And I told them, “Oh, I’m gonna preach a sermon for you.” And that started happening more and more. Even this morning I heard a story of some great injustice. And so there is a time and a place for this. And here we go. So let’s now turn our eyes to God’s word.
Let’s ask that he might give us fresh eyes, open ears, and a soft heart to receive his word this morning. And I’m gonna pray briefly to that end. Father, I do ask that your word would be living and active in our lives, that you would cut us as we need, uh, both to convict us and also to heal us. Father, we ask that you would work this into our lives as we have need, uh, that you would help us to be aware of our sin, that we might turn to you in repentance, and Father, that we might receive the good news of the gospel, life everlasting, and not your judgment. Lord, you know our needs, and we ask that you would take your word and apply it for our salvation.
We pray this in the powerful name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, scriptures in hand, let’s hear God’s holy and inerrant word. Psalm 58. Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?
Do you judge the children of man uprightly? No, in your hearts you devise wrong. Your hands deal out violence on the earth. The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray from birth speaking lies.
They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear so that it does not hear the voice of the charmers or of the cunning enchanter. Oh God, break the teeth in their mouths. Tear out the fangs of the young lions, oh Lord. Let them vanish like water that runs away. And when he aims his arrows, let them be blunted.
Let them be like a snail that dissolves into slime, like the newborn, the stillborn child. Who never sees the sun. Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away. The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.
Mankind will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous.” surely for the preaching of God’s word. Father, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word, your word, stands forever. Work it into our lives for your glory, we pray. Amen.
Justice— that’s the wrong way to start. Injustice abounds. There’s no doubt of that. No one’s gonna dispute dispute that there’s injustice all around that, all around us. And, and think about it, when sinful people stand in front of sinful judges or parents or bosses, that’s going to result in injustice and it’s going to result in cries of injustice.
In fact, at times so prevalent and overwhelming this can be for the follower of God that they could become so utterly discouraged and defeated that in some sense they die inside. Or conversely, that person can become so outraged that he works himself up into some kind of a frenzy to function as a, a dark knight to avenge. Both of those responses are out of accord with God’s revealed will. Furthermore, as you hear this psalm read, it is likely that many of these phrases made you feel uncomfortable. You might even think, “I wouldn’t wish this on my enemies.” What do we do then with this psalm, and in a general sense, what do we do with the imprecatory psalms in which a psalmist is calling down God’s judgment, often in rather graphic and violent ways on their enemies.
These are prayerfully a few of the areas that we’ll explore as we work through Psalm 58. First, we’ll look at its form and its flow, then we’ll address some of those challenges, and finally consider a few ways in which we, by God’s grace, can apply this teaching in our own life. As we first look to the form, the flow of this psalm, we’ll notice that it begins with a a superscription, and that superscription is quite a bit like the one of Psalm 58. If your Bibles are open, you can see that. We looked at that psalm last summer, and we’re told it’s to be sung, or perhaps played, according to the lost tune “Do Not Destroy,” which for an imprecatory psalm is rather ironic.
Like Psalm 57, this one, 58, also has an image of a lion. It’s also a lament over affliction and injustice done, uh, to the psalmist themselves. So these similarities lead one scholar to note, “It is to be sung both musically and theologically to the same tune.” The form of this psalm begins with a, a charge, a question, an accusation in verses 1 and 2. That’s followed up by a more detailed description of these wicked ones in 5— uh, 3 through 5. Uh, he follows up then with this prayer, this imprecatory prayer, uh, these 7 curses, uh, in verses 6 through 9, and finally a remembrance of judgment in verses 10 and 11.
Now, unlike Psalm 57, Our psalm gives us no historical context whereby we can root it and confidently assess it. Historically, there have been many that thought that it might be a response to Absalom’s rebellion. Absalom was one of David’s sons, and he overthrew David and, uh, tried to grasp the kingdom. They think that primarily because of those challenging questions and answers in verse 1 and 2. We’ll speak of that in just a minute.
