Public Domain.
DASHING THE LITTLE ONES
AGAINST THE
ROCK.
Howard Osgood
THE historical setting of the 137th
Psalm is its complete
vindication from the mistaken interpretation of
believers in
the Bible and from the severe charges brought
against the Psalm
by unsympathetic writers. Many a tender-hearted
believer read-
ing, " 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 rock" (cliff), is at a loss for
an interpretation that shall
speak without malice, revenge and delight in the
sufferings of
others. The refined tenderness of the first verses,
the love of
Jehovah
and His worship, the appeal to Him to whom alone ven-
geance belongs (Dent. xxxii.
39, 41; Ps. xciv. 1) cannot be
harmonized with the often supposed brutal revenge
of the last
verses. Did the sufferings of the captives, who knew
that they
suffered for the sins of their own nation, bring
forth no better fruit
in them than prayer to Jehovah for and gloating
over expected cruel-
ties to little children who had never injured there?
Did they bless
God and curse men in the same breath of prayer? If they thus
cursed men their sorrow for
and reverence for God. Ezekiel tells us that the
captive Jews
looked upon
glory, the desire of their eyes, on which they set
their heart"
(xxiv.
25); but this was only human patriotism, love of their
homeland, for these same captives were idolaters
in heart and deed
in
cxxxvii only a patriotic song
without a spark of true love and
reverence for Jehovah, the song of these
idolaters, rebels against
God and
the Psalms. Unless we consider the Psalms as a mere
helter-
skelter collection of songs
without regard to their meaning, which
is disproved by all the other Psalms and by their
careful arrange-
ment, it is impossible to
account for the preservation, by the
prophets Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah, and men of like
minds, of this
song of the idolatrous captives in
sible to account for this song
of the idolaters being placed between
23
24 THE
the preeminent song of the grace of God that
endures for ever
(Ps.
cxxxvi and the song of thanksgiving for Jehovah's
presence
with his servant and for the coming day when all
shall glorify
Him (Ps. cxxxviii).
But on the other side, Ps. cxxxvii is as mere literature far from
the songs of idolaters through ignorance, as any
one may see by
comparing it with the Babylonian songs. And it is
still farther
from the songs of apostate Jewish idolaters, whose
hearts were
hardened against Jehovah and all spiritual truth.
For this Psalm
is of melting tenderness and of the finest
literary quality. Even
translated into English its exquisite flavor is not
wholly lost. Its
unknown author had cherished in
the Hebrew, his loved tongue in its best models,
and has poured
through its simple words a flood of grief that
still moves to sin-
cere sympathy those who read
it. The whole picture of their lot,
their surroundings, the heart-agony, the intense
longing, the self-
respect of the captives in the midst of mocking
Babylonians, lies
there embedded in its simple phrases. Whatever may be
the
correct interpretation of his words, there can
be no doubt that
the author was a poet in the first rank of those
who can make the
simplest words palpitate with the deepest grief
of the heart as
well as roll out the thunders of the storm against
sin. Coming
out from the shadows of the captivity by an unknown
singer it
has strong affinities with the greatest of all
Christian hymns, the
Dies Irae, that arose in
exquisite truth and sublime power and mel-
ody during the captivity of
the truth in the Middle Ages. The
same tenderness of heart toward God, the same
absolute reliance
on His promises of grace, the same conviction of
the certain
terrors of His judgment against the wicked mark
both of them.
They
are of the first flow of pure oil from God's olive trees
hidden in His house.
In the righteous judgment of the Judge of the
whole earth
there come times when the poison, the corruption of
sin reaches
such a height that He must sweep oft from the earth
those who
defy Him. Such a time was the era of the Flood.
Another
time was from 700-500 B.C., when He swept off
the Romans, and another was the crushing out of the
Roman
Empire by the hordes from
Flood,
God has used one wicked nation to punish another wicked
nation. The nations pursue their own plans without any
regard
to, in defiance of God, and yet they work out
God's will. So did
Assyria
and
DASHING THE LITTLE ONES AGAINST THE ROCK. 25
corruption and defiance of God, was surely coming
from the hand
of the righteous Judge of all nations, over whose
judgments of
salvation and of destruction both heaven and earth
sing (Jer. li.
