Read Psalm 7
I’ve discovered few things in life that enrage me quite like injustice. My guess is I’m not alone. I recently felt a deep burning anger in the pit of my stomach when learning of a friend who had been wrongly accused, their intentions misunderstood, and punished for no wrongs done. To be sure, as image bearers of God, our having a sense of justice has its origins in the character of God who is just.
How do you feel when you encounter injustice against yourself or those your love? When evil clearly appears to have the upper hand? If I’m being honest, my knee-jerk response is not to trust the Lord to make it right, to allow his promise of just to avail. I realize my response isn’t righteous and cognitively know that my anger won’t accomplish God’s righteousness, but sometimes justice seems to move so slowly. And so, I need help in this moment, for God to give me something more than just a blanket “leave it to me” thought. Reading through Psalm 7 this week, I believe God is graciously giving us something more – a righteous man who engages an experience of injustice with both honesty and hope.
Psalm 7 begins with our psalmist declaring God as his refuge and crying for help in the midst of threats against his life. In vv. 3-5, a picture develops: that our psalmist has been wrongfully accused. Knowing his innocence, he even welcomes retribution against himself were he in the wrong. Therefore in vv. 6-8, he calls for God to bring about justice for him, and to bring it upon those who wrongfully seek his life. Interestingly, the psalmist then begins to shift away from his individual scenario. Verses 9-16 are largely declarations of God’s righteousness with only one individualized note of God as the psalmist’s shield.
I believe Psalm 7 gives us, as believers, an example for how to encounter God in the midst of injustice in our lives and world. The psalmist cries out multiple times for God to bring justice into his individual scenario but doesn’t stop there. For more than half of the psalm, the writer recounts and declares the justice of God. The psalmist focuses his heart on God’s just character and the certainty that God will ultimately bring justice in all things. I’m wondering, when we experience these moments, how much of our prayer is actually focused on recounting the justice of God? Do we encourage our own hearts by declaring the truth of who God is?
While I’m not aware of any direct link between Psalm 7 and the passion narrative, as I read this psalm, I could imagine it being one of many prayers offered by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. As our Lord was wrongfully accused, ultimately awaiting an unjust torture and execution, I can imagine Jesus rehearing the words of this psalm…declaring his Heavenly Father as the ultimate bringer of justice, both to cry out for vindication and to encourage his own heart to trust in the Father’s just character.
Psalm 7 ends with these words: “I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.” Notably, the psalmist offers these words while he yet awaits justice. He is so confident in God to bring about justice that he can praise him as though it has already come to pass. I find it comforting to imagine Jesus offering such a praise to the Father while drenched in tears and sweating blood in the garden…knowing that God’s justice would prevail in and through a moment where it seemed lacking.
As we pray this week, may we be reminded that our God is just and the bringer of justice. That when justice appears slow and far away, it has been promised by our loving God who is worthy of our trust. In the midst of prayers for justice and deliverance for ourselves and loved ones, may we offer reminders to our God of his tested and trustworthy character. And may we offer praises to him as though he has already brought justice to pass while we yet wait – for his ultimate justice is more certain than anything we have yet to experience. This is the pattern of psalm 7, the pattern of Jesus, and the hope given to us who follow him.
God’s richest graces and mercies to you all this week. Jesus loves you.
— Travis Pry