Psalm 137 and Dashing Babies on Rocks
What does Psalm 137:8-9 mean: “O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”? Why would a supposedly righteous person use such an awful image? How can the psalmist call someone who does such a thing “blessed”?
Shocking, isn’t it?
Poets use gut-wrenching imagery to get others to feel what they feel. The Jews had watched Babylonian troops tear down Jerusalem’s walls, loot the temple, and burn their buildings. The invading soldiers slaughtered them with swords and dashed their babies on rocks.[ref] These and other horrific acts were meant to terrorize kingdoms into submission. ”The dark realities of warfare in the ancient Near East often doomed the innocent to destruction. While soldiers and men were often subject to dismemberment and impalement, women and children might also be ravished and slaughtered…. Pregnant women might be lacerated in order to extract the fruit of their wombs for sport, and infants were smashed on the ground….” John W. Hilber, “Psalms,” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Volume 5, John H. Walton, gen. ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 432. [/ref] Then they shackled survivors and exiled them to Babylonia (today’s southern Iraq). [ref]Jeremiah 40:1.[/ref]
The writer of this psalm is one of those exiles. He’s grieving the loss of home and loved ones—perhaps even his own child. He’s written this psalm to help the community of exiles grieve.
The Imagery of Psalm 137 Symbolizes the Horrors the Jews Suffered
Of all the horrors the psalmist saw, he chooses one as emblematic of their suffering: murdered infants. The psalmist uses a common poetic device called synecdoche, in which a part of something represents all of it. The dashed babies is the one horror he most wants to see Babylon repaid for, and so he uses it as a symbol for the total repayment he knows is coming.
Synecdoche: a poetic device in which a part of something represents all of it.
Why did he think Babylon would be repaid?
Psalm 137:9 Quotes Prophets
The prophets who foretold Judah’s exile also said the exile would last just seventy years. Then the Medes would conquer Babylon, repay her for all she did to Judah, and send the Jewish exiles home. One of the things the prophets said would happen to Babylon is this: “Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes” (Isaiah 13:16). So the psalmist isn’t making some gruesome punishment up: he is quoting what the prophet Isaiah foretold. He uses one image from what the prophets said would happen to Babylon to stand for the whole of the oracles about Babylon. Thus, his statement is a proclamation of faith in God’s promise that Babylon would fall and the exiles would come home.
The Imagery Represents Eye-for-Eye Justice
The Jews’ concern with equal repayment may seem foreign to us, but it’s important to understand that they lived under a talionic (eye-for-eye) justice system where punishment matched the crime. One should be treated as one treated others. They had no problem wanting God to repay wrongdoers, especially when they knelt powerless before a cruel oppressor. Gordon Wenham explains: “The psalmist is asking for justice, not revenge. This will demonstrate to others that God hears prayer and intervenes on behalf of the poor and oppressed.” [ref]Gordon J. Wenham, Psalms as Torah: Reading Biblical Song Ethically (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 171.[/ref] The Jews wanted eye-for-eye justice because it showed God cared about righting wrongs.
Wenham adds an important note: “In these psalms there is no suggestion that the psalmist will personally intervene; vindication is left to God.” [ref]Ibid.[/ref] God always gets it right.
Additionally, in Psalm 137:9 it’s important to note that the psalmist is not asking God to have babies killed; rather, he is commenting on the state of those who fulfill the prophecies of Babylon’s fall.
The Imagery Symbolizes Ending a Dynasty
There’s another piece of symbolism here. Ending a reign in ancient days meant eradicating the royal line. Leaving an heir to the throne alive invited future rebellion. Psalm 137 speaks of the coming of the end of Babylon’s ruling dynasty.
Erich Zenger, who was Professor of Biblical History at the University of Münster in Germany, says this:
Psalm 137 is a political poem: It deals with the end of Babylon’s reign of terror. This is also important with respect to the image of the children of the daughter Babylon, who are to be smashed against the stone pavements of the capital city. “The children” are those of the royal house, that is, of the dynasty (cf. Isa. 7:14-16; 9:1-6). The horrible image means to say that this dynasty of terror ought to be exterminated completely (“root and branch”).[ref]Erich Zenger, A God of Vengeance? Understanding the Psalms of Divine Wrath, trans. Linda M. Maloney(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 50.[/ref]
But Why Call Him “Blessed”?
So the psalmist uses emotive imagery to symbolize the horrors that the Jews suffered, the whole of the prophecies about Babylon’s demise, the eye-for-eye repayment he considered just, and the end of a cruel dynasty.
“Belshazzar’s Feast” by Rembrandt [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
On the night Cyrus the Great, King of the Medes and Persians, invaded Babylon, the Babylonian King Nabonidus was absent. His son Belshazzar was partying with holy vessels plundered from Jerusalem’s temple. The overthrow was relatively bloodless, but Belshazzar died that night (Daniel 5:30), and there is little doubt his children died too to prevent a future challenge to the throne.
Even the Babylonians were happy about the dynasty’s demise: “The inhabitants of Babylon greeted Cyrus not as a conqueror but as a liberator, and spread green branches before him.”[ref]Edwin M. Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 87. [/ref]
Blogs on other Bible questions
See also
Here are four excellent books that discuss the more difficult psalms, in order of reading ease.
- In A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms: The Psalms as Torah
, J. Clinton McCann Jr. discusses Psalms 109, 137, and 82 in his chapter, “Prayer and Activity: Vengeance, Catharsis, and Compassion.” He writes for a general audience.
- Gordon J. Wenham’s The Psalter Reclaimed: Praying and Praising with the Psalms
is very good. It’s a compilation of lectures and therefore doesn’t read as smoothly as his book below, but it covers a broader range of topics. The chapters, “Praying the Psalms” and “The Imprecatory Psalms” are helpful; he quotes McCann’s and Zenger’s books. His audience is the more serious student of the Bible, seminary students, and church leaders.
- Gordon J. Wenham’s excellent Psalms as Torah: Reading Biblical Song Ethically (Studies in Theological Interpretation)
has two chapters particularly relevent to understanding the harsher psalms: “Laws in the Psalter” and “Appeals for Divine Intervention.” He summarizes McCann’s and Zenger’s books. Here his audience is seminary students.
- In A God of Vengeance?: Understanding the Psalms of Divine Wrath
, Erich Zenger argues that the psalms that cry out against injustice are essential in a world of violence. Zenger was a German Roman Catholic priest and a professor of biblical history, and his take on the German churches’ wrestling with psalms of violence after the world wars is culturally fascinating. The audience is church leaders and scholars.
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Thank you Jean E. for taking a difficult passage and bringing such clarity to it. You are so gifted as a Bible teacher. Thank you for sharing such meaningful insights.
Glad to be of help, Angie!
I always learn so much from you, Jean E! This is very helpful! It’s so good to know that there are explanations for passages like Psalm 137. Another perplexing verse that I came across a few weeks ago was II Thess 2:11. It confused me until I read several commentaries that agreed that in sacred literature there is a common idiom where God is said to actively do something, when in reality, he merely allows something to happen. I’m learning that taking the time to dig deeper regarding the culture and writing style of different passages gives you a clearer understanding of what the author meant.
Thanks, Kerrie. Good commentaries are essential. They allow us to stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us–shoulders that are broad in scholarship, no less.