Happy is the One

BREAKFAST BIBLE STUDY

Psalm 137 (NIV)

3/2/2025

“Christian nationalism is just fascism cloaked in religious garb” – Grace Pecker

Grace and Christian come to breakfast almost an hour late because they are still not used to being on a farm when Daylight Savings Time makes an hour jump. I always change the clocks a week early so that I don’t forget. I guess I should have told them about my trick.

I first thought of this trick after demons tried to get me during the lost hour of Daylight Savings back in 2022.

Because I start breakfast, Christian and Grace think we will not be doing breakfast Bible study, but I already have the coffee brewed, the bacon cooked, and only a few pancakes burned.

“You promised me a psalm,” I reminded them. “You can’t say anything bad about Psalms, except that poetry can be too hard for kids.”

“Psalms 137,” Christian said.

“But, wait,” I said. “In the church hymnal, it only went up to 130. There are more?”

“I’ll read it,” Grace said. “You finish making breakfast, Cole.”

“Are you going to sing it like in church?” I said.

“I’m not sure I know the tune,” Grace said.

“I can go get my harmonica if you need accompaniment,” Christian said.

“A piano would be better,” I said.

“‘By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept

    when we remembered Zion.

There on the poplars

    we hung our harps,

for there our captors asked us for songs,

    our tormentors demanded songs of joy;

    they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

“How can we sing the songs of the Lord

    while in a foreign land?

If I forget you, Jerusalem,

    may my right hand forget its skill.

May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth

    if I do not remember you,

if I do not consider Jerusalem

    my highest joy.

“Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did

    on the day Jerusalem fell.

‘Tear it down,’ they cried,

    ‘tear it down to its foundations!’”

Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,

    happy is the one who repays you

    according to what you have done to us.

Happy is the one who seizes your infants

    and dashes them against the rocks.’”

“Um,” I said. “Did you make up the last part?”

“I did not,” Grace said.

“Dashes them against the rocks how?”

“To kill them,” Christian said.

“I don’t like that.”

“Neither do we,” Grace said.

“But…King David wrote that?”

“No, this was probably written during captivity in Babylon,” Christian said.

“How come?”

“Well,” Christian said. “The captives watched the same thing happen to their children.”

“Dashed against the rocks?” I asked.

“That was the reality of ancient warfare,” Christian said.

“Infanticide,” Grace said.

“And God’s people wanted to do that back?” I said.

“According to this song, they did.”

“But Jesus said to turn the other cheek,” I said.

“This psalm is about profound grief and vengeance,” Christian said. “I’ve seen happy translated as blessed.”

“Is this a psalm you would like taught in school?” Grace asked. “It’s omitted from hymnals for a reason.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Only if the teachers say that it’s wrong to kill people’s babies.”

“It’s the inspired word of God,” Grace reminded me.

“And probably not a copyist error, is it?” I asked.

“Probably not,” Christian said.

In state legislatures across the country, Christian fundamentalists are passing laws meant to force the teaching of the Christian Bible in public schools. From the posting of textually inaccurate iterations of the Ten Commandments on the walls of classrooms to the incorporation of the “Trump Bible” across multiple pedagogical disciplines, these laws and mandates are sweeping the reddest parts of this nation.

The height of hypocrisy is banning books in the name of “protecting children” while mandating one particular book rife with numerous acts of sexual violence and scenes of graphic violence and genocide.

Book bans are dangerous. The Bible is worth reading and exists online and in public school libraries across the country, but proponents of mandating its formal teaching in public schools need to know what it actually says.

Click any of the books below to learn more.