Linguistic Note: Schadenfreude: enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others

Cultural Note: We were going to hold off on posting this until a later date. But in light of the weekend's events, today seems appropriate [Edit: And 2018 events bring this post back to mind].

We have four different cards from this Psalm because, as we discuss below, it's a winner:

A foot broken off in your deceitful mouth (Psalm 58:6)

Dissolving your enemy into snail slime (Psalm 58:8a)

Wishing your enemy was an aborted fetus (Psalm 58:8b)

Foot baths of blood (Psalm 58:10)

For some strange reason (said, dripping with sarcasm), Psalm 58 does not find its way into the Revised Common Lectionary. Like many of the passages in our game, this is one good Christian churches tend to avoid. As this is a shame, we're going to dive into this passage, its violence, and its curious connection to other psalms in the Bible.

Psalm 58(NRSV)

To the leader: Do Not Destroy. Of David. A Miktam.

1 Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods*? [*mighty rulers]
Do you judge people fairly?
2 No, in your hearts you devise wrongs;
your hands deal out violence on earth.

3 The wicked go astray from the womb;
    they err from their birth, speaking lies.
4 They have venom like the venom of a serpent,
    like the deaf adder that stops its ear,
5 so that it does not hear the voice of charmers
    or of the cunning enchanter.

6 O God, break the teeth in their mouths;
    tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord!
7 Let them vanish like water that runs away;
    like grass let them be trodden down and wither.
8 Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime;
    like the untimely birth that never sees the sun.
9 Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns,
    whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!

10 The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done;
they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 People will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
surely there is a God who judges on earth.”

TL:DR - this psalm takes issue with rulers who abuse their power.

The psalmist is calling out these unjust rulers not only for refusing to dispense justice in the land, but also for doing the exact opposite: they do not protect those under their care from evil people, they do not punish the evil people, and they are off perpetuating evil and violence in the world themselves, especially if it personally benefits them (sound familiar?). The psalmist feels it’s as if these people came out of the womb corrupt. And since earthly justice is not being achieved, the psalmist calls for divine justice to rain down.

This is a pretty standard request in the Hebrew Bible, and it's pretty simple to understand:

This is a call for rulers to suck less
This is a call for people to suck less
This is a call for God to act

And the answer to the question, "how should we act?" is also pretty simple:

If you’re a ruler leader, suck less
If you have access to a rulers' ear, email, mailbox, sight-line, tell them to suck less
If you, personally, suck, stop sucking

But how should we call on God to act? How do we pray for the evil doers in the world, those causing all of the aforementioned suckage? Do we pray for their destruction or redemption?

Here is the rub: this passage presents the former as a viable biblical option.

On Praying for Vengeance

This psalm says that there are completely rational times, holy times, when you should call upon the divine warrior to show up, kick butt, take names, and remove scalps.

That we should want God to apply a holy boot to someone's jaw, breaking as many teeth as possible.

That God can and should make your enemies vanish like water evaporating from a boiling pot.

That the almighty should stomp up and down on their necks like grass and leaf clippings in lawn bags at the end of autumn. Or better yet, His fire should burn them like thorns, weeds, and all brush deemed useless.

The Lord should dissolve their lives like a snail with salt applied to its back, or a baby untimely ripped from the precious womb.

But He should leave just enough of a corpse behind so you can wash your feet in their blood, like a relaxing spa day, mimosa in hand, because your legacy is secure and all is right in the world.

Stark? Uncomfortable? Sure. But it's in the Bible. And this is not a one off: we’ve seen this before [See our previous Card Talks on Psalm 88 & Psalm 137]. As mentioned in those posts, this sentiment fits into what Walter Brueggemann refers to as "psalms of disorientation." Life has become real difficult and we want God to act in the here and now. We are looking for help, and sometimes that help is revenge. Holy justice. To that end, the heading for this psalm in some Bibles read, “Prayer of Vengeance” or "Prayer for Vengeance." God should call down wrath upon those who would attach God's people, and the righteous will rejoice in the aftermath. This is schadenfreude in all its biblical glory.

But Psalm 58 is special because it goes the extra mile, formally: the music itself contains an added twist of the knife in the enemy's back.

Hearing the Music

This psalm, like many, begin with liner notes. In this case:

To the leader: Do Not Destroy. Of David. A Miktam.

That "Do not destroy" (al-tashheth אַל־תַּשְׁחֵת) is a musical cue. It is calling the tune. Literally. Psalms 57, 58, 59, and 75 are all begin with this phrase, and all are sung to the same tune bearing this name. Explaining the name of the tune has been a source of debate over the centuries.

