This morning we’re going to pick up where we left off last week. Once again we hear an agitated man’s voice say: “I can hardly wait for the teacher to set that Marvin goof-ball guy straight, Pal.” “I’m sure the teacher will be able to defend the truthfulness of the Scriptures quite well, Charlie. By the way, I regret having to inform you I just received word from Angelic Headquarters that you will be unable to converse with me when we return to the group. You will have to reserve your comments until we’re back here. That’s impossible, Pal. You’ve been with me all my life. You gotta know I can’t keep quiet anymore than a duck can’t help quacking. That’s just the way I am!” “I must remind you that it’s in Him that you live and move and have your very being, Charlie. Apart from Him you will not be able to speak.” “You mean God’s gonna mute me, Pal?” “To borrow one of your favorite expressions; you got that right.” When Charlie and the Angel arrived back amongst the Bible Study group, they were surprised to find themselves at a Sunday morning church service. Speaking on behalf of the rest of them before they entered, the teacher welcomed Marvin and said: “We’re pleased you chose to join us this morning.” “I certainly hope I am, teacher.” “I owe my life to this preacher and will be surprised if his message doesn’t enlighten all of us.” The preacher began by reading:

Psalm 137:1-9 (ESV)
¹ By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. ² On the willows there we hung up our lyres. ³ For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” ⁴ How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? ⁵ If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! ⁶ Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy! ⁷ Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!” ⁸ O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! ⁹ Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!

The preacher continues: “This communal lament is sung from the context of the Babylonian exile-an exile preceded by unthinkable horrors of ancient siege warfare and the “day” of Jerusalem’s destruction. Jerusalem’s demise at the hands of the pitiless Babylonians, goaded on by the treacherous Edomites (Ezek. 35:5-6) was a national atrocity that virtually wiped out and deported the community of faith. Moreover, in Jerusalem’s demise were destroyed the bastions of that faith: the Davidic monarch, the chosen city, and the temple of God. All those things that had rooted Israel’s identity as a nation and-more specifically-as the people of God had been either demolished or uprooted.” “Siege warfare in the ancient Near East was frighteningly cruel.” (1)

“In addition to these cruelties, the most brutal-and all-too-common-practice of city conquerors was the killing of infants inside the womb or the dashing of infants against the rocks in the fury and totality of war’s carnage.” (2)[1] “This barbarous slaughter of the most helpless noncombatants, “effected total destruction by making war upon the next generation.” (3)[2] The Scriptures make further use of this graphic and gruesome picture in its judgment oracles against rebellious Israel, Jerusalem, and cruel Assyria.”

Hosea 13:16 (ESV) ¹⁶ Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword; their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.

Luke 19:41-44 (ESV)
⁴¹ And when he[Jesus]drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, ⁴² saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. ⁴³ For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side ⁴⁴ and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

Nahum 3:10 (ESV) ¹⁰ Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity; her infants were dashed in pieces at the head of every street; for her honored men lots were cast, and all her great men were bound in chains.

“Tormented by “the harsh, pitiless slave-drivers who drove the prisoners they had plundered hundreds of miles eastward to distant Babylon, (4)[3] the abrupt and appalling shriek emanating from Psalm 137:7-9 is, then, the “passionate outcry of the powerless demanding justice! Indeed, in the face of such blatant and humanly unpunishable injustice, God’s chastised people had no other recourse but to turn to Yahweh and to plead for his justice. In the midst of their helplessness and humiliation, he was “their only hope for a righteous and just sentence of condemnation.” (4)And it is to him that their appeal for strict retaliation in both kind and degree is made-and surrendered.” (5)

“The basis upon which the psalmist pleads for such horrid retribution, although interlaced with extreme emotion, is not the base and vicious fury of bloodthirsty revenge but the principal of divine justice itself, particularly as expressed in the so-called lex talionis (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth). It is stated three times in Torah-the seedbed of all subsequent theology.” (6)

Exodus 21:22-25 (ESV)
²² “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. ²³ But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, ²⁴ eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, ²⁵ burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

Leviticus 24:17-22 (ESV)
¹⁷ “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. ¹⁸ Whoever takes an animal’s life shall make it good, life for life. ¹⁹ If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, ²⁰ fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. ²¹ Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, and whoever kills a person shall be put to death. ²² You shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God.”

