Should Christians Use Imprecatory Prayer Today?

General Faith
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I recently heard a radio program discussing how some of the members of America’s current political administration use imprecatory prayer and the imprecatory psalms. The program was highlighting the potential problems with mixing this type of Christian prayer and belief with politics. It was interesting to say the least and got me thinking about how politics and religion are intermingled and whether we are being good examples of Christ when we use the imprecatory psalms to apply to modern-day political conflicts.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this!

If you need a refresher on the imprecatory psalms and imprecatory prayer, these are good places to start:

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Biblical Christianity asserts that a congregation of praying Christians is the court of the Great King. We prepare ourselves carefully to go before the Judge of the Universe, since this is not a trivial matter. Drawing upon the Law/Word of the King, we present thoughtful legal briefs to Him, explaining how a given request corresponds with His agenda and aims to further His glory as well as our needs. We ride shotgun with the Driver of the universe, we stand with our great Captain on the bridge of His magnificent vehicle, the created order, and we find something, or should I say Someone, far more exciting than our own excitement to enthrall us. As we pray, we learn from the One we address how to pray better. Our prayers a decade from now will have richer content, more wisdom, and greater power than those we offer today.

Again, a vision of transcendence, a sobering awareness of our King’s majesty, goes far to deliver us from silliness, from triteness, from abuses of His gifts. We become more useful to both the King and His court as we grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord. In Revelation 8, the officers of the church (the angels – remember chapters 2 and 3?) take the prayers of the church into the presence of God - and real things begin to really happen on earth. Sometimes, as God’s lawyers, we file charges against prominent evildoers. We pray for the conversion of the children of abortionists, asking that this evil cause might be hindered as their children meet our Rock, Jesus. (See Psalm 137:9). We disabuse ourselves of the sweetly sickly sentimental fantasy that we should be nicer than God, and under the lawful authority and leadership of our elders, pray His own imprecatory psalms against His enemies. During eras of greatness, the church makes the Psalms central to its worship. We can learn from the Celtic monks who sang Gregorian chant as they tamed Europe after Rome’s retreat, or from Cromwell’s New Model Army that armed itself with the Geneva Psalter and never lost a battle.

Those who truly understand a transcendent God do not turn aside from thoughtfully following Him and serving their fellow saints to pursue private ecstatic thrills. “The sober person lives deeply,” R. J. Rushdoony wrote. We serve a weighty God, and may not be trite, trivial, superficial fanbois.

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Well, this is interesting. The use of imprecatory psalms (those that call for God’s judgment or “curses” upon enemies, like Psalm 69, 109, or 137) is one of the most challenging areas of our ethics. It requires balancing the raw honesty of the Old Testament with Christ’s command in the New Testament to “love your enemies.”

Imprecatory prayers are not expressions of personal “road rage” or petty vindictiveness. In the biblical context, they are:Appeals to Divine Justice: The writers are not taking revenge themselves; they are handing the “sword” to God, asking Him to fulfill His promise to judge wickedness. Many of these psalms remind God of His promise to Abraham: “I will curse him who curses you.” They reflect a heart completely transparent before God, refusing to sugarcoat the pain of oppression or the desire for justice.

The primary debate for Christians is how to reconcile these prayers with the life of Jesus.The Command to Love: Jesus famously said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). On the cross, He prayed, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). Jesus and the Apostles frequently quoted imprecatory psalms. For example, in John 15:25, Jesus quotes Psalm 69 to explain the hatred He faced. Paul quotes the same psalm in Romans 11:9-10.

I think praying them is ok on behalf of the persecuted church worldwide, asking God to stop the hand of the oppressor. Applying the “curses” to sin, temptation, and demonic influence rather than human neighbors. Viewing them as a longing for the final return of Christ, where all wrongs are made right and evil is finally ended.

Following Christ does not necessarily mean “deleting” these psalms from your Bible, but it does mean changing how you hold them. While the Old Testament writers cried out for the destruction of their physical enemies, the Christian is called to long for the conversion of the enemy while simultaneously longing for the destruction of the evil that holds them captive.The goal is to move the desire for justice out of the hands of personal bitterness and into the hands of a God who is both perfectly Just and perfectly Merciful.

Just my opinion.
Peter

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Before invoking curses in our prayers, we must surely know who is worthy of the curse, we must know who God’s enemies are. We would never invoke a curse on any being who may yet be saved, but only on those enemies of God He has already cursed eternally. We put on the whole armor of God that in our battle with evil, we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:10-12

KP

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I think there is so much wisdom in your response, and I agree. It also makes me think of a follow-up question: do you think Jesus ushered in a new ethic or rather a fulfillment of the Old Testament ethic?

The guest on the radio program I was listening to seemed to think that Jesus ushered in a new ethic, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount, as you referenced. Perhaps the change Jesus brought about was more in how we use imprecatory prayer; i.e., praying for persecuted believers, as you’ve also said, rather than calling for God’s justice and vengeance on nations or rulers. It does begin to get muddy when we begin mixing these aspects of faith/prayer with politics!