48;
Rev. xix. 1-7).
God was to punish the ten tribes of
years of turning from all His calls of grace, from
all his bounties,
to the worship of idols and to the iniquities
beyond name and
number they delighted in before their dead gods. And
Jehovah
let loose upon them the tiger lord of
loved better than Jehovah, but whose one desire was
the conquest
of
which it delighted, then came its own time of
destruction from
the presence of Jehovah (Isa.
x. 12), and the Medes and Baby-
lonians, long oppressed by the
cruel Assyrians, rose up and made
a desert where
earth.
There was no nation where all that God hates and
must destroy
rose to greater heights and sank to lower depths
than
hundred years previously the ten tribes had been
carried into
captivity and their land given to others, but even
this did not
stay
been the enemies of God and
sunk as low as
out of the earth by fire and brimstone from Jehovah
in heaven
because her sins cried to God for vengeance, and
her name is left
as a mark of the fire of God's wrath. And yet
in the depths
In Judah God had set His earthly throne. In His
temple He
poured forth the evidences of His love and grace, that
He might
walk among and dwell with His chosen people (Ex.
xxix. 45, 46;
Lev. xxvi. 11, 12). The
spiritual among His people saw in the
symbol; of His house "His honor and majesty, His
strength and
beauty,'' and loved to go there and meditate on His
word. For
over
that better city- where Jehovah eternally dwells
(Ps. x1viii. 8), to
which every pilgrim here through the valley of
weeping, the valley
of the shadow of death, whose strength is in God,
shall at last come
and appear before his Redeemer in joy unspeakable
and full of glory
(Ps. l xxiv. 7). There no want is known
(Ps. lxv. 4), there all tears
are wiped away by the tender hand that led His host
(Isa, xxv.
8),
there the river of God’s pleasure flows bankfull (Ps.
xxxvi.
8, xlvi. 4), there no enemy is ever seen (Isa. lii. 1, liv.
14, 15),
and peace and joy and light and gladness find their
everlasting
abode (Ps. xvi.
11, xxxvi.9) and thanksgiving with praise is
26
THE
the breath of all its inhabitants
kings and false prophets and people set themselves to
make this
earth their heaven, to do the desires of their wicked
hearts, to
cast out all thought of God and to fill
that idol worship means. So even while the beautiful
temple of
Solomon
was still standing, and the appointed worship was regu-
larly performed, and priests
in white walked its courts and served
the altar,
the world had ever seen (Jer.
xxiii. 14; Ezek. xvi. 48). God
compresses into the words of Isaiah, Jeremiah and
Ezekiel, de-
scribing
of love and holiness and justice. Few were left
who cared for Jeho-
vah. The multitude of
wicked priests and false prophets sneered
and laughed at God and followed their sins.
"The priest and the
prophet reel with strong drink, they stagger
with strong drink.
they err in vision, they stumble in judgment." "A wonderful.
and a horrible thing is come to pass in the land;
the prophets
prophesy a lie and the priests bear rule by their
means, and my
people love to have it so." "Ye trust in
lying words that cannot
profit. Will ye steal, murder
and commit adultery, and swear to
a lie, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after
other gods whom ye
have not known, and come and stand before me in this
house that
is called by my name, and say, We have been saved
that we may
do all these abominations?" "In the
prophets of
have seen a horrible thing; they commit adultery and
walk in
lies . . . . they are all
of them become to me as
temple itself had become the abode of vile priests who
called
themselves the priests of Jehovah, but sought the
recesses of the
temple to commit their unspeakable iniquities and
turned their
backs to the temple while they worshiped the sun. In
the temple
porticos degraded, licentious women sang the foul
songs of Tam-
muz (Ezek. viii. 1-18). It
was "the bloody city full of abomina-
tions," "infamous
and full of tumult." Father, mother and
children, they were all filled with hatred to God
and mad upon
their idols. They wrung from God the intense, piteous
appeal,
"Oh,
do not this abominable thing that I hate. Wherefore com-
mit ye this great evil
against your own souls, to cut off from you
man and woman, infant and suckling, out of the
midst of
to leave you none remaining?" (Jer. xliv. 4, 7.) And at last,
when He could no longer bear it (Jer.
xliv. 22), God let loose
upon them the Babylonians. "Slay utterly the
old man, the
young man and maiden, and little children and
women" (Ezek.
ix.
