
admissions have been made can we safely proceed. (Reflections on the Psalms, the chapter on “The Cursings”)
Lewis suggests two reasons why the Psalmists
display such hatred. One is because they themselves were severely persecuted.
This hatred is a reaction to their own suffering. A second reason why the
Psalmists probably displayed such hatred is because they cared more about right
and wrong than many modern people do. This does not justify the hatred, but it
does help the reader to understand it. Lewis suggests later in Reflections on the Psalms that the best
use we can make of these cursing psalms is not to adopt the same attitude of
hatred toward our enemies. After all, Jesus tells us to love our enemies.
However, what we can do with these psalms is allow them to lead us to a hatred
of sin, our own sin in particular, and to the practice of what Paul calls
mortification, putting these sins in ourselves to death.
Of course, this is easier said than done.
Mortification is a life-long process of taking our sins to Jesus and allowing
him to nail them to the cross, and also allowing him to replace our evil with
the practices that lead to life.
These four Psalms (109-112) provide us in
microcosm a view of the great variety there is in the Psalms. Psalm 110, for
example, is a Messianic Psalm, and perhaps the most oft-quoted piece of the Old
Testament that appears in the New. The fact that the early Christians saw so
many references to the Messiah in the Psalms tells us that they were steeped in
this book.
111 is a beautiful psalm of praise. Verse 7 is
especially good: “The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his
precepts are trustworthy.” Lewis notes that the word for “true” in this verse
can also be translated “faithful” or “sound”; what is in the Hebrew sense,
“true” is what “holds water”, what doesn’t “give way” or collapse. In the Law,
we find the real, the correct, the stable, well-grounded directions for living.
Lewis says,
The law answers the question “Wherewithal shall a
young man cleanse his way?” (119, 9).
It is like a lamp, a guide (105).
There are many rival directions for living, as the Pagan cultures all round us
show. When the poets call the directions or “rulings” of Jahweh “true” they are
expressing the assurance that these, and not those others, are the “real” or “valid”
or unassailable ones; that they are based on the very nature of things and the
very nature of God…. Their delight in the Law is a delight in having touched
firmness; like the pedestrian’s delight in feeling the hard road beneath his
feet after a false short cut has long entangled him in muddy fields.
Psalm 112 is a good companion to 111 in that it
reveals to the reader the reward of the one who builds his or her life firmly
on the foundation of God’s truth. Most important among the benefits of the
righteous is, perhaps, that “their hearts are firm, secure in the Lord.”
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