Spite Or Spirit? Jonathan Edwards On The Imprecatory Language In The Psalms

By David P. Barshinger

[David P. Barshinger is adjunct professor of church history at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Ill., and an editor in the book division at Crossway in Wheaton, Ill. This article is adapted from his book Jonathan Edwards and the Psalms: A Redemptive-Historical Vision of Scripture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). Used by permission of Oxford University Press, USA.]

The imprecatory language in the Psalms constitutes one of the most scandalous themes in the Bible. Today, many churches and lectionaries avoid it altogether. Writers of modern hymns and praise songs, who frequently draw on the Psalms, rarely include the Psalter’s imprecatory language in their musical renditions, in a sense sanitizing the worship of the church. On the other hand, we see such passages referenced in popular culture to discredit Christians and their Bible.[1] This language of calling God to inflict violence on one’s enemies raises a challenge to Christians who hold to the authority of the Bible. But the challenge is not new. Many interpreters throughout the history of the church have acknowledged it and addressed it.

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) offers an example of one such interpreter who wrestled with the difficulty that these texts present and interpreted the imprecatory psalms theologically. In this article I aim to explore how Edwards treated the imprecatory language of the Psalms throughout his corpus. In doing so, I will examine in detail a specific theme he treated to fill out our understanding of Edwards’s lifelong engagement with the Bible—a need in the literature as Edwards’s voluminous biblical writings are only beginning to be given the serious attention they deserve.[2] I will also compare him to four interpreters within his Reformed stream of interpretation—Matthew Henry (1662–1714), Matthew Poole (1624–1679), David Dickson (1583–1663), and John Calvin (1509–1564)—to see lines of continuity and discontinuity with that tradition of exegesis.[3] In the course of the article, I suggest that Stephen Stein’s account of Edwards’s interpretation of the Psalms’ imprecatory language—the only other scholarly account of this topic—fails to do justice to the multilayered explanation Edwards gave of this violent language, and also argue that Edwards’s approach to this quandary was largely in line with that of his Reformed exegetical predecessors.

My thesis is that Jonathan Edwards engaged the imprecatory language of the Psalms from a redemptive-historical perspective to show that they are Spirit-inspired prophetical curses spoken in the name of Christ as head of the church against the enemies of the church, and he placed boundaries on their use by showing that they can never be employed for personal spite and vengeance, but that Christians must always hold out hope for their enemies’ repentance.

I. Edwards On The Psalms’ Imprecatory Language

Edwards and his congregation regularly encountered imprecatory language as they sang the Psalter in their bi-weekly church gatherings (twice on Sundays and once on Thursdays). These imprecations represent the psalmists’ pleas for God to exact vengeance or inflict violence on their enemies. So in what way should the church appropriate the Psalter’s imprecatory language, especially when it is sung in public worship? Edwards regarded it not as personal vengeance, but as a corporate matter for the church and as prophetic of both historical events and spiritual realities within God’s plan of redemption. And he tempered these observations with love for one’s enemies and hope for their repentance under the gospel.

Edwards made his most extensive treatment of the imprecatory psalms in “Miscellanies” Entry No. 640, “Love of Enemies. Praying Against Them,” in which he made seven observations about David’s imprecatory prayers against enemies. These points provide a helpful distillation of his multifaceted approach to the imprecatory language in the Psalms and will guide us as we also address other places in his corpus where he discussed the imprecatory psalms.

First, Edwards denied that the psalmist expresses personal vengeance, but held that he must hope for his enemies’ conversion: “unless speaking in the name of the Lord, he is not to be understood as praying against any particular persons, that God would indeed execute vengeance on such and such men, or that he did not desire that they should repent,” for “David can be understood only as praying against his enemies continuing his enemies.”[4] This point emerged as he sought to harmonize these imprecations with the injunction to love one’s enemies, reading these psalms in light of the whole Bible so as to reflect the harmony of the Old and New Testaments. In “Miscellanies” Entry No. 600, then, Edwards explained that the OT did not permit imprecations of personal vengeance and hatred against one’s enemies, but that prophets spoke these imprecations in the name of the Lord. And so, Edwards explained, “we can’t think that those imprecations we find in the Psalms and prophets were out of their own hearts, for cursing is spoken of as a very dreadful sin in the Old Testament.”[5] Looking at David, although he prayed for vengeance on enemies more often than any others, “by the history of his life [he] was a man of a spirit very remote from a spiteful, revengeful spirit.”[6] Edwards pointed to David’s response to the deaths of Saul, Ishbosheth, and Abner. While one would expect David to celebrate the deaths of these enemies, he instead mourned at the news of each of their deaths. Edwards further showed that David even wished well on his enemies, did good to them (Ps 7:4), and prayed for them (Ps 35:13–14). When he cursed others, David was “far from a revengeful frame.”[7] This discussion showed that “there is no inconsistence between the religion of the old testament and new in this respect,” revealing his emphasis on demonstrating the harmony of the Old and New Testaments.[8]

Edwards further illustrated this point in his “Blank Bible” by using the analogy of Scripture (comparing Scripture with Scripture). Turning to Job 31:29–30, “If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him: Neither have I suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul,” Edwards explained that the biblical mandate—even for OT saints—disallowed the practice of speaking curses against one’s enemies. He thus argued that “the imprecations of curses to enemies we have in the Psalms and some other places are not of private interpretation, and are not to be understood as the expressions of personal resentments, or the penmen’s expressing the desires and wishes of their own spirit.”[9] Rather, Edwards argued that as David’s life shows, he spoke for the Lord, all the while hoping his enemies would repent.

