Chapter 5
David.
1st Stanza, Lord, hear my prayer.
2025 - This verse:
4 For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. [Psa 5:4 ESV]. Coming so soon after Job and after the whole "from where do the bad things that happen come" exploration, this line clearly says that wickedness and evil do not come from Him. These two refer to how people behave. I don't think this is about disease/pestilence/injury. This is about rape, murder, war crimes, tyranny on the larger end of the scale. These are all things man does to each other, rooted in the corruption of what was once pure perfect and sinless. Sin, perpetrated by the free will of man, is what this is.
2025 - This would be an easy argument for an Arminian. They would have a much better foundation to say that, since man has sufficient free will to choose either heaven or hell, he must also have the capacity to do good or to do evil. If man has the Arminian version of free will then all evil happens outside the "control" of God. He knows what will be chosen, but his knowledge is not deterministic.
2025 - For Calvinism, another explanation is required. In Calvinism all things that ever happen are determined ultimately by the will of God and are attributable to him. And as in those last chapters of Job, we have no standing on which we can question why God does these things or whether they are just. They are definitionally "righteous" if God is the one who determines them. We are not even bright enough to phrase the question correctly before Creator God.
2nd, Description of those God dislikes.
3rd, Petition for direction.
4th, Petition for his enemies to fall. (This is not about loving your enemy. This prayer is that the enemies lose, and get what is coming to them for their actions. Further, David judges them himself in calling them liars, their motivations destructive, and flatterers. He sees them, knows them for what they are, and prays that God destroy them. But...he does not grab a sword and Joab and head out to kill them himself. Still, David does not pray for his enemies to turn from their wicked ways.) David prays this prayer:
10 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. [Psa 5:10 ESV] NDP
Is it only ok to pray this if you are in charge? Or can I pray this about the violent who defy the law, about those who would undermine anyone and everyone for their own greed for money and power? Who can pray t his prayer? MSB note implies that David prayed this in parallel with God's revealed standard, which these were violating. So as long as we are praying that way, I think we can all pray for the destruction of God's enemies.
2025 - In a safe neighborhood in a safe town in a country of laws there isn't much need at all for prayers like this. Very few of us truly have any enemies. We don't even have people who want our yards to be invaded by grass burrs much less who would like to see us dead and would be willing to cause that themselves. We just don't have enemies like this, and so these prayers are quite difficult for us to comprehend.
5th, Show favor to the righteous, to those with the right heart, and judge them.
2024 - I find this a comforting prayer to pray when the bad guys seem to be winning, when I am overwhelmed with a feeling of helplessness in the face of obvious error. That vs 10 above...that ought to be memorized and prayed after every news story we see!