Psalm 94: Held

What is vengeance? The Bible tells us clearly that vengeance belongs to the LORD (Deuteronomy 32:34, Romans 12:19). It is not something that we should put our hands to or even concern our hearts or minds with, but what is it? The word itself sounds harsh, almost some sort of over-the-top revenge. I imagine an act of vengeance to be cruel, unreasonable, angry, even out of control. And yet, it belongs to the LORD and He is none of those things, so again, what is vengeance? In Hebrew, the word we translate as “vengeance” indicates “justifiably upholding or carrying out justice or righteousness against wrongdoing.” Vengeance is righting wrongs, turning tides, it is not just the exposure but the correction of injustice. This means that vengeance is not only when the wrong get punished but when the wronged get justice. Vengeance is something God does because it is a part of who God is. 

The Scriptures are very clear, vengeance is not just what we ask God for, not even just what He promises to do, it belongs to Him, which means, it does not belong to us. It is a good thing that it does not. My sense of vengeance is often caught up in my emotions, it is often fueled by my anxiety, it is often forgetful of just how much grace and mercy I have already received. In Luke 9, as Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, a village in Samaria did not welcome Him, meaning, they were not interested in His visit, they did not offer Him a meal, a place to rest or a room for the night. James and John, felt the sting of rejection for Jesus and asked Him, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” This is why vengeance cannot belong to us, we overreact, we tend to live from the sting of the moment rather than resting in the truth of the long haul. 

I do not believe I have ever wanted fire to fall from heaven on someone who treated me worse than I deserved, but I know that I have let momentary hurts cause me to forget that I am permanently loved. I know that I have reacted to disappointment, rejection, fear, anxiety, and anger in ways that tried to take vengeance into my own hands rather than trusting it to be in God’s. 

Vengeance is not just about anger, it is not just punishment for the wicked, it is the straightening of anything that has become crooked. When we take vengeance into our own hands, we try to get what we believe we deserve; we try to provide for our own needs, reap our own harvest, fulfill our own promise, achieve our own purpose. It was a form of vengeance that Sarah and Abraham took when they tried to fulfill God’s promise of a child without giving thought to how they were changing the course of Hagar’s life. It is what Israel did when they got to the edge of the Jordan River and discovered there were walled cities, vast armies and giants in the land God had promised they would possess. They voted to take their children back to slavery rather than to trust God to give their children an inheritance. Our vengeance chooses momentary pleasure, comfortable bondage, generational weakness, and emotional outbursts. God’s vengeance is born in love, aged in patience and always offers mercy. Vengeance belongs to God because while we often live in the moment, He is always using the moment to prepare us for eternity. 

We do not know who wrote Psalm 94 or what was happening when it was written, but we do know that the author was overwhelmed by hurt and harm caused to him by others. Similar to other psalms we have read, he cries out to God against the wicked. In verse 2 he askes God to “Rise up . . . repay to the proud what they deserve.” He asks, in verse 3, “how long shall the wicked exult?” and then he makes sure God knows the details of just how wicked his enemies have behaved. He wonders if God has not moved because He does not realize just how bad things are or how important his needs are. Sometimes we inform God simply because we do not trust God. Sometimes we forget that God cannot lead us in His ways by doing things our way. 

Vengeance is not just about what God does in our circumstances or situations, it is not just how He corrects or punishes the wicked, how He rescues us from trouble or provides for our needs and desires, it is the fact that we belong to God. That is what the whole psalm comes down to. In verse 18 the psalmist makes a confession and gives a testimony, “When I thought, ‘My foot slips,’ your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up.” We have all been overwhelmed; we have all felt as if all was lost or that we could not go on any farther. We have all been where the psalmist was, crying out in fear, “My foot slips”. Maybe for you it is not past tense, maybe right now you feel more disappointment than hope, more grief than joy, more fear and rest, more struggle than victory. The psalmist said that it was in that moment that he discovered that he was being held by God’s steadfast love. The moments when we are on the brink are not our end, they are where we discover that God stands on the edge with us, that the only reason we do not fall is that He holds us. 

Psalm 94 continues, “When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” Sometimes vengeance is comfort in the midst of our cares, not the removal of them. Sometimes the crooked place that God is straightening is our hearts rather than our lives. Sometimes He is leading us to the end of the comforts we have created so that we can find true comfort in Him. There are some truths that I believe we need to sit in today: there is injustice, we face difficulty, our hearts get troubled, we endure disappointment, our faith and our love are sometimes immature, everything will be shaken, but we will not fall apart because Jesus is holding us together (Colossians 1:17). May we find comfort for our cares by remembering that at all times and in all things that the God who makes all things right, holds us in His hands.