The second point Edwards made was that these psalms uphold God’s justice. While David showed himself to be “wholly innocent and righteous,” his enemies sought after his very life and proved themselves to be “all wicked men,” indicating that there is indeed a standard of righteousness that applies to mankind.[10] This point comes in Edwards’s treatment of perhaps the most notorious imprecatory verse in the Psalms, Ps 137:9, “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” At the outset, Edwards noted that in this passage—and in the many passages describing the destruction of infants, such as in Sodom, the flood, Canaan, Egypt, Midian, Amalek, and Edom—we see God’s burning anger toward sin, amplified by directing it even toward infants. Edwards argued that since death is accompanied by a ghastly appearance, it “naturally suggests to our minds God’s awful displeasure” and is peculiarly “a testimony of God’s displeasure for sin.”[11] In light of that observation, Edwards suggested that this verse supports the doctrine of original sin: “We may well argue from these things, that infants are not looked upon by God as sinless, but that they are by nature children of wrath, seeing this terrible evil comes so heavily on mankind in infancy.”[12] Passages like Ps 137:9 demonstrated that the gruesome death of infants proves their sinfulness and “their just exposedness to divine wrath.”[13]

In his “Blank Bible,” Edwards explored the historical background of the verse to illustrate how it denounces sin. He read it in context with v. 8, “O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.” Thus, the passage referred historically to the dashing of Babylonian children against stones when Cyrus took the city and when the prophecy against Babylon in Isa 47:9 was fulfilled: “But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments.” For this historical background, Edwards relied on Humphrey Prideaux (1648–1724), who explained that when the city of Babylon was sieged by Darius, the Babylonians took “the most desperate and barbarous” measures to stay alive by killing “all unnecessary Mouths,” “whether wives, sisters, daughters, or young children useless for the wars.”[14] Edwards turned to the latest historical scholarship available in his day to show that this horrific sight could be explained by the horrendous wickedness of the Babylonians, whom God justly punished for their heinous evil. For Edwards, a discussion of the imprecatory psalms could not omit God’s righteous judgment of sin.

Third, Edwards argued from the logic of divine election. David’s enemies were a group of “exceedingly hardened and very implacable” men, and since they were a multitude, he “could not expect that they would all repent and be appeased.”[15] This observation showed that love for enemies is not inconsistent with prayers against them. And just as David prayed against his enemies “as a prophet in the name of the Lord,” so Edwards extended the practice of praying against enemies of the church in his own day: “’Tis not unlawful for the people of God, as the case may be, whether they speak as prophets or no, to pray in general that God would appear on their side, and plead and vindicate their cause, and punish those wicked men that are entirely and impenitently and implacably their enemies, in a righteous cause,” for

making such a prayer is not inconsistent with the love of particular persons, and earnestly desiring that they might repent and be appeased and be forgiven. For when our entire and resolved enemies are a multitude or some great party or combination of wicked men, we have no reason to expect that they will all repent and be reconciled. Especially is it not unsuitable thus to pray against our enemies, if the cause wherein they are our enemies is the cause of God, so that in being our enemies they are also directly God’s enemies; and more especially still, if the enemies are public enemies and are enemies in God’s cause too, and we pray against them as interested in the public. For here love to men don’t only not hinder our praying for the punishment of our implacable enemies, but it inclines us to it, viz. our love to the public, to the people of God that we are chiefly obliged to love and should love more than wicked men; yea, and love to God too, as ’tis in the cause of God.[16]

In Edwards’s ethics, love to “Being in general” required a love to the greatest good of society, and thus it was not wrong to pray against enemies—all the while hoping that they might repent and be reconciled.[17] But no one would expect that every enemy would answer the gospel call, so Edwards believed this difficult tension could be maintained by praying at the same time for repentance and, if a person refused to relent, for judgment.

Fourth, Edwards noted that David’s cause was God’s righteous cause, so he “prays against them not merely as his own, but as God’s enemies.”[18] We already saw that Edwards interpreted Ps 137:9 in his “Blank Bible” using historical background, but he also went beyond “literal Babylon” to the destruction of “spiritual Babylon.” He explained, “They indeed will do God’s work, and will perform a good work, who shall be God’s instruments of the utter overthrow of the Church of Rome with all her superstitions, and heathenish ceremonies, and other cursed fruits of her spiritual whoredoms, as it were without having any mercy upon them.”[19] In this way, Edwards interpreted the verse within the framework of the history of redemption, ultimately understanding it as describing the destruction of the greatest enemy to God’s work. In another setting, Edwards saw in Ps 137:9 a reward of blessing for those who destroyed spiritual enemies: “What a blessing is pronounced on those which shall have any hand in the destruction of Babylon, which was the head city of the kingdom of Satan, and of the enemies of the church of God!”[20] Said another way, Christians are, like David was, on the side of God and good, which justifies their posture toward the rebellious enemies of God.

Edwards’s fifth and sixth points together showed that David must be understood as praying on behalf of the corporate body of God’s people. In his fifth point, he noted that David prayed “as a public and not a private person,” as “the head of the church and people of God” praying against “public enemies, enemies to the people of God, as in joint interest with them.”[21] And in his sixth point he observed that, except when he cursed his enemies in the name of the Lord, David prayed not for the sake of their hurt, but rather “as necessary for his own deliverance and safety, and the safety of God’s people, and of religion itself, and for the vindication of his and their cause, and also of God’s own cause.”[22] For Edwards, there was a corporate element to David’s prayers that makes his pleas more viable and palatable.

