Nehemiah 4:4–6

The enemy scoffs; God's people pray.

Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. 5 Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight, for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders.

6 So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.

In one respect Sanballat and Tobiah were right. The builders of Jerusalem were feeble if they depended on their own power. They did not have great numbers. They did not have great wealth. All they had was faith and the promise of God that supported that faith. But it was all they needed. With God-given courage they continued to work and left the judging of their enemies to God.

Because he calls for judgment on his enemies, some have criticized Nehemiah’s prayer as being unforgiving and unchristian. Isn’t such a prayer contrary to the example of

Jesus on the cross, when he prayed for his enemies (Luke 23:34)? And doesn’t the rest of the Bible teach us to forgive our enemies? For example, Jesus says, “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44), and Saint Paul declares: “Bless those who persecute you. . . . Do not repay anyone evil for evil. . . . Do not take revenge. . . . If your enemy is hungry, feed him” (Romans 12:14,17,19,20).

Yet the Bible also contains Nehemiah’s seemingly vengeful prayer. Nor is it alone. Such prayers for judgment occur frequently in the Scriptures. Psalms 7; 35; 58; 59; 69:19-28; 109; 137:7-9; and 139:19-22 furnish examples of such prayers. These psalms are called imprecatory psalms, or cursing psalms.

Some commentators attempt to explain away these imprecatory passages by saying that believers in Old Testament times were at a lower level of religious advancement than we are today. According to this view, the coming of the New Testament has made such prayers obsolete. But such an explanation will not hold up. Psalm 69, one of the psalms that includes a curse, is a Messianic psalm, referring to Christ. The New Testament quotes it as such. John 15:25, for instance, takes the words of Psalm 69:4 and applies them to Christ: “They hated me without reason.” In this psalm it is Christ, the Messiah, who asks God the Father to judge his enemies. The curses of Psalm 69:25 are quoted in Acts 1:20 as being fulfilled in the judgment against Judas: “It is written in the book of Psalms, ‘May his place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in it.’” Even the saints in heaven pray for God’s avenging judgment to fall on the persecutors of the church: “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (Revelation 6:10).

But how can such prayers be reconciled with the gospel proclamation that the Lord is a forgiving God? The God who promises forgiveness in the gospel is the same God who threatens in his law to punish all who despise him. Those who despise God’s promise and work to oppose his plans remain under the wrath of God. God said that he would bless those who blessed Abraham, the bearer of the promise, and curse those who cursed Abraham (Genesis 12:3). This is simply another way of saying that God will bring deserved judgment on those who work for Satan, who try to destroy the line of the Savior and the children of God. We cannot wish such people success without setting ourselves against the will of God. David could not pray that the evil plans of Saul and Absalom would succeed, because if they did, God’s promise would have failed. Nor could Nehemiah pray that Sanballat’s plans to thwart the restoration of Israel would succeed. If they did, God’s promises would not have been fulfilled.

Today we should pray that our enemies and God’s enemies will come to repentance. But we must also pray that their attacks on God’s kingdom come to nothing. Martin Luther once wrote, “We cannot pray the Lord’s Prayer without cursing.” Every time we pray, “Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done,” we are in a sense cursing. As Luther writes in his explanation of the Third Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “God’s will is done when he breaks and defeats every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh, which try to prevent us from keeping God’s name holy and letting his kingdom come.”

Like David, Nehemiah did not attack his enemies or seek personal revenge. He left their judgment to God. Yet Nehemiah was right in praying that God would frustrate the enemies’ efforts. Then, with faith in God’s power and promises, he carried on his work. The scorn of God’s enemies cannot stop those who trust in God.