Nathan E. Lewis

Psalm 4: 4
Be angry, and do not sin;
Ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.

David, who wrote this Hebrew couplet also wrote in Psalm 37, “Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.” My personal experience is that I do better to obey Psalm 37 than to find a way to express my anger short of sinning. There must be a rare righteous indignation, but I have yet to experience it. The “A” line of a Hebrew couplet is often related to the “B” couplet in this fashion: “A what’s more, B.” The “B” line helps us to understand what David means in writing, “Be angry, and do not sin.” In the context of the “B” line, it means that the best way to be angry yet refrain from sinning is to keep your anger private. Uh Oh! Is David describing the destructive suppressed anger our counselors warn against? No, he is not recommending suppressed anger but noting that anger is rash. Were we to think first, we might find another response other than anger. We have been taught to think before we speak and now we are learning how to pause before we send an email. David would have us sleep on a troubling matter before any outburst.
In his “Sermon on the Mount,” Jesus expounds the commandment, “Do not commit murder.” He says that anyone who is angry with his brother breaks this commandment. If my brother offends me, or let’s say, merely gets under my skin, then I should sleep on it and take some private time to think about why he bothers me so much. The few times that I have done so, I have discovered that I am more the problem than my brother. For me, painfully, this is not hypothetical but all too recent experience.
Paul quotes David to the church at Ephesus, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” (4:8) I know that the devil is not omnipresent and so he must do his evil where he detects a foothold, and so, when I am angry, I am a devil magnate. He can smell and hear anger and he sends his minions to the sinful hot spot to wreak havoc. Certainly in the end God fights fire with fire.
James writes, “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” (1:20) In the end, I am afraid that all of my anger has been my sub-conscious attempt to usurp God’s rightful place as the Sovereign of justice. One dark afternoon God poured out his wrath upon his Son, punishing him for my anger and the entirety of my sins. In my anger, I would never think of doing such an act for the good of the world, including those that have scorned me.

(more meditations on the Psalms)