Psalm 137 is a communal lament. Many think someone wrote it who was part of a group that returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon, probably around 540 BC. The psalm begins with mourning in Babylon, remembering the Babylonian inflicted hurt of his most sacred religious and patriotic feelings. The writer prays for vengeance against Babylonians and Edomites. We find tenderness in the first six verses and bitter imprecation in the last three.
In Psalm 137: 1-3, when one is in exile, a stranger in a strange land, this is the typical response – mourning and the loss of song. By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. The author remembers an actual experience of melancholy with his fellow citizens in Babylon. They were tormented by whether God has rejected them. On the willows there we hung up our harps, because their tormentors came. For there our captorsasked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
The use of “I” in 137: 4-6 makes the violation personal. How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? They cannot lament alone! They will not sing the songs of Zion (46, 48, 84, 122) for the entertainment of Gentiles. It may well be that some occasions are so desperate that praise of God would not be a true or genuine response. If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.
Psalm 137: 7-9 suggest that the Lord cannot allow this situation to continue. Yet, verse 9 is frightfully cruel. It stands in contrast to the nature of the actual conquest of Babylon by Persia.
O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!
Is this an appropriate psalm for Christians? I suppose, as with many passages of scripture, the answer depends on where you are when you hear it. If you are well situated, comfortable, not suffering, at home, you will be impatient with these sad Hebrews and their laments. "Can't we talk about something more pleasant? Something cheerful and upbeat? Come on, Jewish people, get with it! Babylon is not so bad. All might be well with this psalm if we could end it there. Nevertheless, the psalm continues with smashing little babies against a rock. Now what do you do with that? It is one thing to mourn, to weep, to refuse to sing; but here the feelings of exile homelessness and lostness have moved beyond mourning to rage, white hot, clench-fisted head smashing rage. What to do you make of that? John Wesley, founder of Methodism, spoke for many of us when he said that some psalms that are "unfit" for Christians ears. In that case, one ought to end any reading of this psalm with verse 6. Yet, is rage possible expression in a church service? Rage can express ugly and unacceptable thoughts. Could we allow it in church? This psalm, like all psalms, is a song of worship. Here, in Psalm 137, is the public processing of pain.
Augustine spiritualizes the text:
“What are the little ones of Babylon? Evil desires at their birth. For there are, who have to fight with inveterate lusts. When lust is born, before evil habit giveth it strength against thee, when lust is little, by no means let it gain the strength of evil habit; when it is little, dash it. But thou fearest, lest though dashed it die not; ‘Dash it against the Rock; and that Rock is Christ.’”
Famed 19th-century British preacher Charles Spurgeon says the sentiment is awful but understandable:
“Babylon, the gigantic robber, had for many a year slaughtered nations without mercy, and her fall was the rising of many people to a freer and safer state. The murder of innocent infants can never be sufficiently deplored, but it was an incident of ancient warfare which the Babylonians had not omitted in their massacres, and, therefore, they were not spared it themselves. The revenges of providence may be slow, but they are ever sure.”
The psalmist, who had no doubt watched the ruthless Babylonians murder the innocent, bitterly predicts a time when their babies will likewise be dashed upon the rocks, and that, moreover, they who throw those babies will be happy about it. Those who commit such a deed will regard themselves as the arm of divine retribution, exacting what could in those times be seen only as appropriate justice in the ongoing cycle of violence.
When it comes to the final verse, we might keep several things to keep in mind:
1.) Provide context. The Jews who survived three attacks and invasions and who had been forcibly relocated to Babylon had experienced a Chaldean version of ethnic cleansing. It was not pretty. You can understand the human longing for retribution.
2.) The horrifying images to which this verse refers reminds us of the progressive nature of God’s revelation. Removed now by more than 2,500 years and informed by the New Testament, there is no way, under any circumstances, that the murder of babies in this fashion or any other fashion can be condoned. The nations of the world now are beset by terrorists for whom this kind of justice is permissible. Yet we who observe this are rightly shocked. Although we are willing to say it is for God alone to take vengeance, we are not willing to say God will take vengeance in the manner described here. This verse simply restates the writer’s petty, spiteful prayer that the day will come when someone will be extremely glad to dash their tormentors’ babies upon the rocks, even as their own babies had been killed.
3.) This psalm does not prescribe appropriate punitive and retributive justice. It only describes the mental state of those who had suffered enormous personal losses.
4.) The New Testament makes it clear that it is not good for us to live with hatred and with the hope of revenge. See Matthew 5, in which Jesus says that while murder is wrong, it is equally destructive to live with murderous hatred in one’s heart.
Such reflections raise the question of the legacy of the biblical theology movement. We are hearing increasingly apologetic sermons trying to justify unlikely passages as being, nevertheless, a word of God. I have heard some give beautiful lectures justifying this psalm and its use in church. Why bother? Why would anyone bother to preach a baby-bashing text when one could be declaring the good news? Is the whole Bible a book that one must preach simply because it is in the Bible, and somebody has labeled it as the word of God? Is not our task to preach the gospel in a difficult baby-bashing world - Bible or not?
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