“Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in thee. Let me not be ashamed. Let not my enemies triumph over me” (Psalm 25:2).
Well might I have begun this text by singing the above hymn cum Scripture; but it is unfortunate that we cannot yet melodize on paper. I had the privilege of attending a Presbyterian elementary school where my teachers did not take their task of teaching us hymns lightly. When necessary, not even the rod was spared. I am grateful for that. Every now and then, some hymn I was taught from ancient times pleasantly ambushes me and invigorates my soul in unexpected ways. So it was, on a recent morning, that the soothing Psalm 25:2 hymn flooded my soul after prayer.
The Psalms are a true beauty. Their nadirs and zeniths reflect the reality of our experiences. Some days, when God seems near and life treats us kindly, we feel like we could sing aloud with David in Psalm 136, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.” We have such reassurance in our hearts that we can boldly aver that “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8). But there are times that life’s storms rage fiercest, when even God appears to have taken shelter. Many increase that trouble us (Ps. 3:10); the waters come up to our necks, we sink deeper in the miry clay of gloom with no foothold (Ps. 69: 1,2). In such moments, we turn to our souls in silent agonizing query: “Why are you cast down?” (Ps. 42:11). There is without doubt a Psalm for every moment of our lives.
This Psalm 25:2 hymn did me much good that morning. I sang it slowly and prayerfully, relishing it line by line. I felt I could relate with whatever it was the Psalmist was going through when he penned down these words. The profoundness of the simple lines, speaking as they did to my experience, felt therapeutic. And then suddenly a slight feeling of discomfort. Why? The last line: “...let not my enemies triumph over me.” It felt like an interference, an intrusion. Here I was enjoying precious time with my God. Here I was expressing my trust in Him, emphasizing how He was my only plan and that I had no Plan B. “O my God”, my soul cried emphatically, “I trust in thee. Let me not be ashamed.” For me, this was enough. What was I concerned about my enemies?
"If we were to award a Biblical saint for their obsession with their enemies, David would have no worthy competitor."
My mind decided to take a saunter through the Psalms and it struck me just how preoccupied David was with his enemies. There are about 100 references to either “enemy”, “enemies” or “foe” in the Psalms! As I skimmed through these references, it felt bizarre that David’s assurance that God was pleased with him came from the fact that his enemies did not triumph over him (Ps. 41:11). David was not satisfied in triumphing; he wanted to triumph over his enemies. If we were to award a Biblical saint for their obsession with their enemies, David would have no worthy competitor. He is sui generis. And what terrifying prayers David prayed against his enemies! Woe to you if you had had the misfortune of being David’s enemy. He would have had God strike your jaw (Ps. 3:7) and break your teeth (Ps. 58:10), he would have had you disgraced (Ps. 6:10) and destroyed (Ps. 143:12). If you were lucky, he would pray that death take you by surprise so that like Korah and his entourage, you go down alive to the grave (Ps. 55:15). On a bad day, he would ask God not to kill you too soon, but keep you alive to stagger painfully under God’s power (Ps. 59:11). Why did David appear to take such delight in the psychological thrill of being more successful than his enemies (Ps. 118:7), of not only being delivered, but witnessing their concurrent destruction? Was it schadenfreude? If you read Psalm 109 as a standalone text, you might probably not think it written by a believer. That Psalm is, as C.S. Lewis reasons, “as unabashed a hymn of hate as was ever written. The poet has a detailed programme for his enemy which he hopes God will carry out.”1
There are those who describe David as paranoid. But let’s be fair: David was not being irrational. He had suffered severe persecution especially at the hand of Saul. Imagine being pursued by the king! David was forced to be a nomad many times in his life, driven from his share of the Lord’s inheritance (1 Sam. 26:19). He was like a solitary bird (Ps. 102:6), seldom stable, frequently on the move. Saul almost pinned David to the wall (1 Sam. 19:9,10). One night when David should have been sleeping, he had to climb out of a window to escape from Saul (1 Sam. 19:11-15). And when Israel was celebrating the new moon festival, David was hiding by stone piles (1 Sam. 20:19). Before Achish, David—the slayer of tens of thousands—had to feign insanity (1 Sam. 21:13). See David in your mind’s eye, his heavy heart bared out, his eyes watery, as he clings wearily to Jonathan his friend, “I swear to you that I am only a step away from death! I swear it by the Lord and by your own soul!” (1 Sam. 20:3, NLT). We know also what David’s own son Absalom did to him. Now, if we were to put Christ temporarily aside, I think David would be most deserving of the title, “Man of Sorrows.” David’s imprecatory prayers against his enemies were, thus, influenced by his peculiar realities. The man had suffered much at the hands of his enemies.
