mattbraunlin
Member
I Did NOT Just Read That!
A study of the Bible's most shocking verseIf you are a new student of the Bible, there is one thing I can promise you: you will be offended by it. I am still offended by it. God's word is a profoundly challenging book, and no matter how much time you spend delving into its mysteries, you will always discover laws, narratives and principles which run directly against your upbringing, culture, and sensibilities.
And that's a good thing, you know.
From beginning to end, the Bible has been designed by God to compel you to swim upstream. All over the world, men and women have been drawn out of the presuppositions of their sinful societies and taught by God to think differently. And in order to do this, he must challenge us. He must cause us discomfort and agitation and sometimes even anger if he is to change our hearts and show us a better way to live and think. There is simply no other way to do it.
But there is one verse in particular which seems like the last straw. One verse which, if you are a human being at all, seems utterly irreconcilable with the idea of a good and loving God.
That verse is Psalm 137:9.
Happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks!
Yep. That's in the Bible. And it was spoken not by some monstrous barbarian, but by a Hebrew poet, inspired by the Lord Himself.
So. What are we to make of this verse? Are the skeptics correct? Is the God of the Bible a monster after all?
Well… no. He is not.
In examining this horrendous verse (and it is horrendous) I hope to show you that God can be trusted. He is good and loving. Every verse of his Holy Word is there for our benefit, and when approached in a spirit of faith, even this verse has something to teach us.
As always, the great, overarching rule of making sense of Scripture is context. We have all said good and true and constructive things which could make us seem like bad people if taken out of context, and this is every bit as true when it comes to God. So the logical first step is to place this verse within the context of the Psalm in which it is found.
Psalm 137
[1] Beside the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept as we thought of Jerusalem.
[2] We put away our harps, hanging them on the branches of poplar trees.
[3] For our captors demanded a song from us. Our tormentors insisted on a joyful hymn: “Sing us one of those songs of Jerusalem!”
[4] But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a pagan land?
[5] If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget how to play the harp.
[6] May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I fail to remember you, if I don’t make Jerusalem my greatest joy.
[7] O Lord, remember what the Edomites did on the day the armies of Babylon captured Jerusalem. “Destroy it!” they yelled. “Level it to the ground!”
[8] O Babylon, you will be destroyed. Happy is the one who pays you back for what you have done to us.
[9] Happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks!
So here we have the whole Psalm. And I hope you will agree that the overarching theme here is not infanticide.
Psalm 137 is about one of the darkest periods in all the history of Israel: the exile to Babylon. As a result of her terrible sins, Israel was invaded, besieged and conquered, and her people led in slavery and humiliation to live in bondage in a pagan land. Their Babylonian invaders were murderous, cruel and godless, and many atrocities were committed.
Most experts believe that this Psalm was written after the exile, when the Jews had returned to the ruins of Israel.
Now in that context, let's reflect on the author.
We do not know the author of this particular Psalm (fully one third of the Psalms are anonymously written) but we can be sure of three things:
Firstly, he was a devout man of God.
Secondly, He likely lived in Babylon during the exile, or was at least very familiar with it.
Thirdly, he loved his people and his nation.
And this man found himself in the ruins of God's holy city of Jerusalem, surrounded by the weeping and wailing of his disgraced and humiliated people, and with generations of hideous sin hanging heavy in the air.
Needless to say, this man would have been feeling a quite literally historic level of devastation and despair.
That, in a word, is the context of this terrible Psalm: despair.
And in that context, I can see two reasons why this anonymous writer chose to close his Psalm with this appalling sentiment.
One, is that it is a rhetorical cry for Godly justice. He recalls the famous Mosaic concept of an eye for an eye, and in the depths of his emotional torment, he considers the atrocities of the Babylonians and considers that they deserve the same. This is supported by the previous verse.
Two, is that this statement is simply a hyperbole, an empty threat made in the heat of an emotional moment. It does not mean he would actually carry out this terrible pronouncement; he said it merely to express his anguish at the utter ruin of everything he and generations of his people held precious above all other things.
If you have approached this blurb (and all my blurbs) as a skeptic, I hope I have at least challenged your presuppositions. I hope I have caused you to doubt your doubts. If you open a Bible preemptively looking for reasons to hate it, you will find them. But only if you stop there.
And I tell you now, such a sinful mindset has never been more inexcusable. There are mountains of resources at your fingertips that will explain your moral objections to God's word and take them away forever whether you like it or not. Deep down, I think you know that probably ninety percent of your Biblical misconceptions could be wiped out in an afternoon if you put your mind to it.
As C.S. Lewis said, half a century before the digital age, A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.
I implore you, my dear friend: forsake the worn-out trend of atheism. Give the rude gesture of your choice to men like Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Dawkins and Seth MacFarlane and turn to Jesus. He longs to help you understand him, his Father in heaven, his plan for this world and his plan for you.
I love Psalm 137. It is a profoundly beautiful portrait of the fundamental desperation of the human experience. It is a history lesson which teaches us about both God's burning wrath and his infinite love for his people.
And like all Truths and Goods in this world, it is challenging. It is a test of faith. It is a moral puzzle which can be gloriously solved if we merely obey God's command to love him with all our minds.
And don’t stop there.
