Problem Passage | Does the Bible Advocate Infanticide? | Psalm 137:9

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

We're your host, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age -old question, does the

Bible advocate infanticide? Now, this question is coming from the verse,

Psalm 137, verse nine, and this is what it says. How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock.

So, Tim, a lot of people, they see this verse, and it really causes a lot of problems for them in their heads.

So, what is this verse talking about? Is this verse saying that it is okay to kill babies?

Is that what's happening here? All right, so when you read a verse like this, you do have to read the context a little bit, but then

I don't even know the context will really make it any better for people, for most people.

All right. So, but you do have to read the context here. So, I'm not saying, hey, read the context and all of it, like, well, it'll magically solve all your problems, but then think about what's happening here.

So, let's see, Psalm 137, I'm gonna read verse seven. So, verse seven, remember, O Lord, against the

Edomites, the day of Jerusalem, how they said, lay it bare, lay it bare down to its foundations.

O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall be he who repays you for what you've done to us.

Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks. Well, that context just cleared it right up.

Yeah, man. Yeah, it was definitely a lot better, huh? I now see how it means the opposite. All right, so what you have is you have the

Israelites going into the promised land to basically conquer the promised land. And one of the things that happens during that conquest is

God, at various points, He basically says to kill every single one of them, right? So, go into the promised land.

Their iniquity, so as they're going in, like, they're wandering in the wilderness, God says the iniquity of the

Amorites has not become full yet, right? So, I mean, there's things like that, but then once they actually go into the promised land, they are instructed to kill them all, the women, the children, every single one of them.

Then, like, at different events, they don't kill the women, right? They save the women and don't kill all the women, and they're rebuked by Moses for doing this.

So, what God had commanded at that point was specifically for the Israelites to go into the promised land and wipe them all out, essentially.

And so then what's happening here, like, in this passage is you have two different things, two different situations that are kind of being compared in certain ways.

So, in verse seven, it says, "'Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites, the day of Jerusalem, how they said, lay it bare, lay it bare down to its foundations.

And then, O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you've done to us.'"

And so, you know, what this is referring to is the Israelites being exiled, essentially, and then it's harkening back to, like,

Edomites, the language of the Edomites there. So, what's happening is, like, they're saying, "'Hey, blessed will be the one who repays the

Babylonians who took them into captivity for what they've done to them.'" And the way that they're gonna be repaid, like, the way that they would be blessed, in other words, is if a nation comes in and wipes them out like they did to Jerusalem.

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. All right, so, like, what's happening here is, like, you have to have some sort of theology of God's justice that undergirds this.

And so, when you have people who read the Bible, they read the Bible as if it's just, like, a purely human book that's written by the victors, so to speak.

So, then this is, like, what the Bible becomes in the minds of, like, the secular person who's reading it is it basically just becomes, like, an exaggerated tale of the

Jews and their conquest and their, you know, moral rationalization and justification for it.

So, that's kind of what it becomes, right? But then there's a lot of things that are just, like, utterly foreign to our way of thinking that are characteristic of the

Bible as it relates to passages along these lines. What you have is, like, you have, like, in the minds of, like, a secular person, you read these passages like this.

God tells the Israelites, go into the promised land and wipe them all out, right? So, God tells them to go wipe them all out.

Don't spare any of them. Don't spare the women. Don't spare the children. Don't spare any of them, right? Just utterly conquer them, destroy them.

Wipe them off the face of the earth. What they're looking at, like, they're not saying, hey, there's a God who created the heavens, the earth, who is holy and who is authorizing this specific action, right?

Pete Yeah. Jared So, that God doesn't exist in their mind. So, God doesn't exist. And so, then what it becomes is just kind of a human -to -human struggle.

And then the Jews in that kind of encounter, they're just these genocidal maniacs who are claiming ownership of the promised land of their own initiative, right?

So, they're just kind of coming in like all of history has done, right? So, if you think about the story of history, the story of history is a story of war and conquest and everything else, right?