Deuteronomy 19:16-21 (ESV)
¹⁶ If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, ¹⁷ then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. ¹⁸ The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, ¹⁹ then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. ²⁰ And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. ²¹ Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

“Rather than serving as a sanction for personal vengeance, this Old Testament command actually protected against excesses of revenge. Essentially, it was designed to ensure justice: the punishment would indeed fit the crime.” “Thus, rather than being a primitive and barbaric code, this Old Testament statue forms the basis for all civilized justice. It was not a law of private retaliation, but of just recompense. Indeed, Gordon Wenham observes with insight that an eye for an eye was likely just a governing formula for dispensing justice:

“In most cases in Israel it was not applied literally. It meant that compensation appropriate to the loss incurred must be paid out. Thus if a slave lost an eye, he was given his freedom.”

Exodus 21:26 (ESV) ²⁶ “When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye.

“The man who killed an ox had to pay its owner enough for him to buy another.”

Leviticus 24:18 (ESV)
¹⁸ Whoever takes an animal’s life shall make it good, life for life.

“Only in the case of premeditated murder was such compensation forbidden.”

Numbers 35:16 (ESV)
¹⁶ “But if he struck him down with an iron object, so that he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death.

“Then the principle of life for life must be literally enforced, because man is made in the image of God.”  (7)

Genesis 9:5-6 (ESV)
⁵ And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. ⁶ “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

“By Jesus day, and contrary to its intent, the lex talionis had indeed become a “law of retaliation,” sanctioning a mind set of revenge rendered by the phrase, “Do unto others as they have done to you.” Jesus reminded his followers of the original intent of the law with these well known words:  (8)³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹ And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you, Matthew 5:38-42.

“However, his words were given to shock his followers back to an original intent of the law, not by explaining its proper use, but by prohibiting its perversion. That means setting aside “rights” of private retaliation and nurturing an attitude of long suffering.” (9)

Matthew 5:17 (ESV)
¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

There are a number of instances of “the law of retaliation” expressed in the New Testament. For instance: “Paul’s curse of Elymas the sorcerer; Paul’s denunciation of antagonist Alexander; and the downfall of eschatological Babylon.” (10)

Acts 13:6-12 (ESV)
⁶ When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. ⁷ He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. ⁸ But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. ⁹ But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him ¹⁰ and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? ¹¹ And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. ¹² Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

2 Timothy 4:14 (ESV)
¹⁴ Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.

Revelation 18:6 (ESV)
⁶ Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.

Revelation 18:20 (ESV)
²⁰ Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!”

James E. Adams in his equally insightful work, “War Psalms of the Prince of Peace” asks: “Who is the “Daughter of Babylon” Who is “doomed to destruction?” and goes on to answer: “She represents all that is hostile to God. The climax of the history of Babylon is her destruction as pronounced in:

Revelation 18:2 (ESV)
² And he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.

Adams adds: “This cry for her destruction is an echo of God’s promise in,”

Jeremiah 51:56 (NIV)
⁵⁶ A destroyer will come against Babylon; her warriors will be captured, and their bows will be broken. For the Lord is a God of retribution; he will repay in full”-and in:

Isaiah 13:1 (NIV)
¹ An oracle concerning Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw:

Isaiah 13:16 (NIV)
¹⁶ Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives ravished.

Isaiah 13:19 (NIV)
¹⁹ Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the glory of the Babylonians’ pride, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Adams continues: “Who are the “infants” destined to be “Dashed”? The Hebrew word here means “children” and does not specify the age but the relationship. All those who are followers of the evil kingdom (children of Babylon) will be dashed to pieces.”

Psalm 2:9 (ESV)
⁹ You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Jeremiah 19:11 (ESV)
¹¹ and shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, so that it can never be mended. Men shall bury in Topheth because there will be no place else to bury.

