Bird's-eye view
We come now to the part of the psalm that makes modern Christians nervous. After a soaring meditation on the omniscience and omnipresence of God, David's pen takes a hard, sharp turn. He moves from adoration to imprecation. This is not a mood swing; it is the necessary moral consequence of the first eighteen verses. Because God is who He is, holy and all seeing, there is a great moral antithesis in the world He made. There are those who love Him and those who hate Him, and there is no neutral ground. David, as God's covenant man, understands that he must take sides. But the genius of this prayer, the thing that keeps it from being a self righteous rant, is the final turn inward. After declaring his hatred for God's enemies, he invites the searchlight of God's judgment into his own heart. This is the crucial difference between righteous zeal and Pharisaical pride. A man is only qualified to hate the evil out there when he is ready to have God expose and kill the evil in here.
Clause-by-Clause Commentary
vs. 19 Oh that You would slay the wicked, O God! O men of bloodshed, depart from me.
David begins with a raw plea for justice. This is not a polite suggestion. It is a cry for God to act like God, to intervene in a world shot through with rebellion and violence. The wicked are not merely people with a different point of view; they are designated here as "men of bloodshed." Their wickedness is not an abstract concept; it has victims. Their rebellion against God spills out into violence against men made in His image. And because of this, David wants nothing to do with them. "Depart from me" is the cry of holiness. It is the recognition that there can be no fellowship, no common cause, between the man who loves God and the men who shed blood. This is not about being antisocial; it is about covenant loyalty.
vs. 20 For they speak against You wickedly, And Your enemies take Your name in vain.
Here is the charge sheet. The reason for David's imprecation is not a personal grudge. The offense is entirely theological. First, they "speak against You wickedly." Their words are aimed at God; their rebellion is a cosmic treason. They slander the character of the Almighty. Second, "Your enemies take Your name in vain." This is more than just using God's name as a curse word. To take God's name in vain is to treat it as empty, to live as though the God who named Himself is a nobody. It is to attach His name to falsehood, to hypocrisy, or, as our secular age does, to utter irrelevance. These men are God's enemies because they have made themselves so. David is simply agreeing with the facts on the ground.
vs. 21 Do I not hate those who hate You, O Yahweh? And do I not revile those who rise up against You?
This is a rhetorical question, and the answer is a resounding yes. This is the very heart of covenantal faithfulness. To be in covenant with God means you love what He loves and you hate what He hates. There is no room for a polite neutrality. Our modern sensibilities, soaked in a sentimental therapeutic soup, want to find something to love in everyone. But David understands that a love for God necessitates a hatred for rebellion against God. To "revile" or loathe those who rise up against God is to have a rightly ordered spiritual and emotional life. It is to be nauseated by evil, to find it disgusting. We have been catechized to be tolerant of every form of rebellion, which is another way of saying we have been taught to be unfaithful to God.
vs. 22 I hate them with the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies.
David doubles down. The Hebrew here is "with a perfect hatred I hate them." This is not a sinful, petty, vindictive hatred. It is a hatred that is "perfect" because its object is perfect evil and its motive is a perfect love for God's glory. It is a holy hatred. And notice the logic: "They have become my enemies." Why? Because they are God's enemies. David is not asking God to take his side in a personal squabble. David is declaring that he has taken God's side in a cosmic war. The battle lines are drawn by God, and David simply acknowledges where he stands. If you are God's friend, those who have declared war on God are, by definition, not your friends.
vs. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
And here is the magnificent turn that sanctifies the whole prayer. Just when you think David might be puffing out his chest in self righteousness, he throws himself on the examination table. He invites the all seeing eye of God, which he celebrated in the first part of the psalm, to turn its full gaze upon him. This is an act of profound humility and godly fear. He is saying, "Lord, I have just prayed for fire to fall on your enemies. Now, search me to see if there is anything in me that deserves the same fire." He asks God to know his heart, the seat of his affections, and to try his "anxious thoughts," those tangled, distracting, and sometimes idolatrous worries that pull us away from simple faith.
vs. 24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.
The purpose of this divine search is twofold. First, it is for purification. "See if there be any hurtful way in me." The Hebrew word can mean a way of pain, grief, or idolatry. David is asking God to perform spiritual surgery, to identify and cut out any cancer of sin, any loyalty to a lesser god, any path that leads to grief and destruction. Second, it is for guidance. The alternative to the "hurtful way" is the "everlasting way." This is the path of righteousness, the way of life that is found only in God. The prayer that began with a call for judgment on the wicked ends with a humble plea for grace and guidance for the sinner praying it. This is the gospel posture. We can only stand against the wickedness of the world when we are first on our knees, asking God to deliver us from our own.
Application
This psalm teaches us that a robust faith is not a sentimental one. There is a place for holy hatred, a hatred of evil that flows from a love for God. We live in an age that despises antithesis and wants to bless everything. But the Bible is clear: God has enemies, and His people cannot be neutral toward them. However, the great warning and safeguard here is the prayer of verses 23 and 24. We are never more in danger than when we begin to hate the sin in the world without a corresponding, and even greater, hatred for the sin in our own hearts. The man who can pray for God to slay the wicked must be the same man who prays, "Search me, O God." Our zeal for God's honor in the world must be matched by our zeal for God's holiness in our own souls. It is only when we have submitted ourselves to His searching gaze that we can be trusted to see the world with His eyes. We must ask Him to root out every hurtful way in us, and to lead us, by His grace, in the everlasting way that is Jesus Christ our Lord.