Can hatred and holiness co-exist? (2)

 

Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy;
    let an accuser stand at his right hand.
⁷ When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
    and may his prayers condemn him.
⁸ May his days be few;
    may another take his place of leadership.
⁹ May his children be fatherless
    and his wife a widow.
¹⁰ May his children be wandering beggars;
    may they be driven from their ruined homes.
¹¹ May a creditor seize all he has;
    may strangers plunder the fruits of his labour.
¹² May no one extend kindness to him
    or take pity on his fatherless children.
¹³ May his descendants be cut off,
    their names blotted out from the next generation.
¹⁴ May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord;
    may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
¹⁵ May their sins always remain before the Lord,
    that he may blot out their name from the earth. Psalm 109:6-15

Last time we looked at Psalm 109 as an example of one of those Bible passages which, if we are completely honest, we would probably prefer were not there. Taken as it stands it seems full of venom and hatred for the writer’s enemies, a direct contrast with the words of Jesus about loving your enemy and praying for, not against, them.

The question arises, What is this psalm (not to mention various other parts of the Bible) doing there? Would you pray such a prayer against someone who has injured you? Can you imagine Jesus praying it? What value or use are these passages for us today?

Last time I suggested a number of things in general about reading the Bible, the first of which is to take it as much as possible at face value – always making allowance, of course, for the many different types of literature we are dealing with and the alien cultural background. Some respected Bible translations (the NRSV, for example) try to solve the puzzle of Psalm 109 by inserting the two little words “They say” before verse 6, thus suggesting that the following shocking words are spoken by the psalmist’s enemies rather than by himself. It certainly turns the psalm on its head! For what little I know it is a possible amendment and possibly a justified one, but it strikes me as rather a desperate ploy, a bit of a wriggling out of the plain meaning.

No, we need to look these words fairly and squarely in the face, however uncomfortable they make us.

We might be tempted to say, “Ah, but the man who wrote this psalm lived before Jesus. He had never read the New Testament or heard the Sermon on the Mount, so what can we expect?”

That is obviously true enough. But as a devout Jew (“a man of prayer”, verse 4), had he never been taught parts of the Law of Moses such as Exodus 23:4-5: “If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it”. Had he never been taught Proverbs 25:21: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink”? Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount wasn’t introducing a new law of love to replace a law of hate; no, he was reminding the people of something they should have known perfectly well already but had chosen to ignore.

For me personally, the most challenging, if rather disturbing, use of this psalm can only be this: it is a frighteningly honest probing of the human heart. Putting it another way: this could be me speaking. It reveals myself to me…

Oh, don’t worry, I have been far too well brought up to hate anyone with such a naked hatred (no credit to me there, of course, and I like to think I don’t have any enemies anyway), but I don’t have any illusions either about the darkness that lurks in the depths of my own heart. Do you?

I know what it is to be jealous, to be unjustly angry, to look down on somebody. I always feel a grim smile coming on when I think of David’s wife Michal looking furtively out of her window, seeing him dancing exuberantly “before the Lord” at the recovery of the ark of the covenant, and “despising him in her heart” (1 Chronicles 15:29). Have I never despised someone in my heart, perhaps while smiling sweetly? Don’t I know what it means to be petty, or spiteful, or selfish or just plain nasty? What about you?

Perhaps this is just me; but I suspect not. Most of us learn to live outwardly respectable, “decent” lives; but the key word there is “outwardly”. If we return for a moment to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:21-42), didn’t Jesus warn us that hatred and anger are tantamount to murder? that lust is tantamount to adultery? These sinful poisons are what fester invisibly in our inmost beings - and isn’t it our hearts that God knows and “searches” (Psalm 7:9)?

If nothing else, the writer of Psalm 109 (a “man of prayer”, remember) helps us to take this truth seriously, even if that wasn’t his intention. No doubt there are other things we can learn from his inner toxicity. There are many parts of the Bible, after all, which are to be learned from – of course – but not imitated.

But perhaps that’s enough to be going on with for the time being.

Father, we know that hatred and holiness cannot co-exist, and that we are called to have pure, forgiving hearts. As we read this psalm, help us to face the wickedness that dwells secretly within us and to hunger after the purity of Jesus himself. Amen.