But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)

What are imprecatory Psalms?

“Imprecatory Psalms, contained within the Book of Psalms of the Hebrew Bible (תנ”ך), are those that invoke judgment, calamity, or curses, upon one’s enemies or those perceived as the enemies of God. … As a sample, Psalm 69:24 states toward God, ‘Pour out Your indignation on them, and let your burning anger overtake them.’” Imprecatory Psalms – Wikipedia

Are imprecatory Psalms, and prayers contrary to the text from Matthew 5:44? Can a Christian pray an imprecatory prayer or sing an imprecatory Psalm today?

A sampling of imprecatory Psalms, chapter, and verse:

Psalms 5:10; 6:10; 7:6; 9:19-20; 10:2,15; 17:13; 28:4; 31:17-18; 35:1,4-8, 19, 24-26; 40:14-15; 41:10; 54:5; 55:9,15; 56:7; 58:6-10; 59:5,11-14; 63:9-10; 68:1-2; 69:24-25; 70:2-3; 71:13; 79:6,10-12; 83:9-18; 94:1-4; 97:7; 104:35; 109:6-19, 29; 119:84; 129:5-7; 137:7-9; 139:19-22; 140:8-11; 141:10; 143:12.

Two examples of imprecatory Psalms:

“Punish them, God; let them fall by their own schemes. Drive them out because of their many crimes, for they rebel against You.” (Psalms 5:10)

“I hate them with extreme hatred; I consider them my enemies.” (Psalm 139:22)

Imprecatory passages are not limited to the Old Testament. Finding imprecatory passages in the New Testament refutes the idea that imprecatory passages are part of a uniquely Old Testament ethic that is now done away in the Christian era.

Imprecatory passages in the New Testament:

Two examples:

But whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, ‘The very dust of your city which clings to us we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you.’  But I say to you that it will be more tolerable in that Day for Sodom than for that city.  “Woe to you [accursed], Chorazin! Woe [accursed] to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.  But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you.  And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades.  He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.” (Luke 10:10-16)

Here Christ pronounces curses of the greatest eternal judgment possible on his own Jewish brethren in Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum – judgement even greater than upon those of Sodom and Gomorrah.   So is Christ here contradicting his words in Matthew 5:44?   Or is OUR interpretation of His words wrong?

We find that in the New Covenant that God’s vengeance against his enemies is greater than in the Old Covenant.   The text is crystal clear here.   Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum will have greater condemnation than Sodom and Gomorrah.   So the myth that God is kinder and gentler in the New Testament is opposite of reality.   This is because with greater revelation (Christ’s “mighty works”) comes greater accountability.

Next we find the martyred saints in heaven crying out for the same judgement on God’s enemies as the Psalmists did in the Old Testament:

And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10)

Now those who misinterpret Jesus words as the Pharisees did would say they are sinning here.   According to Romans 6:7 when we die we leave our sinful nature behind and are perfect.  So it is impossible that fully perfect sanctified saints in heaven can sin in this verse.  Rather they righteously in obedience to God’s prayers of judgment throughout the Psalms and the New Testament ask God for what He already has said He will do!   We must learn from these righteous saints.

Other imprecatory passages in the New Testament:

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:8)

I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off [emasculate themselves]!” (Galatians 5:12)

The salutation with my own hand—Paul’s.  If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. O Lord, come!” (1 Corinthians 16:21-22)

…since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10)

Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works.” (2 Timothy 4:14)

After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God!  For true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication; and He has avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her.” (Revelation 19:1-2)

Jesus’ use of imprecatory language and other imprecatory passages in the New Testament is problematic to those who want to posit an Old Testament, New Testament divide in the area of ethics as a solution for those who see Matthew 5:44 as being out of harmony with Old Testament imprecatory language.

So to understand how Christ’s words in Psalm 139 are not in any way against His words in Matthew 5:44 we must correctly understand the passages here.

God, if only You would kill the wicked — you bloodthirsty men, stay away from me— who invoke You deceitfully. Your enemies swear by You falsely.  Lord, don’t I hate those who hate You, and detest those who rebel against You?  I hate them with extreme hatred; I consider them my enemies.” (Psalm 139:19-22)

The reason for David’s hatred of these men is their hatred of God.  We may read the text this way: “Do not I hate them, O Lord, because they hate you? Do not I loathe them, because they rise up against you?” This comes out even more strongly in the original Hebrew. Literally, we read: “Is it not so, them that hate you, O Jehovah, I hate?” Their hatred of God is put first in the text, as the cause of our hatred of them.

Therefore, there is nothing carnal, nothing selfish and nothing “personal” in our hatred. It is not due to any injury that they did to us. Even though in their hatred of God they probably cursed, mocked and hurt us, it is not what they did to us that explains our hatred. We are not being vindictive in hating them. The reason is this only: they hate God. Thus, our hatred is a holy hatred.

We see this as well in Psalm 15. Psalm 15 gives us the requirements of those who can worship Jehovah. God gives specific details here in this Psalm.

Lord, who can dwell in Your tabernacle? Who can live on Your holy mountain? The one who lives honestly, practices righteousness, and acknowledges the truth in his heart — who does not slander with his tongue, who does not harm his friend or discredit his neighbor,who despises the one rejected by the Lord but honors those who fear the Lord.” (Psalm 15:1-4)

So here again we see the basis of our despising the vile or one who is rejected by the Lord. We despise him BECAUSE God despises him and rejects him. We are never to love those who God hates and despises. Remember the warning the prophet Jehu said to King Jehoshaphat when he returned from a losing battle where he helped wicked King Ahab fight the Syrians at Ramoth Gilead?

