Misapplied Scriptures, Psalm 137:9

Introduction: Yahoo! ™ used to have a section or forum where people could ask and answer questions about any of many topics. One of my favorites was the “religion and spirituality” section. Some people were genuinely interested in spiritual matters. It goes without saying there were a number of trolls who, shall we say, were not. But I digress.

To be honest, one of the most irritating things to me was the misuse of Scripture verses or how someone would take a verse out of context and deliberately try to make it say something that, clearly, it didn’t. This is one such verse that was misused quite a few times.

Let’s take a deeper look at it. Here’s the verse from the King James Version of the Bible:

Text, Psalm 137:9, KJV: 9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

1 How the verse has been misapplied

As best I recall—and, after all, it’s been a few years since the Yahoo forums went away—there was one, or maybe a few people, who loved to throw this verse as a “gotcha!” that the Bible teaches violence or something like that. Apologies if that’s not the case or if I have misrepresented what the original posters may have said. I do remember that some of the posts had an almost “what are you going to say about that?” kind of tone.

What they hoped to convey, if anything, is something I have never really understood. All I know for sure is that whoever used this verse and misused the application didn’t do justice to what the verse was actually saying.

2 How the verse should be applied

Let’s take a look at the context. First, this is in the book of Psalms, in the Old Testament (OT) section of the Bible. The New Testament (NT) was hundreds of years in the future when this Psalm was written. Thus, the people of that day were under a different system than we are today (the Law of Moses instead of the Age of Grace these days).

Second, as is true of several Psalms, the speaker is simply expressing his thoughts or concerns. Beginning at verse 1, this writer and many other Hebrews/Israelites are in Babylon, most likely during the “Babylonian Captivity.” The Psalms, like most of the OT, not only had records of God speaking to people, but also people speaking to God.

This writer is pouring out his frustration in this Psalm about being in a foreign land. Some of the Babylonians (implied, verse 3) wanted him or others to sing them a song from Jerusalem—not to enjoy it, but probably to laugh at it or make fun of the songs of a captive.

Third, this author seems to remember what the conquerors did, once Jerusalem fell to these Babylonian invaders. He loved Jerusalem and called down a curse upon himself if he ever forgot the place (verses 5 and 6)! At the very least, he was taken to Babylon and not left behind, like several others were including, of all people, the king’s daughters (Jer. 43:6) other Jews who had fled to other countries, and Jeremiah himself (Jer. 39-43).

And Jeremiah was there, in person, when some of the high Babylonian officials came and set up tribunals, for lack of a better term. Then when the Babylonians took over Jerusalem (Jer. 39:3), this dashing of little ones against stones could well have happened. The OT has more than a few records of horrible treatment of captives. Examples: Judges 1, where a pagan king, Adoni-Bezek, cut off the thumbs and large toes of 70 captives, and 2 Kings 8, where Elisha the prophet told Hazael, soon to be king of Syria/Aram, what he would do to Israel’s people. Amos listed several other atrocities in chapters 1 and 2 of his book.

Somewhere I remember reading or hearing a bit of philosophy that went something like, “conquer the youth and you will conquer the future; if there are no youth, there will be no rebels.” Those may not be the exact words, but the concept was the same, and the destruction of Jerusalem’s youth, though not recorded, was something that this man remembered vividly.

Finally, perhaps he could look ahead, with the assistance of God, and see that Babylon’s days were numbered. Maybe he remembered some of the prophecies from Jeremiah and others. At any rate, he closed by saying, in so many words, "you, Babylon, might have destroyed our country but the same thing is going to happen to you".

This verse, then, has nothing whatsoever to do with violence, real or imagined, in these days. The verse is part of a man’s thoughts, as he shared with God what was on his mind. It’s like we’re reading his memoirs, blog, journal, or similar things. He had seen an injustice, and was thinking, you’re going to get the same thing done to you that you did to us.

Today, as Christians, we’re taught to forgive and take our concerns to God, too, asking for mercy and not judgment. We’re to pray for our enemies and hope the grace of God reaches them so that they too might enjoy the salvation only Jesus provides.

I don’t know what else to say so I’ll stop here.

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV)