Psalm 137:8

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) Daughter of Babylon—i.e., Babylon itself. (See Psalm 9:14, Note.)

Who art to be destroyed.—Considerable doubt attaches to the meaning of the Hebrew word here. Our version is that of Theodotion. Aquila and Jerome have “wasted” (comp. Prayer Book version); Symmachus, “robber;” the LXX. and Vulg., “wretched.”

As pointed, the word is a passive participle, and must be rendered as by Aquila, “wasted” or “destroyed,” but with the recollection that a Hebrew would thus speak proleptically of a doom foreseen though not accomplished. Delitzsch quotes an Arab saying: “Pursue the caught one “—i.e., sure to be caught.

The “luxury of revenge” is well expressed in this beatitude, pronounced on him who can carry out to all its bitter end the lex talionis. Commentators have in turn tried to disguise and justify the expression of passion. Happily the Bible allows us to see men as they were without taking their rules of feeling and conduct as ours. “The psalm is beautiful as a poem—the Christian must seek his inspiration elsewhere.”

Benson Commentary

Psalm 137:8-9. O daughter of Babylon — By which he understands the city and empire of Babylon, and the people thereof, who art to be destroyed — Who by God’s righteous and irrevocable sentence, art devoted to certain destruction, and whose destruction is particularly and circumstantially foretold by God’s holy prophets. For the subject of these two verses is the same with that of many chapters in Isaiah and Jeremiah; namely, the vengeance of Heaven executed upon Babylon by Cyrus, raised up to be king of the Medes and Persians for that purpose. Happy shall he be — He shall be blessed and praised in his deed, as having done a glorious work in executing the divine justice upon Babylon, and at the same time, as an instrument in God’s hand, rescuing and delivering the people of God. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones, &c. — That retaliates upon thee the calamities thou didst bring upon us. It has been objected, that the imprecations, in these verses, against Babylon, do not well comport with God’s directions to his captive people, Jeremiah 29:7, to pray for the peace of Babylon. But here we must distinguish between the ordinary rule of practice and the extraordinary commission given to prophets. The psalmist was a prophet, and wrote by the special direction of the Holy Spirit; while the common people of Israel, and prophets also, in their private capacity, were to follow the ordinary rule of praying for those very enemies whose destruction was coming on, but in God’s own time. In the meanwhile the safety of the Jewish captives depended on the safety of Babylon, and was wrapped up in it; and so it concerned them, both in point of duty and interest, to submit peaceably and quietly to their new masters, and to pray for their prosperity: notwithstanding all which, they might justly hope for a deliverance at the seventy years’ end, and God might instruct his prophets to declare it before hand, together with the manner of it: “see Waterland’s Script. Vind., part 3. page 28. “The meaning of the words, happy shall he be,” says Dr. Horne, “is, He shall go on and prosper, for the Lord of hosts shall go with him, and fight his battles against the enemy and oppressor of his people, empowering him to recompense upon the Chaldeans the works of their hands, and to reward them as they served Israel. The slaughter of the very infants, mentioned in the last verse, is expressly predicted by Isaiah 13:16; Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished. The destruction was to be universal, sparing neither sex nor age. Terrible, but just, are thy judgments, O Lord! The fall of the mystical Babylon is described Revelation 18. in terms and phrases borrowed from this and other prophecies, relating primarily to the ancient city called by that name. Whoever will carefully read over the chapter referred to, with the three subsequent ones, concerning the triumph of Messiah, and the glory of the new Jerusalem, will be able to form proper ideas of the world and the church, and will know where to choose his portion.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

137:5-9 What we love, we love to think of. Those that rejoice in God, for his sake make Jerusalem their joy. They stedfastly resolved to keep up this affection. When suffering, we should recollect with godly sorrow our forfeited mercies, and our sins by which we lost them. If temporal advantages ever render a profession, the worst calamity has befallen him. Far be it from us to avenge ourselves; we will leave it to Him who has said, Vengeance is mine. Those that are glad at calamities, especially at the calamities of Jerusalem, shall not go unpunished. We cannot pray for promised success to the church of God without looking to, though we do not utter a prayer for, the ruin of her enemies. But let us call to mind to whose grace and finished salvation alone it is, that we have any hopes of being brought home to the heavenly Jerusalem.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

O daughter of Babylon - That is, Babylon itself; the city of Babylon. On the word "daughter" as thus used, see the notes at Isaiah 1:8.

