“Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”
Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock! This final verse expresses the most horrifying curse: the murder of Babylonian children as fitting retribution. The specific imagery (dashing infants against rock) represents total military defeat, yet it also articulates a violence so extreme that it offends modern sensibilities. The blessing (happy) on perpetrators of such violence suggests that Israel perceives Babylon's destruction—including infanticide—as justified and even beneficial. This verse represents the psalm's moral and emotional nadir: victims imagining and celebrating the most terrible possible violence against their oppressors. The verse's presence in Scripture ensures that Psalm 137 remains one of Scripture's most difficult and controversial texts, requiring interpretation that acknowledges the legitimacy of grief and anger while questioning the ethics of genocidal retribution.
Church Fathers on Psalms 137:9
1. ...But today we have sung, “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered Sion” Psalm 136:1.... 2. Observe “the waters of Babylon.” “The waters of Babylon” are all things which here are loved, and pass away. One man, for example, loves to practise husbandry, to grow rich thereby, to employ his mind therein, thence to gain pleasure: let him observe the issue, and see that what he has loved is not a foundation of Jerusalem, but a stream of Babylon.…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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