Introduction

Welcome to this series on defending the Bible. As Christians, we’re called to practice discernment and to be ready with a thoughtful explanation for the hope within us (1 Peter 3:15). We should examine the Scriptures to confirm the truth (Acts 17:11) and not be led astray by false doctrine (1 John 4:1). However, if we’re going to build our lives on the Word of God, we should be confident that it is reliable.

Our goal is to explore why the Scriptures are trustworthy and how they provide a solid foundation for faith. The goal of arguments concerning the Bible's reliability is not to force belief, but to demonstrate that faith in Jesus and confidence in the Bible are rational.

Icebreaker

Have you ever had someone give you an unsatisfying answer for a passage you wrestled with?

Lessons From It

Know “your” enemies

Prayers of vengeance are not for that kid in your class who just bugs you; they’re not for someone who looks at you funny; they’re not for rivals. They reserved for those who are enemies of God, who set themselves up against God’s righteousness and justice, and who persist in doing evil in the world. They are those who harm precious ones created in the image of God.

Think of our Matthew passage today. Jesus says:

If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Prayers of vengeance are not for personal vendettas. They’re prayers that God would deal justly with God’s enemies. And if we want to know who those are, we’d do well to spend lots of time reading Scripture and praying and connecting with other Christians, so we don’t mistake our enemies for God’s enemies.

Hate is a strong word. We’re probably hesitant (rightly!) to even use the word “enemy.” And we know Jesus calls us to love our enemies, whoever those may be.

But whatever else we make of this part of Psalm 139, the point of the pray-er is that he’s calling on God to silence and put an end not to those who speak against him, but who speak against God. Further, we want to keep in mind, as Ephesians says, that

our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

If you’ve got pent up energy and frustration when you see injustice and wickedness in the world—pray first “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Those are the invisible powers animating the visible powers of this world.

If we’re going to pray like this, is that we be ready to turn this kind of prayer back on ourselves.

In Psalm 139, David started in prayer despising those who despise God, calling down judgment and destruction on them.

But we know how that Psalm ends:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

"I trust I’m not the only one who has read that Psalm and skipped from, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” and, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!” to, “Search me, O God, and know my heart.” But those intense imprecations come in between. And they cause the ending to make even more sense."

David says, “See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Because he knows that there may be others who could rightly pray prayers of imprecation against him! Bathsheba certainly could have. His daughter, whose rape David did not take seriously, certainly could have. He at least has the self-knowledge to pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart. See if there is any offensive way in me….”

We might consider a similar ending to our prayers, as we pray for God’s justice and judgement to be enacted on the wicked. For example, we might pray against racism, and those who advance it. In the same prayer, we might also pray, “Lord, show me any racist thoughts—however minor!—in my heart.

And we pray against those who harm others day after day, we might also ask, “God, help me to see: how have I hurt others with my words and actions, perhaps causing them to want to pray prayers of imprecation against me?”

That makes praying imprecatory prayers even harder—we maybe already feel uncomfortable praying them, but to do so in good conscience before God, we need to be ready to point the prayers back on ourselves. “Those who pray them are inevitably faced with the question of their own complicity in the web of violence.”

Can we pray them?

Yes, we can! This is especially true when we consider the church across the world, and Christians who may live under a kind of duress or oppression that we may not know in our contexts. One commentator says, “A diet of upbeat songs and positive testimonies does not meet the needs of those suffering disappointment, ill health, or persecution.”

Todays focus is on children

Psalm 137:9

This passage is avoided by many Christians throughout history. Today, the brutality makes us highly uncomfortable. The verse is frequently omitted from modern lectionaries, and in 1970, the Catholic Church removed it from the four-weekly recital of the Psalter in the Liturgy of the Hours because of its harsh tone.. Because of its extreme harshness, Jewish and Christian interpreters throughout history have struggled with how to read and apply this verse:

• The Allegorical Approach (Early Church Fathers): To remove the literal violence, early Christian thinkers like Origen, Augustine, and Jerome interpreted the verse spiritually. "Babylon" represented the evil of this world or confusion, the "infants" represented the earliest stages of sinful thoughts or desires, and the "rock" was Christ. Therefore, the verse was a psychological metaphor: "Blessed is the man who takes his small, infant sins and smashes them against the Rock of Christ before they can grow up and destroy him". This approach was famously echoed in the 20th century by C.S. Lewis.

I understand the application, but I think it misses the point.

Some context

It is important to realize that the wording of the psalm is from the mouths of the Jews who had suffered the loss of family and children. There are many things stated in Scripture that are evil. It is wrong to conclude that everything that it is recorded in Scripture is approved for us to do by God. They wanted God to act justly and punish the nations that had murdered their adults and children.

The word ‘asre , rendered in most English translations as “happy” or “blessed.” It is better understood as “a sense of peace.” Most likely “a sense of peace” due to the evil nations of Babylon and Edom. “Happy” is not the best translation since it leaves the idea the people would be celebrating the death of the children.

The verse is a call for justice. Justice would bring them “happiness” or peace.

The Calling Before the Called-Out Ones: A Study on the Prophets of the Bible

The Greek term for Church, ἐκκλησία (ekklesia), means “the called-out ones”. But we are not the first called-out ones.