6). "Pour out wrath upon the children in the street, and upon
the assembly of young men together, for even the
husband with
DASHING THE LITTLE ONES AGAINST THE ROCK. 27
the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is
full of days''
(Jer. vi. 11). "
I will dash them one against another, even the
fathers and the sons together, saith Jehovah. I will not pity nor
spare nor have compassion, that I should not destroy
them."
These
terrible prophecies did not change the people. They only
blasphemed God the more, and at last the
century-long prophecies
were fulfilled in the streets of
are gone into captivity before the adversary."
"The young
children and the sucklings
swoon in the streets of the city."
"My
virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou
hast slain them in the day of thine
anger, thou hast slaughtered
and not pitied " (Lam. i.
5, ii. 11, 21).
So Jehovah slew in
as Jesus says He will slay the unfaithful parents
and children of
His
Churches (Rev. ii. 23).
Esau, the firstborn of Isaac, sold to Jacob his
birthright for a
single meal because he valued all the promises of God
at less than
that price. This bad bargain rankled in the minds of
his descend-
ants, the Edomites, and
for a thousand years they were the bitter
enemies of
Jehovah
and His promises, to take
from the face of the earth. They were ever in
collusion with all
the enemies of
the Babylonians came to raze
then in glee and hope
They
beset the roads to cut off every fugitive. They carried
away the spoils, and in assurance of speedy
possession they cast
lots for the ground and gloated over
11-14 ; Ezek. xxxv. 1-15, xxxvi. 1-5).
Jehovah's reply to
xxiv.
18), and continues increasing until it rolls in thunder tones
for three hundred years before her ruin. In the
great day of
Jehovah's
wrath upon all nations His sword shall come down upon
who "speaks in righteousness, mighty to
save," treads the wine-
press of the fierceness of the wrath of God the
Almighty and
stains all His raiment with blood, it is in
winepress (Isa. ixiii. 1-6; Rev. xiv. 20. xix. 13-16.
The vio-
lence done to Jehovah, His
land. His people, shall be exactly
returned to
Jehovah
thrust down to Sheol with the slain of Jehovah (Obad.
8-10; Joel iii. 19 .
Amos i. 11, 12; Jer.
xxv. 17-21; xxvii.3.
xlix. 13-22; Ezek. xxv. 12-14,
xxxii. 29; Mal. i.4). After
that destruction of the “perpetual enmity” Jehovah
will restore
His
land and people and give them peace.
These were the battles of
the prophecies of Jehovah concerning
fair prospect when
should be blotted out by the hand of Jehovah.
The day of
Testaments
against God--of boundless wealth, of limitless
pride, of hatred to
God
written in the blood of prophets and saints, of every blas-
phemous thought, of all the
foulnesses of the crimes of the flesh.
For
two hundred years before her overthrow God had foretold it
with all plainness. The terrible picture of that
ruin by the hand
of Jehovah includes the work of the heartless
Medes, whose
"bows shall clash the young men in pieces; and they shall
have
no pity on the fruit of the womb, their eye shall
not spare chil-
dren." "Prepare ye
slaughter for his (evil-doer's) children for
the iniquity of their fathers, that they rise not
up and possess the
earth and fill the face of the world with cities. And
I will rise
up against them, saith
Jehovah of hosts, and cut off from
name and remnant, and son and son's son, saith Jehovah
I
will sweep it with the sweep of destruction, saith
Jehovah of
hosts " (Isa. xiii. 1-xiv. 23. Comp. xxi. 1-10, xliii. 14, 15, xlvi.
