Psalm 109:4
In return for my friendship they accuse me,
but I am a man of prayer. (NIV)
Today’s Reading: Psalm 109
Psalm 109 was written by David and is considered an imprecatory psalm. An imprecatory psalm contains various appeals for God to punish His and his people’s enemies. Reading through this psalm, it is very specific as the psalmist seeks detailed calamities to fall on his enemy. It’s almost comical thinking about the creative ways the psalmist wishes his enemy to suffer. However, we know that all Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim 3:16-17) so we will take this psalm as much of God’s word as any other psalm.
The first five verses of Psalm 109 are much like the other psalms that we have read from the perspective of Jesus. We can imagine Jesus either on trial or on the cross as these words are spoken. He is calling out to God to notice him in verse one and then goes on to describe the scene of being surrounded by wicked and deceitful people. All he did was love them and they repay him with lies and accusations. “They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my friendship” (vs 5).
Then verses six through twenty call for the judgement of these wicked people and even more specifically the judgement of a certain person. But before we get to that, let’s consider the overall concept of God’s love and justice. How can these words even be in the Bible spoken by the one after God’s own heart and how can a loving God execute these cruel demands?
Love requires judgement. Being judgmental is a sin but you can’t have love without judgement. More specifically, we cannot love those around us without God’s perfect judgement. Judgement is simply pronouncing something right or wrong or good or evil. A judgmental person likes to pronounce things right or wrong. However, God cannot be a loving God unless he also has perfect judgement.
And God in fact does have perfect judgement. “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments” (Rev 16:7). Paul spends much of Romans chapter two explaining the difference between God’s perfect judgment and our role as Christ-followers to abstain from judgement. Evil must be repaid with justice or else God cannot fully love the victims of that evil. We trust that His judgement “against those who do such things is based on truth” (Rom 2:2). The evildoers will get what they deserve and it will be fair. Our role is to simply love those around us and let the judging fall on God.
Now the specific person being spoken of in Psalm 109 is Judas. Peter quotes this psalm in reference to Judas when the apostles are considering choosing a replacement for Judas, “May another take his place of leadership” (vs. 8 and Acts 1:20). So if verse eight is about Judas, we can re-read verses six through twenty and see that the enemy spoken about is one person and that person is Judas. This psalm is less about praying harm to all of our enemies than it is a prophecy about the betrayer of Jesus.
As the psalmist tells us, Judas didn’t show kindness. He hounded the poor and needy. He found no pleasure in blessing people because he wore cursing as his garment. It seems that Judas was full of judgement for those around him especially the poor and needy. And God’s judgement became his reward.
All of us will face opposition in life. Maybe not to the extent that Jesus faced opposition but opposition nonetheless. Our opposition may even be unjustly deserved. But even in those times, we should look to Jesus and respond with grace as he did. It’s incredibly difficult to not respond with judgement. We are called to leave the judgment to God and keep our eyes on Jesus. “While they curse, may you bless; may those who attack me be put to shame, but may your servant rejoice” (vs 28).
Christ in the Old Testament 
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