Violence and Psalms
Note on the violent bits
Psalms include some of the worse lines in the Bible (e.g. Psalm 21:9-10, 40:10, 58:10, 109:8-10, 110:6, 139:19). We might not read these to our kids, but we cannot delete them; it matters that God knows how dreadful humans can be. Kids need to know that even when we are in a violent rage we are still known and loved by God. Nothing is outside of God’s purposes. Nothing is too terrible to bring to God.
Psalms include some of the worse lines in the Bible (e.g. Psalm 21:9-10, 40:10, 58:10, 109:8-10, 110:6, 139:19). We might not read these to our kids, but we cannot delete them; it matters that God knows how dreadful humans can be. Kids need to know that even when we are in a violent rage we are still known and loved by God. Nothing is outside of God’s purposes. Nothing is too terrible to bring to God.
Note on Psalm 101
Psalm 101 is hard to say or pray, one of the many Psalms which is half beautiful and half ugly. Psalm 101 could easily be The Sniper Psalm, prayed by a self-righteous terrorist spying out others’ mis-deeds and killing them off from the roof-top. “Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land.” (v8). Our spirits crash into the violence and recoil in fear and revulsion, and we know we shouldn’t feel that about Bible verses so it’s much easier to just skip to the next bit. Most translations recoil from this harshness, e.g. NIV says “I will put to silence”. I’m trying not to do that in my Psalm work, so what do we do with the “I will destroy” verses?
The next option other than ignoring them is to de-personalise them, as I have done here, so that our anger is directed at wrong patterns rather than wrong people – hate the sin not the sinner – which is fine as far as it goes but I suspect not entirely keeping faith with the Psalm.
We can collude with the desire to destroy, easy to cast out the wicked when that’s Someone Else, but verse 5 slams it home in one of the worst verses in scripture: “One who secretly slanders a neighbor I will destroy.” Yikes. Gulp. Guilty! I find myself standing beside the woman caught in adultery with a strange man staring at the ground saying “Whoever is without sin may cast the first stone.”
I don’t have the answer, I’m just sharing my dilemmas with you. The shame is that because of the violence the church tends to ignore this Psalm, but it is a wonderful Psalm which should be used in times of dedication, induction and new beginnings. …
Psalm 101 is hard to say or pray, one of the many Psalms which is half beautiful and half ugly. Psalm 101 could easily be The Sniper Psalm, prayed by a self-righteous terrorist spying out others’ mis-deeds and killing them off from the roof-top. “Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land.” (v8). Our spirits crash into the violence and recoil in fear and revulsion, and we know we shouldn’t feel that about Bible verses so it’s much easier to just skip to the next bit. Most translations recoil from this harshness, e.g. NIV says “I will put to silence”. I’m trying not to do that in my Psalm work, so what do we do with the “I will destroy” verses?
The next option other than ignoring them is to de-personalise them, as I have done here, so that our anger is directed at wrong patterns rather than wrong people – hate the sin not the sinner – which is fine as far as it goes but I suspect not entirely keeping faith with the Psalm.
We can collude with the desire to destroy, easy to cast out the wicked when that’s Someone Else, but verse 5 slams it home in one of the worst verses in scripture: “One who secretly slanders a neighbor I will destroy.” Yikes. Gulp. Guilty! I find myself standing beside the woman caught in adultery with a strange man staring at the ground saying “Whoever is without sin may cast the first stone.”
I don’t have the answer, I’m just sharing my dilemmas with you. The shame is that because of the violence the church tends to ignore this Psalm, but it is a wonderful Psalm which should be used in times of dedication, induction and new beginnings. …