"Vengeance
is Mine!" saith the LORD
Like many who have studied the psalms, I have always found David’s attitude concerning vengeance towards his enemies very confusing. If God is a God of love and David is seen as a man after God’s own heart… “I don't get it!?”
Jesus' teaching of the Beatitudes [Matthew 5] tells me that God knows and understands justice is important to us. He knows it hurts when we’ve been wronged. But we must be careful. We can never let our need for justice turn into a quest for revenge. Instead the Bible teaches “don’t get even”. The answer Jesus gives is answer evil with kindness and generosity... and then leave everything else to God.
Instead, we must turn the other cheek.
Answering the evil done against us with kindness and generosity, being friendly to the person who hurt you us does not mean we are looking to be hurt again—it’s showing “there has been no offense” because you’ve already forgiven them and you’re leaving the issue of justice and fairness to God.
This Psalm is a prayer of David, and was a song of worship:
O God of my praise, Do not be silent! For they have opened their wicked and deceitful
mouth
against me; they have spoken against me with a lying tongue. They have also surrounded me with
words of hatred, and fought against me without cause. In return for my love they act as my
accusers… but I am in prayer. Thus they have repaid me evil for good, and hatred for my love. (NASB)
In the first 5 verses, it is important to understand what David is experiencing. He is claiming his innocence and the iniquity of his enemies. David’s plea is that God not remain silent—he has done good to his enemies and they have repaid with evil. Only one who is innocent dare pray as David does here, and the wicked need fear the fate which David petitions God to execute.
David is suffering, not for his sin, but “for righteousness sake”
This same principle is expressed in the Book of Proverbs:
The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the dwelling of the righteous. (Proverbs 3:33).
He who returns evil for good… evil will not depart from his house (Proverbs 17:13).
What God teaches us in principle, He will also do.
It goes against our nature to conjure up human feelings of love and forgiveness—we really can’t love or forgive our enemies... at best we can only try to suppress our feelings of anger and hostility. David also admits his same feelings and desires. But he was relieved of his hostility by committing the destiny of the wicked to God. Punishment and vengeance belong to God. By giving up vengeance we free ourselves to love and to forgive in a way that we cannot produce in and of ourselves.
The message of the Gospel is that vengeance never needs to fall on us. Christ came to the earth to take upon Himself our sins and our punishment. God placed upon His Son the punishment which David petitioned God to bring upon his enemies. If we take it upon ourselves—that’s another reason why we can say ‘then Christ died in vain’’. No one who places his trust in the Savior, Jesus Christ, need suffer the consequences of another’s sin. It is only those who choose to resist and reject God’s solution who have plenty reason to worry and seek their own justice. The opposite also hold true for that person… God promises justice and judgment to all who reject His Son. I encourage you to place your trust in Jesus Christ, the sin-bearer who died in your place and suffered even more this Psalm describes.
Like many who have studied the psalms, I have always found David’s attitude concerning vengeance towards his enemies very confusing. If God is a God of love and David is seen as a man after God’s own heart… “I don't get it!?”
Jesus' teaching of the Beatitudes [Matthew 5] tells me that God knows and understands justice is important to us. He knows it hurts when we’ve been wronged. But we must be careful. We can never let our need for justice turn into a quest for revenge. Instead the Bible teaches “don’t get even”. The answer Jesus gives is answer evil with kindness and generosity... and then leave everything else to God.
Instead, we must turn the other cheek.
Answering the evil done against us with kindness and generosity, being friendly to the person who hurt you us does not mean we are looking to be hurt again—it’s showing “there has been no offense” because you’ve already forgiven them and you’re leaving the issue of justice and fairness to God.
