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Should you then abandon David’s plea that God use his law against his enemies and send a Legal Avenger? No, the law must be preached to the Christian (insofar as he is not one).
1 To the choirmaster: according to Muthlabben. A Psalm of David. I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will tell of all thy wonderful deed.
As usual, we do not know what these opening lines mean, but the word left untranslated as “Muth-labben” uses the Hebrew word “al-muth. Some scholars say it refers to “the hiddenness of the son,” while others think it’s about young women—almuth—a term Solomon used in Song of Songs. In this psalm, David isn’t singing about beauty, but weakness—about those in need of covering. This is a hymn about the rescue of the fair maiden, or more pointedly, the weak and suffering believer. So here’s the big question: Does God save the weak as a knight in shining armor, or through the cross? Does God save the weak by the Avenger or by the Mercy Seat?
2 I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High.
Psalm 9 is an acrostic (continued in Psalm 10), each stanza beginning with the following letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The art of it cannot be reproduced in English, and it was used not only to make the stanzas memorable but also to declare that God teaches all the “ABCs” and covers the world from A to Z, Alpha to Omega, and Alef to Tav.
3 When my enemies turned back, they stumbled and perished before thee.
Psalms 9 and 10 are mirror images that together explain the conundrum of a soul seeking grace from the Lord. Where does one look for this justice? Where can we plead for an avenger (Ps. 9:12)? David might have sung this after he had wreaked revenge following a great victory.
4 For thou hast maintained my just cause; thou hast sat on the throne giving righteous judgment More likely, however, this is the kind of song that follows a defeat when it seems the Lord will never give us what we need: a just congress, a just war, or even revenge against our enemies. At the end of the Psalm, David cries for God to use his law to impose his “righteous judgment,” and for that, David needs a mighty Avenger.
5-6 Thou hast rebuked the nations, thou hast destroyed the wicked; thou hast blotted out their name for ever and ever. The enemy have vanished in everlasting ruins; their cities thou hast rooted out; the very memory of them has perished.
Who could be David’s Avenger? Only God. God must rebuke the “nations” who surround Israel and battle David, either in mortal combat or by smuggling their blasphemous idols into the worship of Jerusalem. David needs a total blood Avenger who will not balk at blotting out the nations. Their buildings must be in ruin, their cities demolished—and their entire memory must be erased from earth so that they never existed, do not now exist, and never will exist again. After living in New York long enough, even Stan Lee recognized the need for a collection of Avengers like this, including a massive Viking with a hammer. But, unlike David, Mr. Lee had no faith in God and thus had to create a myth in his Marvel Comics that God would one day send a mighty legislator to right all wrongs, avenge all “almuth” (sufferers), and bring in the peaceful, just kingdom of God.
7-8 But the LORD sits enthroned for ever, he has established his throne for judgment; and he judges the world with righteousness, he judges the peoples with equity.
All David is asking is that God be Zedek (justice) and re-establish Yashar (equity). He wants the law applied equally to all so that no one is above it and no one is beneath it. He wants vengeance, but more deeply, he wants order. Not chaos. Not favoritism.
9 The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
David especially “lifts” the poor and oppressed (those like the “almuth”) above the fray. In Greek, the word for “oppressed” is “penitent,” and those who are “troubled” particularly refers to what Lutherans call “the troubled conscience.” A troubled conscience thinks they’re suffering for something they did. They fear God is angry.
10 And those who know thy name put their trust in thee, for thou, O LORD, hast not forsaken those who seek thee.
The entire issue of being avenged, receiving retribution, and regaining “equity” comes down to trust. David wants others to know God’s name and trust him. Yet what exactly is one trusting “in thee, O Lord”?
11 Sing praises to the LORD, who dwells in Zion! Tell among the peoples his deeds!
David had taken the little hill, Zion, from the Canaanites and made it into his own estate (2 Sam. 5:7-10). He wanted God also to have a place to dwell there, but God left that task for David’s son Solomon to complete. Yet, how would God dwell in the temple? Would it be as he had dwelt in the Holy of Holies since Moses, seated on his mercy seat?
12 For he who avenges blood is mindful of them; he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.
The key to David’s prayer on Mt. Zion is that he is sure God is the one “who avenges blood” and is “mindful of them,” not forgetting the cry of the afflicted: the poor, the weak, and the one who has endured injustice. The translation is difficult; it literally says, “For the one who seeks shed blood remembered them.” What does that mean? It has become a universal error to assume “avenges blood” must be idiomatic (meaning a metaphor or idea of myth that stands in for the real thing). Invariably, modern interpreters decide that shed blood refers to “seeking debt payment,” “restitution for sins,” or propitiation and expiation by blood. But David is not seeking modern theories of “atonement.” Nor is God idiomatically using blood to avenge David. God will use the real thing, blood, to avenge the afflicted by destroying their sin.
