Psalm 109:6-20

6Set a wicked man over him,
And let an accuser stand at his right hand.
7When he is judged, let him be found guilty,
And let his prayer become sin.
8Let his days be few,
And let another take his office.
9Let his children be fatherless,
And his wife a widow.
10Let his children continually be vagabonds, and beg;
Let them seek their bread also from their desolate places.
11Let the creditor seize all that he has,
And let strangers plunder his labor.
12Let there be none to extend mercy to him,
Nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children.
13Let his posterity be cut off,
And in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
14Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord,
And let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15Let them be continually before the Lord,
That He may cut off the memory of them from the earth;
16Because he did not remember to show mercy,
But persecuted the poor and needy man,
That he might even slay the broken in heart.
17As he loved cursing, so let it come to him;
As he did not delight in blessing, so let it be far from him.
18As he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment,
So let it enter his body like water,
And like oil into his bones.
19Let it be to him like the garment which covers him,
And for a belt with which he girds himself continually.
20Let this be the Lord’s reward to my accusers,
And to those who speak evil against my person.
-Psalm 109:6-20

Generally speaking, this is a very hard Psalm to reconcile with. As we have grown in the Lord we desire to see redemption, yet there seems to be none within this passage. There is not even the possibility of redemption being mentioned. There are a couple of things that stand out to me in this that I would like to point out.

The first is that David still leaves this up to the Lord. Even being in a capable place of power where he could have done some severe things to his enemies, he still went to the Lord in prayer and let Him handle it. Though the contents of this prayer are severe indeed, it is ultimately the Lord who would decide what to do with these who walk in wickedness.

The second thing I would like to identify is the fact that this is the result of wickedness. We may view something like this as being terribly severe, yet fail to recognize the severity that sin holds in itself. Outside of Christ, our sin warrants this kind of severity. The love of wickedness justifies the reward of wickedness. Perhaps it is not a matter of this psalm being severe, but my own perspective of wickedness being too light. Let mortify the deeds of the flesh and draw near to righteousness. Let the things of this world grow dim. Do not associate yourself with wickedness.