the cry of an individual sufferer invoking God's curse upon his private
enemies. The sufferer, who is the psalmist, or with whom at least the
psalmist identifies himself, represents afflicted righteousness. It is
God's people, His 'servant' and 'son' according to the language of the
Old Testament, that is under persecution from the enemies of God. And
he calls upon God to vindicate Himself by punishing the adversary; to
let it be seen that His word and promise is truth. 'How long, O God,
holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge?' Even from this point
of view, however, when with the assistance {66} of the modern critics
we have in the main purged away the element of private vindictiveness,
these psalms no doubt remain with the stamp of narrowness and
bitterness upon them. They have none of the larger New Testament sense
that the worst enemies of the Church may be converted and live: that
our attitude towards all men is to wish them good, purely good and not
evil, even though it be under the form of judgement: 'Rejoice when men
revile you and persecute you'; 'Bless them that curse you, do good to
them that hate you, pray for them which despitefully use you'; 'That by
your good works which they shall behold, they may glorify God in the
day of visitation.'

But granted the limitation and bitterness still remaining in these
psalms, their citation in the New Testament shows us what is for us the
right use of them. They are by implication taken up--where we should
least expect them--into the mouth of the Son of Man[6]. That is to
say, it is His enemies on whom the judgements are imprecated. There is
a wrath of the Lamb. There is a divine sword of judgement which
proceeds out of His mouth. He, the administrator of the righteousness
of God, {67} expects from His Father judgement on His enemies. It is
not necessarily, as St. Paul here indicates, final judgement: the
judgement upon the Jews was not yet that; but judgement of some
sort--temporal or final--upon His wilful adversaries, the Son expects
of the Father. And we men, as we repeat these psalms, are, like the
first Christians in face of the suicide of Judas, to identify ourselves
with the divine righteousness and accept the law of just retribution.
This is the deepest and truest sense in which we can still say the
imprecatory psalms; and in these days of a philanthropy that often
lacks the stern savour of righteousness, it is very necessary that we
should