The historical books shed light on this point. One would expect that if David, who had written most of the imprecatory psalms, wanted to exact vengeance on Saul, he would have danced at his death. But as Edwards noted in his “Blank Bible,” David’s response to Saul’s death in 2 Sam 1:11–17 was to lament, indicating that his imprecatory statements in the book of Psalms were not tainted with hatred, but derived from divine inspiration against God’s enemies. For they “are not the expressions of a spirit of private revenge, but imprecations he put up in the name of Christ as head of the church against his and his church’s enemies, and what he spake as a prophet in the name of the Lord.”[23] As Edwards similarly commented on Ps 59:13, “Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they may not be: and let them know that God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth,” he again pointed to David’s grief on hearing of Saul’s death and concluded that this is “a great evidence that David’s imprecations of God’s vengeance on his enemies in the book of Psalms are not the expressions or breathings of his own spirit, but prophecies uttered, prophetical curses denounced, by the Spirit of God.”[24] Edwards did recognize that the occasion of David’s prayer may indeed have been “from the malice of his personal enemies, yet that the enemies he has respect to in his prayer are principally not those personal enemies that give the occasion of his prayer, but they are the enemies of the church of Christ.”[25] Here Edwards gave credence to David’s personality and circumstances, but redeemed him from sinful utterances by showing that the Spirit spoke through him of the church’s enemies, for David identified his enemies as the “heathen” (Ps 59:5, 8), and spoke “as the head of the church and in the person of Christ, of whom he was the great type.”[26]

Edwards’s seventh point was to identify David’s imprecatory statements as prophecies—an argument already made in several of the notes above: “’Tis questionable whether David ever prayed against his enemies, but as a prophet speaking in the name of the Lord. ’Tis evident by the matter of the Psalms that very frequently it was so.”[27] Edwards stated in his “Notes on Scripture” notebook that “when we find passages of this kind in the Psalms or the Prophets, we are to look upon them as prophetical curses. They curse them in the name of the Lord, as Elisha did the children that mocked him, as Noah cursed Canaan.”[28] In “Miscellanies” Entry No. 1033, “Imprecations of the Old Testament,” Edwards said it is “evident to anyone that carefully considers them” that “the imprecations that we have in the Psalms are what inspired persons uttered as prophets, and that they are a kind of prophecies.”[29]

Edwards then pointed to eight passages in the Psalms where the imprecations are “mixed with express predictions of the destruction imprecated,” which suggested that the psalmist spoke imprecations as prophecies in line with the psalm’s explicit prophecies.[30] As one example out of the eight passages he mentioned, Edwards pointed to Ps 9:3–6, where the psalmist prophesies that “when mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence.” The psalmist had sure confidence that these judgments would come to pass on his enemies because he said God “hast maintained my right and my cause” as a just judge (Ps 9:4). But in v. 20 of Ps 9, the psalmist makes an imprecatory plea to God: “Put them in fear, O Lord: that the nations may know themselves to be but men.” This mixture of prophecy and imprecation suggested to Edwards that the psalmist prayed the imprecation as a prophecy, mirroring the prophecy in earlier verses about the enemies’ destruction.[31] By comparing imprecations from the Psalms with other OT imprecations (Gen 27:28–29; Deut 33:6–8, 24; Judg 9:20), Edwards noted, “It was an ancient way of prophecy to prophesy of future blessings and calamities in the language of prayer or petition.”[32] Edwards retained the prayer element of the imprecations, but joined it with a prophetic element. He also envisioned these prophecies as both calamities for the wicked and blessings for the righteous, for God would act both for glory and for justice.[33]

Edwards further described the prophetic element of the imprecatory psalms in a discussion of Ps 58:6–10, which reads, in part, “Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth. . . . The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.” Edwards argued that this passage could not refer to David’s vengeance against Saul, for David “was so far from trampling on his blood that he greatly lamented his death, and condemned those that insulted him in his misery.”[34] At the same time, v. 10 was “exactly parallel with many prophecies of the destruction of the enemies of the church in the days of the Messiah,” an observation based on the analogy of Scripture (Isa 30:29, 32; Ps 68:23; Isa 26:5–6; Mic 7:10; Mal 4:3).[35] Edwards applied this language prophetically within the flow of redemptive history to the final judgment when Christ would crush his enemies under his feet.

In summary, Edwards dealt with the imprecatory passages of the Psalms by noting that the psalmist does not use them for personal vengeance, but speaks as head of the church and as a prophet to highlight God’s response of justice to sin, recognizing the limits of salvation as he speaks against God’s enemies and pleads for the safety of the church against its enemies while looking toward the final fulfillment of these curses in the eschaton. In short, he gave perspective to the imprecatory language in the Psalms by setting them in the framework of the history of redemption.

II. Edwards And The Reformed Exegetical Tradition

How did Edwards compare to earlier Reformed interpreters on the imprecatory language of the Psalms?[36] Most of Edwards’s approach is reflected in his Reformed predecessors. Like Edwards, they did not question the divine inspiration of these psalms. Dickson, for example, upheld the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of the imprecatory language of Ps 58, arguing that the Spirit gave David a “special warrant” to pray this imprecation because it testifies that “the Lord shall in due time disable the wicked from doing the harme they intend to do against God’s people.”[37] Calvin likewise affirmed the Spirit’s inspiration of these psalms: “The Psalmist prays, under the inspiration of the Spirit, that God would practically demonstrate the truth of this prediction,” which would remind the people of God’s promised “avenging justice.”[38] It was also common to interpret these psalms as prophecies, just as Edwards did. Poole held that David wrote Ps 137 “by a prophetic spirit,” foretelling the destruction of Babylon, while Henry expressed his belief that imprecations are prophecies, and Dickson saw the imprecatory prayer in Ps 58 as a “prophecie and promise to the Churches comfort.”[39] Calvin, though less explicit in identifying imprecations as prophecies, nonetheless recognized a prophetic element in the imprecations in Ps 58:6–10, for the psalmist speaks “with the eye of faith” of their prideful opposition, seeing it “doomed in the judgment of God to be of short continuance.”[40]