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Good point. And this begs the question of how can we truly know that anyone is beyond saving and an eternal enemy of God (besides Satan himself, I suppose)? At the very least it should make us be cautious and careful to use imprecatory prayer with wisdom and discernment.

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Yes, @DaughterOfEve24
I suppose we would count Paul’s admonishment to the congregation for imprecatory prayer in 1 Corinthians 5:4-5 "

…In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."

Or his testimony of how he dealt with Hymenaeus and Alexander, who He

“delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.” 1 Timothy 1:20

In these examples, and possibly in others, the goal of the prayer is not hidden; the manifest aim is for the Glory of God and the salvation of the individual.

KP

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Imprecatory Psalms

(Pss 5; 10; 17; 35; 58; 59; 69; 70; 79; 83; 109; 129; 137; 140) are designated as such because of their particularly vigorous attitude toward the enemy. The verb “imprecate” means to pray evil against or to invoke curse upon another.

Psalm 69:24 states, “Pour out your indignation on them, and let your burning anger overtake them” and Psalm 137:9, which declares “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”

Even the New Testament contains passages that quote Imprecatory Psalms. Jesus is shown quoting from them (John 2:17; 15:25) while the Apostle Paul quotes from Psalm 69 in Romans 11:9-10; 15:3. The New Testament has many that are not quoted from the Psalms (Matt 23:13; 26:23-24; 1 Cor 16:22; Gal 1:8-9; 5:12; 2 Tim 4:14; Rev 6:10; 18:20). Even The Lord’s Prayer, when we pray “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done” (Matt 6:10) is a prayer not only for the consummation of God’s Kingdom to arrive in its fulness, but for the total destruction of the kingdom of darkness (Col 1:13). We are always to pray for God’s glory. God’s glory includes his righteous judgment upon all evil (Rom 9:16-17).

While such prayers should cause us extreme sorrow in one respect (Rom 9:2-3 - note the use of “accursed” in vs. 3) in another respect we know that such prayers need to be prayed, if they are consistent with God’s will - that his glory be seen throughout the entire earth.

I should note that if we pray such prayers out of God’s will (Luke 9:54ff), then of course he will not answer them, but in some measure correct our hearts. Ultimately, vengeance is God’s (Deut 32:35; Rom 12:19).

Dr. John Frame has some insightful words regarding imprecations. He says in his article entitled, “Imprecations: Holy Fire”:

Imprecations, prayers calling down God’s wrath upon the wicked, are found in the New Testament as well as the Old, on the lips of Christ and the apostles as well as the Psalmists (see Matt 23:13ff.; Gal 1:8ff.; Rev 6:10; 18:20).

On the other hand, the biblical ethic of love is also found in both Testaments. Scripture always proscribes personal vengeance and calls us to love our enemies (Exod 23:4ff.; Lev 19:17ff.; Psa 7:4ff.; Prov 20:22). So, the problem we have in reconciling these two biblical themes cannot be met by some view of dispensational change since both covenants are spanned.

Jesus did refuse to exercise divine vengeance during his earthly life because he came not to judge the world, but to save. He rebuked his disciples who wanted to call down fire from heaven upon a city that rejected them (Luke 9:54ff.), but he did promise judgment on unbelieving cities in the last day (Matt 11:20-24). In these passages we learn that Jesus first advent was not to bring vengeance, but that ultimate vengeance is postponed until his return (which will be vengeful, 2 Thess 1:6-10). But these observations in themselves neither authorize nor forbid the use of imprecatory prayers today.

Nor is it a sufficient solution to say that the imprecatory Psalms are prayers of Christ himself through his people. While this is true in a sense, that merely raises the same question (the love/justice relation) again with respect to Christ’s own motives, and it renders problematic the use of such sentiments in free, uninspired prayer.

I was helped by J. A. Motyer in Elwell, ed., Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ad loc., who reminds us of the larger biblical pattern: “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.” The imprecatory Psalms, he points out, are prayers, calling upon God to remedy those injustices which neither we as individuals, nor the state, are competent to remedy. They do not seek personal vengeance; rather they leave vengeance to God, as God has demanded.

Imprecatory prayers are like all prayers in that there is always the qualification implicit in the phrases thy will be done or in Jesus’ name.

When we ask for things, we should do it with the realization that our ultimate desire is God’s glory. If God will be glorified in giving us our request, then we thank him; if he is more glorified in denying our request, our prayer has not thereby become useless; for all prayer is a recommitment to God’s purpose, his kingdom. The Lord’s Prayer beautifully exemplifies this spirit.

Practically speaking, we discover that someone is guilty of a great injustice that we are not able to deal with in our own strength. Our response is, through biblical imprecations, to share this concern with God. In doing so, we share God’s evaluation of injustice: Because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient (Eph 5:6). And so we call for divine vengeance to be exercised: not by ourselves, but by God.

