Moral discussions of the so-called psalms of imprecation tend to focus on the author as the mind behind their most violent imagery, with the retributions they invoke assumed to be a product of imaginative fantasy. Debates pivot on whether this fantasy is born from justified or unjustified anger. The following discussion breaks from these assumptions altogether, arguing not only that moral reasoning underlies the so-called psalms of imprecation, but that this reasoning is deeply informed by specific patterns of act and consequence attested across ancient Near Eastern legal cultures. These patterns include talion, shame, and seat of the act. The psalter’s presentation of acts and their consequences draws on the features and logic of these patterns as they seek to compel YHWH to fulfil the retributive norms that the authors observe and therefore expect as a response to particular kinds of crime.