1, 2, xlvii. 1-15).
A hundred years pass away and the world-quaking
roll of
Isaiah's
thunder peals out again in Jeremiah with the vivid
lightning strokes of the final catastrophe. Again
it is the Medes,
gathering many nations under their banner, who are
to deluge her
with the waves of her own blood. The words of
Jehovah, the
supreme though unrecognized commander of the
mighty host of
the Medes, are paralleled by God's commands at the
final destruc-
tion of the world's
according to all that I have commanded."
"Destroy her utterly,
let nothing of her be left." "Recompense
her according to her
work, according to all that she bath done do unto
her, for she hath
been proud against Jehovah, against the holy one of
"Surely
they shall drag them away, even the little ones of the
flock. Surely he shall make their habitation
desolate."
There was something far more than
cerned in
when for daring defiance of God He scattered her
builders over the
face of the earth, until its fall it ever remained
the sorceress of
the world, of kings and all peoples. And now He,
who had borne
with her for thousands of years, to whom alone
vengeance
belongs, arose to smite His implacable,
unyielding foe. “It is
the vengeance of Jehovah, take vengeance upon her,
as she hath
DASHING THE LITTLE ONES
AGAINST THE ROCK. 29
done do unto her”; “the vengeance of Jehovah our
God, the
vengeance of his temple." "It is the
time of Jehovah's ven-
geance, he will render unto
her a recompense." "For Jehovah
hath both devised and done that which he spoke
concerning the
inhabitants of
all the inhabitants of
in
thee, 0 corrupting mountain, saith
Jehovah, that corruptest all
the earth, and I will stretch out my hand upon thee
and roll thee
down from the cliffs and make thee a mountain burned
up"
(comp. Rev. viii, 8, xviii, 21).
In that day Jehovah will put into the mouth of
upon
upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,
shall
thus saith Jehovah,
Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take ven-
geance for thee" (Jer. li. 35, 36). And out of the
roar, the
tumult, the crash of the assault on Babylon He calls
His people
to flee from her and save themselves from the
fierce anger of
Jehovah,
and, fleeing fast from her, "remember Jehovah
from
afar and let
promises of redemption, of favor, of the power of
God to purify
His
people and make them dwell with Him in plenty and peace.
All these prophecies were written out in
in the early years of the exile, and about 594
B.C. a special copy
of them was made and given to Seraiah,
one of the high court
officers, the brother of Baruch, the faithful
scribe and follower of
Jeremiah. Seraiah was
going in the train of Zedekiah, the vas-
sal kin, who went to pay
vassal's duty to the proud monarch of
Jehovah,
thou hast spoken concerning this place to cut it off, that
none shall dwell therein, neither man nor beast, but
that it shall
be desolate forever. And it shall be, when thou hast
made an end
of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it and cast it
into the midst of the
will bring-upon her.”
These things were known in
knew Jeremiah to be God's prophet, seven years
before the de-
struction of Solomon’s temple and
more than forty years before
the fall of
small number of the true servants of God in
30 THE
was well acquainted with all Jeremiah's prophecies.
They were
known by Daniel, who studied Jeremiah’s words and
foretold to
Nebuchadnezzar
and Belshzzar the destruction of the kingdom,
and knew by Jeremiah's words the length of the captivity.
They
were known by Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the
faithful companions of Daniel; and also by all
those who, like
them, wept over their own sin and the sin of their
people, and the
ruins of
"Concerning
and join yourselves to Jehovah in an everlasting
covenant that
shall not be forgotten."
All this is the background of the picture in the
Psalm. Of the
multitudes who were carried into captivity the
majority changed
their sky but not their mind. They had loved idolatry
in the
growing rich in
open to return, to find even four of the twenty-four
courses of
priests willing to go back. These Babylonian
Israelites tripped
lightly up to Ezekiel the prophet in the
captivity, laughing and
saying to each other, "Come and hear what is the
word that
cometh forth from Jehovah." "And they come
unto thee as the
people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people,
and they
hear thy words, but do them not. For with their
mouth they
show much love, but their heart goeth
after their gain. And lo,
thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that
path a pleas-
ant voice, and can play well on an instrument; for
they hear thy
words, but they do them not " (Ezek. xxxiii. 30-32).