Those verses read, “Do you indeed judge what is right?” That’s the leading question that David asked the rulers or the gods of this day, and he follows it up with a second one very like it, “Do you judge the children of man?” Here he uses the Hebrew “hadam,” Well, like Adam, the children of man uprightly. Who David is asking this good and difficult question to is a little bit obscure. The Hebrew here is admittedly tricky. If you brought a different translation other than the ESV, if you brought the NIV, for example, it’s not “O gods,” it’s “rulers.” If you have the King James or something in that tradition, it’ll be “the silent one.” and New American Standard and ESV use “gods.” But the thrust of the question is still the same: “You who are in authority, do you judge rightly?” You may remember that Absalom began his rebellion by going to the gates of the city, and when people would come in, perhaps to state a case or a complaint, to the city’s leaders, Absalom would say, “Tell me your story.” And after they shared their lament or their sense of injustice, he would then declare, “Oh, if I were a judge in the land, then you would have justice.” And 2 Samuel 15 notes, quote, “So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.” So whether it was Absalom or some other judge, the answer to the question is the same, and it’s given in verse 2.
“Do they judge rightly?
No, they do not.” The reason is given quickly. “In their hearts they were devising evil; with their hands they were working out violence.” Having asked this rhetorical question with that emphatic “no,” and then the charge leveled against their hearts and the actions, David now shifts to describe these evildoers in verses 3 to 5 with a little more detail. And his description of their— begins with their beginning. They were wicked from the womb. They were speaking lies from birth.
David is speaking to humanity’s depravity. He’s Speaking perhaps to a special class, those who are exceptionally wicked, but in a sense, and so he ascribes it fairly to them, but in a sense, he said that of himself as well. For instance, Psalm 51:5, he declares a similar truth when he says, “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” There are other places throughout the Old Testament where we hear that every thought, every intention of mankind’s His heart is only evil continually, or wicked, or exceptionally deceitful is the heart. Ever since the fall, sin has affected us all powerfully. Old Testament scholar Hasselbullock notes that many of the older commentaries thought that maybe David was actually hearkening back to Adam’s fall in the garden in verse 3 and verse 4.
Cite as their evidence the curious use of Adam in verse 1, also with this idea of the lies being spoken and the quick allusion to a serpent. Perhaps David is pointing us there quickly. It’s certainly true that Adam followed the lie of a serpent, and our Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 17, reminds us that The Fall brought us into an estate of sin and misery. These particular wicked men are doubly evil in that not only are their words veminous lies, but they stop their ears such that they hear no calls for reform. You can see that like the adder, they are deaf.
The charmer, the enchanter, cannot change their behaviors. Now, as leaders, as rulers, as judges, they ought to have been caring for the common people, advocating for the weak, speaking on behalf of the vulnerable, but instead, they bring deaf ears to the plight as presented and ruinous counsel to their concerns. That— Abuse of power. That’s a repeated theme throughout the Old Testament. Just a few quick examples.
Micah 3:11 speaks against judges who would take a bribe, or against priests and prophets who only try to turn a profit for their craft. Isaiah chapter 1, verse 23 complains against princes who are actually rebels, taking bribe and not bringing justice to the fatherless, not pleading the widow’s cause. Amos 6:12, it charges the leaders there and accuses them of turning justice into poison and turning the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. That’s wood with no structural integrity. It’s been eaten to pieces.
That Amos 6:12 is an especially fitting passage for us. The Hebrew is, uh, very similar but in an opposite sense as what’s used in verse 11, which we’ll get to in a bit. So we have a picture now of wicked rulers and judges who have been plotting and destroying all of their lives, and David turns them over to the Lord’s judgment, and he prays for a complete and utter end to their power and influence. He does so in these 7 curses in verses 6 through 9, and here we begin to wrestle with some of the emotional challenges of the text. James Montgomery Boice notes that these images move from what is powerful to what is increasingly weak, what is awe-inspiring to what ends up being merely tragic or sad.
The first two curses are essentially similar. In verse 6, the psalmist asks for God to break their teeth, though we don’t know if it’s the teeth of the speakers or if it’s the teeth of the lion, but then even more graphically in that parallel curse, it is to tear the fangs out, of these lions. That’s an amazing picture. A fangless lion poses little threat, or at least much less threat. And this prayer, of course, would stop their mouths from those poisonous lies and deceptions.
It would render them essentially powerless. And next, David asks that they might be like water that runs away quickly. We know a flash flood can be devastating, but it is also quickly gone. And that’s what David is asking for here. And next he asks that their arrows might be blunted or cut off or shot without strength.
Again, there’s some challenging aspects in the Hebrew here, but again, the result is exactly the same. In the hand of these evildoers, the arrow is no longer deadly. Now, in verse 8, David moves to that which is weaker. He speaks of the snail. He asks that the enemies of God would be like a snail, which appears to dissolve in its own slime as it moves.
