The writer of the Psalm is mourning the complete destruction of their holiest temple and city, Jerusalem, and the mass slaughter of their people. In their rage and sorrow after the death and destruction they have suffered, they wish the same upon those who inflicted it. This includes razing the Babylon empire to the ground (as the Babylonians did to Jerusalem) and the killing of their children (as the Babylonians did to their children).
It is a tough read, as the writer is clearly in distress, but this action is seen as just punishment by the writer and a fulfillment of the Prophecy in Isaiah 13:16. In addition the action was unfortunately common in the times of the Old Testament, as shown in Homers Iliad. Let me know if you have any more questions.
Thank you for the context. I feel like you could find similar sentiments today over less severe harms.
Honestly, that type of retaliation is happening right now by the descendants of those that wrote the Psalm. Goes to show we really haven’t progressed much in how we treat each other in 3000 years.
Dafaq, I wonder how many christians know about this, the bible is weird AF
Edit: I searched about psalms and it’s somehow followed both by jews and christians?!
Yeah I don’t think there’s any context in which smashing kids on rocks is justified.
Psalm 137
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.
Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried, “tear it down to its foundations!”
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
For context, the book of Psalms is a collection of jewish hymns. Psalm 137 is written from the viewpoint of defeated jews in Babylonian exile; the last verse may well be read as a defiant answer to the line “sing us one of the songs of zion!”. The god of the bible is not speaking directly here nor is he being addressed.
As additional context, Boney M’s disco version is actually a cover version of The Melodians “Rivers of Babylon” (featured on the soundtrack of the film The Harder They Come) and tactfully omits the verse about dashing Babylonian infants against rocks.
What’s “holier” than killing kids for being born wrong?
Fucking gross.
Oh it isn’t just the ones that are born!
Hosea 13:16
ESV - 16 Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword; their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.
You’re gonna love Judges 19. Traveller man walks into a city, is greeted and taken in by a citizen, a gang of wicked men demand to have sex with the traveller, citizen offers his virgin daughter and traveller’s concubine to be raped instead, traveller gets mad that concubine died, goes home and cuts her in 12 pieces to call for revenge against the city (as it happens in Judges 20).
After that (Judges 21), they find out one of the tribes (cities) didn’t join in and decide they should die, too. All of this because “Israel had no King”
im tempted to download a bible reader app just to see if thats true
if i do that and stop coming here, my phone was hacked by the satanic illuminatti convoys. please wish me good luck fighting them if thats the case.
It’s absolutely accurate…
It expands upon it here and tries to paint it in a different light but I’m still not satisfied with their washing of it, at all…
Perfect example of “don’t take the Bible literally” when you point out its contradictions. That article even points out a contradicting verse from Romans and says “use that one instead”. So dumb. Maybe don’t include that verse on psalms in the Bible if it’s not meant to be followed. There needs to be a new council of Nicaea.
while not a perfect match, https://xkcd.com/927
I prefer the Boney M version of that song
