Pslam 139:19-22

Now, for the portion of Psalm 139 that seems a little out of place in this psalm . . . at least at first glance.

If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
     Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
They speak of you with evil intent;
     your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord,
     and abhor those who rise up against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
     I count them my enemies.
                                   -Psalm 139:19-22

I have always felt like these verses seemed a little out of place in this psalm. Up to this point, David has been worshipping God and praising Him for His works. Verse 19 seems to be such an abrupt change from verse 18. It can kind of catch you off guard when reading the psalm as a whole.

When I read these verses the other day, something made sense to me about these verses being a part of Psalm 139.

[Disclaimer here: What I am about to write may or may not be completely theologically correct. This is where my thinking went as I was reading. I do believe it was God who was showing me this, but I do not want to put anything that may be my ideas out there as the truth. If you have thoughts on how these verses fit into Psalm 139, I would love to hear them in a comment on this post.]

When we praise God and acknowledge all of the greatness of what He has done, just as David did in the first 18 verses, then the logical response has to be growing to love what God loves and hate what God hates. As we better understand God's omniscience (He knows everything), omnipresence (He is everywhere), and omnipotence (He has power to do anything), the natural response is to begin to see the world as God sees it. Seeing the world as God sees it should be a reminder to us to pray and to seek God's will to be done in this world.

This means we begin to see evil the way that God sees it - as against His plan and His will for things. And we count as our enemies, God's enemies. Our lives and way of seeing the world line up more and more with God's. Even as this happens, we must remember that it is God's job to deal with His enemies, not mine. He will bring His judgment and punishment to bear in His time.