But there was a small number sent from Jehovah
into captivity
whom God loved and who loved God. Over them God
promised
to watch and to bless and to bring back some of
land (Jer. xxiv. 5-7).
Among these faithful few were Ezekiel
and Daniel and their companions. Neither captivity
nor high
office during captivity turned their hearts from the
deep conviction
of their own sin and the sin of their people,
which brought on
and continued the captivity. Righteousness belonged
to Jeho-
vah, but to them confusion
of face. Yet Jehovah was the God
of grace and pardon. And they prayed, "0
Lord, according to
all thy righteousness, let thine
anger and thy wrath be turned away
from thy city
of our fathers,
all that are round about us. Now, therefore, 0 our
God, hearken
unto the prayer of thy servant and to his
supplications, and cause
thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is
desolate, for the
Lord's
sake. 0 my God, incline thine ear and bear; open thine
DASHING THE LITTLE ONES AGAINST THE R0CK. 31
eyes and behold our desolations, and the city that
is called by thy
name: for we do not present our supplications before
thee for our
righteousnesses, but for thy great
mercies. 0 Lord, hear; 0 Lord,
forgive ; 0 Lord, hearken and do; defer not for thine own sake,
0
my God, because thy city and thy people are called by thy
name'' (Dan. ix. 16-19). The hearts of these few
faithful were
set for God, His pardon, His promises bound up with
the city and
people called by His name. This is the part of the
Israelites in
others were far from the thoughts and the feelings
that find intense
expression there. These were the only ones, from
Daniel beside
the throne to the day laborer in the fields, who
saw through the
glamor of the captivity, its
opportunities of wealth, of comfort,
of respect, of high office and power. They
remembered what
brought about their captivity and continued it,
and what was to
be its end. Like Nehemiah in later days, all the
splendor of
luxury and high office were naught to them and not
worth a
moment's possession when
reproached for the captivity of His city and
people. To them, as
to prophets and psalmists before them, as well as
to all who after
them have known and loved God, a reproach cast upon
God, His
word, His grace, was a more bitter trial, a more
intolerable bur-
den, than reproach of themselves.
Henry Martin, the saint and missionary, near the
ground where
the 137th Psalm arose, could bear any reproach
against him-
self, but when God was blasphemed by one of his
hearers he burst
into tears and left them. To reproach the
spiritual-minded exiles
was to reproach men who knew and confessed to God
more of
their own sins than any others knew of them. To
reproach God
was to stab their dearest friend, to crucify and
blaspheme Him
who was all their salvation and all their desire.
It is this reproach
of God that lies heavy upon the hearts of the
singers of the 44th,
69th, 74th, 79th, 83d, 89th, 102d, 119th Psalms. It is this re-
proach. that
weighed down Ezekiel among the captives, that was
the swelling burden of Daniel's prayer, that in the
midst of pros-
perity and peace in
willows and weep, for when God was reproached
all joy was dead.
With gay light-mindedness, ignorant deep sorrow
that
dwelt in the bosom of these captives, men around them
asked
them to make merry with a song of their city
lonians made merry with their
songs of
of
reporach of His recreant people.
Till that wound was healed
there could be no joy over
32 THE
captivty was the sign that “his
anger was not turned away, but
his hand was stretched out still." The day of
redemption surely
promised had not yet dawned, when “they shall
come and sing on
the height of
Jehovah,
to the grain and to the new wine and to the oil, and to
the young of the flock and of the herd. And their
souls shall be
as a watered harden and they shall not sorrow any
more at all.
Then
shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and
old together, for I will turn their mourning into
joy and will com-
fort them and make them rejoice from their sorrow
" (Jer. xxxi.
