(9) Little ones.--Literally, sucklings.

Stones.--Better, cliff or rock.

For this feature of barbarous cruelty with which ancient war was cursed see 2Kings 8:12; Isaiah 13:16; Hosea 10:14, &c; and comp. Homer, Iliad, xxii. 63: "My bleeding infants dashed against the floor."

Verse 9. - Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones; i.e. that brings on thee the worst calamities of war (see 2 Kings 8:12; Isaiah 12:16-18; Hosea 10:14; Hosea 13:16; Nahum 3:10).

137:5-9 What we love, we love to think of. Those that rejoice in God, for his sake make Jerusalem their joy. They stedfastly resolved to keep up this affection. When suffering, we should recollect with godly sorrow our forfeited mercies, and our sins by which we lost them. If temporal advantages ever render a profession, the worst calamity has befallen him. Far be it from us to avenge ourselves; we will leave it to Him who has said, Vengeance is mine. Those that are glad at calamities, especially at the calamities of Jerusalem, shall not go unpunished. We cannot pray for promised success to the church of God without looking to, though we do not utter a prayer for, the ruin of her enemies. But let us call to mind to whose grace and finished salvation alone it is, that we have any hopes of being brought home to the heavenly Jerusalem.Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. That takes the infants from their mothers' breasts, or out of their arms, and dashes out their brains against a "rock", as the word (k) signifies; which, though it may seem a piece of cruelty, was but a just retaliation; the Babylonians having done the same to the Jewish children, and is foretold elsewhere should be done to theirs, Isaiah 13:16. Nor is this desired from a spirit of revenge, but for the glory of divine justice, and that such a generation of cruel creatures might be rooted out of the earth; see Revelation 2:2. Some allegorically understand this of crushing and mortifying the first motions of sin in the heart; but such a sense seems to have no place here.

(k) "ad petram", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, &c. "ad repem", Cocceius.