Throughout the centuries, many Christian readers of the Old Testament have not had the proper understanding of the Psalms. In order to have such an understanding, especially of the psalms written by David, we need to consider David's situation regarding his fighting against the enemies and regarding his spirituality.
David was raised up by God to defeat the nations, especially the Canaanites, surrounding Israel. In Genesis 15:18 God had promised to give to Abraham's descendants "this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates." Later, in Deuteronomy, Moses charged the children of Israel to enter the land of Canaan, possess the land, and slaughter all the inhabitants of the land, clearing the land of idols. However, the children of Israel did not obey God. Instead, they possessed the land only in part and allowed most of the enemies to remain. As the book of Judges indicates, when Israel became weak, they were attacked by the nations. Various judges were raised up to defeat these nations, but the enemies were not utterly defeated until the time of David. David defeated the surrounding nations and prepared the land for the establishing of God's kingdom, with Jerusalem as the center, the capital, and the place where the temple would be built.
As such a person raised up by God, David was a type of the fighting Christ. While Christ was on earth, He was a fighting Christ, typified by David. But as the One at rest in the heavens after His ascension, He is the Christ of peace, typified by Solomon.
David often prayed, in his psalms, concerning his enemies, even asking God to annihilate them (54:5). Insofar as he had been raised up by God to destroy the enemies of the kingdom of God, he was justified in praying this way. Furthermore, because he typified the fighting Christ, he should have defeated the enemies and slaughtered them, and he should have asked for God's help in this matter.
However, we need to consider David not only in the aspect of his being a type of the fighting Christ but also in the aspect of his spirituality. David's psalms indicate that his spirituality was not perfect. As far as spirituality is concerned, David's prayers regarding his enemies actually violated the teaching not only of the New Testament, in which we are told to love our enemies (Matt. 5:43-48), but also of the Old Testament. Some might excuse David by saying that the Old Testament saints were not expected to love their enemies and were justified in hating them. This, however, is not true. To prove this, I would ask you to read Romans 12:20. Here Paul says, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head." This verse is actually a quotation of Proverbs 25:21 and 22. In both places "coals of fire" signifies burning love. Thus, even the saints in Old Testament times were charged to love their enemies. Yet in his psalms David prayed for his enemies to be annihilated, to be killed. It seems that his prayers contradict the word spoken by his son, Solomon, in Proverbs 25:21 and 22. The atmosphere and spirit in David's psalms are related not to loving the enemy but to hating him. From this we see that David, although he was spiritual, was not perfect in his spirituality.
Let us now go on to consider Psalms 58—62. In our study of these psalms, we will use the psalmists' pious expressions uttered out of their complex sentiments as a background to know the spiritual things in the New Testament.