22 Reasons to Pray the Cursing (Imprecatory) Psalms

Greyson Joralemon

The imprecatory (or cursing or vengeance) psalms are probably the most difficult obstacle Christians face when taking up the Psalms as their own prayers. Here’s why I think we should pray them:

1. Because the Lord’s Pattern Prayer teaches us to pray similarly: “Your kingdom come, your will be on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). The coming of the Kingdom includes the vanquishing of the King’s enemies (2 Thes. 1:5–12).
2. Since “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but…against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12) therefore we can pray them against Satan and his legions.
3. Jesus bore the vengeance that the Psalms ask for: “The imprecatory psalm leads to the cross of Jesus and to the love of God which forgives enemies. . . . In this way the crucified Jesus teaches us to pray the imprecatory psalms correctly” (Bonhoeffer).
4. We can pray them in self-imprecation, “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13), asking the Spirit to carry on his war against the flesh within us, until everything that opposes God is destroyed.
5. It cannot be an Old Testament problem because there are similar New Testament prayers, like the saints in heaven: “They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (Rev. 6:10).
6. Paul prayed imprecatory prayers: “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!” (1 Cor. 16:22) “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (Gal 1:9).
7. Because in a topsy-turvy world of injustice, they recognize where true justice comes from. “Imprecations are appeals to the Judge of the earth to play the part of Judge” (Peter Leithart).
8. Praying the imprecatory psalms leaves vengeance up to God. In the same breath, Paul teaches us to “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them”…he also says “never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God” (Romans 12:14,19).
9. It shows trust that “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)
10. Imprecatory psalms are the songs of the oppressed, always prayed from a position of vulnerability and weakness, not dominance or triumphalism.
11. To curse enemies doesn’t necessarily mean hell. For David, it primarily meant death.
12. We are primarily praying against God’s enemies, not our own personal vendettas.
13. We are simply asking God to keep his covenant promises to Abraham and his offspring: “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3). We are the inheritors of this promise to bless and curse: “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal 3:29).
14. We are following Jesus’ example who “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23).
15. As James Hamilton points out, a central theme in the Bible is God’s glory in salvation through judgement. We are certainly allowed to pray for this.
16. Because with social justice, we must acknowledge that the liberation of sex slaves comes at the incarceration of the enslavers, the lifting up of the poor is the bringing down of their oppressors, equality for minorities includes penalty for hate crimes. This is what we are praying for in the imprecatory psalms.
17. Because cutting out parts of the Bible is more like Jefferson than Jesus. Refusing to pray the entire psalter amounts to a rudimentary form of Neo-Marcionism, a heresy condemned by the early church.
18. It would be hard to divide the most beloved of the psalms from the curses. “In almost every case the imprecation that we find objectionable sits alongside a spirituality that we would envy, as in Psalm 139” (Alec Motyer, in Gordon Wenham’s The Psalter Reclaimed, p. 134).
19. We are not taking matters into our own hands but rather expressing trust in the God who “works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed” (Ps. 103:6).
20. It must be understood that our prayers for Jesus’ return imply “the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thes. 1:7–9), which will result in “blood (flowing) from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for (184 miles)” (Revelation 14:20).
21. Praying imprecatory psalms may be the way that early Christians had “steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring” since “God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you” (2 Thessalonians 1:4–6).
22. The Psalms would not be a true mirror of the human soul without portraying our anger and rage. “The Psalms explore the full gamut of human experience from rage to hope. Indeed, it would be very strange if such a robust spirituality lacked such a dimension of vengeance, for we would conclude that just at the crucial point, robustness had turned to cowardice and propriety” (Walter Brueggemann, Praying the Psalms, 63).

…more to come.

How to Pray Imprecatory Psalms

1. Pray them first against Satan.
2. Pray them second against your sinful nature.
3. Pray them third against the world systems of corruption and oppression.
4. Pray them lastly against enemies, God’s then yours.

Selah.

For more reading:

• Teach Us To Pray by Peter Leithart
• Do I Not Hate Those Who Hate You, O Lord? by John Piper
• Should We Pray the Imprecatory Psalms? by William Ross
• Those Troubling Psalms of Imprecation by Sam Storms
• The Psalter Reclaimed: Praying and Praising with the Psalms by Gordon J. Wenham.
• Praying the Psalms, Second Edition: Engaging Scripture and the Life of the Spirit by Walter Brueggemann