It was not retribution, but forgiveness that his blood gave.
The thing God “remembers” (or is mindful of) is not the numbers or kinds of sins for which he must receive reparations, pay back the debt, or take revenge. He is “mindful” of the individual criers, the poor, and the afflicted, not the numbers and types of their sins. In fact, God is not remembering their sin at all; he is remembering those under attack by that sin. However, the way God avenges by blood has shocked David (and the world) ever since. It was not an Avenger, but his own promised Seed, set forth as a mercy seat—in blood. It was not retribution, but forgiveness that his blood gave.
13 Be gracious to me, O LORD! Behold what I suffer from those who hate me, O thou who liftest me up from the gates of death.
“Blood avenging” and “sin forgiveness” are not ways of gaining God’s attention through sacrifice, but instead asking God to “be gracious to me.” If you focus on the thing I suffer (the sin) and not on me (the sinner), then, dear God, please see that my suffering was inflicted by those who hate me. David understood that God’s refuge, help in times of trouble, and care for the poor and weak do not require blood from them but instead give blood to them to “lift me up from the gates of death.”
14 That I may recount all thy praises, that in the gates of the daughter of Zion I may rejoice in thy deliverance.
Yet David still imagines that he can only get this grace from God when he counts all the praises and gives a sacrifice of rejoicing and songs. He figures even this psalm of his may work to save him if he reminds God that He will, after all, get something back in the process of the liturgy. David still believes he must ask for repayment for the suffering saints and the afflicted (v. 13). David wants God to stop sitting on his throne in heaven and act! “Avenge!” Don’t “forget” (9:12). “Be gracious to me, O Lord! See my affliction! (9:13). Notice me! See me! Acknowledge me! “O you, who lift me up from the gates of death, that I may recount all your praises” (9:13). Who else will advocate for you, O Lord? Who else will go to church or the gates of Zion and worship you? Who else will do the service and sing the praises if I am dead?
15-16 The nations have sunk in the pit which they made; in the net which they hid has their own foot been caught. The LORD has made himself known, he has executed judgment; the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion. Selah.
Like the later Romans returning from destroying the temple, David’s enemies danced and sang as if they were victors over both our God and His people. Yet, David knew that his enemies would sink into their pit and be snared by their nets. When his enemies smugly assumed their victory over him was some kind of divine reward, David was sure his Blood Avenger would show them how wrong they were.
17-18 The wicked shall depart to Sheol, all the nations that forget God. For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish for ever.
O Lord, execute judgment, and do not delay (9:15)! Get your law out, Lord, and use it! Then “the wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God” (9:17). It is worth noting that you have enemies who are out to get you! This is not a misperception or mere paranoia, and when God brings enemies down before you, you will sing with David: “The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins…but the Lord is enthroned forever” (9:6,7). God both “avenges blood” and maintains “my just cause” (Psalm 9:12, 4). What a great day it will be when my enemies are finally rebuked, and the oppressed are set free! Moreover, when God rebukes, it is eternal. The enemies pay with their own blood and are returned to Sheol (hell), where they belong (Psalm 9:17)—blood for blood, as the law demands. The nations will be forgotten forever, eternally damned. But God’s poor will not perish forever but will be lifted from the pit.
19-20 Arise, O LORD! Let not man prevail; let the nations be judged before thee! Give them, O LORD, a legislator/judge (with a sword) so they know they are men. Selah.
Yet, despite his pleading for the Avenger of Blood, David ultimately backed down and asked God only for standard revenge against his enemies. He merely requested his day in court to justify himself and punish his adversaries: “Give me the law, O Lord! Give me an avenger, a justifier, a sword, a judge!” To convey the meaning of this prayer, Luther re-used the old Vulgate (Latin) translation that says: “Place a legislator—a politician—over the nations, Lord, so they know they are men!” (9:20). Avenge us! Give it to them! Punish them!
Repentance doesn’t come from enflaming your compassion for Jesus; it comes from the harsh Avenger using the sword against the law’s enemies.
Sinners like David need the law as long as they remain in this old world. They need God to show up and use the sword against sin. However, contrary to our expectations, this law will not bring justice; it will bring repentance instead. Before David can live, he must die. How does God use the law to bring justice? He does not send a Legal Avenger to right all wrongs! Many years after David first prayed this Psalm, Martin Luther was accosted by his former pupil, Johann Agricola, regarding the use of the law in the church. This final verse in Psalm 9 became a point of attack. Agricola was that gentle “liberal” pastor who did not want to frighten his congregation with the law but sought to get them to repent “subtly” by preaching only the sufferings of Jesus on the cross. Sympathy and compassion, rather than the harsh whip of the law, would bring sinners to faith, and thus “antinomianism” was born. Agricola wanted what most modern translators do in this verse: “Put them in fear, O Lord.” (19: 20a). Supposedly, it is God’s enemies, not his friends, whom he wants “in fear." Moreover, God never specifies exactly how to instill this fear, so Agricola decided to preach Jesus sadly “to make old women cry." But repentance doesn’t come from enflaming your compassion for Jesus; it comes from the harsh Avenger using the sword against the law’s enemies.
