Judges 5 · a question people ask
"So let all your enemies perish, LORD" (5:31). Can a Christian pray that?
The song's last words are a prayer to the LORD, and they are about "your enemies", the LORD's (5:31). The same line asks for the other side too: "let those who love him be as the sun when it rises in its strength" (5:31). The Bible prays in this way elsewhere: "Rise up, LORD, and let your enemies be scattered!" (Numbers 10:35), and a psalm asks God, "Do to them as you did to Midian, as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon" (Psalm 83:9). Christians read 5:31 in two main ways. Both start from what the verse says: it is spoken to the LORD, and the enemies it names are his, "your enemies" (5:31). Both also read it beside what the New Testament says to believers: Jesus taught his disciples, "love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you" (Matthew 5:44), and Paul writes, "Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath" (Romans 12:19).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
A prayer for the LORD's justice
Those who hold this view read 5:31 as a prayer that the LORD would judge those who set themselves against him, and so as one a Christian can still pray, leaving the judging to him. They point to the souls in Revelation who cry, "How long, Master, the holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" (Revelation 6:10), and to Paul's words, "give place to God’s wrath" (Romans 12:19).
Judges 5:31 · Revelation 6:10 · Romans 12:19
Israel's prayer in its war
Those who hold this view read 5:31 as Israel's prayer after a battle against an army (5:19-21), and note that Jesus taught his followers to pray for those who persecute them (Matthew 5:44). They read Paul's "our wrestling is not against flesh and blood" (Ephesians 6:12) as saying who a Christian's enemies are, and so pray the song's first half against those powers rather than against people, and its second half for those who love the LORD.
Judges 5:19-21 · Judges 5:31 · Matthew 5:44 · Ephesians 6:12
The verses
““So let all your enemies perish, LORD, but let those who love him be as the sun when it rises in its strength.” Then the land had rest forty years.”
“When the ark went forward, Moses said, “Rise up, LORD, and let your enemies be scattered! Let those who hate you flee before you!””
“Do to them as you did to Midian, as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon;”
“But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you,”