"Despite the great persecution that David had suffered at the hands of his enemies, David was also a man that had been shown great mercy by God."
But did that justify such an obsession? And such vindictiveness? I don’t believe so. Despite the great persecution that David had suffered at the hands of his enemies, David was also a man that had been shown great mercy by God. For instance, humanly speaking, David retained the kingdom even after doing worse than what Saul did to cost him the kingdom. Saul’s sin was unlawfully sacrificing the burnt offering—a move he made because “all the troops with him were quaking with fear” and slipping away (1 Sam. 13:7) after waiting and waiting for the old prophet Samuel who was delaying without explanation. David, on the other hand, not only slept with Bathsheba but killed her husband using the worst of strategies. I imagine the Hittite wrestling gallantly with honour at the fiercest battleline. From the corner of his eye, he catches his comrades retreating—out of fear, he might have thought. But like Eleazer (2 Sam. 23:10), he stands his ground. Semper fidelis! Says he to himself, “I will linger. I will press on. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.” Uriah did not know that he had been dealt with most treacherously—by none else but his own commander-in-chief! It is true that the consequences of David’s sin would haunt him for a long time. But he did not lose the kingdom. What’s more, it was through his union with Bathsheba that God chose an heir for David’s throne. When one considers this and how David’s life was spared even in the matter of the census (2 Samuel 24), it is no exaggeration to say that Saul could only have dreamed of the kind of mercy David experienced.
And yet, David was not often a person who extended this mercy to others. We know how he treated the Amalekite who claimed to have killed Saul (2 Samuel 1:15, 16). Although David gives the impression that it is an act of justice/ zealous act of disinterested defense of the Lord’s anointed, Saul, Biblical scholars have suggested that this could have been more a tactical political move. In other words, because David himself was also anointed by the Lord, he might have been trying to fortify his position by dissuading others from attempting to do to him as the Amalekite claimed to have done to Saul. Besides, “it [appears] politically advantageous to denounce and punish Saul’s killer.2” If David was so interested in justice, why did he break down in grief when his son Absalom was killed (2 Sam. 18:33)?
After all, had not Absalom stood against the Lord’s anointed? Why did David kill Rekab and Baanah, who slew Ishbosheth (2 Sam. 4: 1-12), but not kill Joab when Joab killed Abner (2 Sam. 3:26-39)? I agree with Reis that David’s sense of justice was usually a façade for his political tactics. Whether or not he decided to kill an antagonist was based on whether it reinforced/ weakened his political position.
Come on, David, did you not tell Shimei that all was forgiven (2 Sam. 19:23)? Did you not even rebuke the sons of Zeruiah when they said that Shimei must be put to death (2 Sam. 19:21)? Then what do I see you doing on your deathbed, King David? Why do you conspire with your son to “bring his gray hair down to the grave in blood?” (1 Kings 2:9). In this, O King, the sons of Zeruiah were more righteous than you for they made their intentions explicit. But you, David, are a master tactician! You approached the matter slyly, and falsely earned the admiration of the public as a pacifist. Of you they will say, “Blessed are the peacemakers” when, in fact, the blood of Shimei is on your hands.
"Let us admit that though David was a man after God’s own heart, he was a man of many foibles."
Now, as unpleasant as the task may be, please, let us not shy away from killing our darlings, as some are wont to do. Let us admit that though David was a man after God’s own heart, he was a man of many foibles. There is no need to cover up for David. Surely, the Bible does not do that. Rather, let us learn as much from David and how he responded to those he considered his enemies.