While these exegetes saw prophecies in these passages, they interpreted their fulfillment in both historical and spiritual settings, just as Edwards did. Speaking on Ps 137:7–9, Henry interpreted it historically within the context of Jerusalem’s destruction and the Jews’ exile to Babylon. He argued that the Jews found joy in the ruin of their “impenitent implacable Enemies,” “not from a Spirit of Revenge, but from a Holy Zeal for the Glory of God, and the Honour of his Kingdom.”[41] At the same time, Henry seems to have seen a parallel with the final destruction of spiritual Babylon, as he referenced Rev 13:10 and the NT. He argued that the destruction will be “just,” because of Babylon’s injustices, and “final,” for “none escape if these little ones perish.”[42] Poole recognized historical references to Babylon in Ps 137, but also identified a spiritual meaning of Ps 58:10: “The victor will trample on them and conquer in Christ.”[43] In discussing Ps 137:9, “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones,” Dickson explained historically that the Medes and Persians fulfilled God’s work of punishing the Babylonians who oppressed the Israelites. He noted that while they were happy in their barbarous deeds, they acted from “corrupt intentions,” but while they did not work as “religious servants,” still they were “Gods instruments, a good work of justice upon the oppressors of Gods people, and a good work of delivery of the Lords people.”[44] Calvin similarly did not excuse the Medes and Persians in their “ambition, insatiable covetousness, and unprincipled rivalry,” but held that God blessed them insofar as they carried out God’s work, even if they did it with wrong motives.[45]

These Reformed exegetes, however, interpreted the imprecatory psalms not merely as prophetic of historical events. They also recognized spiritual and theological shades of meaning, as Edwards did. It was widely held that imprecatory language is inspired by God to comfort his saints. Henry described two effects of sinners being destroyed in Ps 58: “that Saints would be encourag’d and comforted by it” and “that Sinners would be convinc’d and converted by it.”[46] Poole stated that the washing of feet in blood in Ps 58:10 signified both the “most glorious victory and horrendous punishment of the wicked” and the “refreshment of the just.”[47] Reading Ps 137:7–9, Dickson showed that it gives comfort to the church in affliction because though “the Church be in captivity and oppressed, yet she shall not be destroyed, but it is not so with her adversaries.”[48] Calvin also held that the promises in Ps 137 of retribution give “hope and confidence” to God’s people, reminding them that “it is well with us in our worst distresses, and that our enemies are devoted to destruction.”[49]

A theological theme that Reformed interpreters employed that Edwards, surprisingly, did not was God’s sovereignty and glory. In his reading of Ps 59:13, Henry said that the psalmist prayed that “God would glorifie himself as Israel’s God and King in their Destruction,” for God’s judgments confirm his sovereignty: “The Design of God’s Judgments is to convince men that the Lord reigns, that he fulfills his own Counsels, gives Law to all the Creatures, and disposeth all things to his own Glory, so that the greatest of Men are under his Check, and he makes what use he pleases of them.”[50] Dickson, speaking on Ps 59:13, emphasized God’s sovereignty and glory over against his enemies, arguing not only that in God’s judgments of his enemies, “the knowledge of his sovereignty over, and Kingly care for his Church is made more known to the world,” but also that these judgments increase his glory and that the saints should pray for this increased glory against their enemies.[51]

At the same time, a major theological theme that both Edwards and the Reformed exegetes used to explain the imprecatory psalms was justice.[52] Poole defended God’s just character in Ps 137:9, noting that, given the cruel and savage depiction of the Babylonians as lions tearing apart sheep, “God justly permitted this violence on the bloodthirsty Babylonians.”[53] Dickson held that this imprecation is at its heart a “consolation of the godly, and clearing of Gods justice among men.”[54] And Calvin, speaking on the mangling of infants in Ps 137:9, noted that while “it may seem to savour of cruelty,” the psalmist speaks not “under the impulse of personal feeling,” but “only employs words which God had himself authorized,” declaring his “just judgment” against the Babylonians by meting out upon them what they had done to others.”[55]

Of greater concern to most of these Reformed exegetes was guiding Christians in their appropriation of the imprecatory language in the Psalms, warning them, like Edwards, not to use them as justification for personal vengeance.[56] Henry explained that when David made imprecations, he “acted by a publick Spirit in praying against them, and not by any private Revenge,” so Christians “may in Faith pray against the Designs of the Churches Enemies, as the Prophet doth,” but it must be a corporate, not a private interest.[57] Poole, speaking on Ps 58:10, explained that when the psalmist rejoices at the punishment of the wicked, it is “not from a love of vengeance” or “revenge of himself,” but “from a zeal for Divine justice.”[58] He also argued that the psalmist in Ps 137:9 cannot speak from personal revenge: “He desires this from an appetite, not of vengeance, but of justice, as the wicked parents are punished in their offspring, and as no posterity remains, so much as an impious race.”[59] Similarly, Dickson warned Christians that they must never rejoice in the misery of other creatures, but only in God’s justice: “It is lawful for the godly to rejoyce in Gods justice against the obstinate enemies of his people: provided their joy be indeed in Gods justice, not in the destruction of the creatures; but in the manifestation of Gods just avenging hand.”[60] At the same time, God’s judgment on the wicked must teach God’s people “to be more holy in all their wayes.”[61] In discussing Ps 137:7–9, Calvin also noted that praying for retribution must always be tempered by a desire for our enemies’ redemption and by God’s promise of judgment on the reprobate. We do not act out of our own revenge, but out of God’s while maintaining a pure spirit that waits on God’s appointed timing: “To pray for vengeance would have been unwarrantable, had not God promised it, and had the party against whom it was sought not been reprobate and incurable; for as to others, even our greatest enemies, we should wish their amendment and reformation.”[62]

