A God of Vengeance?
Book Review (Erich Zenger)
I picked up this relatively slender volume (104 pages in total) after reading Wenham’s book, because I wanted to investigate how it dealt with the problem of the imprecatory psalms - how do we understand them, and importantly what do we do with them today? Zenger’s approach is firstly that we must wrestle with them appropriately! He first situates the problem: that although these particular psalms in which we find difficult expressions calling for divine vengeance are beautiful and powerful, their key sentiments have been judged by many as sub-Christian or pre-Christian, and so in the most extreme example they present a “destructive and ethically perverse image of God”. They are situated, though, within a book (the Psalter as a whole) which inhabits a whole world that is characterised by violence, and this too we need to wrestle with.
Much of the book is taken up with a close reading of seven representative psalms. Zenger is always concerned to let the psalm speak for itself, to work through the fine details, and to not jump to easy conclusions. But there are many insights here. For example, you might often hear preachers talk like this, “Love is not a noun, it’s a verb. It’s more about what we do than what we feel.” Now, that is linguistic nonsense, but it’s not a bad teaching point. Zenger pulls a similar move when he points out that the verbs for “hate” in the Old Testament aren’t about emotional attitudes so much as concrete action. The hatred of the wicked is then about concrete resistance to violent people.
In chapter three Zenger tries to depict a “theological horizon” for these psalms which centres them rather than us. He makes a number of moves that I think are helpful overall. Firstly, he draws upon Ratzinger to express the gap between an ancient desire for the Lord’s coming, maranatha, and its bringing of justice, and a more medieval dread of individual reckoning, a.k.a. Dies Irae.
We have suppressed in our Christian consciousness the idea that judgment is for the sake of justice, especially for those who are the victims of injustice, and that the purpose of this judgment is to restore everything "as it should be" - and even to confront the wicked with their injustice in such a way that they honor justice through their repentance. p.64
I think it’s true to say that there is individual judgment envisioned in the Scriptures - an accounting for the deeds done in the body, including commendation and censure; alongside this is the clear teaching that salvation is not based on deeds, but on having your name in the book of life. However, I also would say that the vision of judgment that the Scriptures overall argue for is more about justice as setting the world right than it is about giving each person their come-uppance. That hope, genuine hope, is that God will decisively intervene at the end of history, because he is the Lord of history, in righting all wrongs and undoing all evils, and restoring the heavens and earth to all they should be.
Some other good ‘beats’ that Zenger hits include the psalms inhabiting a world of conflict between chaos and cosmos, and their commitment to God’s restoring of cosmos (order) despite the apparent chaos of present circumstances. Also that in praying for God to execute ‘vengeance’, we are invoking God as a legitimate authority to intervene, rather than pursuing revenge at our own hands, and we call upon God not to be a disinterested spectator to the world’s events.
As for reclaiming and using psalms of enmity, Zenger’s move towards that places them in a slightly broader context of psalms of lament, and the need to reclaim lament as a pattern of prayer. I think that is true, and I will have some more to say on that shortly. Zenger also recommends that these psalms of enmity be canonically situated in usage, as well as choosing translations that are carefully chosen.
In this light, for instance, we should understand that the desire of the psalms is less about hoping “for the end of the enemies of God, but rather for an end to enmity toward God”. I think that is the right Christian move - we hope not for enemies to end but for them to end as enemies - transformed into friends by the confronting justice and mercy of God.
The book closes with me having a few questions yet about how exactly to approach the imprecatory psalms and use them, but I think it’s good to still have those questions!