No wonder we love the law and look to it for our salvation. It is horrible to suffer the law’s blows, but if we can get God to use it against our enemies, our suffering would be compensated. Justice would then equalize things. Shouldn’t Christians in their churches not only have their suffering ended, but also get compensation for their suffering? If the law were to restore justice, it should give its sufferers restitution, reparations, or at least an expiation or propitiation before almighty God. Perhaps David was calling out: “Give us that sweet law, not only the killing law!” In this way, the antinomian demons (as Luther called them) attempted to turn the law to their advantage, twisting the lemon out of it and hoping that some sweet sugar would be left inside. Yet, the law is not a sword of mercy, even when used against our enemies. It does not save us from my suffering or restore justice to the oppressed.
Should you then abandon David’s plea that God use his law against his enemies and send a Legal Avenger? No, the law must be preached to the Christian (insofar as he is not one). Yet the law was never given to save you. It is not the solution for your sin, because it never was the cause of your sin. It was not the misuse of the law that caused your sin, nor will its proper use remove it. Luther used a way to teach this by saying the law is not the “efficient cause” of your sins, but is rather the “causa ostensive” (stensive revelation) that mirrors or shines a light on sin so that you can see and feel it. Why ask God for a Legal Avenger? Not to bring justice, but to show sin. What causes sin? I do. What reveals it? The law does. What if I had never heard the law, and David’s request for a harsh Avenger is not granted? What happens when people live without anyone ever preaching the law to them? Are they free from the law? No. Luther says, “they will be secure and think that they are dwelling amid heaven and sitting at God’s right hand and playing dice with him” (LW 73, 188 in the Antinomian Disputation of 1538). But then, as I observe how many people do not know the law, I begin to get angry at God as David did: “God, what is your problem? Why do you let this go on? Use your damn law!”
David was angry with God for allowing so many people, especially his enemies, to live blissfully as if “playing dice with God,” while God blithely lets sin go on. This is the problem with God’s law: God himself doesn’t enforce it. As Paul put it, God “passed over former sins” (Rom. 3:25). Is that all God means by “mercy”—just overlooking former sins? If that were true, David knew what would happen: sin would abound.
God doesn’t appear to anyone—Jew or Gentile—to be righteous in the law. He is so often “overlooking sin” that even God himself, finally (at the right time), had to prove his righteousness publicly, showing that he was righteous “apart from the law” (Rom. 3:21).
So it was that, when God finally got around to answering David’s prayer, he did not send David’s Legislative Avenger, but instead his Mercy Seat (Rom. 3:25). God saves us by his Son, who is neither an almuth (or a weak martyr bound by the law) nor a mighty sword-wielding Avenger. Instead, God in Christ was “putting forth his own righteousness—outside the law” (Rom. 3:21).
When the law is used to its full extent, it finds the sin of thinking the law will save you.
Jesus is not the Legal Avenger David wanted, who would right the world’s wrongs, defeat his enemy, and restore justice as “fairness.” It is a good thing, too, because, as Paul says, when you finally get the big legislator in the sky wielding his sword and enforcing the law, “there is no distinction since all have sinned!” (Rom. 3:23). The law judges all, and all have sinned—David and his enemies! The only retributive justice we will ever get is the death penalty. When the law is used to its full extent, it finds the sin of thinking the law will save you. That is why an anti-nomian (like Agricola) is merely a sneaky Nomian—the biggest believer in the law there ever was.
To everyone’s shock, especially David’s, Jesus is the Savior, not the law, and justice is “by his grace as a gift” (Rom. 3:24). God put forward, in proof to the whole world (whose sins he was passing over) his own Son as a “mercy seat by his blood effective through faith” (Rom. 3:25a). It is not the law judging sin and demanding blood, but his Son forgiving sin and giving his own blood that saves you. This forgiveness, however, is not like the old kind of “mercy” that caused David to cry for a Blood Avenger. When Christ forgives sin, it is not by overlooking or ignoring sin. Christ took the sin and defeated it in his own body. He was swallowed by our sin and then turned and swallowed the sin. Previously, God passed over former sins (Rom. 3:25c)—and made David mad in the process. Then God gave David something much better to believe in: Christ put on the sin, bled to death for it, and poured out the blood to forgive him.
Christ sinned against sin, put death to death, lawed the law—and took the old blood of Sacrificium into the blood of Beneficium. What once was burned and spread for God’s good (sacrifice) was now given to sinners for their life (benefited them). David did not get what he wanted, but what he needed. We do not have a Legal Avenger, but a Mercy Seat.
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