Imprecatory Psalms

To imprecate means (according to dictionary.com) to invoke or call down evil or curses upon a person.  Synonyms include to curse and to accurse; and the antonym is to bless.

Imprecatory Psalms, then, mean to ask God to curse someone; to ask for God's judgment to fall on someone.  For example, in Ps 5.10 David asks God to, "Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you." (ESV)  Psalm 109 is an imprecatory psalm.  Notice:  vs 6-7 (ESV), "Appoint a wicked man against him; let an accuser stand at his right hand.  When he is tried, let him come forth guilty; let his prayer be counted as sin!"  Vs 17-20 (ESV), "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!"

How does the New Testament believer, an agent of God's grace and reconciliation to sinners, as for example shown in 2 Cor. 5.16-21, relate to such imprecatory requests?  Also, lest one think this is restricted to Old Testament thinking, note that in the future, in the Great Tribulation, saints will celebrate the destruction of Babylon including the many people therein (Rev 18.20).

Spurgeon, in his commentary on Ps 5.10, noted that if the imprecation is to honor and further God's righteousness and holiness, including a demonstration in God's perfect timing of His abhorrence of sin, then the attitude is righteous.  Conversely, if the motivation is the self-gratification of seeking suffering for someone who has caused you to suffer, either directly or vicariously as you identify with the suffering they have wrought on others, then the attitude is sinful.

Note the sentiment expressed in this 16th century quotation by Thomas Fuller, "Lord, when in my daily service I read David's Psalms, give me to alter the accent of my soul according to their several subjects. In such Psalms wherein he confesseth his sins, or requesteth thy pardon, or praiseth for former, or prayeth for future favours, in all these give me to raise my soul to as high a pitch as may be. But when I come to such Psalms wherein he curseth his enemies, O there let me bring my soul down to a lower note. For those words were made only to fit David's mouth. I have the like breath, but not the same spirit to pronounce them. Nor let me flatter myself, that it is lawful for me, with David, to curse thine enemies, lest my deceitful heart entitle mine enemies to be thine, and so what was religion in David, prove malice in me, whilst I act revenge under the pretense of piety."