This Psalm is a prayer of David, and was a song of worship:
O God of my praise, Do not be silent! For they have opened their wicked and deceitful
mouth
against me; they have spoken against me with a lying tongue. They have also surrounded me with
words of hatred, and fought against me without cause. In return for my love they act as my
accusers… but I am in prayer. Thus they have repaid me evil for good, and hatred for my love. (NASB)
In the first 5 verses, it is important to understand what David is experiencing. He is claiming his innocence and the iniquity of his enemies. David’s plea is that God not remain silent—he has done good to his enemies and they have repaid with evil. Only one who is innocent dare pray as David does here, and the wicked need fear the fate which David petitions God to execute.
David is suffering, not for his sin, but “for righteousness sake”
This same principle is expressed in the Book of Proverbs:
The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the dwelling of the righteous. (Proverbs 3:33).
He who returns evil for good… evil will not depart from his house (Proverbs 17:13).
What God teaches us in principle, He will also do.
It goes against our nature to conjure up human feelings of love and forgiveness—we really can’t love or forgive our enemies... at best we can only try to suppress our feelings of anger and hostility. David also admits his same feelings and desires. But he was relieved of his hostility by committing the destiny of the wicked to God. Punishment and vengeance belong to God. By giving up vengeance we free ourselves to love and to forgive in a way that we cannot produce in and of ourselves.
The message of the Gospel is that vengeance never needs to fall on us. Christ came to the earth to take upon Himself our sins and our punishment. God placed upon His Son the punishment which David petitioned God to bring upon his enemies. If we take it upon ourselves—that’s another reason why we can say ‘then Christ died in vain’’. No one who places his trust in the Savior, Jesus Christ, need suffer the consequences of another’s sin. It is only those who choose to resist and reject God’s solution who have plenty reason to worry and seek their own justice. The opposite also hold true for that person… God promises justice and judgment to all who reject His Son. I encourage you to place your trust in Jesus Christ, the sin-bearer who died in your place and suffered even more this Psalm describes.
PSALM 109
1 O God, of my praise, do not be silent!
2 For they have opened the wicked and a deceitful mouth against me—
They have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
3 They have also surrounded me with words of hatred, and fought against
me without cause.
4 In return for my love they act as my accusers, but I am in prayer.
5 Thus they have paid me evil for good and hatred for my love.
6 Appoint a wicked man over him, and let an accuser stand at his right hand.
7 When he is judged, let him come forth guilty, and let his prayer become sin.
8 Let his days be few – let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
10 Let his children wander about and beg – and let them seek sustenance far from their ruined homes.
11 Let the creditor seize all that he has, and let strangers plunder the product of his labor.
12 Let there be none to extend lovingkindness to him, nor any to be gracious to his fatherless children.
13 Let his posterity be cut off, in a following generation let their name be blotted out.
14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, and do not let the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15 Let them be before the Lord continually that He may cut off their memory from the earth…
16 Because he did not remember to show lovingkindness, but persecuted the afflicted and needy man,
and the despondent in heart, to put them to death.
17 He also loved cursing, so it came to him—
And he did not delight in blessing, so it was far from him.
18 But he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment, and it entered into his body like water and like oil into his bones.
19 Let it be to him as a garment with which he covers himself, and for a belt with which he constantly girds himself.
20 Let this be the reward of my accusers from the Lord, and of those who speak evil against my soul.
21 But You, O God, the Lord, deal kindly with me for Your name’s sake—
Because Your lovingkindness is good, deliver me…
22 For I am afflicted and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
23 I am passing like a shadow when it lengthens – I am shaken off like the locust.
24 My knees are weak from fasting, and my flesh has grown lean, without fatness.
25 I also have become a reproach to them – when they see me, they shake their head.
26 Help me, O Lord my God…
Save me according to Your lovingkindness.
27 And let them know that this is Your hand—
That You, Lord, have done it.
28 Let them curse, but You bless… when they arise, they shall be ashamed—
But Your servant shall be glad.
29 Let my accusers be clothed with dishonor, and let them cover themselves with their own shame as with a robe.
30 With my mouth I will give thanks abundantly to the Lord –
And in the midst of many I will praise Him.
31 For He stands at the right hand of the needy, to save him from those who judge his soul.
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