O my soul,

What outcome do you desire for your accusers?

To suffer a character assassination from the shadows is utterly reprehensible. Who are these who whisper lies against you? Of course you do not know because the accusations have not been brought into the light.

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

― John 3:19-20

These accusations are indeed thoroughly wicked.

Wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues. They encircle me with words of hate, and attack me without cause. In return for my love they accuse me.

― Psalm 109:2b-4a

How ironic that in your attempt to bring a message of love you are repelled by wicked and deceitful mouths and lying tongues and words of hate.

O my soul, I do know the harm that they have done to you.

For I am poor and needy, and my heart is stricken within me. I am gone like a shadow at evening; I am shaken off like a locust. My knees are weak through fasting; my body has become gaunt, with no fat. I am an object of scorn to my accusers; when they see me, they wag their heads.

― Psalm 109:22-25

Your accusers have crushed you. So again I have to ask, what outcome do you desire for them? What outcome do you pray for? For I know that you pray, oh how you pray! And I know that you continue to praise, even in the despising and the rejection.

Be not silent, O God of my praise! For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues.

In return for my love they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer.

― Psalm 109:1-2, 4

This is a psalm of David, that man after God’s own heart. And here is something to notice right away. The Hebrew for “but I give myself to prayer” is literally “but I am prayer”.

I am prayer. O my soul, make it so. Clothe yourself in your prayer and wrap it tightly around you. Become that prayer. I am prayer.

Help me, O LORD my God! Save me according to your steadfast love!

― Psalm 109:26

And then what? Know that David was beset by wicked and deceitful mouths speaking against him with lying tongues. So what was his response? What was his heart-cry? What what his prayer for his accuser? Listen and be appalled.

May his days be few; may another take his office! May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow!

― Psalm 109:8-9

His prayer was for divine judgment of death upon his accuser. And not only that but financial disaster upon the remnant of his family.

May his children wander about and beg, seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit! May the creditor seize all that he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil!

― Psalm 109:10-11

And not only that but also for them childlessness and destruction.

May his posterity be cut off; may his name be blotted out in the second generation!

― Psalm 109:13

This diatribe of a prayer continues for fifteen verses. Fifteen verses! What an outpouring of anger and bewilderment and pain and grief and dismay.

There are several such imprecatory psalms in the Bible and some harsher even than this. What are we to make of them? And what are we to take from this? Is this to be a model for our own praying in such times?

By no means!

O my soul, you must understand how to take these prayers of David, how to use them, how to learn from them. For his curses upon his accusers are simply repugnant.

So why are they here?

He loved to curse; let curses come upon him! He did not delight in blessing; may it be far from him! He clothed himself with cursing as his coat; may it soak into his body like water, like oil into his bones! May it be like a garment that he wraps around him, like a belt that he puts on every day! May this be the reward of my accusers from the LORD, of those who speak evil against my life!

― Psalm 109:17-20

David is hurting. The whispered accusations have crushed him. He has been destroyed by wicked and deceitful mouths speaking against him with lying tongues, and it really hurts.

O my soul, it hurts, doesn’t it? And it is so unjust. It is absolutely and thoroughly wicked, and it contradicts all that Jesus taught.

David’s fifteen verses of diatribe show us how much he is hurting as he lashes out in prayer. With some relief we can finally observe him get it all out and move on to something more reasonable, to a curse more proportionate.

May my accusers be clothed with dishonour; may they be wrapped in their own shame as in a cloak!

― Psalm 109:29

Now that he got all that out of his system is this where we should stand together with David? Again no.

What did Jesus say?

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

― Matthew 5:43-45

O my soul, having been the victim of deceitful mouths and lying tongues, of accusations whispered from the shadows from those who do not come into the light, your response must be love and prayer, and to be exceedingly clear, prayer for repentance and rescue and transformation and not for harm. For what is the best possible outcome?

So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.

― Matthew 5:45a

If one day you can stand alongside your accusers as sons of your Father, then you will be brothers with them⸺brothers and sisters in Christ.

To be sure, you cannot love your faceless accusers without knowing who they are. But you can forgive them. You can choose not to resent them. You can pray for them. And you can desire reconciliation.

O my soul, observe the harm and the hurt done to David by his accusers, know that you are not alone in your own hurt, and now put that aside and respond with gentleness and forgiveness! 😭🙏❤️