Babies with their brains dashed against stones (Psalms 137)

We've taken some hits for this card, which puts us in good company: so has God. We and the Almighty would like some vindication.

We (the creators of the game, not God) went to different "Christian liberal arts colleges" where we heard too many people, including religion professors who should have known better, accuse God of "dashing babies against rocks" with omnipotently calloused hands, or ordering the children of Israel to do so, using this passage as a source.

Does the Divine Warrior occasionally order the slaughter of whole nations, men, women and children, in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament? Yes (see our post about "Not giving a $h!t about the Canaanites"); however, this psalm is not such an example, and it is important to recognize that.

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The speaker is not God, it is an individual crying out to God on behalf of his (some scholars argue her) people in their time of abject suffering. They are "by the rivers of Babylon," mocked by their oppressors after their Temple has been destroyed, their mothers and daughters raped, their fathers and sons decimated, and the survivors death-marched across a desert.

This is a song of lament hummed traversing The Middle Passage, chanted across the Trail of Tears, whispered in cattle cars to Auschwitz.

From a heart of sorrow the psalmist wishes equal harm to befall his/her tormentors, cries to the heavens for it to be a reality, but God does not swing any infants by the ankles, nor order such to take place. God's hands are clean and so is the singer's. No Babylonian children were harmed in the making of this psalm. But that is (almost) a secondary point.

Here is what should give you pause:

If you cannot fathom the level of anguish required for a normal person to wish a gruesome death upon another's child, then you have lived a charmed life and should praise whatever deity you hold dear; but how dare you blithely minimize or judge someone else's expression of a pain you can't comprehend?

Who are we to criminalize another, not for action, but a plea of distress to God? And what hubris does it require to indict God for not condemning them for their poetic, emotional release?

Perhaps we should ease up on people in pain.

Perhaps we should allow them to honestly grieve in their own way.

But what do we know: we made this game and you probably think we're going to Hell anyway.

The Pain and Pleasure of a God Who Hovers

[Talk for a future card]

We currently don’t have any cards that address Passover. Due to recent events in our lives and in the world (death, destruction, desperation) we are beginning to rethink this. The question of God’s presence in the face of human suffering is throughout the narrative. Allow us to localize it further.

“For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.” (Exodus 12:23)

You know the story: through his proxy Moses, God has upped the plague ante in his battle with Pharaoh. The first born of every household will die at the hands of another divine proxy, The Destroyer (מַּשְׁחִיתהַ), if those inside do not have the symbolic blood affixed to their posts and lintel. The Destroyer will “pass” by if the blood is there.

But notice: “pass” is said twice in this verse, and they are not the same Hebrew word.

First “the LORD will pass{עָבַר `abar } through to smite the Egyptians” (and any Israelite who does not have the blood appropriately splattered)— the LORD, and The Destroyer, will deal death throughout the land. But on the houses with the blood, “the LORD will pass {פָּסַח pacach} over the door” and keep The Destroyer (and Himself) at bay. These two words do not share the same meaning.

The first pass {עָבַר `abar } means to transverse from one location to another— to pass over, through, under something; however the second pass{פָּסַח pacach} might be better translated as “to hover.”

Consider two other passages, in different contexts, where the word is used.

1 Kings 18:21:

And Elijah came unto all the people, and said,” How long will you hover {פָּסַח -pacach} between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people answered him not a word.

For centuries commentators have shown that Elijah is conjuring an image of a bird between two branches; while some have argued that the bird is “hopping” between the branches, the image of the bird hovering is more appropriate to the people’s context: a bird cannot keep up that type of exertion indefinitely, it must choose where it will land, as the people were being demanded for a choice.

Isaiah 31:5:

As birds flying, so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it; and hovering {פָּסַח -pacach} over he will preserve it.

Again, a prophet uses this word with images of birds in flight. A simple fly over, a quick passing over is not enough to secure the borders of God’s people. The LORD takes up residence over Jerusalem to stop all intruding forces.

The word means to hover over, to remain above something, not merely to pass by.

The image of God hovering over us, protecting us, sparing us from evil, is a great comfort. Until we return to the Exodus passage, where we see the angelic/demon weapon of God’s will, heavily panting beside the Almighty’s wings, waiting to be unleashed.

Until we turn on the news and see the swirling mass of devastation in the Philippines.

Until we walk outside and a thousand disasters unimagined descend, or creep within our comfortably closed doors.

Were the Egyptian infants any more worthy of death than those in Tacloban or Newtown?

We will admit the context is different, but the image is plain: God hovers overhead as death and life hangs in the balance. An image we find a balm and a burden, depending on the time of day, or season of news cycles.

But what do we know: we made this game and are aware that sometimes this world feels like it is all the Hell that we need.

"Being long dead before the Lord answers your prayer" (Jeremiah 29:10-11)

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jer 29:11)

Oh how good Christians love this verse as long as it is taken completely out of context.

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In the 29th chapter of Jeremiah, the prophet writes a letter to the people in Exile: the people who have been taken away as captives from their homes. People in pain and mourning. The people writing Psalm 137 and wanting the heads of enemy babies dashed against rocks. [More on that here]

The above words are the most famous from this letter because they are so comforting. But they are only some of Jeremiah's statements to them. Good Christians tend to ignore the rest of the words, because they can be as jarring to our modern senses as they must have been to the hearts of the original audience. Before Jeremiah relays God's plans for a hope-filled future, he outlines the present God wants the people to live in.

Paraphrased, "Thus says the Lord":

Make yourself comfortable. Buy a house. Make it look nice. Plant some flowers and crops. Eat something. (vs 5)

Get married and make a lot of babies. When they grow up, find them spouses. Then spoil your grandkids. (vs 6)

Pray that only good things will happen to your oppressors. Yes, I said, "good things." Not bad. And if anyone tells you that it's My Will for bad things to happen to them, or for all of you to leave Exile, to be rescued, they are liars. I want all of you to stay there. (vs. 7-9)

It's going to be at least 70 years until I save the people. You're probably going to die there. (vs. 10)

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. (vs. 11)

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A good Christian has a habit of making this his/her "life verse" without acknowledging two things:

1. The "you" in the passage is plural, not singular. God is speaking to the people as a whole, not one individual.

2. God was asking the Israelites in Exile to accept the situation as it was presented, and continue to live and serve.

The people who heard these words were told that they would die in Exile, but their children and grand-children would survive. Their descendants would live in the promised future. Thus these were not words about individual salvation, but rather communal commission.

In the midst of the captivity, under oppression, when things were not as they should be, God asked them to stay faithful and teach their children how to do so as well, even though they would not see home again.

Perhaps God asks the same thing of us as well. (But who wants that as a "life verse"?)

Perhaps this is why the Church and the Synagogue has upheld the example of Esther and Susannah, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and the prophet Daniel: young people who were raised to stand strong and survive in an oppressive culture by their families. Even though the ones who raised them didn't make it out alive. Even though they didn't make it out alive.

Perhaps we could apply the words of this letter to our lives personally by twisting them to say that God will deliver us individually from some present or future aliment if we view our selves as the Exiles and their children and grandchildren in the text. But this seems like a stretch.

Perhaps it is better to read them in context and see them as words which teach us to hold on, to endure, to encourage others in our community when we are going through trouble, when certain realities will not change for us.

Perhaps we can continue to love others regardless of our fate, and find more appropriate passages which speak to God's rescue of our individual lives.

But what do we know: we made this game and you probably think we're going to Hell.