12, 13). Knowing all this, it would have been a
sin against Jeho-
vah and hypocrisy to sing
Jehovah's song of gladness and delight
in His worship in
up and no worship could be celebrated there, and
they were
captives in a foreign land because of the sin of
though
ably interwoven the glowing promises of redemption,
return and
peace. "Thou shalt
arise and have mercy upon
servants take pleasure in her stones and have
pity upon her
dust." For the time shall come when
of her God, saying, "Awake, awake, put on thy
strength, 0
for henceforth there shall no more come into thee
the uncir-
cumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise,
sit enthroned, 0
neck, 0 captive daughter of
ment of
kingdoms," shall be stripped for the meanest
slavery. "Come
down and sit in the dust, 0 virgin daughter of
the ground without a throne, 0 slaughter of the Chaldeans
I
will take vengeance, I will spare no man. "For these captives
to forget that
the house of God be the fountain of life for
nations, would be to forget God himself and the
living water that
was their life in captivity. That were living
death, when the
hand loses the chords of God's harp and the tongue
withers from
all thanks and praise. They had known the time when
God sent
out His light and truth, and these led His glad
worshipers to His
holy hill and to His tabernacles, and they went to
the altar of
God, to God their exceeding joy (Ps. xliii. 3,
4).
To that exceed-
ing joy, that chief joy,
found only in
come. But it was impossible to hope for that promise
without
also hoping for the promise, always joined by God
with it, of the
overthrow of their bitterest enemies. And so, true
to God's words,
DASHING THE LITTLE ONES AGAINST TILE ROCK. 33
they recall His own prophecies that He would
remember
and return to her as she had done to
ever "the perpetual enmity." Not the Jews
or the Medes or any
human hands were to direct the requital of
the righteous Judge, who shall "come to judge
earth; he shall
judge the world with righteousness and the peoples
with equity."
What no human foresight could imagine under the
reigning
world-power, this singer grasps with absolute faith,
that the long-
heralded prophecies of God would be fulfilled by
the coming fall
of
ground. It was Jehovah's promise. It would be
Jehovah's
work. And as sure as Jehovah lived He would fulfill
His word.
The
psalmist uses the very words of God, "Daughter of Baby-
lon" (Isa, xlvii. 1 ; Jer. l. 42, li. 33); "that art to be de-
stroyed " (Jer. li. 48, 53, 55, 56, Am.
Rev.). The Hebrew is
stronger than the translation. As Jeremiah long
before it came
to pass saw the destruction of
before his eyes, and speaks of it in the present and
past tenses, so
this singer sees God's word bound to her. She is now
marked by
God
as " The destroyed." Her destruction is as
sure as though
it were already accomplished.
"Happy" is the rendering of a Hebrew
word that occurs
twenty-six times in the Psalms and in nineteen
instances is trans-
lated "blessed" and
seven times it is translated "happy."
There
is no good reason for the change, because the word in all
the Old Testament is used only of men who trust
God, whose
strength, delight, hope are in God, whom God
instructs by chas-
tening, who do His will, and
are supremely blessed by God.
Blessed
shall he be who is called by God to bring
dust, fulfilling Jehovah's promise and command to do
to her as
she in despite of God has done to
"Blessed (by God) shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy
little ones against the rock." This is the verse
that is said to be
so contrary to the teachings of the New Testament
that it could
not occur there. But the learned men who have made
this charge
have made it without examining the clearest proof to
the con-
trary. Jesus quotes this very
verse, the very words "dash thy
little ones," in His lament over
does the Greek verb found in Ps. cxxxvii.
9 (Septuagint) occur in
the New Testament. The New Testament Greek and
English "chil-
dren" it a better
translation of the Hebrew than the Old Testa-
ment English "little
ones," The Saviour says "thine enemies
.
