Derek Flood asks questions some are afraid to even open re: psalms of lament and violent imprecation:
...A frequent response is to stress that this is the cry of a person in
pain, expressing their raw human grief and anger. Indeed, there is
clearly some truth in this. For example Psalm 137 quoted above begins
with words of grief, "By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept." Just as
the Psalms frequently express doubt, they likewise express uncensored
anger that can be understood as a very natural human response. We might
even say that, like
Job,
the Psalms express a healthy spirituality in the sense that they
demonstrate that it is okay for us to express our real feelings of
doubt, grief, anger and pain.
As true as all of this is, it is not the whole story. It is one thing to
honestly express human emotions. It is another to uphold these as
"blessed" and thus to imply that such declarations of hate and death
have God's sanction. Yet this is exactly what Psalm 137 declares. While
Jesus says "blessed are the peacemakers" Psalm 137 says in contrast
"blessed are those who smash in the heads of toddlers." Rather obviously
we have here two diametrically opposed understandings of what God
blesses...
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