Psalm 137:9 controversy

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137:8 O daughter of Babylon, miserable: blessed shall he be who shall repay thee thy payment which thou hast paid us.

137:9 Blessed be he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock.

What does one say about this Psalm? Is there any interpretation about this?
 
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Psalms, PSALM 137

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I recently came across this. Bishop Challoner notes in the DRC translation:

“‘Dash thy little ones’: In the spiritual sense, we dash the little ones of Babylon against the rock, when we mortify our passions, and stifle the first motions of them, by a speedy recourse to the rock which is Christ.”

If Babylon is a figure of sin, then the little ones of Babylon are like the early stages of a temptation: that we should flee from temptation long before it grows into a habit.

I don’t know if that fully covers the intentions of the Psalmist, but it makes sense.
 
The Book of Psalms expresses a wide range of emotions. It’s always best to read the whole Psalm instead of a few lines. It would appear the author in Ps 137 is expressing sorrow, anger and vengeance.
I’m not sure which translation you used. I thought it was KJV but those two verse are different but here it is. the verse I bolded seems quite important for context.
1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

4 How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

7 Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
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theCardinalbird said:
137:8 O daughter of Babylon, miserable: blessed shall he be who shall repay thee thy payment which thou hast paid us.

137:9 Blessed be he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock.

What does one say about this Psalm? Is there any interpretation about this?
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Like Jerusalem is the symbol of the daughter of a righteous God, Babylon is the symbol of the daughter of evil.

The little ones are us, born with the stain of original sin, and in need of salvation.

The rock is Christ.

The psalm has great baptismal connotations:

The Psalm is a call for us to die in Christ so we may live in his resurrection; just as we do in baptism.

Pax et Bonum!
 
This psalm would have been written during the Babylonian exile. Most of the population of Judah and Israel had either been killed or sent into slavery, their temple ransacked and utterly destroyed. The Babylonians were known to be gruesome to their enemies (My Bible references 2 Kings 8:12 and Nahum 3:10 on this point). The Israelite’s who remained would have been pretty angry about it, and it shows in this Psalm.
 
GodSpawned said:
The Israelite’s who remained would have been pretty angry about it, and it shows in this Psalm.
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Yeah, there’s no need to spiritualize this - the Israelis were calling for God to utterly destroy their captors, even down to smashing their infant children against rocks until they died.
 
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