Psalm 31:6 – “Hating and Trusting”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁶I hate ones giving heed to vanities of worthlessness, but I trust upon YHVH.

Hate.

Hate is an intriguing subject under a God who “is love” and who tells us the two great commands are to love God and love others, and who tells us to “live a life of love.” People brush away the subject with clichés like “hate the sin but love the sinner;” but then you run across a verse like this, “I hate ones …” Add to that verses like Psalm 139:19-22: “If only You would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! … Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against You? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.” Even of the Lord Himself, it says, “His soul hates the wicked and those who love violence” (Psalm 11:5).

We could brush off the subject by calling it “Old Testament” but then we see the Apostle Paul saying, “If anyone does not love the Lord – a curse be on him” (I Cor 16:22) and “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned” (Gal 1:9).

To me the idea of hating evil makes perfect sense in a fallen world with a literal devil. Of course we should hate evil. Particularly as believers, we see the horrific devastations evil brings into God’s beautiful world. Of course we should hate evil. But it is hard for me to see how to hate the people who do evil – while still loving them. Obviously that is what God does. He says He hates them, but then Jesus “died not only for our sins but also for the sins of the whole world.” There is no question in my mind that the Bible teaches us God loves everyone, but then there are these verses where we find He can hate them too – and then we find verses like Psalm 31:6 where godly people hate people!

I’d also like to say if we could just somehow live in the church building, we could look out at the world and say we hate those who do evil. The problem is we can’t live there and the Lord doesn’t want us to. We get up on Monday morning and go out to live and work in the real world, to deal all day every day with real people, most of whom have little regard for the Lord.

I suppose it also makes sense to me that people in leadership have to at times assume what at least looks like a posture of hate. The fundamental responsibility of government is to protect its people, which means to identify evil people and deal with them accordingly. I don’t throw anyone in jail, but I wholeheartedly support our policemen when they do. In a sense, I want them to hate evil people. The same would be true of our armed forces. The enemies of our nation should be killed. And then even in an office and even in a church, there is a time when leaders have to “lower the boom” on people who are evil and making everyone else miserable. At those times, they are expressing what looks like hate.

Perhaps that is what we’re seeing in the Bible? Certainly God should hate evil people. I’m glad He’ll throw the devil in an eternal hell. I’m glad when Jesus returns one of the first things that happens is “a sharp sword goes out of His mouth with which to slay the wicked.” And in our Psalm, perhaps David is speaking from his position as king? Once again, a king should hate evil people, in the sense that he needs to protect the good people of his kingdom from them.

Hmmmm. That actually makes sense to me. Perhaps that is part of what Solomon meant when he said, “There is a time to love and a time to hate.” There is a time. Maybe that “time” is when we are in positions of authority and it is our responsibility to protect the good? Certainly, as a father, if a man had ever entered my house to hurt my children, I would not have hesitated to shoot him. In protecting my children I clearly would have “hated” the man. Similarly, Paul says, “Rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong … He does not bear the sword for nothing … He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrong-doer” (Rom 13:3,4).

Yes, yes. This is making perfect sense to me now. In the general comings and goings of my life, God’s call to me is simply to love Him and love others. It’s only when he puts a person into a position of authority that, in an evil world, they also take on the responsibility to protect the good and punish the evil.

Very good. I can live with that.

Back to our verse, the ones David (as a king) is hating are “ones who give heed to vanities of worthlessness.” The “vanities of worthlessness” gets translated in various ways. The NIV renders it, “worthless idols.” That is a possible understanding but the basic ideas of the words are just this idea of “worthlessness” – completely empty, useless, pointless whatever. And in fact  that perfectly describes our “lust of the flesh, and lust of the eyes, and pride of life.” Those things are all lies, they’re all figments of our imagination. Without God, people will spend their entire lives chasing those things, only to find as Solomon did, they are all “vanity,vanity.”

But David says he has seen through it all. Elsewhere he says, “You have made known to me the path of life; You fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand” (Ps 16:11). It is God who delivers on His promises, not this world. And so he declares in our verse, in contrast to those who live for this world’s emptiness, “I trust in the Lord.” I’ve underlined the “I” because it is emphatic in the Hebrew. David is clearly wanting to communicate, “As for me and my house …” He just called the Lord in v5, “the God of truth,” and now is obviously contrasting Him with this world’s foolish deceptions.

I love the word translated “trust.” It sounds something like “bataq.” There are several Hebrew words which may get translated as something like “trust,” but this one in particular means to trust God recklessly. It would seem, in this context, David is highlighting the fact that he has determined to trust God rather than believe the promises of this world. We all know that often feels “reckless” because the world’s promises seem so certain and true and delicious, while God’s Word may seem literally like we’re stepping out into air. But believers learn more and more as they grow that this world’s promises really are “vanities of worthlessness” while God’s promises hold true. He really has shown us “the path of life” and it is Him who gives us “eternal pleasures at His right hand.”

So, I think I’ve learned something valuable about this business of “hating” in God’s world of love, and I’ve certainly enjoyed being reminded how “very great and precious” are God’s promises!