Should we love our enemies, or call down harm on them?

This is not the Old Testament against the New, for the Old Testament itself commands kindness to enemies. The law told Israel to bring back an enemy’s straying ox (Exodus 23:4–5) and said, “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge” (Leviticus 19:18). Proverbs 25:21 says to feed a hungry enemy, and Paul quotes it (Romans 12:20). The saying “hate thine enemy” that Jesus corrects (Matthew 5:43) is not in the law; it was a popular addition. David lived by this rule. He twice spared Saul, who was hunting him, and Saul admitted, “thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil” (1 Samuel 24:17).

The psalms of cursing come from the same David and must be read in that light. Psalm 109 opens with a man who has returned love for hatred: “For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer”, and “they have rewarded me evil for good” (109:4–5). In Psalm 35 he says that when his enemies were sick he fasted and mourned for them (35:13–14). He does not take revenge. He hands the case to God the judge, which is what the New Testament also tells believers to do: “avenge not yourselves”, for “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19). His prayers are aimed at hardened wickedness. The man of Psalm 109 “loved cursing” and “delighted not in blessing” (109:17), and the psalmist asks that what he chose may come upon him. Peter applied part of the psalm to Judas (Acts 1:20), so the church read it as God’s judgement on the betrayer, not as private spite.

Psalm 139:21–22 is about the enemies of God: “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee?” David takes God’s enemies as his own, and ‘perfect hatred’ means a complete rejection of their cause. At once he turns the searchlight on himself: “Search me, O God”, “see if there be any wicked way in me” (139:23–24). Haley adds that the vehement language of Hebrew poetry must be allowed for. So love for those who wrong us and a longing for God’s justice against evil both belong to the Bible’s teaching. What it forbids is personal revenge. (On joy at the fall of the wicked, compare the answer on Psalm 58 and Proverbs 24:17; on Paul’s curses, the answer on Romans 12:14.)

Prophecy rather than wish

Some read ‘Let his days be few’ as ‘his days shall be few’: an inspired forecast of God’s judgement, with the psalmist agreeing to God’s will. Gill takes this line, and adds that such words are not an example for believers to copy.

The enemies’ curse quoted

Some interpreters think that Psalm 109:6–19 quotes the curses that the psalmist’s enemies spoke against him. They note the change from ‘they’ (109:2–5) to ‘him’ (109:6–19), and the later line “Let them curse, but bless thou” (109:28). Others reply that 109:20 asks for “this” to be the reward of his adversaries, so the words are the psalmist’s own.

Christians differ over how far the feelings in some of these prayers are a pattern for us. Barnes and some of the writers Haley cites hold that the inspired text faithfully records the cry of a godly but imperfect man, as it records the deeds of such men, and that the full duty of forgiveness was made plain by Christ. Others hold that the prayers, rightly understood as appeals to God’s justice, are wholly right. All agree that the Christian is to love his enemies and leave vengeance to God.