What is the Meaning of This Verse in the Bible?

Question

Psalm 137:9

"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."

Answer 1

so what fractal is this.... hmm

Someone is feels things are unjust and wishes to extinguish an-others progeny.

and so that fragmented piece of geometry is going to diminish rather then flower, or will it?

Answer 2

I found a good site with simple english explaination on this.

http://www.easyenglish.info/psalms/psalm137-taw.htm

Verses 7-9 Edom was a country to the south-east of Judah. It was an enemy of Judah. When Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, Edom was very happy! Now the *psalmist says that soon someone will destroy Babylon. He was right! "Foundations" are the hard bit of ground that you build a house on.

An Eye for an Eye
One of the rules in Judah was "an eye for an eye". This meant that if someone dug your eye out, you would dig his out. This was the rule in verse 9 of the psalm. The soldiers from Babylon killed many *Jewish children in 586 B.C. The *psalmist says that the same will happen to the children in Babylon. They did not want the children to fight the people that killed their parents. So they did not want them to grow up. That is why they killed the children. This is what they usually did in war. War is when countries fight each other. They even did this to *Jewish children in the Second World War. They hit them with rocks! (If you like words, you may like to know this: The word "rock" in Psalm 137:9 is the same word as the capital city of Edom!)

Now read the words that Jesus said at the top of the psalm. He said that his people must not do this. If someone hits you, you must not hit them back! You must let them hit you again! This makes following Jesus different from following other people. It is not easy to do it, but Jesus gives us the help to do it. Perhaps we understand the *psalmist when he wrote verse 9. But we do not have to copy him. What he thought was right in 516 B.C. But it is not right now. Jesus gave us new rules.

What the *psalmist said in 516 B.C. was right for another reason. If you asked for bad things to happen to people, it was a curse. A curse was a weapon (a way to fight) in war. It stopped other people attacking you. Christians do not need to curse people. Jesus will give them help, and stop people attacking them. He will do this if this is what he wants. If Jesus lets someone attack then he has a special reason for it.

Answer 3

The author was blowing off steam. After describing the humiliation of being asked to share part of one's cultural identity as a performance for the idle curiosity of mocking captors, the author reveals his honest feelings. He would have been in no position to act on them. Even if he had been, there is no indication whether he would have followed through in reality. It's a left-handed curse praising the imagined vengeance by an unnamed third party.

Answer 4

Read the entire Psalm for the proper context. It is a Psalm of mourning for how Babylon mistreated Israel when Babylon took Israel captive for 400 years.

Answer 5

I think you need to read the passage before it to understand... to me it is saying that somepeople killed God's chosen so the person who hurts them will be happy... Here is a link that may help.
http://bibledev.azaz.com/bibleresources/passagesearchresults2.php?tp=150&book_id=23&c=137&passage1=Psalm+137&version1=8

Answer 6

It's the prophets curse of Babylon, and all the evil they brought upon Jerusalem. To understand this verse, one must also look at verse 8 in connection with it.

Answer 7

when the Israelites were taken into captivity by the Babylonians, many of their children were brutally murdered. God would often punish Israel for their idolatry by giving them over to captors who were merciless. However, God also punished those nations for their brutality toward Israel. This verse is lokking forward to a future time when Baylon would be conquered by another nation, and suffer the same afflictions that they laid upon the children of Israel.

Answer 8

I think you need the whol passage I#it is not God telling them to do it but warning as I read it.
Psalm 137

1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.

2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,

3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

4 How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?

5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill .

6 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.

7 Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
"Tear it down," they cried,
"tear it down to its foundations!"

8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-

9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

Answer 9

I had to dig out the Bible to check this one out. It does have to do with the little ones of the enemy. It's pretty mean. But then so much of the Bible is because it chronicles war and tribalism.

Answer 10

Use a modern translation and take the whole passage into context. Then you might find the answer

Answer 11

It's talking about the gleeful happiness that comes with wickedness I would guess. What's the context?