Imprecatory Psalms (2)
Who Is Praying These Psalms?
According to the witness of the Bible, David, as the anointed king of the chosen people of God, is a prototype of Jesus Christ. What befalls David occurs for the sake of the one who is in him and who is to proceed from him, namely Jesus Christ. David did not remain unaware of this, but “being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, p 159 he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ” (Acts 2:30f.).5 David was a witness to Christ in his kingly office, in his life, and in his words. And the New Testament says even more. In the Psalms of David it is precisely the promised Christ who already speaks (Heb. 2:12; 10:5) or, as is sometimes said, the Holy Spirit (Heb. 3:7). The same words that David spoke, therefore, the future Messiah spoke in him. Christ prayed along with the prayers of David or, more accurately, it is none other than Christ who prayed them in Christ’s own forerunner, David.
According to the witness of the Bible, David is, as the anointed king of the chosen people of God, a prototype of Jesus Christ. What happens to him happens to him for the sake of the one who is in him and who is said to proceed from him, namely Jesus Christ. And he is not unaware of this, but “being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ” (Acts 2:30f.). David was a witness to Christ in his office, in his life, and in his words. The New Testament says even more. In the Psalms of David the promised Christ himself already speaks (Hebrews 2:12; 10:5) or, as may also be indicated, the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 3:7). These same words which David spoke, therefore, the future Messiah spoke through him. The prayers of David were prayed also by Christ. Or better, Christ himself prayed them through his forerunner David.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible
David, for example, was a type and spokesman of Christ, and the imprecatory Psalms are expressions of the infinite justice of the God-man, of His indignation against wrongdoing, of His compassion for the wronged. They reveal the feelings of His heart and the sentiments of His mind regarding sin.
J. H. Webster
The Psalms in Worship
The Psalms in the Life of Our Lord
Did Jesus simply use the book of Psalms as other Jews of His day did? Have you observed the Lord’s personal relationship to the Psalms? He quoted the Psalter not merely as prophecy; He actually spoke the Psalms as His own words!
We especially notice this close identification with the Psalms when we give careful attention to His awesome cries from the p 24 cross. He gave up His life with the words of the Psalms on His lips: “Into your hands I commit my spirit” (31:5); “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (22:1). His words of anguish, “I am thirsty” (John 19:28), echo Psalms 69:21 and 22:15, and His cry of triumph, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) reminds us of Psalm 22:31 (“He has done it”; the Septuagint translation of Psalm 22 uses the same verb that Jesus does). In his death Jesus quoted the Psalms, not as some ancient authority that He adapted for His own use, but as His very own words—the words of the Lord’s Anointed which, as David’s Son, He truly was.
When we look diligently, we find that the Lord Christ’s use of the Psalms as His own words was not peculiar to His time of suffering on the cross. Throughout His ministry He made the words of the Psalms His own. Jesus foretells what He will say as the Judge in the final day when He quotes the words of Psalm 6:8: “Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matt. 7:23). He speaks the words of Psalm 35:19 and 69:4 as referring directly to Himself: “They hated me without reason” (John 15:25). (For further instances, compare Matt. 21:9 with Ps. 118:26; John 13:18 with Ps. 41:9; Matt. 16:27 with Ps. 62:12.)
The apostles and New Testament writers give us further enlightenment in their epistles. Hebrews 10:5–7 is a fascinating case in point:
p 25 When Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—I have come to do your will, O God.’ ”
(This is a direct quote from the Septuagint version of Ps. 40:6–8.)
How can we know that Jesus said this? It is nowhere recorded in the Gospels as a statement of Jesus. This exciting passage provides the key to the apostles’ understanding of the Psalms. Three times it refers these words to Jesus (vv. 5, 8, 9). It tells us in essence that Christ came into the world speaking the words of the Psalms as His own.
Notice a similar instance in Hebrews 2:11–12: “Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.” He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.” Here again we have words from a psalm (22:22) attributed to Jesus, though there is never a mention in the Gospels of His having spoken these words while on earth. These two passages reflect clearly that the apostles believed Christ is speaking in the Psalms.
This New Testament understanding of Christ in the Psalms is fundamental to praying and preaching these psalms. The psalmist cries out for God to execute justice and judgment. Christ came to establish His kingdom and to extend mercy to all the earth. But let us never forget that Jesus will come again to execute judgment on the wicked.
The “I” of the Psalms Is Identified
Even in our brief look at New Testament teaching we see a clear pattern. Further intense investigation bears out that the “I,” the author of the Psalms, is Christ Himself. His is the great voice we hear in the Psalms crying out in prayer to God the Father. p 26 The Old Testament scholar E. W. Hengstenberg, part of the rearguard of orthodoxy in Germany in the nineteenth century, succinctly remarked of “the so-called vindictive Psalms”:
It is precisely the most severe of these which are applied to Christ, and considered as spoken by him, and are therefore pronounced worthy of him.1
The Spirit of Christ was in the psalmists, speaking through them centuries before He came to earth as the long-awaited Messiah.
Second Petition
Question 102
What do we pray for in the second petition?
In the second petition, (which is, Thy kingdom come, (Matt. 6:10)) we pray, That Satan’ s kingdom may be destroyed; (Ps. 68:1,18) and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, (Rev. 12:10–11) ourselves and others brought into it, and kept in it; (2 Thess. 3:1, Rom. 10:1, John 17:9,20) and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened. (Rev. 22:20)
As can be seen from the text of this book, Bonhoeffer gave unique interpretations to these “difficult” psalms. In encouraging this form of prayer, Bonhoeffer cited Luther to the effect that the Psalms, once taken to heart and incorporated into a daily program of prayer, make all other prayers seem so bloodless. “Whoever has begun to pray the Psalter earnestly and regularly, will soon give leave to those other, easy, little prayers of their own” because they lack the “power, passion, and fire” to be found in the Psalter.8
If Christ takes us along in the prayer which Christ prays, if we are allowed to pray this prayer with Christ, on whose way to God we too are led and by whom we are taught to pray, then we are freed from the torment of being without prayer. Yet that is what Jesus Christ wants; he wants to pray with us. We pray along with Christ’s prayer and therefore may be certain and glad that God hears us. When our will, our whole heart, enters into the prayer of Christ, then we are truly praying. We can pray only in Jesus Christ, with whom we shall also be heard.