And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to King Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you.” (2 Chronicles 19:2)

Again, it is the Lord’s hatred that determines who we should love and who we should hate. If you hate who the Lord loves and love who the Lord hates, the wrath of God is upon YOU. You cannot be a worshipper of God without hating those who the Lord hates. It is impossible. You might as well just close the doors of the church and go out golfing on Sunday morning.

Now as we turn our attention back to Christ’s words of loving our enemy let’s first look at the preceding verse.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ (Matthew 5:43)

Throughout Christ’s sermon on the mount He is correcting the wrong teachings of the Pharisees. The blind Pharisees were leading the blind giving all kinds of wrong interpretations of the scriptures. Here we see exactly the problem. The Pharisees mixed God’s ideas with their own. God in fact commands us to love our neighbor. Commandments 5-10 show us how we must love our neighbor. But now you see what the Pharisees did here? They added a different phrase. Jesus said:

And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Matthew 22:39).

So the Pharisees took away from God’s command and added their own ideas. They subtracted “as yourself” and added “and hate your enemy”

Do you see the problem that Jesus is addressing? The basis of wrong hatred of someone is not that God hates them, but that YOU hate them. They are YOUR personal enemy not God’s! This is what Jesus is addressing in verse 44. He is addressing interpersonal relationships amongst His people. Remember that Jesus pronounced judgement on his own Jewish people BECAUSE they rejected Him. And because they rejected Him, they rejected God (Luke 10:16). This is always the basis of our righteous hatred.

Within the Jewish community there was much wicked hatred of their believing brothers, and Christ constantly addressed this. The Jewish leaders were the example of hating God’s people and loving the wicked. They hated Christ, the son of God and used the Beast of the Roman empire to crucify Him and persecute His disciples. They hated his disciples and had them beaten. They even excommunicated the believing blind man that Jesus had healed (John 9:34-38)! At the same time, they loved the wicked Barabbas and falsely accused the apostles of treason against Caesar (Acts 17:7). In short, they loved who God hated and hated who God loved.

We must be sure of this. It is so easy to corrupt our hatred with personal and carnal motives. In this light, we can see how our hatred for God’s enemies is to be harmonized with our calling to love our enemies. In Matthew 5 and Luke 6, Jesus tells us to love our enemies, never HIS enemies!

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you… (Matthew 5:44)

So now we can see the difference here. Christ never refers to those who hate and reject God! He is ONLY referring to those who harm YOU. We must not hate our enemies but love them. These are people who bear a personal grudge against us, spitefully use us and persecute us. They may even cheat us in partnerships or other civil matters and 1 Cor. 6 demands that we not go to the pagan courts against a believer but rather even accept a major hardship from a person who is in the church rather than defame the name of Christ

Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? (1 Corinthians 6:7)

This is a very good example of loving YOUR enemies who are not objective enemies of God. They are in the church, they profess to be believers, yet they harm us and persecute us. We are to go to the courts of the church for justice amongst believers. And we are not to go to the pagan courts for justice. Yet for all of their harm they do us, we are to show acts of kindness and restraint regarding them and even suffer much financial loss and be cheated by them rather than defame Christ’s name if this is the final outcome.

But there are also people who are also our enemies for Christ’s sake and if they reject Christ they are His enemies. These are those outside the true church. And if they are enemies of our shepherd they are also surely the enemies of those who are truly His sheep. David and the Psalmists speak about these enemies as do the saints in heaven. Sometimes we are to treat them with kindness and heap coals of fire on their head as we do with believers in the church. Other times they attack in mass against Christ’s community and we are to defend ourselves (Psalm 144:1-2, Luke 22:36).

It might seem that there is conflict between Psalm 139 and Matthew 5, between our calling to hate God’s enemies and our calling to love those who persecute us. This is, in fact, the position of those who say that we may never hate anyone. They view Matthew 5 as contradicting Psalm 139 and they use Matthew 5 to set Psalm 139 aside.

We hold, however, that the two passages do not contradict each other. Both are Scripture and both must be true in the life of Christ’s disciple.

There is harmony between the passages, and the harmony is this: We love men who are our enemies but we hate men who are God’s enemies. This can be one and the same person. Insofar as a man hates, curses and harms me, I love him and I show this by doing acts of kindness to him. Inasmuch as the same man hates God and opposes Him, I hate him and count him my enemy. The trouble often is that we do the opposite: we readily hate our personal enemies but go on loving those who hate God.

We must obey Christ’s commands to sing His songs, the inspired Psalms, inspired Hymns and inspired Songs of the book of Psalms. We would be wicked to pretend to sit in judgement on God’s Psalms editing them according to our wishes and feelings. This is a form of higher criticism where man sits in judgment upon God’s Word. The truth is just the opposite of this. It is the Psalms of God, His inspired Word that sit in judgement on our wrong theology, doctrine and practices. The word of God in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 can’t be set aside by our traditions.

He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men… (Mark 7: 6-8)

There is much false or vain worship in churches today. It is time for repentance if we are to fare better in God’s judgement than those of Copernaum and Sodom. We’ve been giving all the light of scripture and 1200 years of unanimous decisions of the courts of His bride confessing the Psalms alone as the only acceptable worship to the true God, Jehovah. And we will be held accountable to obey Him. Sola Psalmis is His command  – His law. More in this link

One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, Even his prayer is an abomination. (Proverbs 28:9)

Unless we obey, our prayers and our prayer meetings are a waste of time, an abomination to God.

–Calvin Jones with contributions by Jack Kettler and David Engelsma