Need help with Bible verse.....

[Rocker5150]

Psalm 137:9 How happy will be the one who grabs your babies and smashes them on a rock!


I used this to demonstrate the cruelty in the Bible, and was basically told I was talking it out of context. This was their reply:

"The way you presented 137:9 certainly did look bad. However, it's so misleading its laughable. Nice try. Who would be the "daughter Babylon's" babies? No, no it makes more sense that there will be 4 month olds being brained than it does to say that the Godless minions of Bablyon, transgressors against God's people, reap what they've sown. Yeah, you're right. The problem is, you're reading that too literally. Sorry, but if you think that children can actually be born of the city/kingdom/whatever of Babylon, then you need to lay down the pipe."


Before I reply, I want to be sure I'm on solid ground. It's almost as if they are saying it is okay because the children are godless?? Maybe I am too dim....that can't be what the poster meant!? After reading all of 137, I am not sure how it was taken out of context. Can someone walk me through it? I find it hard to believe that the verse is innocuous.


-Kevin

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Actually, I read that psalm, and it seems more to deal with the evils of Babylon towards the Israelites, and certainly does not condone or attempt to portray baby-smashing as a useful sport. You are taking it out of context.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Psalm 137:9 How happy will be the one who grabs your babies and smashes them on a rock!


I used this to demonstrate the cruelty in the Bible, and was basically told I was talking it out of context. This was their reply:

"The way you presented 137:9 certainly did look bad. However, it's so misleading its laughable. Nice try. Who would be the "daughter Babylon's" babies? No, no it makes more sense that there will be 4 month olds being brained than it does to say that the Godless minions of Bablyon, transgressors against God's people, reap what they've sown. Yeah, you're right. The problem is, you're reading that too literally. Sorry, but if you think that children can actually be born of the city/kingdom/whatever of Babylon, then you need to lay down the pipe."


Before I reply, I want to be sure I'm on solid ground. It's almost as if they are saying it is okay because the children are godless?? Maybe I am too dim....that can't be what the poster meant!? After reading all of 137, I am not sure how it was taken out of context. Can someone walk me through it? I find it hard to believe that the verse is innocuous.


-Kevin

Psalm 137 wishes nothing but ill-will for Babylon and the people in it. While one might claim that it has nothing to do with babies, and more to do with the general populace of Babylon, this claim would be made in ignorance of the rest of the Old Testament, where God is said to deliver entire cities to the Israelites and implores them to destroy their "people." And then he goes on to specify the men, the women, and the children.

Since threats of violence and the depictions of violence in the Old Testament are directed and explicit in almost every case, we can, as skeptics, safely argue that Psalm 137 is no exception, and that the writer of the psalm was very much referring to the desire to kill (specifically) the children of Babylon. It is a shocking statement to make, and was likely written with that shock value in mind.

[anybody_mcc]

well it is not about killing babies , it's a metaphore , children of Babylon=Babylonians in general.

[Surlethe]

Psalm 137:9 How happy will be the one who grabs your babies and smashes them on a rock!


I used this to demonstrate the cruelty in the Bible, and was basically told I was talking it out of context.

If you really want to demonstrate cruelty in the Bible, have them look up and read Deuteronomy 7. The first few verses are pretty telling:

Deuteronomy 7

7:1 When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; (7:1, 23-24)
7:2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:
7:3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
7:4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.
7:5 But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.
7:6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

What we have here is a prime example of ethnic cleansing. Just point that out to him, and draw a comparison between that and the Holocaust.

Thanks to the Skeptic's Annotated Bible.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

It reads to me like it's saying the Babylonians will smash Jewish babies against rocks, not the other way around. So you may have read it out of context. However, the proper context is still an attempt at dehumanization of the enemy and an implicit incitement to mass murder, so that doesn't help his case.

[Guardsman Bass]

Psalm 137
137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
By the waters of Babylon
(Philip Hermogenes Calderon, 1852)
137:2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
137:3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
137:4 How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land?
137:5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
137:6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
137:7 Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
137:8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
137:9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

It's referring in a generic sense to the "children of Babylon," which could mean either Babylon will cease to live on, or more literally, that the children of Babylon shall be slain in the destruction of Babylon. You could definitely argue that it is gaining happiness from misery in the hope of the slaughter of the Babylonian children.

I'm curious how you drew that it might be referring to Jewish children being slaughtered by Babylonians. It refers to the "daughter of Babylon, to be destroyed" in Psalm 137:8, and the "thy little children" appear to be her children referenced.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Not having read that full passage, it seemed to me like a warning. I now retract my statement.