The Roar of the Lion and the Cry of the Lamb: Divine Violence in the Psalms

‘Break the teeth in their mouths, O God... .’ (Ps. 58:6). Not a verse you’re likely to find cross stitched into a tea towel.

Few books of the Bible are as loved or as dangerous as the Psalms. They teach us to sing, weep, trust, and rage. But they also confront us with one of the most morally difficult aspects of Christian and Jewish scriptures: divine violence. Across the Psalms, we hear of a God who not only defends but destroys; who smashes enemies, drowns the wicked, and sometimes invites his people to take part.

What are we to do with these texts in an age haunted by war crimes, genocide, and moral trauma? Can the “violent” God of the Psalms still be worshipped, or even defended, ethically?

Divine violence in the Psalms is not subtle. God is invoked as warrior (24:8), avenger (94:1), and executioner (7:12–13). Enemies are shattered like pottery (2), the wicked are “cut off” (37), and vengeance is not only asked for—it is praised.

Ethically, this raises questions: Can a good God command or enact such violence? Are these cries merely the words of desperate, oppressed people venting their trauma, or are they genuine expressions of divine will? And perhaps most personally—what do these psalms do to our own souls when we pray them?

Even the term violence deserves closer scrutiny. Should we really call it violence when God acts in judgment? In modern usage, "violence" often implies cruelty and moral breakdown. Yet in the Psalms, divine acts of judgment are framed not as chaotic outbursts but as expressions of ordered justice. When the wicked are ‘cut off’ or the oppressor ‘brought low,’ the language is not glorifying bloodshed but portraying a cosmos realigned under God's rule.

What looks like violence to us may, within the Psalms theological worldview, be the necessary undoing of violence—the reversal of oppression, the defense of the voiceless, the end of evil’s dominion. In that sense, divine judgment is less about destruction for its own sake and more about restoration through reckoning. Still, using the word violence forces us to confront how these texts land in our own moral and emotional frameworks, which are shaped by different historical experiences, especially of abuse, empire, and religious conflict. Whether or not we retain the term, it’s crucial to wrestle with what is being claimed: a God who does not stand by when evil triumphs.

Theological Foundations: God's Character on Trial

At the heart of this dilemma is the nature of God. The Psalms oscillate between celebrating God’s justice and pleading for mercy. They frame divine violence not as arbitrary cruelty, but as a necessary component of justice.

Ps. 9, for instance, rejoices that ‘The Lord reigns forever... He rules the world in righteousness and judges the peoples with equity.’ The destruction of the wicked is portrayed not as a sadistic indulgence but as the outcome of God’s unwavering commitment to uphold the oppressed. In this light, divine violence becomes a theological claim rather than a raw emotion: that God is not indifferent to evil, that he hears the cry of the marginalised, and that he acts when no one else will.

This puts divine violence on different ethical footing than human violence. While human vengeance risks spiralling into endless retaliation, divine judgment in the Psalter is purposeful, proportionate, and fundamentally redemptive. It is aimed at restoring what is right.

This brings little comfort, however, without critical ethical reflection.

Can We Pray for Violence?

The imprecatory psalms (e.g. 35, 69, 109, 137) are the most ethically challenging. They call for curses, calamity, and the ruin of enemies. Ps 137, in particular, is shocking, ‘Blessed is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.’

To simply “explain away” these verses as ancient hyperbole or outdated covenants may protect our conscience, but it fails to honour the theological seriousness of these prayers.

Instead, Christian ethicists might ask what kind of community would need to pray these words? Do these texts reflect a longing for personal revenge, or a desperate yearning for justice in a world where the wicked seem to win? Can these Psalms become crucibles where raw trauma is handed to God rather than enacted on others?

From this perspective, the violence of the Psalms may be therapeutic rather than prescriptive—giving voice to pain in a way that disarms it. They do not, in most circumstances, model how we should act toward our enemies, but how we can speak honestly to God about our rage without becoming perpetrators ourselves.

Interestingly, the Psalms often place divine violence in tension with divine patience. Ps. 103 declares that God is ‘slow to anger, abounding in love’ and ‘will not always accuse.’ This introduces a temporality to judgment: it is not reactionary, but restrained, measured, and often delayed.

This tension invites a more complex ethical vision of God: not the executioner in the sky, but the just ruler who gives time to repent, even as he pledges not to ignore injustice.

Such a vision challenges us ethically. If God is patient, are we called to be as well? If divine violence is framed as the last resort of a just God, how can we discern when it is right to confront evil—and when to wait, pray, or forgive?

Christology and the Transformation of Violence

For Christians, any theological and ethical treatment of divine violence in the Psalms must pass through the cross. Jesus quotes the Psalms, both the comforting and the violent ones. But he also does so in transformative ways. He teaches us to love our enemies, even as he embodies the cry, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Ps. 22). On the cross, divine violence and human sin meet. Judgment is not abandoned, but absorbed. Vengeance is not executed on enemies, but borne by the innocent Son of God.

In this light, the cries for justice in the Psalms take on new resonance, not as cancelled texts, but as fulfilled longings. Their raw prayers for judgment are not erased but reframed through a crucified God who takes violence seriously enough to suffer it.

The divine violence of the Psalms is not comfortable. It should disturb us. But perhaps that is precisely the point. In an era of moral relativism, spiritual niceness, and theological flattening, the Psalms remind us that God is not indifferent to evil. That rage can be prayed. That justice matters. And that sometimes, the only ethical response to horror is to hand our sword to God and let him judge rightly.

In the end, divine violence in the Psalms may not be something to be “solved,” but something to be wrestled with—ethically, theologically, and spiritually. For in that wrestling, we learn to trust not in our own righteousness, but in a God who both breaks the bow and binds the brokenhearted.