Disturbed-Can you please explain?

[GraceAnn2]

Psalm137 vs.8-9

"O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."

 

[Tzaousios]

Psalm137 vs.8-9

"O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."

The style and content of this passage is firmly within the genre known as "imprecatory psalms." Thus, dark, foreboding imagery (often hyperbolic) is used to make a point.

Although atheists like to use this as a favorite prooftext with which to denigrate Christianity, they do so (often purposefully) ignore the context and genre.

Basically, the point of the imagery is to say that divine judgment and justice is coming upon Babylon for its atrocities against Israel. It does not mean to convey that dashing babies against rocks is appropriate, justified, or correct as a rule of thumb.

Indeed, terrible things like this happened in ancient warfare; Babylon would receive its punishment within the course of history and the destruction of war.

 

[GraceAnn2]

That is quite a plausible explanation TZA. You have at least given me some food for thought here. Thanks bunches.

 

[Mr Dave]

TZA makes a great post.

Also, this Psalm is a lament which references the Babylonian captivity in which the Psalmist is looking back to how he and his fellow captives were treated. This is the most "vividly compact" of the anti-Babylonian sentiments and as TZA mentions, this is a hyperbolic statement to get across quite how badly the captives felt at how they had been treated and the revenge that they felt could account for such treatment (not they actually planned to go ahead like this).

 

[razeontherock]

I have nothing to add to what has been said so far.

I will point out a completely different direction though: assuming the OP will find herself reading the Bible sometime, what qualifies as "G-d's enemies?"

It is not an us vs them dividing line, but rather a line in the sand drawn within each of us. The parts about killing all that remain, refer to our own self-discipline and self-control, re: our own foolishness and sinfulness. Yet again, Proverbs brings us straight to what matters! I remember when our Lord first showed me that every instance of the foolish and wicked man is ME, and that every mention of the righteous is CHRIST. Even those things that come easily for me, that is Christ in me, my only hope of glory. This aspect of things makes reading the OT quite enlightening.

 

[maizer]

I think everyone will agree it's a stunningly brutal passage. But then again, those were stunningly brutal times. W know the Egyptians ordered all male Israeli babies to be killed before Moses came, and even in Jesus's time King Herod ordered the death of all babies in Bethlehem. Ammorites would burn crops of their enemies, effectively starving everyone to death, and the entire works of Lamentations show how brutal war is.

I would have liked it if the world did not have to witness these things, but humans can do anything and everything. God is good, but God is realistic as well. I just hope I do not come to fully understand what those writers endured when they wrote those Psalms.

 

[CryptoLutheran]

The Psalms are a collection of poems/songs, and include the entire range of human emotion, feeling and thinking. This particular psalm was written by a Jew during the Exile, in mourning and deeply angry at the circumstances the Jewish people have come to endure--taken away from their homeland. And so part of this psalm has the psalmist speaking frankly against his oppression and his oppressors and rejoices at the thought of judgment and tragedy befalling his enemies, even their children.

What it does not represent is God's personal feelings, or represent how we should feel. This is not prescriptive, but descriptive. We do not have to agree with the psalmist here, but only to acknowledge what the psalmist is saying and feeling and recognizing it for what it is within the broad range of human feeling and expression which constitutes the Psalms in general.

I think I'm probably just repeating what others have already said though.

-CryptoLutheran