Pete Doing whatever was right in their own eyes, right? That's how people view it, right?

Jared Right. So, now you have people in the 21st century who are viewing the act of the pilgrims coming over from America.

They're viewing it through this lens of conquest and genocide and everything else. And so, what you have is you have a lot of guilt, like a lot of guilt that the

West has for its sins or whatever, that causes it to like think about its own history in such a way that's completely disconnected from like every other people group throughout the history of the world, if that makes sense, right?

So, like you think about what history actually is, it's like, hey, one civilization with a technological advantage going to war against another civilization and then the victor wins and then they, you know, so to speak, they're going to write the stories and then provide them moral justification for that.

And then like in the pagan world, then typically what you're going to do is appeal to the God wills it as a way of sanctifying anything and everything that happened during that time, right?

So, just some features of what I'm talking about, like conquest has always been a history, like the story of the world is the story of one group of people getting some sort of technological advantage and conquering another, that's just the way it works.

And you draw that line back to creation and that's what you find, you're going to find a story of that after the story of that.

But then the issue is like in this story of conquest, what you have is you actually have like a real story, okay?

Like you have a real story of God making a promise to Abraham and to his offspring and saying, hey,

I'm going to give you this land, right? I'm going to give you this land, I'm going to make you as numerous as the stars of heaven, that's what

I'm going to do. And I'm going to use you as an instrument of judgment against these people that you're going in to displace, right?

So you're going to displace people that are mightier than you so that I will get the glory for it.

So this isn't a story of like human glory, this is a story of God getting the glory for giving them like this land that they didn't work for, these houses that they didn't build and they're doing it because they're a means of God's judgment against people.

So part of what's happening like when you're reading the Bible is you're trying to say, hey, if you're reading it through the lens of everyone is good, right?

So like everyone's good, and then like, why do bad things happen to good people?

Then you've kind of missed the whole story of the Bible. The issue is like these nations were committing abominable practices like Sodom and Gomorrah, like that's what these nations were doing.

And as you read through the old covenant, what you see is God is warning the Israelites, if you do the abominable practices that these nations you're dispossessing are going to do, like you're going to go into the promised land, you're going to do these same things and then

I'm going to drive you out. And the instrument that I'm going to use to drive you out happens to be the Babylonians in this kind of encounter, right?

So the Babylonians came and did to Israel what Israel went in and did to the people of the land during that time, right?

Now the issue is though, like, and what people can't understand is like, well, why would you do this, right?

Why would you wipe out everyone, right? So wipe out the bad people, right? Yeah. Like the idea is like just -

Yeah, wipe out the Hitlers. Yeah, so like the issue is, it's like, all right, so in the minds of many people, it's like, hey, you have like the

Geneva Convention and all this and like, you don't wipe out non -combatants like that. So you don't do that kind of thing.

But then part of the problem is, and there's like just basic observations that people are just completely and totally unwilling to make at this point that I'm only going to vaguely hint at because I'm not an idiot.

But like, you can look at the, look at what's happening in the

Middle East right now. And what you're going to see is that like, when a certain, like when people set themselves to do evil, like it's not just as simple as like, like trying to civilize them or something.

Yeah, hey, just install a new form of government and all your problems will go away, right?

Give them democracy, right? Like, so just go in and conquer them and give them democracy and help them. Well, what, how did that work out, right?

So how did that actually work out? Like, so it seems like we've tried this experiment over there, right?

You try this experiment over there and what ends up happening is like you, like you can't figure out what the difference between the terrorist are and the non -terrorist, right?

So like that, like, so like the issue is like, we don't have this category for God looking at a people and declaring that they're utterly wicked, right?

Like to the core. And so, you know, God tells the Israelites, if you don't wipe them out, they're going to constantly be a thorn in your side, like for the rest of your time while you're in the land.