This study examines how God’s call did not begin with the Church, but with the prophets He raised to confront, correct, and restore His people. The Hebrew word for prophet, נָבִיא (navi’), literally means “one who is called”. They themselves were callers, intermediaries through whom God summoned His people out of sin, idolatry, and covenant unfaithfulness.

This prophetic calling finds its ultimate expression in the New Testament Church. When the first church heard the apostles proclaim Jesus—the fulfillment of the prophets—the first believers recognized the foundation laid by figures like Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, and others. This church was known as The Way, because they responded to God’s call. In the same way, we too are called to be called-out, and called to call others—proclaiming the Gospel to every tribe, nation, and tongue, continuing the work of the prophets through our obedience.

Zion was the Temple Hill that included Jerusalem, the capital city of the Jewish nation, Judah.

God had proclaimed since the time of Moses that if his people abandoned him, he would drive them out of the land. Judah’s fate was sealed when one of her kings filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, including that of his own sons, whom he burned as a sacrifice to the god Molech (2 Kings 24:3-4; 2 Chronicles 33:6). Many false prophets had assured them God would bring only peace because he did not care how they lived so long as they offered temple sacrifices (Jeremiah 7:9-10).

But the righteous knew the peace-proclaimers were false prophets. There was not peace

Babylon had laid siege to Jerusalem long enough to cause widespread starvation. Then the Babylonian troops breached the city walls, looted treasures, and scorched buildings. They slaughtered the young and old. Most they killed by sword, spear, and arrow, but small children—well, small children they dashed to the ground. That’s how ancient armies conducted war. It prevented the children from growing up to seek revenge and it terrorized parents into submission.

The Babylonians then shackled survivors and marched them into exile. The nations of Israel and Judah were gone and the exiles wept bitterly. They wept over their homeland’s destruction, the death of so many loved ones, and their captivity in a strange land. Some wept in disbelief, wondering why God had forsaken them (Psalm 89:49.

They were demanding that the Israelites perform for them and sing songs about the beauty of Zion. The author was indignant that his captors would make such a demand in light of the horrible things that the Babylonians had done to the Israelites, and the fact that the Babylonians still held them captive. The author then proceeds to explain that the Babylonians were not going to be in their elevated position as victors for long. Instead, these captors who were demanding mirth and songs from the Israelite captives were going to suffer a similar fate to the one that they dealt out. According to the author, there would be those coming who would, in essence, do to the Babylonians what the Babylonians did to Israel, except the Babylonian punishment would be on an even greater scale.

And so the poet wrote this psalm. He gave the exiles a song to both voice their grief and orient their hope. Psalms are poems meant to be sung, and they include many poetic devices. Psalm 137:9.
Synecdoche. Synecdoche (sin-NECK-doe-key) is a figure of speech in which a part of something represents all of it. Of all the horrors the psalmist saw, he chose the murdered babies to represent the whole of their suffering and the total repayment he knows is coming.

Psalm 137 can thus be read as trauma literature. The text is a prayer, not a command. The Israelites were not only violently displaced from their homeland, but they also witnessed unspeakable atrocities. The horrors the Israelites endured were so extreme that the Book of Lamentations describes conditions where starving, desperate women were driven to eat their own children this is the perspective of victims who have lost everyone and everything, and who are entirely powerless against the mighty Babylonian empire. It is fundamentally "a victim's cry for justice and revenge". the writer is deeply in pain and lashing out. They want what happened to them to be repaid back Babylonians. Not unlike the eye-for-an-eye justice system Moses instituted where punishment matched the crime.

The Function of a Trauma Prayer One of the most important aspects of understanding Psalm 137:9 as a trauma prayer is recognizing what the psalmist is actually doing with their anger.

• Handing Vengeance to God: By placing this violent desire into a prayer, they are effectively relinquishing their vengeance to God. They are giving their pain over to the Ultimate Judge rather than taking violent matters into their own hands.
• A Script for the Suffering: Psalms like these gives us "a script to recite when we are so sick on pain that we can't think straight". It provides a way to aim our anger at God, who has ears big enough to hear it... and whose body is large enough to absorb every last bit of it".

Ultimately, reading Psalm 137 as prayer explains why such a horrifying verse is preserved in Scripture. This psalm became part of the Bible so future followers of God could enter into the emotional reality of exile: horror, despair, grief, and longing for justice and the end of evil. It validates the darkest human emotions and shows that God allows His people to bring unfiltered grief before Him.

Psalm 137:9 invokes prior prophecy.

Psalm 137:9 specifically invokes prior prophecy. Isaiah foretold that this would happen—not to Israel, but to Babylon:

“Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes.” (Isaiah 13:16)

God had already declared that Babylon would fall in judgment. Jeremiah said that the same empire that destroyed Jerusalem, killed its people, and carried survivors into exile would itself be destroyed by the Medes and Persians. The psalm uses the same verbiage as the prophets.

The psalmist is demonstrating faith in what God had already said. The exile would not last forever. Babylon’s power would end. The Jews would return home. This return would ultimately begin the prophetic timeline leading to the arrival of the Messiah.

But prophecy did not erase what Israel had suffered. The people of Babylon had destroyed families, killed their children.
Because of what they went through, they are glad that what Isaiah said would come to pass.

Thus, the Psalmist’s call for vengeance is the instinctive response to repay the barbaric enemy in kind