"Break the teeth of my enemies!"

Several of you commented in last week's paper about the prayers in the psalms that ask God to defeat or destroy the enemies of the psalmist. These passages, called "imprecations", present a rather thorny moral dilemma from our modern New Testament perspective. Are we to pray for our enemies' destruction? Should we ask God to crush those who oppose us? It is important to note a couple of factors: 1) Salvation in the OT routinely had two aspects, one positive (life and blessing in the land), and another we could call negative, destruction of enemies (so that the people could have security and peace, the life of blessing in the land). So a call for the enemies destruction was one way for the psalmist to pray for deliverance in the midst of crisis. 2) Another factor is that it is important to ask, who are our enemies? In the conquest God used Israel to bring judgement against the pagan inhabitants of Canaan. The enemies were the pagan peoples who opposed the Jews receiving God's good gift of the Land. We however, wrestle not against flesh and blood. Our adversary is spiritual. In a certain sense when we pray "thy Kingdom come..." we are praying for God's reign to manifest itself, and with that, that our adversary (Satan) be defeated. Feel free to give feedback!
Dr. Nash