And the issue is they didn't completely wipe them out. And you can look at what happened and they were constantly a thorn in their side for their entirety of their history, right?

So they didn't wipe out the Philistines and what happens, you end up getting like constant wars with the Philistines throughout the entire history, you know, of them occupying the land, you know, facing

Goliath and all this kind of stuff. And so like, that's what happens when they didn't listen to what God says. But then this is all predicated on the reality that people are fundamentally evil and that not only are they evil, but then they pass that same kind of hatred down, you know, from generation to generation, if that makes sense, right?

So like the issue is like, when you're looking at what's happening, if Israel would have listened to God and wiped them out, like you told them to, they would have had a completely different experience of living in the promised land than what they actually did because they were dealing with people who were kind of like these terrorists kind of people.

Do you see what I'm saying? Like the only way I can like give you a modern equivalent of like trying to help you understand what's happening.

So like the issue is like, like it's not like the assumption that we take when we're going into these encounters is we assume that all culture, we have this multicultural kind of assumption.

So you assume that all cultures are equal, right? And they're all basically good and they're all basically noble.

And then it just reduces to when you're comparing two cultures, what you have is you have like one culture that just has strengths in one area and then one culture that has strengths in other areas.

And then the idea is you got to mix them all together. And then what will happen when you mix them all together is all the strengths will rise to the surface and all the weaknesses will be put away.

But then that isn't actually what happens, right? So when God sends Israel into the promised land, like what you have is you have them conquering a people who are fundamentally wicked and fundamentally evil and so evil to the point where God's saying, hey, it's time to utterly judge you and utterly wipe you out and like erase your seed from this earth because it's so thoroughly corrupt at this point, right?

But then like the issue is only God has the right to make that kind of determination. But then if God makes that determination, he makes it.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Right, yeah. So like he's authorizing the Israelites to go into the promised land and to wipe these people out.

And like the issue is like you can look at it and you can say, hey, well, that's genocide and he's a moral monster and whatever else.

And like God, no, but the issue is like God's gonna send people who don't repent to hell forever and ever.

So what this is actually about is like you don't actually think God's just and you don't like his justice and you don't like his standard and you have a standard that's elevated above his.

Well, and that's not even the first time that something like this would have happened. I mean, do you think just grown adult males died in the worldwide flood?

I mean, who are the ones that God killed as the final plague versus towards the

Egyptians? When Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go. I mean, he killed the firstborn, right?

So, yeah, but you keep going. Well, I mean, that's the pattern in every single instance. So like he kills the firstborn, right?

Right. The inheritance of Egypt in that point. He did the same thing in the flood. He did the same thing in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Yeah, all his judgment. So like then the issue is like what you actually have is you have a situation where it tests your basic fundamental theology.

Like do you believe that human beings come into the world as sinners, right? Do you believe that they're hopeless apart from God's grace?

Like apart from God's grace, they're not going to turn to them. They're not gonna turn to God, right? And so then does the creator have a right then to pass judgment upon those who will not come to him, right?

Who violated his standards. And it's not just a matter of they won't come to him as if they can make up for it.

They come into the world inheriting the guilt of Adam. They come inheriting his sin.

They come guilty like it's death row inmates deserving of nothing from God. The Lord gives, the

Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And so what we have is we have like a sentimental understanding of infants at this point where we don't think that infants are deserving of death and hell and everything else.

And so all those things are being put to test in these kinds of passages. So when God says, hey, like I'm gonna wipe these people off the face of the map because they're thoroughly wicked and they're thoroughly evil.

He has every right to make that kind of determination at that point. And we have no right to say anything to him other than just to shut our mouth, right?

So like we don't have any answer back to him at that point. So that's, I mean, basically that's the fundamental situation that you're talking about.

When God commands judgment against the people like he utterly wipes them off the face of the map.

And you know, part of, and I could give like reasons like I'm trying to give some sort of reasons why that makes sense theologically, reasons why that makes sense practically.

