Anger In The Psalms

One of the sermons that sparked the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century was Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” But you don’t hear many sermons about an angry God anymore. Christians often have a hard time dealing with anger—whether it is ours or someone else’s. It scares us, and we don’t like being around angry people.

Yet, astonishing as it may seem, the Psalms seem preoccupied with the subject of anger. If we are honest, sometimes we feel angry, and rightly so. It’s one of the emotions God has given us. We also read of God’s anger, which often makes the anger of mere mortals pale in significance.

Here are a few verses from the Psalms describing God’s anger:

Psalm 30:5

His anger lasts for a moment,

but his favor lasts a lifetime!

Weeping may go on all night,

but joy comes with the morning.

Psalm 76:7

No wonder you are greatly feared!

Who can stand before you when your anger explodes?

Psalm 85:4

Now turn to us again, O God of our salvation.

Put aside your anger against us.

Psalm 89:46

O LORD, how long will this go on?

Will you hide yourself forever?

How long will your anger burn like fire?

Psalm 95:9

For there your ancestors tried my patience;

they courted my wrath though they had seen my many miracles.

Psalm 145:8 (see also Psalm 86:15; 103:8)

The LORD is kind and merciful,

slow to get angry, full of unfailing love.

Sometimes God is provoked to anger by his children’s waywardness. Psalm 78 tells how God’s anger disciplined the Israelites, and adds, “Many a time he held back his anger and did not unleash his fury!” (verse 38). In several psalms Asaph asks, “How long will you be angry and reject our prayers?”

While God’s anger with his children is for the sake of discipline, his complete wrath will eventually be unleashed on the ungodly: “Pour out your wrath on the nations,” prays the psalmist in Psalm 79:6. That makes many of us uncomfortable because we often concentrate on God’s love to such an extent that we neglect God’s holiness and justice. Yet both are affirmed in Scripture.

To be sure, the Bible cautions us to control our own anger, since our indignation is not always righteous. “Don’t sin by letting anger gain control over you,” David says. “Think about it overnight and remain silent” (4:4). And elsewhere, “Stop your anger! Turn from your rage! Do not envy others—it only leads to harm” (37:8). It seems that anger is a feeling that shouldn’t be denied, yet we should take care to see that it is “tempered.”

Approach, my soul, the mercy seat where Jesus answers prayer;

There humbly fall before his feet, for none can perish there.

Bowed down beneath a load of sin, by Satan sorely pressed,

By wars without and fears within, I come to you for rest.

JOHN NEWTON

“The psalmists invite us to deal with anger rather than skirt negative human emotions. Hence the Psalms invite us to pray through anger and thus to be cleansed of evil emotions and to be filled with hope in the full inauguration of God’s Kingdom.”

WILLEM A. VANGEMEREN