Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
Today’s verses end with one of the harshest sentences in the entire Old Testament. And that is saying something.
Can you imagine singing this line as a worship song?
Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
Such violence and cruelty certainly shouldn’t have a place in Scripture, much less in the Psalms, the first hymn book of God’s people, should it?
Some context will help us make sense of what’s going on here.