Can we love an enemy and still call for God’s wrath against him? Is a desire for divine judgment consistent with a desire for our enemy’s salvation? The psychology of it is difficult, to be sure. But consider this example: When the dictator of the late 70’s Idi Amin went abroad in Uganda, killing Christians right and left simply to satisfy his personal hatred, many Christian’s prayed that God would bring vengeance upon him. Such vengeance, of course, does not, either in the Psalms or in our example, necessarily entail ultimate damnation. The prayer is primarily for a historical judgment. Though historical judgment is not entirely divorced in the biblical mind from ultimate damnation, the two are not inseparably conjoined either.

2 cents

J.

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If one is in truth, he can pray that the Lord may save others, but if he wants to punish others, especially outside of being in the truth, will it not backfire (also) on him himself?

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bear in mind – God can, at His own discretion, destroy His enemies by converting them into His friends. It happened to Paul, after all, and his great fall. Our job as Christians is to put the spotlight on evildoers, bring them to God’s attention,(1) and expect Him to act, as he sees fit, and in accord with His gracious purposes.

The best way to do routine imprecatory prayers is as a formal liturgy, of the assembled church, and under the leadership of the “angels” / elders. Perhaps while in the course of praying (or maybe even chanting?) their routine way through the psaltery. Psalm 109 comes up, and a target feels the heat. (or if dying in a skiing accident, feels the cold for the last time in his conscious existence. Thus ended the career of one prominent abortionist.)

Then there was this guy who made his fortune out of killing hundreds of thousands of other people’s children. He set up and ran a chain of 17 abortion “clinics.” And one day, a plane crash claimed some of his own children, and grandchildren. Just outside a cemetery, that included a large monument honoring the victims of the abortion holocaust. (click HERE) “Dr.” Feldkamp had been frequently called to repentance.

Then there was this apparently healthy young man who sat in the parking lot of an abortuary loudly reading pornography to the assembled praying Christians. Two of the brothers decided to invoke the Biblical solution. They read imprecatory psalms to the guy, pausing to invite him to repentance between readings. “Robin, it’s a dangerous thing to be an enemy of God. But you don’t need to be His enemy. It’s a wonderful thing to serve the living God, and a terrible thing to be His enemy. Please come to life.”

A week later, he was found dead in his apartment “of natural causes.” God had, indeed, given him one last warning. And who knows, maybe Robin remembered that warning in his last moments? It would be nice to meet him in the llife to come.

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Thank you for the kind words. To answer your question, I think what He actually did was to enhance the ethics and the laws of the Old Testament. “You have heard it said.” " But I say to you." Murder, Anger. Lust in the flesh, lust in the mind, Etc.

In the Old Testament, ethics included the Lex Talionis (the law of retaliation), which was actually designed to limit vengeance to a proportional response—no more than “an eye for an eye.”
Jesus replaced proportional retribution with non-resistance and generosity. He instructed followers to “turn the other cheek” and to give more than what is legally demanded by an adversary Matthew 5:38-42. This shifted the ethic from “limited justice” to “overflowing grace.”

Marriage and Integrity: Jesus addressed social protections and the “hardness of hearts” found in Mosaic concessions.Divorce: In the Old Testament, divorce was permitted under certain legal frameworks. Jesus enhanced the ethic of marriage by pointing back to the “original intent” of creation—oneness and permanence—arguing that the Mosaic allowance was a temporary concession rather than the ideal, Matthew 19:3-9.

The Scope of Love (Neighbor vs. Enemy) The Old Testament commanded, “Love your neighbor as yourself” Leviticus 19:18, which was often interpreted as applying only to fellow Israelites or friends. Jesus removed the boundaries of the “neighbor.” Through the Parable of the Good Samaritan, he defined the neighbor as anyone in need, regardless of ethnicity or religion. He further pushed this by commanding his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them Matthew 5:43-48.

Ritual Purity vs. Moral Purity: The Old Testament contains extensive laws regarding “clean” and “unclean” foods and physical states to maintain holiness. Jesus declared that uncleanness does not come from what a person eats or touches externally. Instead, he taught that true “defilement” comes from within—from the thoughts, thefts, and wickedness that reside in the human heart Mark 7:14-23. This shifted the focus from ritualism to character-driven ethics.

The law required people to keep the oaths they made to God. Jesus suggested that a person of high integrity shouldn’t need oaths at all; their “Yes” should simply mean “Yes” Matthew 5:33
Peter

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Those are thought-provoking examples. There is an abortion clinic right up the road from where I live and every weekend there are people (presumably Christians) who are there protesting with signs that often have Bible verses about the value of life. Sometimes I have even heard/seen people preaching there and calling for repentance and calling out the evil being done there. I hadn’t thought of that as imprecatory prayer before, but I suppose it is. Will have to think about that some more.

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When we recall that Jesus is our Rock, Psalm 137:9 makes sense. We ask God to convert the children of abortionists, thereby fighting this abomination by raising up enemies of the practice from their own households.

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