Ps. 59.12-13 (Evil offers itself up)

For the sin / of their mouths / and the words / of their lips
let them / be snared / by their arrogance
and / for the curses / and lies / they utter.
In wrath / put an end / to them,
put an end / to them / so that they are / no more
and let them know / to the ends of the earth
that God / rules over Jacob. 

There is an interesting dynamic at work in these two verses. The first speaks to the dogs entrapment by their own devices. They ensnare themselves. While the psalmist pleads that God “let this happen”, the only thing that God needs to do, is allow them freedom in order to move toward their own entrapment. The image of ‘snare’ comes from the realm of the hunt; it is something (either a net or some other hunting device) that would capture the prey. In this way, the ‘dogs’ who are out to capture the king, in the end capture themselves and get entangled in their own doom. Once they are caught, it is then that the king asks that God “put an end to them” in his wrath. Like a hunter coming out from hiding and moving toward a prey that cannot run, God emerges. This is important to note: the hunters/dogs catch themselves. God destroys them. This points to the fact that the judgment poured out on them is one that is both fully within their realm of responsibility (they ensnared themselves) and one that is accomplished by God as the one who enacts justice. Evil, in a way, ensnares itself and, in so doing, offers itself up like a prey to the God who hunts it down. Evil, paradoxically, can do nothing but work toward its own destruction. It seems as if evil cannot move outside the bounds of justice. The harder it kicks at it, the more entangled it becomes in itself, to the point of making it an immobilized object of God’s wrath. This general statement, however, is completely particularized to the God of Jacob. He is the one who is revealed in this judgment. And, in his revealing, so too is Israel revealed. But the light does not stop there. This drama of the ensnarement of evil is one that is ‘performed’ for the world; is for their benefit. At the moment that Israel is redeemed, so too is the world brought within that same light. So, while internally, the judgment may have been prolonged in order to prevent Israel’s forgetting, externally, the judgment is absolute (“put an end to them so they are no more”), in order to show to the world the God that rules over Jacob. This international focus is important as it, again, reveals the depth of the king’s heart—for it would be precisely in this light spreading to the world that his own people would have the possibility of living in peace with her neighbors.