This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. OT Sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 6, 1996.

We are reading tonight Psalm 137. Psalm 137. This is the word of God. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof, 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. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. 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, remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who said, Raise it, raise it, even to the foundation thereof. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”

Pray with me now. Help us, O God, that our hearing might be joined to our living. Father, work by your Spirit in our willing souls. so that in hearing what you say to us, we are prepared to obey. Father, there are many hard things in your word. We cannot deny that. But Father, with faith, we face these hard things. And truly, by your Spirit, you help us with those problems of the mind, those problems of the soul, and those problems of our wills.

Grant us mercy, O God, even as we are a people of prayer, even as we are a people of your word, even as we are a people of the sacraments which you have ordained. and minister to us powerfully and effectively your grace. We pray these things through Christ who makes continual intercession for us without fail. Amen. We have been singing through the Old Testament Psalter selections successively on our Sunday evening gatherings, and tonight we have come to Psalm 137. We have also, as you know, just read that psalm.

Now, I will be perfectly honest with you. I’m not going to hide this fact from you. I blinked. I hesitated. I thought about skipping this song. My thought was, do I really want to lead this congregation in singing about the happiness of those who repay my enemies, and especially the happiness of those who seize my enemies’ children and beat out their little brains. Psalm 137, verses 7 through 9. I hesitated. I hesitated because of the ending of the psalm and because of what it says there about the little children.

Not that other passages in the Old Testament don’t express similar thoughts. even declare confident prophecies with regard to these things. The universal foie gras written about in the early chapters of Genesis, the story about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—do we imagine the children were spared? the story of the death of Egypt’s firstborn during the time of the Exodus, that awesome command that came from the Lord to Joshua as he was the head of the armies of conquest as they came into the land of Canaan, the Lord’s direction to Saul, to King Saul, concerning the Amalekites, and their thorough and complete eradication. even to their children. Elisha’s anticipation of the brutal judgment that was to be visited upon Israel herself by the armies of Syria, and Isaiah’s prophecy in his thirteenth chapter, verses fourteen through sixteen, about the coming end of Babylon. A passage which also mentions the little ones and their destruction. A prophecy, I might add, which seems to provide the base for what we read in the concluding verses of Psalm 137. The Old Testament is filled with the message about the coming judgment of God, a judgment which includes, in all its presentations, a destruction of the children.

We’re trembling, aren’t we? Can you think about the constraint upon the Jews on the day of Pentecost? Peter is preaching. He speaks to these adults about the signs of the coming of the Spirit. Yes, there is sign of blessing, but there’s also sign of judgment. The Jews that are gathered that day don’t miss the point. The judgment comes upon them and also their children, and because of that, they repent. They see it by the blessing of the Holy Spirit. If you don’t want to believe for yourself, believe for the sake of your children. I plead with you.

The Old Testament is filled with the message about judgment, judgment coming from God, a judgment which in all the portrayals includes the destruction of the children. So my hesitation wasn’t that I found thoughts from Psalm 137 and those concluding verses foreign to God’s revelation in the Old Testament, nor did I find the subject of judgment concerning the enemies of God’s people foreign to the Psalter itself.

Psalm 109, for instance, finds the psalmist praying that his enemy’s petitions be turned into sin. That psalm finds the psalmist praying that his enemy’s days be few. That’s a poetic way of asking that they die. They fade away. In fact, there is an extensive implication in the 109th Psalm that sweeps us away as much as what we find at the conclusion of Psalm 137. Then there’s Psalm 69. Psalm 69 finds the psalmist praying that the very simple and common enjoyments of life become the means of his enemies’ undoing. May their table be made a snare to entrap them.

And compare this with what we find in the most favorite of all Psalms, Psalm 23. David’s confidence there that the Lord would turn the tables on his enemies by forcing them to gaze upon him even as he enjoys superabundant blessing while they are reduced to irreparable and ruinous poverty. Verse 5. Yes, that is in Psalm 23.

Now, I have sung lustily these other psalms, these psalms concerning the vindication of God’s people, these psalms that even speak about God’s vengeance and judgment. But yet, when I came to Psalm 137, I blinked, I hesitated. Now, before I go any further, In the consideration of this difficulty and problem, I want you to notice another interesting feature about the spirituality and the piety that we progress in.

I call your attention to the Trinity Hymnal. And it doesn’t matter which edition you use, be it earlier or later. If you check the responsive readings in the back of the Trinity Hymnal, you will find that Psalm 137 is missing. it isn’t there. You will also find that in the two versions of the Trinity Hymnal, we find no inclusion of the metrical version of that psalm. Just as a sidelight, I was checking the Book of Common Prayer in this regard. You know the Book of Common Prayer has a Psalter section in it. In that section, Psalm 137 is also missing.