Who art to be destroyed - Certainly to be destroyed; of whose destruction there are fixed and absolute prophecies. See the notes at Isaiah 13:19-22.

Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us - Margin, that recompenseth unto thee thy deed which thou didst to us. Literally, "Happy shall he be who shall repay to thee the recompence which thou hast recompensed unto us." The idea is, who shall repay thee for thy treatment of us; or, as we should say in common language, "Who shall pay thee back?" That is, he will be esteemed a fortunate man who is made the instrument of inflicting deserved punishment on a city so guilty and so cruel. He will acquire fame and honor by doing it; his name will be made known abroad and perpetuated among people. In fact, the name of Cyrus, who conquered Babylon, is among the names of the most celebrated of conquerors; and the manner in which he took Babylon and overthrew the government and kingdom, has given him a most eminent place among successful princes and conquerors.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. daughter of Babylon—the people (Ps 9:13). Their destruction had been abundantly foretold (Isa 13:14; Jer 51:23). For the terribleness of that destruction, God's righteous judgment, and not the passions of the chafed Israelites, was responsible.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Daughter of Babylon; by which he understands the city and empire of Babylon, and the people thereof.

Who art to be destroyed; who art by God’s righteous and irrevocable sentence devoted to certain destruction.

Happy shall he be; as being God’s instrument to vindicate his honour, and execute his just judgments, and fulfil his counsel and word; which Cyrus was to his own great glory and advantage, as appears both from sacred and profane history.

That rewardeth thee as thou hast served us; that shall use thee with equal cruelty.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed,.... By the determinate counsel and decree of God, and according to divine predictions; see Jeremiah 50:1; so mystical Babylon, antichrist, and the man of sin, who therefore is called the son of perdition, 2 Thessalonians 2:3; because appointed to destruction, and shall certainly go into it, Revelation 17:8; or "O thou destroyer", as the Targum, which paraphrases it thus,

"Gabriel, the prince of Zion, said to the Babylonish nation that spoileth or destroyeth;''

which is true of literal Babylon, called the destroying mountain, Jeremiah 51:25; and of mystical Babylon, the destroyer both of the bodies and souls of men, Revelation 11:18;

happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us; meaning Darius the Mede, as Kimchi; or rather, or however who must be added, Cyrus the Persian, as R. Obadiah; who were ordered by the Lord to retaliate her, and do as she had done to others, Jeremiah 50:15; and in so doing pronounced happy, being the Lord's shepherd, raised up in righteousness to perform his pleasure, Isaiah 44:28; and here wished success by the godly Jews. In like manner the Christian princes will reward mystical Babylon, and be the happy instruments of her ruin, Revelation 18:6.

Geneva Study Bible

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. O daughter of Babylon] The city of Babylon personified.

who art to be destroyed] The most obvious translation is that of R.V. marg., that art laid waste. So Aq. and Jerome, vastata. But the following clauses apparently imply that Babylon has not been destroyed, and the participle may be ‘prophetic,’ that art doomed to be laid waste[84]. Delitzsch quotes examples of a similar idiom in Arabic. ‘The stricken one,’=‘one who is doomed to be stricken.’ So Theodotion, ἡ διαρπασθησομένη. Some of the Ancient Versions, however (Symm., Syr., Targ.), render thou waster, a rendering which only requires a slight change of the text, and is adopted by many critics.