First, as I have argued elsewhere, our enemies are not always God’s enemies. Many a Christian today tends to feel that God is obligated to respond to their enemies as they do. But if human beings can decide for themselves who to befriend and who to hate, should God not be able to do same? Saul considered David his enemy and wanted Jonathan to do likewise (1 Sam. 20:30-32). But for Jonathan, David was a dear friend. To Saul’s chagrin, Jonathan even made a covenant with David and loved David as himself (1 Sam. 18:1-4). David had this to his credit: sometimes, he was sure to distinguish between those who were God’s enemies and those who were his personal enemies (although there were a few times when he conflated them, such as in Ps. 35:1 and Ps. 7:6). For example, when he says in Psalm 110:1 that “The Lord said to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make all your enemies your footstool’”; and in Psalm 21:8 that “Your hand will lay hold on all your enemies”, he is definitely referring not to his own enemies, but to the enemies of God.
"In his response to his enemies, David is to be opposed rather than imitated."
In his response to his enemies, David is to be opposed rather than imitated. The similitude between David and Christ is interesting. In fact, Bible scholars tell us that David was a type of Christ. My favourite parallel is with regards to how both of them, though chosen by God, were written off because of their appearance. Samuel passed David over, thinking to anoint Eliab as king (1 Sam. 16:6). Similarly, the prophet Isaiah says of the Christ, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). But when put side by side with Jesus’ response to his enemies, the shortcomings of David’s response are glaringly evident. The point has been made about David’s numerous enemies. But did he have more enemies than the Christ? From within was Judas, in whom Christ invested his life, but who would betray him. (And to think that Jesus knew this beforehand!) Without, there was the devil himself, along with his cohort of demons. There were the Pharisees, Sadducees, teachers of the law, chief priests, and the ordinary people. For Jesus, it looked as though from the very moment he stepped into the earth till he departed, the universe had conspired against him. How did Herod receive the news of Jesus’ birth? And when Jesus was arrested and Pilate sought to release him, what did the crowds say? What is more interesting in the case of Jesus is that unlike David (Ps. 51:5), Christ never sinned (1 John 3:5). As such, the hatred against him was totally unsubstantiated. Christ, more than David, is fitting of the description, “Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head. Many are my enemies without cause” (Ps. 69: 4). And yet Jesus consistently chose—and taught us—to forgive our enemies. Look to David. But keep your eyes fixed on Christ!
Second point: a friend recently explained to me how sometimes our sense of justice is simply disguised revenge. Perhaps, this does not come out so clearly in the life of David because David’s justice was usually disguised politics. Jeremiah (12:1-4), David (Psalm 73), Jonah (4:1-3) and Job (21) all questioned God’s concept of justice. Job wanted God to repay the wicked (and our enemies) immediately, to make them drink His full wrath, to the very dregs! But if we believe that God is all just, why do we feel that we need to dictate how he delivers his justice?
"Is it possible that our relationship with God is stifled by a preoccupation with our enemies?"
Is it possible that our relationship with God is stifled by a preoccupation with our enemies? While admitting that the Christian will be beleaguered with enemies (both spiritual and physical), I wonder if we do not give our enemies more prominent a position in our lives than they deserve. Would some churches not be better named “House of Enemies and Revenge” rather than “House of God”? There are circles in which every portion of Scripture is interpreted in a way that involves getting the better of our enemies. If we worship, it is so that God will annihilate our enemies. The motivation for being filled with the Holy Spirit is to overcome our enemies. We want to excel in our workplaces and schools so that our enemies can see that God is for us. If we fail at something, it is because our enemies are working against us. Pastors encourage us to pray in order to destroy the plans of our enemies. When we pray for people, destroying the plans of their enemies concerning their lives is soon to feature.
Are we, perhaps, too enemy-conscious? Do we bear needless pains? What does it mean to imagine a relationship with God that is independent of our enemies?
1 C.S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, (2014) Grand Rapids: Eerdmans
2 Pamela Tamarkin Reis, “Killing the Messenger: David’s Policy or Politics?” (2006) 31:2 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 167–191