Psalm 83 is another one of those psalms that make us squirm. How can you pray for God to curse your enemies? Here, it will be useful to remind ourselves of the larger biblical story.

Most importantly, remember that God chose Abraham to bless every nation of the earth. Within God’s promise to Abraham was a promise that he would bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him. From the beginnings of God’s plans, he has determined to bring curses on those who oppose his people.

The list of enemies in psalm 83 is a who’s who of those who had plotted against Israel in their history. Opponents from Israel’s journey to the promised land are mentioned as well as the latter day super power Assyria. Also, if you were to look up each of these nations on a map, you would see they they literally encircle the territory of Judah. These nations plotted against Israel and cursed them, so the psalmist very biblically prays that God would curse them.

Notice too, that this psalm expands on Psalm 2. In that psalm the nations plot against God’s chosen king and God has a good laugh about that in heaven. He knows what is going to eventually happen to those plots. In this psalm, the plotting extends to the whole people of the king. So, again, the psalmist is praying in a biblical way; he is asking that God would do something about all the nations that hate God’s people.

I would suggest that we don’t like this psalm because we are influenced by a culture that is apathetic to sin and injustice. But if we attune ourselves to the culture of the Scriptures our indignation will grow. We will become indignant as Paul was in Athens at the idols of our society.

But how does all this work in the New Testament era? We are to love our enemies are we not? Yes we are but remember: love is action taken for the benefit of the beloved. We love our enemies by turning the other cheek and simultaneously praying that God will enact his vengeance upon them. This tough love is directed toward one goal; that they would acknowledge the God they are opposing by opposing God’s people. Our responsibility is to speak the truth in love, pray for our enemies, and look to God to take whatever action he deems necessary to either chastise our enemies into repentance or judge them in a final way. Just as Paul said, we preach Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as servants for Jesus’ sake.