Psalm 109: The Prayer We Are Afraid to Pray
This is one of the psalms that makes polite Christians nervous, and perhaps it should. David has been repaid evil for good, hatred for love, and the curses that pour from him are scalding — let his days be few, let his children beg, let no one show him mercy. We want to look away, or at least to explain it away. But before we do, notice two things. First, David does not take revenge; he prays it. The violence stays in the conversation with God rather than spilling into the street, and there is a world of difference between those two things. Second, notice where the psalm ends — not in fury but in the quiet confession of a man who knows he is "poor and needy," whose heart is "wounded within me," who fades like an evening shadow. The rage, it turns out, is the cry of someone who has been deeply, unjustly hurt and has nowhere to take that hurt except to God. "Let them curse, but bless thou." That single line contains the whole theology of the psalm: the final word belongs not to the one who curses but to the One who blesses.
00:00 A Cry Against Betrayal
00:40 Words of Hatred Without Cause
01:00 The Terrible Curses
02:00 Cursing as a Garment
02:30 Poor and Needy
03:00 Let Them Curse, but Bless Thou