vv1-5
David opens Psalm 58 by calling out his enemies. He challenges them (they’re judges) and their ability to rule over others, because when they claim to be assembling to rule for the “good” of others they’re actually plotting wicked ways of wronging others. Their corruption isn’t an intellectual exercise, they follow through from their hearts to their hands. And for this they are David’s enemies.
Theologians might render this situation so: David hath a set of nuggets. In calling out the ruling powers-that-be who are doing violence to David (others?) in a uniquely institutional way David’s own integrity is called into play. And who are you, David, to ask who we are? But David feels strongly about what is transpiring to ask question anyway. It’s worth risking appearing foolish or suffering scrutiny to call it as he sees it.
David’s enemies aren’t accidentally like this: they haven’t slipped into their position like good suburban kids turned mob-rioter-looter as we’ve seen recently in Vancouver. David’s enemies were like this from birth—speaking lies, poisoning like a snake and willfully so. David continues the snake metaphor to say that his enemies are like “deaf adders” who deliberately ignore the voice of charmers or the cunning enchanter.
vv6-9
Having called out his enemies David gets imprecatory. They’re like wild animals, like lions, who need their teeth and jaws broken. They need to be swiftly and cleanly wiped away—they need to be like broken arrows in a bow… useless. He wants God to make them like the slime that snails become, or like a stillborn child. David wants God to sweep away his enemies like you would a fire, even before it’s warmed the cooking pot.
I think David is soliciting God’s vengeance because one of the reasons for his wrath is to repel oppression and to vindicate injured innocence. Maybe we should pray similarly: that the schemes of the wicked would be aborted, that even when the bow is drawn their arrows would be useless. And when they’re thrashing like wild animals God’s justice would cripple them.
vv10-11
David wraps this Psalm with the righteous rejoicing in God’s vengeance. I’m not sure this is the kind of rejoicing we see in the streets when a despot is overthrown or killed. It seems more measured and sober. The righteous would want their enemies to become God’s friends, but when willful obstinacy finally brings a patient God to retribution his vengeance is righteous too.
The final verse presents an interesting idea. There are folks whose faith is shaken by the hard to understand stuff of the the Christian life—the suffering, the now-but-not-yet-ness of it all, and the stuff that seems to fly in the face of what’s culturally hip. But the presence of God’s judgement provides some absoluteness, some justice, some consequence, some confidence. I’m not much of a nature guy – but I experience God through nature more in a storm than a beautiful meadow. Maybe it’s sort of a similar idea here.
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What about you?
1. What kinds of institutional violence do you see? What wrongs are done in the form of law?
2. How does your faith compel you to challenge the powers-that-be?
3. What does the presence of God’s judgement for the willfully and obstinately wicked mean to you?
4. Where is Jesus at in all of this?