Happy he that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the rock.
The psalm opens with exiles weeping by the rivers of Babylon, and ends with a line that stops most readers cold: a blessing on the man who destroys Babylon's babies. Who is speaking, and against whom is the sentence really aimed?
The psalm's two horizons
The verse belongs to a song with a date and a future. One writer sets out both layers before touching the closing lines:
Historically, the psalm sets forth the sorrows of Israel in captivity: prophetically, it expresses the sorrows of the godly in Israel in a latter day.
The closing verses are read as the natural end of that sorrow — the sufferers ask God to settle accounts:
Babylon is to be destroyed, and they long for her judgment; Edom's hatred is not forgotten. The point of the psalm is to bring out their love for Zion while they were captives. Their hearts never separated from it in the foreign land.
Who is called "happy"
The blessing is not on cruelty as such. A close rendering of the two final lines shows what the word attaches to — the man who gives Babylon back her own measure:
Daughter of Babylon, the desolated, happy he that renders to you your measure you meted to us. Happy he that takes and dashes your babes against the rock (crag).
Summarised in a phrase, the person called happy is God's chosen agent:
Ps. 137:8, 9 happy the instrument of Jehovah's judgment on Babylon.
Words God had already spoken
The psalm is not inventing a punishment. It echoes a sentence the prophets had already published over Babylon:
But this Psalm also looks forward to the day when God will measure out His retribution to the daughter of Babylon, and will punish Israel's enemies for the sins they committed against His people. The fate of the final Babylon, given in Isaiah 13:16, matches the last verse of this Psalm. See also Isaiah 47:6.
The hardest part — the children
Commentators do not soften the shock; one admits plainly that a Christian recoils from the wording, then places it inside God's already-announced sentence on both nations:
It is the desolation of those who are away from the place of Jehovah's manifestation; with the prayer only for judgment upon their enemies, who have destroyed or sympathised with the destruction of the home of their affections, in language from which the Christian naturally shrinks. But Edom and Babylon are both doomed by the prophets to extinction as a people; and to this doom of the latter there is distinct reference made here. Judgment is God's strange work: we may be sure, a necessary one.
Another writer takes the children's case further, and reads their death as gain rather than loss:
It is solemn that the children are involved in their fathers' wickedness. However, their early death is actually a mercy, for they will then be in heaven, as was surely true also when Noah's flood destroyed the whole world.
Not a Christian's prayer
Every writer who touches this verse says the same thing: it is not language for the believer today.
This would also explain the pleas for punishment or for vengeance on the enemies (e.g. Ps. 137:9), which are difficult to understand for many a reader. The feelings explained in these Psalms are feelings of believers but not of Christians living in the household of grace (compare Rom. 12:17-21). They are feelings of believing Jews living in the coming last days.
The reason given is a difference of destiny, not a difference of morals:
They are not the expression of Christian feelings. We leave the world and go to heaven. In no sense have we to demand the destruction of our enemies in order to pass into glory. But Israel cannot have their rest on earth until the wicked are destroyed; and therefore they do demand this righteous judgment, and this is the way they will be delivered.
What the believer may still long for
There is one thing in this closing cry a Christian may share — and one thing they may not:
Even the judgment of those who corrupted it is looked for with joy by the Christian. Not of the individuals, a Christian could not do that — it would be revenge — but of the whole power of evil.
Summary
- Measure. The verse blesses the man who pays Babylon back her own measure. The happiness lies in justice repaid, not in violence enjoyed.
- Measured by God. The exiles did not choose that measure. The prophets had already sentenced Babylon, and Isaiah 13:16 matches this last line.
- Measured by an instrument. The one called happy is the agent through whom God's sentence falls.
- Measured on the babes. One writer calls judgment God's strange but necessary work. Disasters sweep away babies with their parents, yet these evils are short, and eternity settles the balance.
- Not our measure. The believer today goes to heaven and does not need enemies destroyed first. A Christian may long with joy for the end of the whole power of evil, but never for the ruin of people. That would be revenge.