Psalm 149:6-9 (NLT)
Let the praises of God be in their mouths, and a sharp sword in their hands—to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, to bind their kings with shackles and their leaders with iron chains, to execute the judgment written against them. This is the glorious privilege of his faithful ones. Praise the Lord!
Do you ever get angry about the people or institutions or movements that oppose the things of God? They mock and they belittle! They attack and they demean! They paint Christians in the worst possible terms while they give thunderous approval to each other’s sinful and oftentimes abhorrent lifestyles (Rom. 1:32b). Do you ever want God to “take them out” or “put them in their place” or at the very least, give them “a dose of their own medicine”? We don’t usually voice these desires publicly, but do we harbor them in our hearts? For some, today’s passage literally became a license to kill.
“The history of this song is one of great sadness, due to grave misinterpretation, and grievous misapplication. German theologian Franz Delitzsch has said: ‘By means of this Psalm, Caspar Scioppius, in his Classicum belli sacri,… Inflamed the Roman Catholic princes to the Thirty Years’ Religious War and, within the Protestant Church, Thomas Münzer, by means of this Psalm, stirred up the War of the Peasants.’” (Morgan) The Peasant War led to 100,000 fatalities but the Thirty-Year War became one of the most brutal in human history, resulting in eight million fatalities not only from military engagements but also from violence, famine, and plague. The deadly clashes ravaged Europe; 20 percent of the total population of Germany died during the conflict and there were losses up to 50 percent in a corridor between Pomerania and the Black Forest. Vengeance is the Lord’s…not ours (Deut. 32:35, Rom. 12:19).
So, what are we to do with these verses? Pastor Chuck Swindoll has written an excellent commentary on these difficult verses and so I will paraphrase much of what he said:
It is important for us to interpret this psalm historically, with the believing Jew in mind. In context, the enemies of Israel were enemies of God, so Israel was trained to be a militant, aggressive force against wrong. Once they were given the land of Canaan, they were never permitted by God to conquer other lands, only to defend their own. The land given to Abraham and his Hebrew descendants was considered holy ground, the territory owned by the kingdom of God. Therefore, invaders were subject to God’s judgment.
Consequently, He used Israel to “execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples” who desecrated the kingdom of God. This work of judgment was actually “written” (verse 9) in such passages as Deuteronomy 32:41–43, Joel 3, and Zechariah 14. Practically, however, verses 7–9 exhort the Christian today to stand and fight against Satan and all his hosts of demons.
Our warfare is not in the realm of the seen, but the unseen; not in the tangible realm of guns and bombs, but the spiritual realm of Satan’s deception and sin’s temptation. This is precisely what 2 Corinthians 10:3–5 means when it says that “though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”
So then, let us be just as aggressive and militant against our spiritual foe as Israel was against its national foes. After all, “this is an honor for all His godly ones” (149:9). To think that God would even allow us to be a part of His combat unit is an honor, indeed! May He be praised for equipping us for battle, empowering us for the fight, and encouraging us with the absolute promise of victory.
