There are some portions of Scripture where the meaning is extremely clear. These are passages that we can understand what its author is communicating with relative ease. Acts 4:12—”And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved” (NET)—does not require a great deal of explanation, for example. The same is true of Acts 16:31, Romans 10:9, and many others.
But some passages are a little more challenging. These passages confront us with harsh language or seem to be at odds with other portions of Scripture. Psalm 5, especially verses 4-6, is among those.
The Discomfort We Feel in a Difficult Passage
Psalm 5 offers a glimpse into David’s sorrow in a time of serious turmoil. Whatever the cause, there is a certain kind of moral clarity running throughout its verses. David recognized that what he was experiencing was wrong. It was evil. After confessing his incomprehensible sorrow as he turned to the Lord (Psalm 5:1-3), David turned his attention to those who sought to do him harm:
For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness,
Nor shall evil dwell with You.
The boastful shall not stand in Your sight;
You hate all workers of iniquity.
You shall destroy those who speak falsehood;
The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
You’ve probably read these verses and thought, “This is really harsh.” And if you have, you’d be right. They are harsh, especially in verse 6. “Abhors” has this sense of disgust and revulsion. So, again, if you think this seems harsh, it’s because it is.
This is not the only place we see this kind of language in Scripture. In Proverbs 6:16, for example, we read phrases like this: ” Six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him.” This language appears repeatedly throughout Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and even other Psalms. And without fail, wherever we see it, it is connected to sin.
And we need to sit in that discomfort a little. God really does hate sin and evil. It is abhorrent to him. And it would be foolish of us to downplay or ignore that truth. But does that mean we would be right to use this as a prooftext to say that God hates sinners? That’s where things get complicated.
The Tension We Feel and the Misunderstandings it Creates
We humans struggle to reconcile the twin realities that God really does hate sin while also loving sinners. And passages like Psalm 5:4-6 force us to feel the tension. Because we feel this we, we often find ourselves bending over backwards to, if not reconcile these truths, at least relieve our tension.
The problem with this is that these efforts usually result in us emphasizing the wrong point in a text. This usually goes one of two ways. We might overemphasize the negative language of the psalm with bold declarations of God’s hatred of sinners. Or, we might downplay the inspired nature of the psalm altogether—treating it as the cry of a man’s heart. Which it is, but it’s more than that. And neither approach does justice to the text.
Even though the tension we feel is real, we need to remember that we’re not asked to reconcile truths that seem contradictory to us. And we don’t need to do this because there is nothing about them that needs to be reconciled. Evil is absolutely abhorrent to God, and its perpetrators make themselves his enemies. Yet, it is while we were his enemies that “we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10).
God does not let evil stand. God also responds in ways we would not. But the way he responds is always righteous.
The Good News in a Difficult Passage
And that is, essentially, what David was holding onto in Psalm 5:4-6. In his prayer, he effectively said, “This is the God I know that you are—you are the God who does not allow evil to stand.” And in this, David was doing what we see so many other times in the Psalms:
- Psalm 9:8: God “judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness.”
- Psalm 11:7: “For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face.”
- Psalm 33:5 “He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.”
But it’s not just the Psalms. Proverbs point us toward God’s righteousness as the model and foundation for our lives. The prophets spoke words of conviction and condemnation that demonstrate God’s righteousness. And Jesus himself is the righteousness of God, the one through whom we are made righteous by faith in his life, death, and resurrection.
And so as David experienced profound injustice, he first and foremost didn’t trust in his own sense of self-worth or self-dignity. He trusted God’s righteousness—he believed that the Lord of all the earth would do what was right, whatever that looked like.
And that’s the good news this difficult passage holds out to us as well. We need to trust in God’s righteousness. We can trust that he is going to do what is right—that he will vindicate those who need vindication. That he will not let evil and sin and suffering and sadness go unchallenged forever, and that he will lead us toward righteousness as we follow him.