Medieval rabbinic commentary writer RaDaK (David Kimchi) connects this phrase to specific scenes from the like of shepherd boy turned king, David.

The liner notes to Psalm 57 (one of the other "Do Not Destroy" psalms) reads

To the leader: Do Not Destroy. Of David. A Miktam, when he fled from Saul, in the cave.

Traditionally, this psalm has been viewed as being composed by David after the events in 1 Samuel 24. To summarize, David was being hunted by King Saul. One night David and his loyal men were sleeping in the back of a cave, when Saul and his men entered the same cave and settled down to sleep, unaware of David's presence. David's men want to kill Saul, but David (in one of the few times he doesn't advocate murder) tells his men to do no violence to Saul. From this passage, RaDaK (and others) have put forth the idea that the "Do Not Destroy" is an homage to David protecting Saul.

However, there are serious difficulties with this interpretation for each of the four psalms.

While the idea works conceptually for Psalm 47, the Hebrew used in Psalm 47 and 1 Sam 24 around prohibiting violence are not the same. (An similar story is repeated in 1 Samuel 26, but the Hebrew there is also not the same).

This theory does not hold up for Psalm 58 at all, as this passage not have a direct correlation to any moment in David's life. Furthermore, it is biblically impossible to place these words in David's mouth about Saul without completely contradicting the totality of the relationship between the two men described in the Hebrew Bible.

Psalm 59 -- whose liner notes include "A Miktam, when Saul ordered his house to be watched in order to kill him"-- is purportedly about when Saul was trying to kill David, not the other way around.

Finally, Psalm 75 has nothing to do with David or his history at all. This psalm is not even attributed to David: it was written by Aspah and his family of musicians.

So if this is not about David, why the tune-title "Do Not Destroy"? Because they are, usually, calling on God for protection from harm. The answer is in the psalms themselves.

Read through Psalms 57, 59, and 75. They are all psalms about God’s provision and rescue from trouble. The psalmists are besieged by the evil of an enemy, but they never call for God’s destructive power, instead they call for God's protection so that the speaker is not destroyed. Psalm 59 even goes so far as asking God NOT to kill the enemy who is oppressing the speaker (Psalm 59:11).

Only in Psalm 58 is there the ironic call to destroy.

Psalm 58 changes the context of the words, but keep the tune. The remix is essentially, “No God, do destroy!” It's the Hebrew equivalent of leading someone to the electric chair, singing an execution song written to the tune of happy birthday.

But Praying for Vengence? Really?

Some may argue (and maybe correctly) that Jesus while understanding, would be against invoking these psalms; that Jesus calls for only praying for one's enemies, and doing good to those who mistreat you, turning the other cheek, giving coats, cloaks, and whatever else an oppressor asks is the godly response, doing whatever you can to go the extra mile for our enemies. They say the time for God to call forth a divine messenger of death is in the past.

But there are other biblical perspectives.

In Journey through the Psalms Denise Dombkowski Hopkins writes

"The violence of the enemy language in laments also emerges out of the this-worldly focus of the Hebrew Bible. Because there was no life after death aside from Sheol until later in Second Temple Judaism (second century B.C.E. on, with the rise of apocalyptic literature, such as the book of Daniel) injustices had to be put right here and now in this life ... Enemy language takes God's justice and integrity seriously; it begs God to have the last word" (p 90).

Erich Zenger's A God of Vengeance?: Understanding the Psalms of Divine Wrath
states that “ultimately, this is the question of theodicy; where the righteous find no justice, God has forfeited existence” (p 37).

Both of these quotes leads us to the pain held within vs 10-11:

The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done;
they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.
People will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
surely there is a God who judges on earth.”

Put simply: The oppressed want justice. The bible sees that and upholds it.

Sometimes the people of God want, need, to see the divine warrior break His foot off in the enemy's ass, since the enemy's boot has been so long on our necks.

Perhaps this isn't pretty. But it is human.

Perhaps we should be more in-tune to the pain of others and our own pain, acknowledging that it is felt. Not just pushing it away as ungodly or evil because it is felt.

Perhaps we should not be so quick to defend the oppressor or make excuses for them.

Perhaps we should not be so quick to tell others to get over their pain and move on.

Perhaps we should encourage them to seek their audience with God.

Perhaps it is not too much to petition God to be a God of mercy, but also a God of justice.

Perhaps this is dangerous. Only one way to find out.

But what do we know: we made this game and you probably think we're going to Hell.