This quotation by Calvin leads us to a final shared concern between Edwards and the Reformed tradition: hoping for enemies’ repentance. Henry recognized that we ought to long for the salvation of our enemies. So in his interpretation of Ps 58:6, “Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Lord,” he said that the psalmist asked God to harm them “not so much that they might not feed themselves, as that they might not be able to make a prey of others,” for he does not say “break their necks,” but rather it “let them live to repent.”[63] And Calvin, speaking on Ps 58:6–10, argued that while the psalmist “solicits the vengeance of God” in this imprecation, “it is necessary . . . that we attend to the manner in which this is done.”[64] Calvin rejected any haphazard appropriation of this psalm. Rather, the psalmist asserted his own integrity first and then established the “malicious conduct” of his enemies before asking God to take up his defense.[65] In Calvin’s final analysis of this passage, especially v. 10, he acknowledged the seeming inconsistency of saints rejoicing at the destruction of their enemies when they are to be vessels of mercy, but he showed that there is no inconsistency when we recognize the difference between corrupt and hateful revenge and holy zeal:

There is nothing absurd in supposing that believers, under the influence and guidance of the Holy Ghost, should rejoice in witnessing the execution of divine judgments. That cruel satisfaction which too many feel when they see their enemies destroyed, is the result of the unholy passions of hatred, anger, or impatience, inducing an inordinate desire of revenge. So far as corruption is suffered to operate in this manner, there can be no right or acceptable exercise. On the other hand, when one is led by a holy zeal to sympathize with the justness of that vengeance which God may have inflicted, his joy will be as pure in beholding the retribution of the wicked, as his desire for their conversion and salvation was strong and unfeigned.[66]

Christians when guided by the Spirit must long for their enemies’ salvation, but they will still rejoice when God’s justice is carried out on those who refuse to repent: “the righteous would anxiously desire the conversion of their enemies, and evince much patience under injury, with a view to reclaim them to the way of salvation”; nonetheless, “when willful obstinacy has at last brought round the hour of retribution, it is only natural that they should rejoice to see it inflicted, as proving the interest which God feels in their personal safety.”[67]

In comparing Edwards with the Reformed tradition, we can see that by and large, he was firmly in line with the Reformed stream of interpretation. They stood out in that they emphasized God’s glory and sovereignty more than Edwards. Why is this so? Perhaps the most likely reason that Edwards did not emphasize God’s sovereignty and glory in his treatment of the imprecatory language of the Psalms is not that he diminished God’s glory—for he certainly highlighted the glory of God throughout his corpus—but that he engaged this topic in his biblical notebooks with a particular aim in mind, namely, to give an account for this violent language within the harmony of the Old and New Testaments. He sought to harmonize the calls for vengeance in the Psalms with the NT injunction to love one’s enemies. Thus, God’s sovereignty and glory were not at the forefront of his mind in these particular notebook entries.

In addition, bearing in mind the broad similarities between Edwards and his Reformed predecessors, three elements distinguish Edwards’s interpretation from theirs. For one, his willingness to use these passages to defend the doctrine of original sin was fairly original, though a logical outworking of the Reformed doctrine of original sin. This emphasis arose specifically in the polemical context of his day as he defended the doctrine in his treatise on Original Sin in response to new attacks against the doctrine.[68]

Second, Edwards was more deeply concerned, while discussing the imprecatory psalms, to establish the harmony of the Old and New Testaments. Only Poole spoke explicitly on this issue, noting in his treatment of Ps 137:9 that, given the harmony of the two testaments, “the moral laws are the same under the Old and New Testament.”[69] But the harmony of the Bible appeared with stronger force in Edwards’s dealings with these passages because he engaged them specifically from a theological viewpoint in his “Miscellanies” rather than presenting an exegesis of the Psalms in canonical order in a commentary.

And finally, Edwards’s redemptive-historical approach to the Bible comes out more clearly in his treatment of the imprecatory language in the Psalms than in the earlier Reformed exegetes. While this concept is evident in all their discussions, Edwards even more so approached the imprecatory psalms with the question of how they fit into the grand scheme of God’s redemptive plan. So we find more links with theological themes like original sin and biblical harmony, but also a greater emphasis on the church with David speaking as its head and on prophecy and its fulfillment in God’s culmination of all things. Edwards was a metanarrative-thinking theologian who sought to cast everything within God’s purposeful plan of redemptive history. Still, in the main, Edwards and his Reformed predecessors approached the theological problem of imprecatory language in the Psalms from similar vantage points with consistent argumentation.