Interesting. But others of these psalms which we spoke of earlier, others of these psalms that dwell The vindication of God’s people at the expense of their enemies, God bringing his vengeance down upon his enemies, such as Psalm 69, such as Psalm 23 and others, are included. But as we review Psalm 69, for instance, the reason as to why it is included may become quickly evident. This psalm is transparently messianic. including such lines as, they gave me also gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Lines that call to mind the experience of Jesus Christ on the cross. So yes, Psalm 69 is included. We don’t need to linger too long as to why Psalm 23 is included.

At the same time, Psalms 23 and 69 give us a hint as to why some psalms have received such easy acclamation and reception, not as much as a second thought, even when they express what might be judged a spirit of vendetta. These psalms lay their thirst for vindication and for God’s vengeance within an indirect poetical law, or they overlay the context with such glorious considerations that the sharp edge that we perceive, for instance in Psalm 137, is not so much noticed by us.

Psalm 137 itself, although set in some of the most compelling and soulful poetry in all of Scripture, by the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our hearts. Although this psalm is set with some of the most compelling and soulful poetry in all of Scripture, this psalm in particular beats us, strikes us, with its crushing blow at its conclusion. We tend to be overwhelmed by it.

But note now, it is as if the intention of the psalm is its conclusion, is its concluding verses and statements. We may think to ourselves that the other psalms we’ve mentioned have other purposes, but this psalm leaves us not only with shattering words echoing in our ears, but with shattering images imprinted upon our brains.

So offensive is this psalm to some that C.S. Lewis calls the last lines of this psalm the horrible passage. In other words, Lewis judges himself rightly, rightly appalled by what he reads here, and we are rightly appalled too. Now, to his credit, Lewis goes on to try and make a case for the inclusion and the usefulness of the 137th Psalm in our Bibles. But the best that he can do in making a case for this psalm is, first of all, to suggest an old dictum, namely, the higher, the greater the danger. the greater the danger. In other words, because the Jews had in view such a high and exalted moral excellence, they were uniquely positioned to fall all the more severely into a more profound expression of sin, such as is expressed here at the conclusion of Psalm 137. Lewis does not hesitate to suggest that, to itself, what the psalmist is expressing here is inherently sinful and an evil.

But interestingly, even after this bit of resourceful sophistry, Lewis Secondly, he proposes his own plan for the salvaging of a positive reading of this psalm and its last verses. Lewis’s effort at this point is a sort of exegetical alchemy, in which he takes this hard and crude stone of a text and turns it into pure gold.

He does this by the way of allegory. Now, not that we are opposed to allegory, if you use allegory properly. He appeals to allegory. However, his allegory reads the psalm this way. What we have in Psalm 137 is entrance into our own personal inner worlds. Now, I’m going to quote here. So if you get upset with what is said, and even the language used, you’ll know that I’m quoting Lewis.

Alright? What we have here, says Lewis, in 137, is entrance into our own personal inner worlds, in which there are things like babies—that’s the last verse of the psalm—things like babies, the infantile beginnings of small indulgences, small resentments which may one day become compulsive and even settled hatred, but which woo us and weedle us with special pleadings and seem so tiny, so helpless, that in resisting them we feel we are being cruel to animals. They begin whimpering to us, I don’t ask much, but… I had at least hoped for, or you owe yourself some consideration.

Against all such pretty infants, the dears have such winning ways, the advice of Psalm 137 is the best. Knock the little bastards’ brains out.” Now, you may not buy Lewis’s position on Psalm 137, that what we have here is an allegory of the inner struggles we all have to deal with in our personal sanctification, and that the little ones that are mentioned in verse 9 are actually dangerous, tempting little thoughts which, if left unchecked, will grow up to destroy us. But if you don’t go in Lewis’s direction, on what basis will you justify this psalm in light of maybe even your own hesitation, in light of the hesitation of others, such as the editors of the Trinity Hymnal, to include?

Well, first of all, We must admit once more, and this quite basically, that the sentiment expressed here finds contact points in the entirety of God’s Word. Not just in the Old Testament, which we have noted already, but also in the New. What we find in Psalm 137, the sentiment expressed is in some way kept alive, even into the New Testament expression of the will of our God. We need to keep this in view, and that particularly when we consider our Savior. Yes, our Savior. Meek, gentle, humble Jesus.

Do you remember what he said about the cities of northern Galilee? Do you remember the judgments and the woes that he pronounced upon them because they refused to believe the gospel? Do you think for a minute as he pronounced the woes upon those cities that he was considering that somehow the children would escape the judgment? Because the children will experience the judgment, it is all the more reason for those who are of age to respond savingly to the message.

Woe to you, Corazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! Woe to you, Capernaum! His woes are ear-piercing, and they are literally devastating. You find them listed in Matthew 11 and in Luke 10. But they merely anticipate the greater role that he pronounces towards the end of his ministry, a role that he pronounces upon Jerusalem, a role that seems to have in mind the prophecy and lines of the Old Testament and even those concluding verses of Psalm 137, for he tells Jerusalem that they, with their children, will be dashed to the ground within their city walls.” Luke 19, verse 44. This is Jesus speaking.

