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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Psalm 137:9... Dash your little ones against the rock!
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Simon
Editor
# 1
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Posted
Verse nominated by Bill
" Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!" (Psalm 137:9, in context)
Bill comments: Some translations have it as "babies" and "infants". How bad can Babylon be that we should take such revenge on their innocent toddlers -- and be happy! I'm sure GW Bush must be fond of the verse.
Al Eluia comments: It's probably the passage I am the least capable of believing is inspired by God.
Jenny Roberts comments: Just thoroughly nasty -- absolutely nothing to recommend it.
Orlando 098 comments: How about love thy enemy??
How much of a problem is this verse? Click "Vote Now" to cast your vote!
[ 29. July 2009, 09:27: Message edited by: Simon ]
Poll information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 75 user(s) have voted.
You can't view the results of this poll without voting.
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Eternal memory
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
" Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!" (Psalm 137:9, in context)
Would it make sense to argue with Aesop that allowing the wolf to eat the sheep while the shepherd boy cried "Wolf!" is too harsh as punishment for his lying? Or to decide that the author of the myth of Prometheus is endorsing eternal torture and agony as an appropriate punishment for stealing?
If people can write stories with multiple levels of meaning, it is so hard to accept the possibility that God might have done the same thing? If you can't believe that God would want us to literally dash anyone's little ones against a rock, doesn't it make sense to look for some non-literal message in such passages?
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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Attallah
Apprentice
# 14916
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Posted
I believe it's a legitimate expression of an oppressed little people wishing vengeance against their oppressors. At the end of a beautiful psalm it allows for the beauty to stand as a contrast and challenge to the reader. An exile's love and longing for her home country is also infused with understandable (and perhaps the most righteous) hatred against those who caused it. This is also easy to see today . Not hatred directly against the infants to be smashed against rocks, but against their parents, so they may feel similar sorrow. It may not be inspired by God, but I am glad it's in the Bible, to shake up the comfortable (especially in the first world) and send them away empty of solace in this verse. Importantly, there was no chance the Israelites would get to smash many Babylonian babies against rocks. It's a "sigh of the oppressed." It's as if an Iraqi (no longer in the position of Babylon) wished the US would suffer anything approaching what his country has suffered. That wish is very unlikely to be fulfilled. (Don't want to derail this thread into something about the Iraq war, just take it as a subjective wish by an Iraqi in the face of a huge power difference).
Jesus spoke against this, telling us to love and pray for your enemies. But he spoke as a Jew in the land of his ancestors that had been occupied by the Romans and where the worst was yet to come. He was not the emperor or his governor telling the people they had to do this, but one of the oppressed telling other oppressed people that God was on their side. Yet the Kingdom would come in a way wholly different to smashing infants against rocks, if they were to truly serve God. It would come through Love. Jesus knew that this message would, strangely, be controversial (as in Acts, where the apostles are noticed as though who wish "to turn the world upside down), so he predicted the violence that would come against those who truly followed his message, and which remains to this day, depending on where you look.
I think it's really important to realize the power dynamics of so many violent verses in the Bible, and how sickening it is when the tone of that violence gets appropriated by the powerful.
Posts: 41 | From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2009
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Attallah:
I believe it's a legitimate expression of an oppressed little people wishing vengeance against their oppressors. At the end of a beautiful psalm it allows for the beauty to stand as a contrast and challenge to the reader. An exile's love and longing for her home country is also infused with understandable (and perhaps the most righteous) hatred against those who caused it.
This is true, but I'm not sure it's enough. The first 8 verses of the psalm are moving and poignant. They positively drip with sorrow and a long-held hope that dare not be expressed. But the moment we reach verse 9, the whole thing falls apart.
There's nothing wrong with feeling resentment, or a burning desire for revenge in such a terrible situation. Verse 8 is a perfectly reasonable expression of this. But must this revenge involve the cruel and barbaric slaughter of innocent children, an act which doesn't exactly receive widespread approval when attributed to Herod? I'm happy to read all sorts of sentiments in the understanding that this is an expression of a real person's real feelings, but the horrific, jarringly explicit nature of this verse seems an unnecessary conclusion to a moving psalm.
But I'm not generally interested in excising illiberal or unpleasant verses which are "of their time" or reflect how people genuinely felt, so I'm in a quandry over this one. I wonder if the psalmist would have wanted to excise the verse once his passion has cooled a little.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
These folks lived in a world of war. The tribes gained their lands by war; the kingdoms lost them by war. Most of the fighting was not done from a distance by archers. Soldiers and civilians were hacked by swords. Those who lost and were not enslaved died- badly. No mercy. Good times were when you won and got to loot and enslave the women and kill off all the men in the land you conquered. And when you lost...
Good and bad, I'm rather glad that the Bible isn't squeaky clean. This expression of feeling is one part of human reality. This is part of what living in a Fallen world is like. I might just vote for this one because it is such a perfect counterpoint to what I believe life in the Kingdom to be.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
If you don't have a fundamentalist hermeneutic, I think it's easy to take this statement for what it is -- a revenge fantasy endulged in by the author on behalf of his people. Yes, it's an ugly, hateful thing to say...but how many of us, when confronted by news of some bloody act of terrorism or some oppressive wingnut leader or society, haven't said, "Bomb 'em back to the Stone Age!" or some similarly violent sentiment?
