1. 8
Suffering Psalms

2. The Psalms are Not just Poetry
They ask questions
They express awe
They describe joy

3. Types of Suffering Psalms
General
Imprecatory

4. About a Musician in Hiding Longs to Worship in Jerusalem
Psalms 42-43
About a Musician in Hiding
Longs to Worship in Jerusalem
Asks for Deliverance

5. As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?
- Ps. 42:1-2

6. - Ps. 42:3-4 My tears have been my food day and night,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
- Ps. 42:3-4

7. - Ps. 42:5-6 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him
For the help of His presence.
O my God, my soul is in despair within me;
Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan
And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
- Ps. 42:5-6

8. Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.
The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime;
And His song will be with me in the night,
A prayer to the God of my life.
- Ps. 42:7-8

9. I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
- Ps. 42:9-10

10. Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.
- Ps. 42:11

11. Vindicate me, O God, and plead my case against an ungodly nation;
O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!
For You are the God of my strength; why have You rejected me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
- Ps. 43:1-2

12. O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your dwelling places.
Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God.
- Ps. 43:3-4

13. Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.
- Ps. 43:5

14. It’s not about the trial… It’s about the faith during the trial

15. Imprecatory Psalms

16. Do you indeed speak righteousness, O gods?
Do you judge uprightly, O sons of men?
No, in heart you work unrighteousness;
On earth you weigh out the violence of your hands.
The wicked are estranged from the womb;
These who speak lies go astray from birth.
- Ps. 58:1-3

17. They have venom like the venom of a serpent;
Like a deaf cobra that stops up its ear,
So that it does not hear the voice of charmers,
Or a skillful caster of spells.
- Ps. 58:4-5

18. O God, shatter their teeth in their mouth;
Break out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord.
Let them flow away like water that runs off;
When he aims his arrows, let them be as headless shafts.
- Ps. 58:6-7

19. Let them be as a snail which melts away as it goes along,
Like the miscarriages of a woman which never see the sun.
Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns
He will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.
- Ps. 58:8-9

20. The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
He will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
And men will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
Surely there is a God who judges on earth!”
- Ps. 58:10-11

21. Why Imprecatory Psalms?
Honest Portrayal

22. Why Imprecatory Psalms?
Honest Portrayal
Sin & Sinner were the same

23. Why Imprecatory Psalms?
Honest Portrayal
Sin & Sinner were the same
The concept and language of justice