Revelation 12:5 (ESV)
⁵ She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne,

Revelation 19:15 (ESV)
¹⁵ From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

Picking up from there, Adams asks: “Are Christ’s enemies your enemies? They were certainly the psalmist’s sworn enemies. He so closely identified with his God that it was natural for him to loathe intensely those set against God. He speaks under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, not harboring a personal grudge or expressing a personal vindictiveness against his own enemies. It is true that wicked men hate God, and their hatred is an evil emotion. The psalmist’s hatred is like God’s hatred, reflecting a supreme desire that the purposes of God’s kingdom will flourish and wickedness be destroyed. In Psalm 139:19-22 we find the spirit of the psalmist clearly given:

Psalm 139:19-22 (ESV)
¹⁹ Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me! ²⁰ They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain! ²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? ²² I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies.

Then he prays,

Psalm 139:23-24 (ESV)
²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! ²⁴ And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

In conclusion Adams explains: “Here is perfect hatred expressed against the enemies of God. It is the hatred each of us should have to properly honor our holy God. You (and I) need to ask ourselves right now, “Are Christ’s enemies my enemies?” If they are not, we do not love the Lord as we should.”  (11)

It’s obvious David was a man after God’s own heart, (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22). Can the same be said of you and me?

Lord willing, in a couple of weeks….

*****************************************

In my opinion, the works I have cited in this message are outstanding. I can’t recommend CRYING FOR JUSTICE, What the PSALMS teach us about MERCY and Vengeance in an Age of TERRORISM, by John N. Day and WAR PSALMS of the PRINCE of PEACE, Lessons from the Imprecatory Psalms, by James E. Adams highly enough

(1)Cf. the horrors promised by God in the curses of Deuteronomy 28: 53-57. Also, the Assyrian king of Sennacherib speaks in his annals of besieging several cities, one of which was Ekron and killed the officials and patricians who had committed the crime and hung their bodies on poles surrounding the city.” James B. Pritchard, ed. Ancient Near-Eastern Texts  Relating to the Old Testament, 3d   ed. with supplement (Princeton, N. J. : Princeton University Press, 1969), 288. Cited in Crying for Justice, p. 64-65.

(2) Crying for Justice © 2005 by John N. Day, Kregel Publications P. O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, Mi. 49501 p. 153. The Scriptures document this practice as committed against Israel in 2 Kings 8:9-12 and Amos 1:13. Even Israel learned to practice these savage ways (2Kings 15:14; 16).

(3) Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101-150, Word Biblical Commentary, ed. D. A. Hubbard and G. W. Barker (Waco, Texas: Word, 1983), 21:237. Such an act serves as a macabre illustration of the depth of human depravity when the restraining hand of God is removed. Sin always destroys mercilessly. Cited in Crying for Justice p. 66.

(4) Alfred Guillaume, Journal of Biblical Literature 75 (1956): 144. Cited in Crying for Justice,

(5) Zenger, A God of Vengeance? Understanding the Psalms of Divine Wrath, trans. L. M. Maloney (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 46-cited in Crying for Justice p. 65-66.

(6) Bobby J. Gilbert, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 137” (Th. M. thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1981) p.75. Cited in Crying for Justice p. 66.

(7) Although implicit in the veiled imprecation of verses 8-9, such an appeal and surrender of vengeance is made explicit in verse 7.

(8) Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 312. This principal of Just recompense, embodied in the lex talionis, forms the foundation in any period for any civilized judicial system. Cited in Crying for Justice p. 67.

(9) John J. Wenham agrees that it is “a misunderstanding of the Sermon on the Mount to imagine that our Lord is repudiating the principal of civil justice, or undercutting the authority of the Old Testament.” Rather “the whole passage is concerned with misinterpretations of the Old Testament, not with any sub-standard regulations. The lex talionis … was being used as an instrument of personal revenge. Our Lord says that the citizen of the kingdom is to have an utter disregard for his own rights … He must love his enemies and harbor no desire for vengeance in his heart. This is a very different matter from telling a judge not to administer justice.” John W. Wenham, The Goodness of God (Downers Grove, Ill. : Inter Varsity, 1974), 94-95. Cited in Crying for Justice p. 67.

(10) ibid. p.67.

(11) War Psalms in the Prince of Peace, © by 1991 by James E. Adams, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., P. O. Box 817, Phillipsburg, N. J. 08865.