What does Psalm 137:9 mean when it says, "Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks"?

On the other hand, Babylon (meaning "confusion") is typical of the mixture of religion with self-seeking, and this evil must eventually be destroyed. It may seem strange that we read, "Happy the one who takes and dashes your little ones against the rocks!" But 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. How many little ones who died in the flood will have been welcomed in heaven!

If this is the main characteristic of the Psalms, they have an aspect entirely different from that in which the book is regarded by many, namely, as a book of Christian experience. The piety that the Psalms breathe is always edifying, and the deep confidence in God expressed in them under trial and sorrow has cheered the heart of God's saints at all times. These holy experiences are to be preserved and cherished; but who has not felt the difficulty of calling on God to destroy his enemies? What Christian can take up as his own language such a sentence as "Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." Ps. 137:9. And how can such a sentence be spiritualised? But such appeals are intelligible in regard to a future day, when, apostasy being universal and opposition to God open and avowed, the destruction of His enemies is the only way of deliverance for His people.

There is no mention of their sins, however, in all this, — no confession. 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 sympathized 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; and the solemn part which God has made His people sometimes take in it, as in the case of the nations of Canaan; has doubtless its deep necessity also. Calamities involve commonly enough babes as well as parents; while, of course, they are but the short and passing evils, which leave the eternity following to make up the balance-sheet.

The children of Judas cut off (Ps. 109), the little ones of Edom dashed against the stones (Ps. 137), Haman's sons, all hanged after himself, — these illustrate for our learning the utter downfall and annihilation of all that now offends; the clearing out of all by the besom of divine judgment. The "millstone" of Rev. 18 tells us this, and prophecy upon prophecy has long ago announced it.

Another meditation is suggested here. Children of Bethel are another order of persons altogether. If Elisha present the strong one in Christ, the true Levite, who had turned his back on all but the glory, and the chariot of fire to conduct him to it, and if the sons of the prophets are the weak ones, still, however, by divine grace, in the same company and blessing as Elisha, these children of Bethel, on the other hand, are the mockers, or infidels. They despise the word of the Lord. They mock the thought of ascension. "Where is the promise of his coming?" say they (2 Peter 3) The whole mystery of God, made known for salvation and glory, is their sport. They put the Son of God to open shame. "Go up, thou bald head, go up, thou bald head," they say to Elisha, as reproaching the thought that Elijah had already, gone up. And here the curse falls. Ministers of wrath come forth; the bears on the children of Bethel, and the eagles on the carcase, to vindicate the divine truth against the gainsayers. Creation, it is true, is not to groan for ever under the curse which our sin has put on it, but shall be delivered from bondage into glorious liberty (Rom. 8), as Jericho had just been here; but the curse will rest on the Cain, the children of Bethel, who despise God's remedy for the mischief. And it is written of such mocking, infidel children, children of disobedience, whether of Babylon, of Bethel, or of Edom, "happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." (Ps. 137)*

While the church is being called, God is interfering in no such way. He is proclaiming salvation to the world that rejected and murdered His Son, who is still, so far as man is concerned, the outcast One, though crowned with glory and honour upon the throne of His Father. Hence the church's calling is governed by the present patience of God toward an ungodly world. Suffering, therefore, is her portion meanwhile, and grace, not judgment, her cry to God about her enemies. But the time is fast coming when God's dispensational displays will change, and, instead of making His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sending rain on the just and on the unjust alike, "it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, Jehovah of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come out, that have no rain, there shall be the plague, wherewith Jehovah will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles" (Zech. 14:17-19). When that time comes, there will be another and a suited witness here below; not the church, (whose calling was during the time when the riches of His grace knew no measure, namely, between the cross and the return of the Lord Jesus), but His people Israel, the righteous remnant become a strong nation on earth. "Jehovah said, I will bring again from Bashan: I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea; that thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same" (Ps. 68:22. See all Ps. 94). "Remember, Jehovah, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation thereof. 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" (Ps. 137:7-9). "Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye Jehovah" (Ps. 149:5-9). I might thus comment on all the Psalms, save the few which describe the atoning sufferings of Christ personally. In all of them it is the Spirit of Christ in special sympathy with Israel, though the Holy Ghost applies to the church in the New Testament many truths which are equally true of us and of them (cp. Ps. 44:22, with Rom. 8:36). But this in no way sets aside their proper and prophetic bearings, any more than Hosea 11:1 is denied to contemplate specifically the literal Israel, because in Matt. 2:15 it is referred to Christ.

This Psalm is in remembrance of the Babylonian captivity written by an unknown person. Some have named Jeremiah, but he was not in Babylon. The Psalm expresseth the never dying love for Zion in the heart of Israel. The same love is alive today after an exile of almost two thousand years. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy." But this Psalm also looks forward to the day when divine retribution will be measured out to the daughter of Babylon, when Israel 's enemies will be punished for their sins committed against His people. The fate of the final Babylon as given in Isaiah 13:16 corresponds with the last verse of this Psalm. See also Isaiah 47:6.

Psalm 137 refers, and alone does — to give the full history of Israel's sorrows — to Babylon, which has only a mystic fulfilment in the latter days, but has its importance, because at that time was the closing of the period of the divine presence in Jerusalem, and the setting up of the power of the Gentiles. But faith could not content itself in a strange land nor sing the Lord's songs there; for they were not a heavenly people — hence they turn to Jerusalem, which faith never forgets. Babylon is to be destroyed and her judgment is desired; Edom's enmity not forgotten. The object of the psalm is to bring out their attachment to Zion in their captivity; there was no separation of heart from it in the strange land.

Describing the history of the Jewish remnant in the last days reflects the prophetic character of the Psalms. But again not the outward events are described but the inward feelings. 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. These Jews will await God's salvation and the just punishment of their oppressors, and especially of the Antichrist.

Hence, remark, it is that we find in the Psalms these appeals to judgment, and demands for it, which have often stumbled Christians, when urged by the enemies of Christianity. 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.