. . shall dash thee to the ground, and thy children
within
thee." Be found no more difficulty in quoting
this Psalm than
34 THE
in quoting the other most imprecatorv
Psalms (lxix and cix), of
which the Holy Spirit was the author (Acts i. 16, 20). They are
not foreign to Christ's spirit. But Christ goes further. He
bestows upon him who shall overcome by keeping
and doing His
will ”authority over the nations,” “to rule them with
a rod of
iron as the vessels of the potter are dashed to
pieces," quoting
Ps.
ii (Rev. 11. 26, 27); as the Saviour Himself is to dash
in
pieces with a rod of iron His enemies (Rev. xii. 5, xix.
15). Does
any intelligent reader interpret literally these
sayings by the
Saviour and
of the Saviour? Is he to take men and dash them
in pieces with a rod of iron and find delight in
that work? Are
not His words expressive of the terrible results of
men's own sin,
precisely as Jeremiah's breaking the earthen jar
before men was a
visible type of the ruin sin would bring? If no
intelligent reader
interprets literally the words quoted by the Saviour, why should
these same words be interpreted literally in the
passages of the
Old Testament from which they are quoted? But more than this.
God
has through the ages been "dashing in pieces" His enemies
and the enemies of His people. He began at the
xv.
6), and "dashed in pieces" Pharaoh and his host when He
destroyed them by the waters. Within the bounds of
His chosen
people He dashed in pieces Ephraim, the ten tribes of
"the mother was dashed in pieces with her children,"
because of
their unbridled hatred of God and preference of idols
(Hos. x. 14,
xiii. 16). He placed in
that those who stumble at it may be broken to pieces
(Isa. viii.
9, 15). He
alone summons the Medes against
bows shall dash the young men in pieces. They shall
have no
pity upon the fruit of the womb. Their eye shall not
spare chil-
dren (Isa.
xiii. 16, 18). For
floor, wholly trampled to the ground (Isa. xxi. 9, 10; Jer. li. 33).
And
that rent the heavens with cries of defiance and
agony, He will
break as a potter's vessel, breaking it in pieces
without sparing
(Isa. xxx. 14).
God also uses the same expression respecting the
course of His
redeemed and purified people who do His will.
They are to
“thresh," "beat in pieces" many peoples; they
are to "thresh
and beat small" the mountains, all opposing
difficulties (Mic. iv.
13; Isa. xli. 15,
16). They are to be Jehovah's "battle axe
and weapons of war," and with them Jehovah
would "break in
pieces" kingdoms, "man and woman,"
"the old man and the
youth, the young man and the maid" (Jer. li. 20-23), though
redeemed
DASHING THE LITTLE ONES AGAINST THE ROCK. 35
and never is to have a hand in the destruction of
others except by
testifying the word of God, “the sword of the
Spirit."
There is one instance mentioned in the history
of
the idolatrous Amaziah
conquered
tains, and threw down from
the top of a high cliff ten thousand
of the people and they were broken to pieces (2 Chron. xxv. 12).
Since
that time war in all lands, even to the last century, has
signalized its victory by similar atrocities. To "dash
down by
the cliff" is a metaphor that has not
imagination but a terrible
fact for its basis. But that it is used
metaphorically by the author
of our Psalm, long resident by
canals, is proved by the fact that
alluvial country where no hill, nor stone, nor
rock, nor cliff is to be
found. If the children of
down from the cliff, they must have been carried
hundreds of
miles out of their own country to
built on the low alluvial plain on both sides of the
muddy
thee and roll thee down from the cliffs " (Jer. li. 25). No intel-
ligent dweller in
fail to understand the metaphor of
her exaltation in pride and power, for the literal
interpretation is
ridiculous, no cliffs or rocks or mountains being
anywhere near.
And close by Ps. cxxxvii,
in Ps. cxli. 6, is another plain proof
of the metaphorical use of the same phrase.
"Their judges are
thrown down beside the cliff, and they shall hear my
words for
they are sweet. “If the judges were to be literally
dashed to
pieces from the cliff, it is folly to add that they
are then to hear
sweet words. But if these leaders who led the people
astray
were to be brought down by God from their high
office and taught
their sin and their dependence on God alone for the
sweet tidings
of pardon and right judgment (Ps. ii. 10-12), then
we can see that
the psalmist speaks in accord with many a word of
God elsewhere
(Job
ix. 24, xii. 17 ; Isa. i. 26, xl. 23, Dan, ix. 12).