But like the issue is like you can see what happens when you have a stubborn recalcitrant people whose hands are against everyone, you know, who like you just have generation like the same kind of problem.

You cut off the head of the hydra or whatever and seven more heads grow up. But like, that's the way it works. Like, and there's no way to deal with that kind of enemy that entrenches themselves in a civilian population and is training, you know, everyone else up to do their wicked deeds.

And I mean, like, what are you going to do? Like, you get what I'm saying? Like, you know, if you have like a romanticized view of history, a romanticized view of like human nature, then you realize that people have like faced that kind of problem before.

And they had a lot harsher solutions to these kinds of things because they're probably a little bit more realistic about the nature of human beings.

But then what's happened right now is we just, we've utterly bought into this proposition that everyone is fundamentally good, right?

That everyone is fundamentally good and that everyone deserves a chance and all this kind of stuff. And so in that, you know, there's no sense of like corporate, like one of the things we've lost is any sense of corporate guilt anymore too.

But like, meaning like it's all about the individual. So we think about everything in terms of the individual.

Whereas before, like, I mean, you can't even think that way as you read the Bible where Adam sins and the entire human race is consigned to sin.

That's the language of, you know, federal headship. That's something that's utterly alien to us, to where like most people throughout history, they understood these concepts a little bit better too.

And they relate to this kind of topic to where like, if the king insults you, you're his people, right?

You all share in that act and you have some sort of responsibility to depose the guy if you don't wanna be and remove him, you know, and offer whatever condolences you could, you know, because you're connected to him and he's your ruler, you're part of that, you know?

So I think we've lost a lot of these concepts too. But I mean, I think to the broader point, God is judge and whatever he says is right.

And, you know, his purposes will stand. And he determined like, and he looks at Israel and he says, he determined to bless them.

And he says, I'm gonna give you all this stuff. I want you to know, I'm gonna give you this house that you didn't build for, that you didn't build, right?

This land that you didn't, you don't deserve. And I'm not doing it because of your righteousness. He says,

I'm not doing this because of your righteousness. I'm doing this because of the wickedness of the people that are there, right?

So I'm like, this is undeserved favor. Like you're gonna be an instrument of judgment against these people, but you're no better than them, right?

Yeah, I mean, they were worshiping golden calves. You're no better, you're not, you don't occupy the moral high ground here.

Like the issue is you're gonna be my tool of judgment against people who deserve to be judged. And I'm gonna give you their land as an unmerited gift, right?

That doesn't belong to you, but you need to remember that I'm gonna do the same thing to you that you're doing to them.

When you, I mean, Deuteronomy predicts this, like you're, you know, who has given you a heart to obey all these words?

Well, I have to this day, I haven't given you a heart. And so you're gonna go and you're gonna disobey. You're gonna do the same abominable practices they did.

And then I'm gonna use another nation more wicked than you to drive you out of the promised land, right?

It did the same thing that, you know, and so that's kind of the pattern there. And that's a lot of what's being referenced to and talked about in this kind of passage.

So then you have like, then you have the Israelites looking at the wicked Babylon, what they did to them and saying, hey, you know, bless is the one who returns that evil that you did to us upon you, right?

Yeah. So that's the short version of what's happening, but none of it makes sense apart from the belief that there's a creator

God and we stand as objects of his wrath and we come into the world as sinners. You know, you remove that kind of foundation, then this is just, you know, one nation having a feud against another nation who happened to win and now is wanting petty vengeance against them.

But then like the issue is like for the Israelites, they want God to be faithful to his promises. And he had promised to bless the world through Abraham's offspring, right?

Petey - Yeah. Jared So what they're calling God to do is be faithful to his promises and, you know, restore them back to the promised land at that point, for sure.

Petey - So what would you say, I mean, I'm sure there's people who are going to read a passage like this and then try and, you know, essentially try and argue that, hey, it actually is okay to just indiscriminately kill children, right?

