What does Psalm 137:9 mean?

[Michaela (Michaela Rae Farrell)]

“Happy is he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks.”

This is not one of the first verses most of us are drawn to when we think of Scripture. Indeed, Psalm 137 contains some of the most shocking statements in the Bible. It emerges from the anguish of Israel’s exile, from a people who witnessed violence, humiliation, and the destruction of their home.

This verse does not sound like our God who is slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness, because this verse is not a divine expression from God! It is a raw, human cry of grief and longing for justice.

God allows His people to speak to Him with unfiltered honesty. Even our darkest most angry emotions can be brought into His presence. Bringing those feelings to Him, rather than taking them out on others protects us all but still allows for the proper processing of emotions.

Still, the story of Scripture ultimately moves us from lament to redemption. In Jesus, God enters our suffering, absorbs our violence instead of returning it, and offers a path toward healing that breaks cycles of revenge.

The following framework helps us to reflect on how this difficult psalm invites us into deeper honesty with God and deeper understanding of the transformative power of the cross.

ASK

• How does the emotional intensity of Psalm 137 help you reconsider what “acceptable prayer” looks like?
• What hidden frustrations or wounds in your own life might you be avoiding bringing to God?
• How have you seen honesty with God lead someone in your life toward healing or deeper faith?
• Where do you sense God inviting you to bring your real emotions instead of more polished words?

DISCUSS

(Read 1 Corinthians 1:18–31 to connect the conversation in the New Testament)

• How does the cross challenge common ideas about justice, especially when compared to the desire for revenge expressed in Psalm 137?
• What does Paul’s teaching about God working through weakness reveal about how God meets people in grief and anger?
• How does this passage affect your understanding of what faithful responses can look like when you are wronged?
• In what ways do lament and the cross together show the fullness of God’s justice and mercy?

DO

• Reach out to someone who may be carrying unseen pain and offer support or presence.
• Choose a simple daily task this week and approach it with intentional gentleness or compassion.
• Send a note to a friend asking them to pray for your emotional or spiritual needs.

[Carson]

Hi @Michaela,

When I first saw your post, I gasped. Are we really going to talk about Psalm 137:9?

I know I encourage looking at hard questions, and that is baked into who I am, but I admit that this is one tough verse to read. I don’t see it on wall art or throw pillows when I visit people’s homes! As Nancy deClaissé-Walford says, “Psalm 137 is perhaps the most troubling of all the psalms in the Psalter.”

By contrast, it’s fascinating that both Origen and Ambrose interpreted it to mean that “the little ones” refers to confusion, sinful thoughts, adulterous loves, and so on. I respect their status as revered church fathers. I haven’t mentored Augustine like Ambrose did.

But on this verse, I think they are avoiding the plain meaning of the text. For instance, the modern commentator Willem Vangemeren acknowledges, “The psalmist relishes the thought that someday the proud Babylonian captors will taste the defeat they have dished out and that they will be rendered to such a state of desolation and defenselessness that they are unable to defend even their infants” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary).

I appreciate Vangemeren speaking of the sense of ‘relish’ because it is a provocative, accurate way of depicting the emotional intensity of this psalm.

Motyer takes an even stronger approach that really challenged me: “The psalmist asks nothing about Babylon but notes (and who can contradict him?) that when Babylon is treated in the same manner as Babylon treated Jerusalem, it will be right. The Judge of all the earth (Gn. 18:25) will have acted (Rom. 2:5-6)” (New Bible Commentary)

Let’s consider Romans 2:5-8, since he references it:

Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed. He will repay each one according to his works: eternal life to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality; but wrath and anger to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth while obeying unrighteousness.

I get the logic. Because the Babylonians were self-seeking, disobeyed the truth, and obeyed unrighteousness, they will face God’s justice, which will be experienced as wrath.

But I think Motyer is missing part of the logic here. In this specific case, the thirst for ‘justice’ is more specific. The Psalmist is thinking that, because the Babylonians savagely killed Israelite children, justice would be for God to kill the Babylonian children. Wishing for the death of innocent children, even of an enemy group, seems to clearly go beyond justice.

In reviewing these commentaries, it’s interesting that they disagree with each other. And while I am reluctant to quickly dismiss the wisdom of someone who wrote multiple academic commentaries, served as a pastor, and taught at a university, I respectfully suggest that Motyer mischaracterizes Psalm 137:9 when he asserts that God’s people are asking for what is right.

Instead, Psalm 137 appears to be a prayer for what is wrong: bloodthirsty revenge that envisions infants suffering a cruel, barbaric death. As DeClaissé-Walford states, “There is no way to soften the words or alter the sentiment expressed in v. 9. And we should not try to do so.”

She concludes, “God does not ask us to suppress those emotions, but rather to speak about them in plain and heartfelt terms. In the speaking out, we give voice to the pain, the feelings of helplessness, and the burning anger. In speaking out to God, we give the pain, the helplessness, and the burning anger to God. And we trust that God’s justice will be done” (NICOT).

I understand the criticism of the Bible on the basis of this passage. What kind of sick God wants his people to pray to him like that?

But I think the criticism misses the point. When we think about it more deeply, it reveals a powerful message: how remarkably loving God is, that he would allow his people to speak to him in such raw grief! The same God who dashes Jesus against the cross, the same God who dashed himself against the cross, is the one who taught us to love our enemies.

Our God can draw us close to himself when the only kind of prayer we can pray is a prayer of rage, revenge, and even ghoulish consequences for those we hate. Somehow, in his presence, as he hears our lament, we may eventually gain perspective to trust that he will bring justice to the earth. And it is only if we are certain that God will make all things right that we can let go of our need to take revenge.

In that sense, then, the Psalm isn’t troubling at all. It’s because the Psalm is, initially, on the face of it, disruptive and uncomfortable that, in the end, it brings us comfort.

I look forward to other reflections and insights on what this challenging passage means - and how we apply it.