7–9 In the end of the Psalm,
David predicts the destruction of the children of Edom, and the Babylonians who
thus persecuted the children of Israel. The Babylonians, under king
Nabuchodonosor, sacked Jerusalem, and brought its inhabitants away captives to
Babylon. The Idumeans, the descendants of Esau, who was also called Edom, had
encouraged them to it; that is clearly related by Abdias the prophet, and David
prophesies it here long before it happened; and David therefore takes up the
Idumeans first, either because they were the originators of so much misery to
the Jews, or because he chose to take up first those who had been guilty of the
lesser injury. “Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of
Jerusalem,” in the days when Jerusalem was sacked and demolished, and he then
tells what they did. “Who say: Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation
thereof,” for such was their language to the Babylonians when they were
marching against it. When he says, “remember,” it means remember to punish, as
God is said to forget when he forgives; thus, in Ezechiel, “I will not remember
all his iniquities which he hath done;” and in Tobias, “Neither remember my
offences, nor those of my parents.” He then turns to Babylon, and by way of
imprecation, foretells its destruction. “O daughter of Babylon, miserable” as I
foresee you will be, however happy you may seem to be now. “Blessed shall he be
who shall repay thee thy payment which thou hast paid us,” blessed will be the
king of the Medes and Persians, for he will succeed in conquering you, and will
indict all the hardships on you, that you have indicted on us, as eventually
happened. And he further prophesies that such will be the cruelty of the Medes
and Persians, that they “will take and dash thy little ones against the rock,”
and thus show them not the slightest mercy. All this has a spiritual meaning.
First, in an allegorical sense, looking upon the Idumeans as the Jews, and the
Babylonians as the pagans; for, in point of fact, it was the pagans that
principally sought to tear up the Church of Christ from its very foundations,
and that on the suggestion, counsel, and exhortation of the Jews; for it was
upon the charges made by the Jews, that the pagans passed sentence of death on
Christ. Herod put St. James to death, and bound St. Peter with chains, “seeing
it was agreeable to the Jews;” and the same Jews did all in them lay to get the
Romans to put St. Paul to death. In various other places, and at various other
times, the same Jews “stirred up and incensed the minds of the gentiles against
the brethren,” as we read in the Acts; but God “remembered” both Jews and
gentiles, to punish the one and the other. He razed their chief city, upset
their kingdom, and scattered themselves all over the world; and he so swept away
the pagan empire and kingdoms, who then held the whole world in sway, as not to
leave scarce a pagan power now in existence. And, as idolatry and pagan rule
have been supplanted, not by violence or force of arms, but by the preaching of
God’s word, the prophet addresses God, saying, “Blessed shall he be who shall
repay thee thy payment which thou hast paid us,” for the pagans most
unsuccessfully persecuted the Christians, who, in return, most successfully
persecuted them. It would have been of the highest advantage to them, if, on
the extinction of idolatry, they had died to sin and began to live to justice,
as occurred to their children, who had not been so deeply rooted in the errors
and vices of paganism. For it is a well known fact, that an immense number of
the youth and other simple minded persons were easily converted to the
Christian religion, and held out even unto death for it against the idolatry of
their fathers, allusion to which is made in the words, “Blessed he that shall
take and dash thy little ones against the rock;” that is to say, who shall
bring the little ones to the rock, Christ, to get a fortunate dash against it,
and die the death of the old man, to rise a new man. Secondly, to take this
passage in a moral point of view, we may look upon the Idumeans as representing
the carnal, and the Babylonians as the evil spirits, and it is more in the
spirit of the Psalm; for, as we set out with it, the captivity of Babylon was a
type of the captivity of mankind, a captivity still to some extent in
existence, and will, “as long as the flesh lusteth against the spirit,” and the
elect exclaim, “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” and the
Apostle says, “Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the
adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body;” and, finally, we are
but “pilgrims and strangers” in a foreign land; and though not belonging to it,
we are in the midst of a wretched world. God, then, will repay to Babylon what
Babylon imposed upon us; for, as the evil spirit, the king of Babylon, bound us
with a chain that still hangs on the neck of all the children of Adam, so, on
the day of judgment, will Christ, the King of Jerusalem, lead the evil spirit
captive, and will so tie him down with the chains of eternal punishment, that
he will never rise again to do any harm; of which St. Jude speaks when he says,
“And the Angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own
habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the
great day.” And it is not only the devil that Christ will tie down in
everlasting chains, he will also bind down the worldlings, who persecuted the
pious, and kept them in captivity; for the Angels will bind them up “in bundles
to be burned.” And, as the same king of Babylon makes the little ones of
Christ, they who have not grown up nor advanced in Christ, and always need
milk, the principal objects of his snares, in order to bring them away
captives; so, on the contrary, blessed is he, who, by a happy dash on the rock,
kills sin, those who have not been too deeply stained with it, that they may
live to justice. (Robert
Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of Psalms [trans. John O’Sullivan;
Dublin: James Duffy & Co., 1866], 665-66)
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