III. A Modern Account Of Edwards On Biblical Violence

Little has been said in modern scholarship on Edwards’s approach to the imprecatory language in the Psalms. Only Stephen Stein has addressed it, and he expresses deep reservations about the way Edwards appropriated the imprecatory psalms and the violent language of the Bible in general. In his article “Jonathan Edwards and the Cultures of Biblical Violence,” Stein seeks to show that while Edwards is celebrated for his positive impact, we should also expose his negative impact. He argues that “Edwards frequently celebrated the violence at the heart of the biblical accounts in ways that perhaps shaped the tradition of which he was a part and still does in our own day, sometimes with not so desirable results.”[70] In addressing Edwards’s approach to the imprecatory psalms, Stein explains that Edwards justified the violent language by distinguishing between a personal enemy and an enemy of the church, but Stein calls this “justification” of such curses an “ethical rationalization” that is “casuistical.”[71] By speaking in terms of “cultures” of biblical violence, Stein essentially presents Edwards as an ethnocentrist, who thought all cultures and religions were substandard to his. Thus he concludes that Edwards’s views on biblical violence “underscore the intense hostility he felt and expressed toward other religious traditions and those who were part of them.”[72]

It should be noted, however, that for Edwards all cultures were substandard to God’s measure of perfection. His critique of other cultures is fundamentally at odds with a culturally inclusive perspective, but not for the reasons Stein presents. Stein seems to want to uphold a moral sensibility of peace, which he believes can only be maintained by acceptance of all cultures and religions. But Edwards wanted to uphold the peace that could only be attained through Christ, who by his death and resurrection makes peace between God and humanity. It is this redemptive-historical framework that guides his interpretation of the imprecatory psalms.

In addition, while it is undeniable that Edwards explored the violent language of Scripture, he balanced it with the command to love one’s enemies—something Stein omits from his discussion. Edwards also refused to give individuals the freedom to decide whom they can curse. It is the Spirit-inspired speech of a prophet against the enemies of the church, while individual members of the church need to hope that those enemies will, by God’s grace, become members of the church. It is thus God’s place to judge and to inspire his prophets to speak prophetically of their destruction. For Edwards, the imprecatory language of the Psalms cannot be understood apart from the affirmation that there is indeed a day of vengeance coming. The church suffers at the hands of its enemies in this era, and it cries out for justice, but does not exact justice on its enemies. Rather, God as sovereign judge will condemn in his time those enemies that remain his enemies, that is, those who do not repent and profess faith in Christ before their period of trial on this earth ends. In short, a nuanced reading of Edwards’s approach to imprecatory language casts the violence in the Psalms not in terms of cultural superiority, but in terms of the gospel.

IV. A Theological Treatment Of The Imprecatory Psalms

Edwards set the imprecatory language in the Psalms in redemptive history to make sense of it using the analogy of Scripture within his harmonic view of the Old and New Testaments.[73] He saw the innate wickedness of infants and God’s wrath against enemies. He described these imprecations as prophetical curses realized in historical events but ultimately in the destruction of the church’s enemies, particularly spiritual Babylon. He cast David as speaking in the name of Christ as head of the church who sought the greater good of the church and society. And he exhibited the harmony of the ethics in the Old and New Testaments, showing that individuals must never seek personal vengeance, but that the church can appropriate the imprecatory psalms as prayers against the enemies of the church who remain enemies of the church, all the while praying for their repentance and redemption.

Edwards’s reading of the imprecatory language in the Psalms should caution us against oversimplifying the way earlier exegetes treated difficult passages in Scripture, relegating them to a bygone era that has not advanced as far as we have today. Perhaps the very fact that Edwards speaks not as a twenty-first-century exegete should cause us to consider what we may be missing in our interpretations of the imprecatory psalms. His broad continuity with the Reformed exegetical tradition certainly shows that he is not alone in his general approach to imprecatory language in Scripture. Edwards’s interpretation suggests that Christians can read, pray, and sing these texts within the wider spectrum of God’s work in the world to display his glory both through his redemption of repentant sinners and through his justice meted out on the recalcitrant enemies who remain enemies of God. This tension of redemption and justice is difficult to maintain, but Edwards’s reading suggests that casting the imprecatory language in the Psalms in light of the harmony of the Old and New Testaments leads exegetes in the direction of maintaining just such a theological tension.