[84] Coverdale and the Great Bible of 1539 have, thou shalt come to misery thy self, from Zürich Bible, und du Babel, wirst auch ellend werden. The P.B.V. wasted with misery, from the Great Bible of 1540, may have been suggested by Münster’s devastata and the Vulg. misera.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - O daughter of Babylon; i.e. O nation of the Babylonians (comp. Isaiah 47:1, 5; Psalm 9:14, etc.). Who art to be destroyed; literally, thou desolated one. The desolation of Babylon began with its capture by Cyrus, but was not completed for many centuries. In the Archaemenian period it was one of the chief cities of the empire. Even under the Parthians it was still a flourishing town. But from the time of Isaiah's prophecy (Isaiah 13:1-22) it was a doomed city, and in the eyes of a devout Jew already "desolate." Happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us; i.e. happy shall he be that completes thy destruction, and the destruction of thy people. He will be the instrument for carrying out God's vengeance. Psalm 137:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The second part of the Psalm supplicates vengeance upon Edom and Babylon. We see from Obadiah's prophecy, which is taken up again by Jeremiah, how shamefully the Edomites, that brother-people related by descent to Israel and yet pre-eminently hostile to it, behaved in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans as their malignant, rapacious, and inhuman helpers. The repeated imper. Piel ערוּ, from ערה (not imper. Kal from ערר, which would be ערוּ), ought to have been accented on the ult.; it is, however, in both cases accented on the first syllable, the pausal ערוּ (cf. כּלוּ in Psalm 37:20, and also הסּוּ, Nehemiah 8:11) giving rise to the same accentuation of the other (in order that two tone-syllables might not come together). The Pasek also stands between the two repeated words in order that they may be duly separated, and secures, moreover, to the guttural initial of the second ערוּ its distinct pronunciation (cf. Genesis 26:28; Numbers 35:16). It is to be construed: lay bare, lay bare (as in Habakkuk 3:13, cf. גּלּה in Micah 1:6) in it (Beth of the place), of in respect of it (Beth of the object), even to the foundation, i.e., raze it even to the ground, leave not one stone upon another. From the false brethren the imprecation turns to Babylon, the city of the imperial power of the world. The daughter, i.e., the population, of Babylon is addressed as השּׁדוּדה. It certainly seems the most natural to take this epithet as a designation of its doings which cry for vengeance. But it cannot in any case be translated: thou plunderer (Syriac like the Targum: bozuzto; Symmachus ἡ λῃστρίς), for שׁדד does not mean to rob and plunder, but to offer violence and to devastate. Therefore: thou devastator; but the word so pointed as we have it before us cannot have this signification: it ought to be השּׁדודה, like בּגודה in Jeremiah 3:7, Jeremiah 3:10, or השּׁדוּדה (with an unchangeable ā), corresponding to the Syriac active intensive form ālûṣo, oppressor, gōdûfo, slanderer, and the Arabic likewise active intensive form Arab. fâ‛ûl, e.g., fâshûs, a boaster, and also as an adjective: ǵôz fâshûs, empty nuts, cf. יקוּשׁ equals יקושׁ, a fowler, like nâṭûr (נאטור), a field-watcher. The form as it stands is part. pass., and signifies προνενομευμένη (Aquila), vastata (Jerome). It is possible that this may be said in the sense of vastanda, although in this sense of a part. fut. pass. the participles of the Niphal (e.g., Psalm 22:32; Psalm 102:19) and of the Pual (Psalm 18:4) are more commonly used. It cannot at any rate signify vastata in an historical sense, with reference to the destruction of Babylon by Darius Hystaspes (Hengstenberg); for Psalm 137:7 only prays that the retribution may come: it cannot therefore as yet have been executed; but if השׁדודה signified the already devastated one, it must (at least in the main) have been executed already. It might be more readily understood as a prophetical representation of the executed judgment of devastation; but this prophetic rendering coincides with the imprecative: the imagination of the Semite when he utters a curse sees the future as a realized fact. "Didst thou see the smitten one (maḍrûb)," i.e., he whom God must smite? Thus the Arab inquires for a person who is detested. "Pursue him who is seized (ilḥaḳ el̇ma'chûdh)," i.e., him whom God must allow thee to seize! Thy speak thus inasmuch as the imagination at once anticipates the seizure at the same time with the pursuit. Just as here both maḍrûb and ma'chûdh are participles of Kasl, so therefore השּׁדוּודה may also have the sense of vastanda (which must be laid waste!). That which is then further desired for Babylon is the requital of that which it has done to Israel, Isaiah 47:6. It is the same penal destiny, comprehending the children also, which is predicted against it in Isaiah 13:16-18, as that which was to be executed by the Medes. The young children (with reference to עולל, עולל, vid., on Psalm 8:3) are to be dashed to pieces in order that a new generation may not raise up again the world-wide dominion that has been overthrown, Isaiah 14:21. It is zeal for God that puts such harsh words into the mouth of the poet. "That which is Israel's excellency and special good fortune the believing Israelite desires to have bestowed upon the whole world, but for this very reason he desires to see the hostility of the present world of nations against the church of God broken" (Hofmann). On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the "blessed" of this Psalm is not suited to the mouth of the New Testament church. In the Old Testament the church as yet had the form of a nation, and the longing for the revelation of divine righteousness clothed itself accordingly in a warlike garb.