And most sadly and tragic, like the stillborn, whose life is ended even before they could see the sun, with so little opportunity to exert any influence. David has one more curse. He prays again for the extreme brevity in the wicked’s influence. May they flare up like thorns in a fire. And then be blown away before they can accomplish anything towards heating the pot.
David’s prayers are of complete destruction, loss of power, brevity of influence, the total remover, removal of the wicked and any and all of their influence. But can we, ought we to pray like this? Can we envision Jesus praying like this? To begin to answer, having looked at the specific curses, maybe a few general comments might be in order. First, this psalm is an imprecatory psalm, is in a group of about a half dozen.
Psalms 59, interestingly, the, the next one, Psalm 109, Psalm 137, they join in on that group that expresses a a strong hope in God’s destruction of the psalmist’s foes. But there are also many other psalms that contain prayers aimed at the violent end of an enemy. One scholar notes there’s at least 40 different imperative petitions, uh, which, uh, asking for the injury or destruction of God’s enemies. You can add to the Psalms a myriad of the prophets who regularly called for and described the destruction of God’s enemies as well as the enemies of the people of God. Indeed, even, indeed, even in our study of the book of Revelation, the destruction of Satan and all of the wicked was shown repeatedly in devastating cycles.
So throughout the Scripture, what is made clear again and again is that God is holy and he will not tolerate or accept wickedness or evil. When we take that truth and add to it the reality that since the fall, all mankind is born into a state of sin and misery, and recognize that all of our strength, all of our thoughts, our deeds, they’re desperately wicked, they’re sinfully selfish. We realize that this quandary affects us all. We are all sinners, we are all wicked, we all deserve this kind of judgment, and yet the gospel is the good news that God has also provided a remedy for this dilemma. The serpent who spread the lies first that Adam ate will be crushed by the seed of the woman.
The prophesied son of Eve, the second Adam, Jesus Christ. And he was unaffected by that fall because he was born of a virgin, and he perfectly obeyed his heavenly Father’s laws such that he alone is the only one worthy to carry the weight, the penalty, and the debt of our sins to and then on the cross. Furthermore, the Gospel tells us that good news that we can now wear Christ’s righteousness. He bore our sin and he lets us bear and wear his righteousness. And so when the Holy Father sees his children, he sees not our sin, but rather his own Son’s spotless righteousness.
So then these imprecatory psalms can remind us again of God’s holiness, of mankind and our sinfulness, and so we’re glad for that, but we wonder, should we pray this way? Would Christ pray this way? The Old Testament scholar Marvin Tate, he quotes Augustine here and he notes, quote, so then Christ is speaking here in the prophet. I say it boldly, Christ is speaking. He’s gonna say some things in the psalm which would be, which would seem cannot possibly fit Christ as our glorious head in heaven, as the eternal Word having the form of a servant, yet it is Christ speaking because Christ speaks in the lives of Christ’s members.
In Christ the church speaks, and in the church Christ speaks. Dietrich Bonhoeffer took up the same theme when he noted, who prays the Psalms? Well, David prays the Psalms. He mentions other writers of the Psalms, and then he says Christ prays the Psalms. He notes that Christ had prayed the Psalms multiple times in his life and even on the cross.
And then he says, “We pray the Psalms.” Also, note of Christ, the Father is working to make all of Christ’s enemies a footstool for Jesus.
When our family was in the Philippines, we had a footstool. It was carved out of some amazing wood, and it was carved in the image of this man. He was squatted down in that classic form that most Americans can’t do, with the feet flatly on the ground, the knees fully bent, and his hands right over his head holding the seat. It was always a little odd to have this carved servant in such an attitude of subservience. It was a little strange to see him there, and yet that is the picture that God is bringing about for his Son Christ Jesus.
All of the enemies will be as a footstool to his feet. This might even get harder when we look at verse 10 and we see that the righteous rejoice and bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked. That passage may feel like too much, but a similar image occurs in Psalm 68:23. And also our Lord himself, Christ the victor, is shown in triumph with his garment speckled and splashed in the blood of his vanquished enemies. Another scholar notes of Revelation 18:20, “Harsh judgments are coming, which will set things right.” It is possible that some of our struggle with the imprecatory psalms is that we do not understand the sinfulness of sin.
Uh, even us, the people of God, we all have our categories We may be proud of the fact that we are great to, uh, renounce those immoral sins that we find especially gross. And yet we may find that we regularly embrace those called the respectable sins, to borrow from Jerry Bridges. Everyone that struggles with an addiction realizes to the break free of that, they need to despise that sin. In a powerful way. Indeed, we often don’t understand the sinfulness of our sin.