Especially, I can imagine a lot of people who are pro -baby murder who would point to a passage like this and say, hey, see,

God's all for killing kids. So there you go. And so what would your response be to that kind of person making that kind of claim using a passage like this?

Jared Yeah, I mean, I've heard atheists basically do that and they basically point to this passage and say, hey, who are you guys to fight against abortion when you believe in a book that's, you know, has these kinds of passages in that?

Like, the God you serve is pro -baby murder too. And so, I mean, but basically, yeah, what they've done at that point is they basically just turned

God's absolute right as the creator to act in judgment upon his creatures.

So they've turned that into a license, like, so the person who's gonna use the

Bible to justify that on their own end, they're turning that into a license to play God themself. So the issue is like, we as human beings, we don't have the right to play

God. And we have to remember the same Israel, like the same lesson that Israel was being taught.

And the lesson that Israel was being taught was, you're no better than them, right? Pete Yeah. Jared So like, from a human -to -human perspective, like, we're not any better than them.

God just decided to have mercy on us that's undeserved. So God showed unmerited favor and unmerited kindness on us, you know, by saving us from our sins.

But then like, so the issue is like, we don't have the right to play God, but God has the right to be God. And so then if you're looking at the

Bible and you're saying, hey, these are the words of God, God exists, he reveals himself in the scriptures, these are his words.

He has the right to make those kinds of judgments. And you know, he's gonna do it regardless of whether or not we like it.

You know, as we've seen. So like, the issue is he wiped Sodom and Gomorrah off the map. And you have to figure out why is that right, right?

Like, why is it right for him to do that? Why was it right for him to flood the entire earth and kill all the innocent women and children and babies?

And why was that right? Why was it right to send the Israelites into the promised land to displace these nations with their abominable practices?

And you can read through Leviticus, and I mean, you know, there are people who are engaging in sodomy and bestiality and incest and, you know, adultery and fornication, all sorts of depravity.

They got what they deserved. So the issue is when God acts in judgment, people get what they deserved.

And like, they're not getting anything less than what they've deserved. And like, the entire history of the world has been

God using one wicked nation to act in judgment against another wicked nation doing these very things.

So like, that's the story of history. The story of history is God using pagan nations as means like of judgment against other pagan nations who refuse to bow their knee to Him.

So no one's getting anything that they don't deserve. But then none of this is licensed to like an individual person to take life into their own hands in that way, so.

Right, it all comes down to He's the Creator. He has authority over us as His creation.

We don't have the same authority over others that He has over all of us, right?

TZ. Right. Amen. CB. Okay. Well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the conversation then on this passage.

And obviously, there's a lot of people who, they read a passage like this and they immediately label it as a problem passage, right?

A quote unquote problem passage with the square quotes, the scare quotes.

And, you know, in reality, it's not. It just takes some actual basic theology of God's authority,

God's dominion over us as His creation. And really, I mean, at the end of the day,

I think for a lot of Christians, it will be, it feels like a hard pill to swallow, right?

Because of the pressure that society might put on you with the passage of the Bible. But then in reality, all it does is it just highlights the mercy of God in a pretty incredible way when you think about what's being spoken of here as something that all of us rightly deserve to happen to us, right?

We all rightly deserve hell, and then God decided to show mercy on us anyway.

So, you can look at this, if you want, as a sort of problem passage to try and avoid and try and hide from people that might try to twist it into something that it doesn't mean, or you can look at it the right way and allow it to highlight just how merciful our

God is towards us and how much love He has demonstrated, how much patience, how much grace

He has demonstrated towards us, knowing that we were deserving of all these same things.

So, that's how I would encourage people to think about something like this, you know, just realize that we are the same exact people who deserve the same exact thing to happen to us, and yet God showed mercy towards us.

So, thank you, Tim, for explaining all that. Thank you guys out there who are listening for supporting us week in and week out, for interacting with us online, supporting us financially on Patreon.

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Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.