The Imprecatory Psalms (2)
Righteous retribution is one of the glories of the divine character. If it is right that God should desire to exercise it, then it cannot be wrong for his people to desire him to exercise it. It may be objected that, while he claims retribution for himself, he forbids it to them, and that he has thereby forbidden all satisfaction in it to them. The fact is true; the inference does not follow. Inasmuch as retribution inflicted by a creature is forbidden, the desire for its infliction by a creature, or pleasure therein, is also forbidden; but inasmuch as it is righteously inflicted by God, it must be right in him, and must therefore be, when in his hand, a proper subject of satisfaction to the godly.
Robert L. Dabney, Discussions Evangelical and Theological
(London: Banner of Truth, 1967), 1:709-10,
cited by James E. Adams in War Psalms of the Prince of Peace
(Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1991), p. 47-48.
Recommended:
Vincent Cheung, The Doctrine of Hell