Christians only please...?

Question

Psalms 137 6-9. God told them to bash babies against a rock. Some how I don't think so. God is loving and kind and compassionate. He would never tell people to do that. So do you think that the people writing that are like the insane people today who drown there kids in the bath tub and tell everyone that God told them to do it. We think they are insane now. But back then they let those people write in the bible. What do you think?

Answer 1

Why Christians only? The Psalms are equally important to the Jews. Of course if you knew that, you might know something else about the context in which the poetry of the Psalms was written (primarily by Knig David)...then you would not ask such a trite question.

Answer 2

I agree with you that God is a loving, kind and compassionate God. However, He is also Holy, just and righteous. It is like two sides of a coin-you can't have one or the other; both must exist. God hates sin, which is why one day he will eliminate this sinful earth we are on and make a new one.
God is also sovereign; He has a higher plan and what He says, goes. If there is evil and sin, He wants to eradicate it. Think of Hitler and the evil he did. America had to go to war to fight him, and killing happened. That killing in itself is not what we desired to do and it is not good. However, in the end, a greater evil was stopped. Another example would be the extraction of a rotting tooth. It would hurt to take it out, and nobody wants to go through that, but it has to be done to prevent more infection. Whenever God ever ordered killinng of people, it was prevent a greater evil. I am sure He didn't like to do it. Yet he always has a greater plan in the end, to rid evil, defeat Satan, and bring Glory to Himself.
Also, with people who are killing their babies recently, that is sin, as of those kinds of orders God gave were for a specific place and time, and against a specific group of people. They are not for today; they are just to help remind us of how God cannot allow sin. What we are to follow above all in our generation are the lasting truths of the Bible; things that are commanded over and over such as love your neighbor and do not murder.
Keep reading your Bible; you'll see how God ends up being glorified and praised in various situations and always has righteousness win out.

Answer 3

Again somone is looking at one passage....reading it alone without taking into account context and previous writings. Psalms 137:6-9 is talking about the ruin of Jerusalem WHEN THEY TOLD you to smash your babies agianst the rock. He isn't telling someone to do that!

Do people read other books like this? Read one paragraph and think you know what the entire book is about?

Here is a good bible website to help you look at context:http://www.biblegateway.com/


Psalm 137:6-9
God, remember those Edomites,
and remember the ruin of Jerusalem,
That day they yelled out,
"Wreck it, smash it to bits!"
And you, Babylonians—ravagers!
A reward to whoever gets back at you
for all you've done to us;
Yes, a reward to the one who grabs your babies
and smashes their heads on the rocks!

Answer 4

Okay, first of all, that scripture is taken COMPLETELY out of context. I am looking at the New International version of the Holy Bible right now, and psalm 137 6-9 reads

May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy

Remember, O lord, what the edomites
did
on the day jerusalem fell.
"Tear it down," they cried,
"Tear it down to it's foundations!"
O daughter of Babylon, doomed to
destruction.
Happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us--
He who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

This excerpt reflects nothing of God's will. It is really about how revenge is self satisfying.

And yes, I think people who kill others (without reason or provocation) in God's name are insane.

Answer 5

The God of the Old Testament was much harsher in many ways. The law at that time was an eye for an eye. It was considered better to eliminate your enemy entirely than to repeat the same wars as each generation grew up avenging their fathers' deaths. Jesus put an end to the eye for an eye rule so now it is considered more loving to allow your enemies (or at least their children) to live and try to make peace with them.

Answer 6

The oppressors of Israel when they were in bondage made life miserable for them and this Psalm prophecies of the time soon to come when these oppressors would become the oppressed and their enemies would indeed be cruel to them. The Babylonians were soon to be defeated by their enemies who would end up letting Israel go back to their land and even give them provisions to start to rebuild the Temple which had been destroyed.

Answer 7

you would have to put psalms in context and what this portion is trying to depict, by picking just this verse you miss the context and meaning in its full sense. i am not quite sure what this particular psalm refers to, it may relate to the first born being killed or something else. god is loving but man sins, it doesn't sound from this text that it was a command by god for the people to do this. the psalmist isn't insane, he was inspired by god and is depicting events that have happened which at times are also a prelude to fulfillment in the new testament. god bless.

Answer 8

Psalms 137:9 .................... this verse reflects the cruelty of war that God's people had already experienced themselves. Read 2Kings 8:12 and maybe this will help you.

Answer 9

I think you need a class in bible interpetation. Or basic reading, that is a Psalm or a poem, writting by someone talking to God. Not God telling him to do that.

Answer 10

Notice that the entire culture of those people was evil.

You agree that God is all-seeing even the future, right?

If God knows that everyone of those babies was to grow up and be even more evil than the parents would that be wrong?

God's perfect knowledge enables Him to do things which we should never do.