In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul quotes from Psalm 69, in which David speaks of the people who have spoken evil of him. In the psalm, David says that they should be rendered powerless and bent over. David was likely talking about an uprising among the leadership at the time. This psalm is important because it shows that the king is cursing those who are unfaithful - those who have apostatized from the faith. Although God spoke to the prophets constantly, warning them of the impending danger, not all Israelites paid attention to these warnings. There was always a group of people within Israel known as the remnant who did heed the warnings. When David uttered these curses, he was targeting those who were participating in the corruption of his own government, which may have been led by Absalom. These curses were meant as a warning to those people who were not paying attention to the prophets' warnings and were instead participating in the corruption of the government.The prophets in the Old Testament would often address the nation of Israel as a whole, calling them evil while also calling them righteous. This is puzzling because, in general, a blessed person is never addressed as wicked. What we need to see here is that the prophets were like modern day evangelists. They spoke to the nation as a whole, addressing three kinds of people: the wicked, the self-righteous, and the elect. You never see an Israelite curse his own people, but he would curse the wicked. So there were wicked and self-righteous people in Israel. In this passage, the apostle is speaking about the nation of Israel. Although God rejected the majority of the people, He did not reject His precious people. The apostle is referring to the same group of people in his address to the Romans. God preserved His elect even when they suffered in exile. This means that the apostle is not saying that God was waiting for Israel to turn to Him, but that through their rejection the gospel went out to all the world.