Scripture Daily

Context No. 479 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 137:1-9: in context

1By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion. 2On the willows in that land, we hung up our harps. 3For there, those who led us captive asked us for songs. Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” 4How can we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? 5If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. 6Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I don’t remember you, if I don’t prefer Jerusalem above my chief joy. 7Remember, LORD, against the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who said, “Raze it! Raze it even to its foundation!” 8Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, he will be happy who repays you, as you have done to us. 9Happy shall he be, who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock.

This psalm is one of the hardest in the Bible, and it should not be smoothed over. It begins in pure grief. By the rivers of Babylon, the exiles sat and wept, remembering the Jerusalem they had lost. They hung their harps on the willow trees, because they could not bear to play. And when their captors mockingly demanded entertainment, sing us one of the songs of Zion, they refused: how can we sing the LORD's song in a foreign land? Then comes the vow never to forget home, so fierce it is almost a self-curse: if I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill, let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth. This is the voice of a people whose whole world has been destroyed.

And then the psalm ends somewhere terrible. It turns to Babylon and cries, happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock. There is no way to make that line comfortable, and I will not try. It is a raw, savage cry for vengeance. But it helps to know what these people had watched: Babylon's armies had done exactly this to their own children when the city fell. This is the scream of the traumatized, praying that the same horror be visited back on those who did it. What is remarkable, and easy to miss under the shock, is where that scream is directed. They do not go and do it. They bring it to God. They lay the most murderous, unspeakable rage they carry down in front of him, in prayer, rather than acting on it or pretending they do not feel it.

That is the uncomfortable gift of a psalm like this. It tells me that God's word does not imagine the faithful as people who never feel rage, never want revenge, never carry thoughts too dark to say out loud. It gives that darkness a place: spoken honestly to God, who can bear it, which is a very different thing from vengeance carried out by my own hand. When I am wronged and something ugly rises in me, a real desire to see the other person suffer, do I bring even that honestly to God and lay it before him, or do I hide it behind pious words and let it fester where he cannot heal it?

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