The choice of interpretations
of Ps. cxii. 6, as in Ps. cxxxvii. 9,
lies between the impossible literal and the clear
metaphorical, just
as it does in hundreds of places in the Old and
New Testament.
The Hebrew word used in this verse means child,
children; it
may mean a very young child or one grown up. It does not
specify the age, as any one familiar with Hebrew
knows.* The
children to be dashed to pieces in
*’Ollel in
Hebrew, like nepios
and teknon
in Greek, does not specify the age
but the relation.
36 THE
Saviour says, were to be clashed to pieces in
progeny of the viper, those who choose their
fathers' sins and are
worse than their fathers. “Children” and “seed” are often
used in the Old and New Testaments for those similar
in mind and
deed. For instance, the 37th Psalm tells us, "I
have not
seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging
bread." And
Littlethought replies, I have, for I
know many sons of good
men who are beggars. And again,
in Ps. xxxvii. 28, we are told
“The
seed of the wicked shall be cut off," and again Little-
thought says, All experience is against this,
for the Psalms,
themselves assure us that it is the wicked who
inherit this world
and leave their abundance to their children. But
the Psalm has
no reference to "the children of the
flesh" at all. The seed of
the righteous are all who have the same spirit.*
The seed of the
wicked are all who are wicked. For the law that
impressed itself
deeply on all who sought God, and is over and over
insisted upon
by the very prophets of the captivity, is that
"The fathers shall
not be put to death for the children, neither shall
the children be
put to death for the fathers; every man shall be
put to death for
his own sin" (Dent. xxiv. 16; 1 Kings. xiv. 6;
2 Chron. xxv. 4;
Jer.
xxxi.
29, 30; Ezek. xviii. 1-32). When the Old or New
Testament
speaks of visiting the sins of the fathers upon the chil-
dren, we must always
remember that no child was ever punished
by God simply for his father's sin, but because he
chose his
father's sins rather than the grace of God and
increased in the
depravity of his father. This is the reiterated
testimony of Old and
New Testaments. When the Saviour says "that the blood of all
the prophets shed from the foundation of the
world" would be
required of that generation, it was because they
consented to the
works of their fathers, and would not turn to God.
In the destruction of
well as in the New, all who sought God are warned to
flee from
her before she was dashed in pieces. All who chose
pride and power, rather than God, were dashed to
pieces with her.
Just
as
pieces with her, while those who turned to Christ
escaped from
her coming ruin.
What, then, does "Blessed shall he be that taketh and dasheth
thy children by the cliff" mean? Since it was
God who was to
dash
a prayer to God, it means blessed shall every one
be whom God
shall use to destroy to the uttermost
* Comp. Ps. xxii. 30,
1xix. 36, cii. 28, cv. 6, cxii.
2; Isa. vi. 13, xliv. 3-5;
ix.
8 ; Gal. iii. 29, etc.
DASHING THE LITTLE ONES
AGAINST THE ROCK.
37
that chose and followed in her sins. She was the
mountain-high
corrupting power of the world, defiant of God and
the oppressor
of all who loved God and righteousness and
holiness. In her was
found the blood of the saints and the prophets, Rev.
xvii. 6,
xviii.
24.
While the author of Ps. cxxxvii
is unknown, we know well the
circle of lofty, faithful souls to which he belonged.
Were Ezekiel
or Daniel a poet, this Psalm might well have come
from the pen
of either, for they were in full accord with its
words and spirit.
But
this is sure, that out of those few in captivity whose faith
in and love for Jehovah and His words were
victorious over every
trial, this pure song of God's own words arose, and
found its echo
in the tenderest heart
and holiest mind this world has ever known,
as he wept over
HOWARD
OSGOOD.
Please
report any errors to Ted Hildebrandt at:
thildebrandt@gordon.edu