Should Christians Pray Vengeful Psalms?
Turn calls for retribution into wisdom.
Psalm 94 is one of today’s psalms on the 40 Days of Psalms prayer calendar.
I had driven past the only synagogue in town hundreds of times. I’d even visited a few times over the years, most recently for my friend’s son’s bar mitzvah.
But never, never had I seen people standing out front dressed head-to-toe in black before. The sunny weather made their dark clothing all the more jarring. About a dozen people stood side-by-side on the sidewalk, between my car and the house of worship behind them. They wore ink-black masks, their faces hidden behind mesh material with a slight reflective sheen. I didn’t need to read their signs to know why they were there.
The Bible presents humanity as it is. The events of just the first four chapters record lies, murder, more lies, polygamy, and then yet another murder.
It’s a world that hasn’t changed much by the time the psalmist cries out:
O Lord, God of vengeance,
O God of vengeance, shine forth!
Rise up, O judge of the earth;
repay to the proud what they deserve.
Psalm 94:1–2
Formally known as imprecatory psalms, these songs of vengeance leap out when you encounter them. And they can be very unsettling. In ancient world, it was often assumed that justice would take the form of revenge. Even if you can wrap your mind around that, praying through a psalm like this still raises major questions.
Asking God for vengeance, after all, seems out of step with teachings found elsewhere in the Bible:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. . .in the passions of our flesh. . .by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:1–5
Since we were all once dead in our sins, it seems hypocritical to pray for God to give other sinners “what they deserve.” After all, we didn’t receive what we deserved. Jesus accepted that punishment for us on the cross. Hundreds of years before Christ, a prophet described the purpose of his suffering:
He was pierced for our transgressions.
Isaiah 53:5
Jesus received the punishment that brings us mercy. Because of this, one option for responding to a vengeful psalm is to pray for God’s mercy. For example, you might read:
Rise up, O judge of the earth;
repay to the proud what they deserve.
And you could pray something like:
Father, I know how prideful I was before I met your son, Jesus. Lord God, I pray you’d show the same mercy you showed me to those still drowning in their pride. Please give grace to those blinded by their sin. Jesus already paid the penalty they deserve. Let them know that, Lord. Humble them and open their eyes to see Jesus.
That approach can make praying this type of psalm much more appealing. And I think it’s a faithful option. After all, we know the purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection: to provide mercy for those who deserve God’s judgment.
It also reflects the fascinating way that the Bible’s images of revenge are sometimes repurposed. Consider Psalm 140:10:
Let burning coals fall upon them;
may they be thrown into the fire,
into miry pits never to rise.
And then look at how the New Testament transforms that terrifying picture:
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:19–21
How do you respond to a psalm that calls for red-hot coals to rain down on your enemy? Why, you bring him a casserole and some sweet tea, of course!
By fulfilling the promises of the Psalms, Jesus offers an astonishing way to pray them. His mercy can reconfigure even a brutal call for vengeance. Remarkably, this grace appears even in the Old Testament. Because while the connection to the burning coals in Psalm 140 is fascinating, Romans 12 actually quotes Proverbs 25:21–22. If you’ve never noticed this before, take a look! The verses are almost identical to the Romans passage above.
All of that being said, it’s important to remember that the cries for revenge found in Psalms aren’t metaphors. Consider the atrocities cited in Psalm 94:
They crush your people, O Lord,
and afflict your heritage.
They kill the widow and the sojourner,
and murder the fatherless;
and they say, “The Lord does not see;
the God of Jacob does not perceive.”
Psalm 94:5–7
This describes the murder of Israel’s most vulnerable people. It’s worth sitting with that and reflecting for a moment. The psalmist is responding to genuine evil. We may still be uncomfortable with calls for God’s vengeance, but understanding the situation helps put them in perspective.
And this points to another possibility for praying a psalm like this. After all, there are still great evils and injustices in our day. With this in mind, we might ask: are merciful pleas the only option for praying in response to verses like these?
Donald Whitney, author of Praying the Bible, says no. In that book he describes two different ways he prays this type of psalm:
Asking for the removal of his own sin, and hoping his “sinful heart will be destroyed as thoroughly as these imprecatory psalms describe.”
Praying against what he calls national sins, such as abortion and racism.
There’s a biblical way to connect this type of psalm to the kinds of prayer that Whitney describes. Recall that a lot of imprecatory psalms involve warfare. Then, consider what the New Testament does with that idea:
Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:10–12
Ancient Israel did, so to speak, wrestle against flesh and blood. Troubling as this may be, the Bible is clear that they sometimes waged literal war as an act of faith. Yet, as Ephesians 6 shows, this is not the calling of the church. Our battle is against “the spiritual forces of evil.” These unseen demonic powers lie behind both personal and national sins. It’s no exaggeration, then, to say that the church wages non-violent war through prayer. And psalms—even those with appeals for vengeance—can empower us to do just that.
I remember my body reacting to the presence of evil before my mind fully registered what was happening. As I drove, a swath of darkness appeared in the left side of my field of vision. It seemed to hover over the sidewalk, between me and the synagogue. I turned my head to look.
I don’t recall any other time in my life when I saw masked people dressed in all black. I felt a surge of anger and, at the same time, a deep urge to pray. I suppose I could have said something typical, like asking the Lord to soften their hearts. But that wouldn’t have reflected what I felt.
It must have been the Lord who brought Psalm 12 to mind at that moment. It’s more of a psalm of lament than vengeance, but it’s a lament with an edge to it. I didn’t even feel the need to add my own words. It was already the prayer that my heart wanted to speak:
Help, Yahweh, for the godly person is no more;
For the faithful disappear from among the sons of Adam.
Emptiness they speak to one another.
Flattering lips: With double heart they speak.
May Yahweh cut off all flattering lips,
The tongue that speaks great things;
That say, “With our tongue we will prevail;
We own our lips. Who is our master?”
“Because of the oppression of the weak,
Because of the groaning of the needy,
I will arise,” says Yahweh;
“I will protect him from the one who maligns him.”
Yahweh’s sayings are pure sayings;
Silver purified in an earthen furnace, refined sevenfold.
You, Yahweh will guard them.
You will preserve us from this generation everlastingly.
On every side the wicked strut about,
When vileness is exulted among the sons of Adam.
Wise words! Thank you for sharing this!
This is most excellent!!🤩💖