Notes

1. For one example in popular culture, see the Vera Farmiga film, Higher Ground (2011), set in the 1970s. The film depicts a young husband and wife, Ethan and Corinne, who decide to turn to religion after a dramatic event when their baby nearly drowns in a sinking van. As they are sitting in their living room, Corinne holding their baby in her arms, Ethan suggests they start reforming by looking in the Bible. He proceeds to close his eyes, open the Bible, and drop his finger randomly on the page. The verse he finds is Ps 137:9, “Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock.” Corinne, cuddling her recently rescued baby, looks aghast. The film goes on to depict Corinne’s tumultuous journey in and out of American evangelical Christianity, and the use of Ps 137:9 illustrates her uneasy relationship with the Christian religion and its Bible. The film portrays this episode in part to shock people at what they can find in their Bibles.
2. On the need to study Edwards’s biblical writings, see Stephen J. Stein, “The Quest for the Spiritual Sense: The Biblical Hermeneutics of Jonathan Edwards,” HTR 70 (1977): 100; Stephen J. Stein, “The Spirit and the Word: Jonathan Edwards and Scriptural Exegesis,” in Jonathan Edwards and the American Experience (ed. Nathan O. Hatch and Harry S. Stout; New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 123; Stephen J. Stein, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Jonathan Edwards, Notes on Scripture (ed. Stephen J. Stein; vol. 15 of WJE; 1998), 21, 46 (I frequently cite the Yale University Press version of The Works of Jonathan Edwards [26 vols.; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957-2008], abbreviated WJE with volume number and publication date); Robert E. Brown, Jonathan Edwards and the Bible (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 199; Kenneth P. Minkema, “Jonathan Edwards in the Twentieth Century,” JETS 47 (2004): 675; Glenn R. Kreider, Jonathan Edwards’s Interpretation of Revelation 4:1-8:1 (Dallas: University Press of America, 2004), 1, 22; Douglas A. Sweeney, “‘Longing for More and More of It’? The Strange Career of Jonathan Edwards’s Exegetical Exertions,” in Jonathan Edwards at 300: Essays on the Tercentenary of His Birth (ed. Harry S. Stout, Kenneth P. Minkema, and Caleb J. D. Maskell; Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2005), 26-28; Robert E. Brown, “The Bible,” in The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards (ed. Sang Hyun Lee; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 87; Stephen J. Stein, “Edwards as Biblical Exegete,” in The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards (ed. Stephen J. Stein; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 193; and Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 717.
3. These commentators were chosen from two lists of prominent commentaries on the Psalms compiled by Richard Muller and John Thompson (Richard A. Muller, “Biblical Interpretation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters [ed. Donald K. McKim; Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2007], 39-43; and John Thompson, “A Finding Guide to English Translations of Commentary Literature Written 1600-1700,” Fuller Theological Seminary, http://purl.oclc.org/net/jlt/exegesis/ [accessed November 28, 2009]). Dozens more could have been included; Thompson lists 111 English works on the Psalms from the years 1600-1700. Those included here were selected because of their prominence, the authors’ Reformed or Puritan commitments, the size of their works (the many smaller tracts or sermons on the Psalms printed during that century are omitted), and the fact that Edwards frequently referenced two of the authors in his general interpretation of the Psalms (Henry and Poole).
4. Jonathan Edwards, The “Miscellanies”: Entry Nos. 501-832 (ed. Ava Chamberlain; vol. 18 of WJE; 2000), 174.
5. Ibid., 141.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 142.
8. Ibid., 141.
9. Jonathan Edwards, The “Blank Bible” (ed. Stephen J. Stein; vol. 24, pt. 1 of WJE; 2006), 458-59.
10. Edwards, “Miscellanies”: Entry Nos. 501-832, 174.
11. Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin (ed. Clyde A. Holbrook; vol. 3 of WJE; 1970), 215. Edwards incorrectly cited Ps 137:4 in the text of his treatise, but quoted v. 9. His quotation, “Happy shall he be that shall take thy little ones, and dash them against the stones,” differs in word order from the KJV, likely indicating that Edwards was working from memory.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 215-16.
14. Humphrey Prideaux, The Old and New Testament Connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations from the Declension of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah to the Time of Christ (4 vols.; 9th ed.; London: R. Knaplock, 1725), 1:265.
15. Edwards, “Miscellanies”: Entry Nos. 501-832, 174.
16. Ibid., 173; italics mine.
17. On Edwards’s notion of “Being in general,” see Jonathan Edwards, Dissertation II: The Nature of True Virtue, in Ethical Writings (ed. Paul Ramsey; vol. 8 of WJE; 1989), 536-27.
18. Edwards, The “Miscellanies”: Entry Nos. 501-832, 174.
19. Edwards, “Blank Bible,” 537.
20. Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival, in The Great Awakening (ed. C. C. Goen; vol. 4 of WJE; 1972), 369.
21. Edwards, “Miscellanies”: Entry Nos. 501-832, 174.
22. Ibid., 175.
23. Edwards, “Blank Bible,” 360. Edwards referenced this entry in his “Blank Bible” entry on Ps 69:22-28 (ibid., 507).
24. Ibid., 501-2; quotation on 502.
25. Ibid., 501.
26. Ibid. Psalm 59:5, 8 reads, “Thou therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah. . . . But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them; thou shalt have all the heathen in derision.”
27. Edwards, “Miscellanies”: Entry Nos. 501-832, 175.
28. Edwards made this note in “Notes on Scripture” Entry No. 176, reflecting on Jer 12:3, “pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter” (Jonathan Edwards, Notes on Scripture [ed. Stephen J. Stein; vol. 15 of WJE; 1998], 103). He also referenced “Miscellanies” Entry No. 600, discussed below.
29. Edwards, “Miscellanies”: Entry Nos. 833-1152, 370.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid. The other seven passages Edwards mentioned were Pss 5:6-12; 6:8-10; 7:6-17; 10:15-18; 59:8-11; 69:22-36; 129:4-8.
32. Ibid.
33. David P. Murray similarly describes this dual aspect of the imprecatory psalms by noting that “blessing and cursing are two sides of the same coin. Real compassion for the wronged can exist only beside indignation against wrong-doing (Matt. 23). Both are beautiful qualities in God’s sight” (“Christian Cursing?” in Sing a New Song: Recovering Psalm Singing for the Twenty-First Century [ed. Joel R. Beeke and Anthony T. Selvaggio; Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010], 117).
34. Jonathan Edwards, “The Miscellanies: Entry No. 1068: The Fulfillment of the Prophecies of the Messiah” (Edwards Collection; Franklin Trask Library, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton, Mass.), §81.
35. Ibid. See also Edwards’s identification of Ps 69:22 as a prophecy fulfilled in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70 (“Blank Bible,” 507).