Perhaps another reason for our struggle with these imprecatory psalms is that we actually really do desire the destruction of our enemies. We want it. We would love to see them destroyed, but this rejoicing is in no way gloating. Uh, the psalmist here is rejoicing in the realized righteousness of Christ revealed. Christ has come.
He has defeated his enemies. Righteousness prevails. So what might make us really uncomfortable then is our real struggle to surrender the outcome. To God. I don’t know about you, but at times I want to be the one to defang the lion, that thing that’s harassing us.
I’d love to be in on that. You might want to pour out your enemies like water or to cut off the sh— the heads of all of their arrow shafts. But here in this psalm, that is not an option. For as violent as these psalms can be, David is not the actor in it. He’s not bringing judgment or justice.
He’s simply outraged at the injustice he sees, the injustice that others are experiencing, and he calls on God to act. This is another reason why this might be, uh, given in the time in which Absalom briefly had control and power. That was a moment in which David had no ability to execute judgment. So of course we can pray these prayers as long as we first take a good look at our own life, our own hearts, our own attitudes. Are we gloating?
Do we want to see them destroyed? Or are we really praying for the righteousness of Christ to be revealed? So it moves us into a few quick applications. First, Are we ourselves in danger of the charges of these— against these wicked men? Do we ever speak poison?
It’s tempting. It’s easy to do. Do we usurp authority? Rugged independent Montanans, probably. These are imprecatory psalms.
They can then convict us of our own guilt. They can show us a holy God and reveal to us our own guilt. Scholar John Bright remarks, “We know this man well. There is more than a little of him in most of us.” And so we might find that there are sins of commission that we need to confess before the Lord. But there might also be sins of omission that this highlights.
Do we look for ways to defend and protect the weak and the innocent? From conception throughout their elder years, people need protection. They need advocacy. They need justice. And each of us throughout our lives, we have opportunities, sometimes short, sometimes extended, to be a type of a ruler, a type of a judge, a type of a leader.
Do we let those opportunities go by? Secondly, as we see wickedness all around us, we ought not to be surprised. It should remind us of the truth of man’s total depravity, and but even then more, ingratitude drive us to our knees, thanking God that he unstopped our ears so that we could hear the gospel. The gospel. Furthermore, when we recognize man’s sinfulness, it should help us to be gracious to our unbelieving neighbors, family members, and friends.
Why should we be surprised when they’re living for themselves, when they’re running under a different set of moral codes? And so being gracious for them should also drive us into a, a more fervent prayer for them. God is the only one who can get their attention. He was the only one that could get our attention. We can also recognize that understanding God’s coming full judgment and justice, that can also not just give us a fervent renewed prayer, but also a sense of patience that we are to wait on him.
That we are to long for his return. Note verse 11: One day mankind will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous.” The reward— the word “reward” in the Hebrew is the same word here as “fruit,” and so it is the writing, in a sense, of Amos 6:12. There, justice is turned to poison. Their reward was wormwood. But one day, one glorious day, God speaks all perfect truth— always does, but we’ll hear it— and he will give his reward, which is the fruit of Christ’s righteousness in restored fellowship with God for eternity.
Until that day, don’t lose hope, because he’s given us a taste of the fruit of that reward. It’s a glimpse of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. This is a picture of that fruit of righteousness that will reign when Christ returns, and the fruit that fruit of the Holy Spirit lived out in our lives is a powerful countercultural way to speak the truth that all mankind will one day recognize, “Surely there is a judge on earth.” Let us pray.
Father, surely you will right all wrongs, and we look to that day. But Father, help us to let go of our desire for vengeance. Let us repent of that. Father, let each of us consider the times in which our words are like poison, in which we grasp in selfish ways, in which we miss opportunities to advocate for those without our same voice. Father, help us to pay attention to injustice all around and to speak and to act in wise ways when we can.
And so we pray to that end. We ask that you would remove bitterness or rancor, that you would remove gloating from us, and that we would long for that revealed righteousness when again you make all things right. Father, we also pray that you might take these words and work them into our hearts that you might bring life to those who perhaps know you not and are simply feeling the burden. They, they see injustice, but they know not what to do with it. They feel the burden and the penalty of the sin in their life.
Father, would you free them from that? Would you open their eyes, unstop their ears, that they might too respond to the gospel? For those of us who know you, and know you well. Let us scrutinize— let these words scrutinize our lives, that we would both repent and rejoice in the work you have done. We pray this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.