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
I'm with Attallah on this one. It's an expression of han. (Google that if you don't know it; it would probably serve you more than my trying to explain it would.)
The verse does bother me, but more bothersome than its being in the Bible is its recitation in church services - or its being left out. I can't decide whether I think it's better to recite/chant the whole thing, or leave the end of the psalm out (which we do in the church I'm at now).
We'd do well to remember that this is a psalm - and to read it as a protest song. A good contemporary example would be Bruce Cockburn's song, "If I Had a Rocket Launcher." He himself has expressed regret for writing that song, although he still performs it. He explains that it was written out of a place of extreme pain, having just witnessed the death of friends at the hands of cruel regimes.
(Interestingly, in my unscientific observations when I lived in Detroit, US audiences always cheer when he gets to the line, "Some son of a bitch would die"; Canadian audiences don't. Granted, my experience of "Canadian audiences" were limited to Windsor, ON, and likely some of the crowd, like me, had just crossed the Detroit River to be there, and probably on some occasions when I saw him in Detroit, the crowd included some Canadians too, but still, I did notice a difference.)
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Carys
Ship's Celticist
# 78
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Posted
I think this verse is problematic if you take it as being a divinely sanctioned sentiment rather than seeing it as the cry of an oppressed people to their God. To me, it is a reminder that we can come to God as we are, however bitter or angry that might be, and yell at him in that feeling. It's not the end of the story by any means but it's a part of it. Too often it seems like we have to get our feelings right before we can come to God and that's not the case. This verse is a bit like the Calling God to Hell thread we once had in Hell.
Like Churchgeek, I'm not sure how to deal with it in the context of public worship -- like the verses about the wicked man at the end of Psalm 139 (my favourite psalm). But maybe we're being too woolly liberal. There is much nastiness in this world and people do feel that bitter. The problem is that, particularly in the daily office, there isn't the chance to put it into context and it will trouble people.
Carys
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O Lord, you have searched me and know me
You know when I sit and when I rise
Posts: 6896 | From: Bryste mwy na thebyg | Registered: May 2001
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Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
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Posted
I once read a book by 1980s Christian singer Sheila Walsh, about her mental health problems. In it she suggested that many people perform 'Psalmectomies' taking out the nasty verses like this one, and that this could lead to a happy-smiley Christianity where it was wrong to express extremes of rage like this. Apparently she found the raw honesty in such verses a real help in her recovery.
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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
Kathleen Norris, writing in "The Cloister Walk" about talking to monastics about cursing Psalms, was told that, for a monastic, these texts are indeed a way to pray one's internal rage, frustration, struggle with our shadow sides, etc.
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
We'd do well to remember that this is a psalm - and to read it as a protest song. A good contemporary example would be Bruce Cockburn's song, "If I Had a Rocket Launcher." He himself has expressed regret for writing that song, although he still performs it. He explains that it was written out of a place of extreme pain, having just witnessed the death of friends at the hands of cruel regimes.
Along these lines, I think it's helpful to think of the Psalms as "appropriated language". They're not intended so much to be God's words to us, as examples or models to us in prayer. Thus, I read vs. 9 not as an example of what I'm supposed to feel/think, but rather as a model of how I'm to pray when I find myself feeling/thinking those things. iow, it's an example of the ruthless honesty of prayer-- that, rather than "pretty up" the state of our hearts with a lot of pious-sounding rationalizations, we're meant to lay bare all those ugly little truths-- all the seething anger and bitterness we don't dare admit to anyone else.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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archangel0753
Apprentice
# 14945
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Posted
I agree about acknowledging all the emotion that is there whether we admit it or not. And, frankly, I find it refreshing that psalms like this have been kept in the Bible. It's reassuring to find the Bible dealing with life as it really is.
Has anyone considered the cathartic value of them? They must be one of the few liturgical opportunities to let rip ...
Posts: 13 | From: London | Registered: Jul 2009
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Thus, I read vs. 9 not as an example of what I'm supposed to feel/think, but rather as a model of how I'm to pray when I find myself feeling/thinking those things. iow, it's an example of the ruthless honesty of prayer-- that, rather than "pretty up" the state of our hearts with a lot of pious-sounding rationalizations, we're meant to lay bare all those ugly little truths-- all the seething anger and bitterness we don't dare admit to anyone else.
I agree.
There is something about voicing our requests to God out loud that forces us to confront the darkness within.
Therefore it is the passages in scripture that speak of God destroying the littles ones that I find difficult, not these.
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I went on a job interview a few weeks back, for a place I had fallen in love with on first sub assignment. When I found out another candidate was hired, I was smitten with a deep depression. My prayers at the time centered around asking for help with my attitude, that my faith and courage would be strengthened, and that I could hope for the best.
Didn't work. I struggled to keep my spirits up. It was like a daily wrestling match.
