Psalm 137

In 1999, Laura and I took a team of people from Grace Church to Albania to help in relief camps during the Kosovar Crisis. We divided the team between camps near the capitol city of Tiranë and working with our sister-church in Shkodër. When I returned from a trip to the US Embassy in Skopje, Macedonia, I heard a story from our team in Shkodër. A family of Kosovar Albanians told of seeing two Serbian soldiers hold an infant by his legs between them and rip him in two. I don’t even know how to process a story like that except to say with the psalmist, “O LORD, how long?” (Psalm 6.3; 94.3).

Throughout history, ethnic conflict has been characterized by extreme cruelty, as the Bible indicates (2 Kings 8.12; Hosea 10.14; 13.16; Nahum 3.10) which was especially true of the Babylonians (Habakkuk 1.5—2.1). This psalm shows us that the Israelites had experienced that in the defeat, destruction and exile at the hand of the Babylonian Empire.

This is the only psalm that was clearly written during the exile. The psalmist was a captive in Babylon somewhere near the Euphrates River (v 1). Their captives demanded that they “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” (v 3). Evidently the Jewish people were known for their unique worship and their love for their sanctuary in Jerusalem; their captors asked them to ‘perform.’

In reading the psalm one feels the plaintive cry of the captives: “How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?” (v 4). The psalm is a mixture of sorrow, outrage, commitment, request for justice and, finally, a curse on the Babylonians.

The final line is the troubling one:

“Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!” (Psalm 137.9).

There is little question that the psalmist’s plaintive request is based on the personal experiences of the Jewish people at the hand of the Babylonians. But how can we square this statement with the love of the gentle Savior or sinners?

There are a few things we have to keep in mind:

First, this ‘curse’ is a faithful expression of the old covenant ethic of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" (Exodus 21.24; Leviticus 24.19–20). This is often called lex talionis, or retributive justice, which is still loosely applied as a principle of our legal system. Today we might say, ‘The punishment should fit the crime.’

Second, we live in a world where there is real and active evil, as the story of the Kosovar infant above indicates. Unlike certain viewpoints today that seem to deny the reality of radical evil, the Bible affirms it. This statement is a recognition of the reality of human sin and divine judgment.

Third, this statement does not express personal revenge but expresses a longing for justice to be done. In fact, it is technically not a request but a statement of what will happen in light of God’s justice.

On the basis of the Bible’s teaching about the universality of sin and of the need for forgiveness, we must realize that even what the most wicked of people actually do is rooted in the human heart in the state of sin. We dare not think that there is a constitutional difference between ourselves and the Nazis who murdered millions of Jews, Slavs, and Romani—the only difference is in the maturity of the noxious fruit the seed of sin in the human heart has produced. In terms of our relationship with God, we are as culpable for sins of the heart as for sins of action. However, in ‘horizontal’ terms—in our relationship with others in society—we are only responsible for our actions. In other words, in human society we are not guilty for having sinful hearts but we are guilty for evil actions that harm others.

There are actions in this fallen world that demand the words of the final line of this psalm. At times, given the principle of talionic justice, it happens in this life. But even when it doesn’t, believers can be confident that some day the “God of justice” (Isaiah 30.18) will right all of those wrongs.