36. Here we focus on the Reformed exegetes’ interpretation of Pss 58:6-10, 59:13, and 137:7-9, as these were the primary texts in Edwards’s discussion. For an introduction to how the church interpreted the imprecatory psalms throughout the history of the church, see John L. Thompson, Reading the Bible with the Dead: What You Can Learn from the History of Exegesis That You Can’t Learn from Exegesis Alone (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), ch. 4, “Psalms and Curses” (49-70). For an essay that describes many of the issues involved in interpreting the imprecatory psalms, written from a faith perspective, see Murray, “Christian Cursing?,” 111-21. For an African perspective on the imprecatory psalms, which argues that Eurocentric interpretations emphasize the violence and darkness of these psalms while Afrocentric interpretations emphasize their themes of protection and defense, see David Tuesday Adamo, “The Imprecatory Psalms in African Context,” in Biblical Interpretation in African Perspective (ed. David Tuesday Adamo; Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2006), 142. For a modern Western take on the imprecatory psalms that casts these words as giving over our anger to the God of universal judgment and acknowledging our responsibility to move past rage to work toward making sure that rage ceases, see Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford, “The Theology of the Imprecatory Psalms,” in Soundings in the Theology of Psalms: Perspectives and Methods in Contemporary Scholarship (ed. Rolf A. Jacobson; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), 77-92.
37. David Dickson, A brief explication of the other fifty psalmes, from Ps. 50 to Ps. 100 (London: T. R. and E. M. for Ralph Smith, 1653), 49.
38. John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms (trans. from the original Latin and collated with the author’s French version by James Anderson; 5 vols.; 1843-1855; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), 5:196.
39. Matthew Poole, Synopsis criticorum aliorumque sacrae Scripturae interpretum et commentarum (5 vols.; Frankfurt: Balthasaris Christophori Wustii, 1678), 2:1276; Matthew Henry, An exposition of the five poetical books of the Old Testament; viz. Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Solomon’s song (London: T. Darrack, 1710), (Ps 58:6); Dickson, Other fifty psalmes, 49. The Latin in Poole reads, spiritu prophetico. Henry’s 1710 text did not include page numbers, so in the citations that follow, I provide the Psalms text he was commenting on to give a reference point. Note as well that I retain the original form of the words in these older texts, which often omitted the apostrophe in the possessive form, as, e.g., in the quotation by Dickson here.
40. Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, 2:375. In discussing Ps 137:7-9, Calvin also held that “the Psalmist does not break into these awful denunciations unadvisedly, but as God’s herald, to confirm former prophecies” (5:196).
41. Henry, Exposition of the five poetical books (Ps 137:7-9).
42. Ibid.
43. Poole, Synopsis criticorum, 873. The Latin reads, Proculcabit eos, & triumphabit victor in Christo. On Poole’s historical interpretation, see p. 1280.
44. David Dickson, A Brief Explication of the last Fifty Psalmes, From Ps. 100 to the end (London: T. R. and E. M. for Ralph Smith, 1654), 304. It is likely that Dickson’s statement was informed, in part, from his own experience, for he had suffered deprivation and confinement for a year and a half under King James I. Later, he would also lose his post as professor of divinity at Edinburgh under King Charles II’s 1662 Act of Uniformity (Robert Wodrow, “Short Account of the Life of the Author” [1726], in David Dickson, A Brief Explication of the Psalms, vol. 1 [1726; repr., Glasgow: John Dow, 1834], xvii-xxv).
45. Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, 5:197.
46. Henry, Exposition of the five poetical books (Ps 58:10-11).
47. Poole, Synopsis criticorum, 873. The Latin reads, gloriosissimam victoria, & horrendam impiorum punitionem.
48. Dickson, Last fifty psalmes, 304.
49. Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, 5:197.
50. Henry, Exposition of the five poetical books (Ps 59:13).
51. Dickson, Other fifty psalmes, 56.
52. Thompson similarly argues that these psalms reveal God’s care for injustice, “disclosing God’s commitment to justice and concern for those who suffer unjustly” (Thompson, Reading the Bible, 68).
53. Poole, Synopsis criticorum, 1280. The Latin reads, justè Deus permisit hanc saevitiem in crudeles Babylonios.
54. Dickson, Other fifty psalmes, 50.
55. Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, 5:197.
56. Thompson likewise cautions more recently that the imprecatory psalms should not be used “to settle private scores” because “only Jesus is fit to lament and curse absolutely” (Thompson, Reading the Bible, 69-70).
57. Henry, Exposition of the five poetical books (Ps 58:6, 8).
58. Poole, Synopsis criticorum, 872. The Latin reads, non amore vindictae, five . . . ob ultionem sui, sed ex zelo Divinae justitiae.
59. Ibid., 1280. The Latin reads, Optat hoc ex appetitu, non vindictae, sed justitiae ut impii parentes puniantur in suis prolibus, et ut nulla posteritas remaneat tam impiae stirpis.
60. Dickson, Other fifty psalmes, 50-51. Similarly, applying Ps 137:9 to God’s people in his day, Dickson recognized that while “it is lawfull in Gods cause to wish that God be glorified, albeit in the confusion of his enemies,” it is “a sinfull thing to satisfie our carnall affection in the misery of any man,” and thus in this prayer we must have our “heart well guarded with the fear of God” lest we be made “guilty of savage cruelty” (Dickson, Last fifty psalmes, 304).
61. Dickson, Other fifty psalmes, 51.
62. Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, 5:196.
63. Henry, Exposition of the five poetical books (Ps 58:6).
64. Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, 2:374.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid., 2:377-78.
67. Ibid., 2:378.
68. See Edwards, Original Sin, along with Holbrook’s introduction to the volume.
69. Poole, Synopsis criticorum, 1280. The Latin reads, Eadem erant leges morales sub V. & N. T.
70. Stephen J. Stein, “Jonathan Edwards and the Cultures of Biblical Violence,” in Jonathan Edwards at 300, 56.
71. Ibid., 57-58.
72. Ibid., 63.
73. It is interesting to note that Edwards preached no sermons on the imprecatory psalms, and instead reflected on them in his personal notebooks. But it would be wrong to conclude that Edwards was afraid to discuss the imprecatory psalms in a public setting because it is clear from the “Miscellanies” entries above that he was working out how the imprecatory language of the Psalms fit into the harmony of the Old and New Testaments, and he clearly would have treated this material in his Harmony of the Old and New Testament had he lived to finish it. On his plans to write this work, see Jonathan Edwards to the Trustees of the College of New Jersey, October 19, 1757, in Letters and Personal Writings (ed. George S. Claghorn; vol. 16 of WJE; 1998), 725-30.