About a week later, I woke up early in the morning-- about an hour before my alarm went off-- and drifted back to sleep. In that (about) half hour before the alarm went off, I had an intense dream-- I was sobbing and crying out to God. "I wanted that job! I wanted it!" like a child.
I woke up with the alarm and felt like I had just spent a week at a Zen retreat-- fully relaxed, calm, and peaceful. And grateful, weirdly.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
Wow, Kelly, that's a really great example, and perhaps even a model for understanding a Psalm like this as "inspired" by God. Your subconscious being able to express itself in your dream, to a cathartic end, could just as easily be the hand of God at work, knowing what you needed at that moment, and knowing what the Psalmist needed to pray too.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Hm. Yeah.
I don't usually say things like "and God was telling me..." because it's such a loaded concept, but in this case, I think the gratitude I mentioned came from a sense that God was telling me "You don't have to be such a little soldier. I know what's going on."
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
... and at least your prayer didn't involve wanting to bash the children of the person who got "your" job!
Seriously, a great example, and beautiful story of God's great love for us-- just as we are.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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matthew_dixon
Shipmate
# 12278
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Posted
Sorry, but I really do feel that this verse goes too far. Why did the Psalmist need to be quite so brutal in his descriptions in this one place. It's interesting to note that the majority of people's votes have been for old testament verses involving murder in the name of the Lord - and I have to say that I agree with them. This one however (alongside potentially with Jepthah's daughter) would have to be the worst for me. (Abraham taking Isaac up to the rock isn't quite as bad, as at least we know that in the end he didn't do it!)
Posts: 321 | From: Cardiff | Registered: Jan 2007
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
But nobody does it here, either. It is purely an expression of anger/revenge/rage, and nobody saying or hearing it was in a position to carry it out, even if inclined.
It's not a lovely thought, no; but the thoughts of victims about their destroyers are rarely lovely.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
The implication (at least in some translations) of the previous verse is that the Babylonians threw the Israelite babies against the rocks. In the circumstances it's hard to condemn the feelings of the Israelites. quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
The first 8 verses of the psalm are moving and poignant. They positively drip with sorrow and a long-held hope that dare not be expressed. But the moment we reach verse 9, the whole thing falls apart ... I'm happy to read all sorts of sentiments in the understanding that this is an expression of a real person's real feelings, but the horrific, jarringly explicit nature of this verse seems an unnecessary conclusion to a moving psalm.
Yes, but I think it also makes it more true to life.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
While I wouldn't recommend the actual practice described in Psalm 137:9, I don't have a problem with this verse theologically. If there is a principle here to apply to our Christian lives it is called "being brutally honest with God". At times we may feel that we must just "forgive" those who wrong us as a kind of "Christian reflex action" ("it's the done thing to do, and God won't forgive us if we don't" type theology). We feel we have to do this even if the wrongdoers show no remorse. But true forgiveness must, in my view, come from the heart - a heart that is cleansed from all the dirt that has built up there.
Here's an example of someone who knew how to get the hatred out of his system before God. It's wonderfully cathartic (but perhaps best to do without other people in earshot!)
No, I don't agree with murder. But I do recommend honesty. That's how I read the "Psalms of imprecation". Hate to say this, but there have been times when the words of the "Psalms of imprecation" have been the source of the greatest blessing to me.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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DagonSlaveII
Shipmate
# 15162
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Posted
There is some "prophecy" connection to this one, too, which would make it a bit more easy to tolerate, I think.
When thinking about the possible connections to the book of Daniel and Revelations, there are those who believe that this is predicting the fall of Rome, some time after the Siege of Jerusalem. Babylon, then would be Rome, in that estimate.
So, think this connotation: Rock of Offense
With this possible prophecy: Stone crumbles statue.
(and child, in the Greek is nhpia Hebrew is a bunch of symbols my computer doesn't recognize )
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Thanks for all the prayers for my not-yet-family. Please continue to pray for my future Brother-in-law's mum, she is still in the hospital, although doing better.
Posts: 138 | From: Houma | Registered: Sep 2009
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Seraphim
Shipmate
# 14676
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Posted
With respect to worship, we sing this psalm quite a lot in the Orthodox Church. It is quite the beautiful hymn.
How to understand it is another question. I recall reading commentary from the Saints and Fathers on this some years ago and it was suggested we understand these "babes" as budding thoughts that would mature into Amalikite warriors if not dealt summarily. In short, it is about not coddling a thought life which when mature would serve only to alienate us from Christ. They must be dashed away with resolve before they acquire any familiarity or strength.
Posts: 354 | From: Hattiesburg, MS | Registered: Mar 2009
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BWSmith
Shipmate
# 2981
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Posted
Ditto to those who recognize this as an understandable response to the destruction of Judah.
This is exactly what the Babylonians did to the Jews - smash their babies on the rocks.
It's an eloquent verse that helps capture some of the depth and absurdity of evil. (The fact that it is offensive is exactly the point.)
Posts: 722 | From: North Carolina, USA | Registered: Jul 2002
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