Also, it has been rightly pointed out that the prayer that we pray so often, the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer that has the petition, Thy Kingdom Come, has in view much more than the beatific and wondrous conditions of the kingdom finally come. For the elect, it has in view, you see, the end of the world and the judgment to come. When you pray that prayer, thy kingdom come, you are praying to the Father that he would bring about the end of the world. You do the same thing when you say, Come, Lord Jesus, even so, quickly come. You are praying for the end of the world, for the coming of the judgment in its conclusiveness and in all of its horror.

These are New Testament considerations. the pictures and descriptions of the coming judgment given to us in the Bible, Old and New Testament. If I’ve already pointed out to you, but I underscore it here, none of them can be rightly said to exclude the children. In fact, in those instances where the children are specifically mentioned, the horror of the judgment is deliberately intensified so that you might get the point. You must turn. Thirdly, C.S. Lewis is at least partially right. Psalm 137 does contain allegory. But Lewis has missed that allegory altogether.

In Psalm 137 we hear about Edom and Babylon. Now, who are Edom and Babylon? We know about Edom, the descendants of Esau, brother to Jacob. Here in Edom and Babylon are the embodiments of apostasy within the Church, within the Covenant, and hostile attacks, yes, represented in Babylon from outside the Church, outside the Covenant. Even the New Testament is not devoid of imprecations upon both kinds of enemies, both those who are apostatizing and those who are hostile oppressors from outside.

But at the same time, and in the fourth place, we must do justice to the full range and scope and development of biblical revelation, and acknowledge that in Eden and in Babylon, we have more in view than just flesh and blood enemies of the truth. Paul makes this plain by calling attention to the spiritual nature of our warfare, and John the Apostle does the same in the book of Revelation. There is a movement then to the something more that is opened up for us in the New Testament revelation. There is a something more with respect to our warfare in this world, and it has to do with the spiritual nature of that warfare.

And this helps us to appreciate the way in which we are to look at Psalm 137, for we must look at it in a way that is different than the Jews looked at it in old times. And here we go back to the beginning of the psalm, the way in which the psalm began, with those mournful and soulful sentiments and statements so poetically posed. You see, this forlorn and melancholy spirit expressed here in Psalm 137, as legitimate as it may have been in the Old Testament environment, finds no expression in the New Testament. There is no saint of the New Testament that expresses such things. Zion may in fact be distant from us, it may be as distant as the heavens, but we know, do we not, that Zion is present with us, and that it is presently accessible for us.

We cultivate hearts that are set upon glory, regardless of our circumstances. What does it matter if there are Edomites and Babylonians out there? or even inside the Church of Jesus Christ. We are not then those who are hanging our hearts upon the nearest willow. We are not sitting down in abject states of depression, mourning for that which is lost.

We are rejoicing in that which has been given by grace, that which we are presently enjoying. Zion for us may well be distant, as distant as the heavens, but it is a present reality to us, gained for us in and through Jesus Christ, and we have presently access to it.

We then cultivate hearts that are set on glory, and rejoice in that glory, hoping in that And we are hardly aggravated because Edomites and Babylonians of the flesh are keeping us from it. I don’t know any Edomite or Babylonian that can keep any saint from the enjoyment of the glories of Zion. I know none. In fact, I know no spiritual force or power that can keep us from the enjoyment of that glory. Finally, and this in conclusion, we do well to remember that particularly in this gospel age, we have pushed upon us a specific and special consideration. we have a specific and special obligation, do we not?

For there is that sense in which we do not implore God for the destruction of our enemies and their children. Rather, we implore God for their salvation and their deliverance. and this in keeping with the opening up of the fullness of the covenant. It is meant for all of the nations of the earth. And may they be gathered.

Right use of Psalm 137 introduces us to the complexities of our Bibles. No simple reading will do. Right use of Psalm 137, therefore, accepts this psalm as indeed a proper prayer for the coming judgment, for the coming, even horrible, end of this world. but equally understands the difference between an Old Testament Jewish appropriation of that psalm and a New Testament Church Christian appropriation of it. There is marvelous, deep, wondrous instruction for us as we plumb the depths of the differences between those appropriations.

And yes, because they are profound and and complex, I feel that I have some excuse for my hesitation. I have some excuse for having blinked. And it may well be that the editors of the Trinity Hymnal might appeal to that same excuse. But claiming that excuse does not spare us the hard work of understanding God’s word rightly. May we do so. Amen.

Our God, you have thought of everything, and even where our souls are most hesitant, you have pushed us. Lest we forget those things that are at the very center of your cause and purpose, lest we miss out on the full range of your revelation. Lord, we ask that we might think through the hard questions and complex matters of your word. To the benefit of our souls. And where we have opportunity for God. May the resolutions to which we come to which we are brought. The help not only to ourselves but to those we know love. And hope to influence for you.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.