What Does Psalm 137:8 Mean?
O daughter of Babylon, you who are to be plundered! Flourishing is he who repays you, as you have dealt with us.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.THE KEY
The verb translated “rewardeth” shares a root with שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness): here repayment carries the image of an account made complete.
THE MEANING
This verse names its violent wish plainly: Babylon is to receive the treatment it gave. It calls the one who carries out that repayment flourishing, leaving grief and retaliation visible together.
THE ROOT
שֶׁיְשַׁלֶּם
she-yeshallem
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete; in a causative form, to complete or repay an account.
“repays” in this verse is she-yeshallem. The repayment verb belongs to the same root family as שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness) and שָׁלֵם (shalem, whole or complete). Here that family makes repayment sound like an account brought to completion; it does not soften the retaliatory act.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness
שָׁלוֹם
The same root names wholeness, placing the idea of completion beneath the verse’s language of repayment.
shalem: Whole or complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the sense of a completed account visible in the verb translated “rewardeth.”
shillem: Repay or recompense
שִׁלֵּם
This form shows how the root carries the sense of returning what is due.
גָּמַלְתְּ
gamalt
GROWS FROM
גמל
g-m-l
To deal with someone, treat them, or requite them.
“dealt with” in this verse is gamalt. The verb translated “served” carries the sense of treatment or requital. The verse sets that treatment beside a return drawn from a different root family, making the reciprocal action clear even as English “served” can suggest service.
ALSO GROWS
gamal: To deal with or requite someone
גָּמַל
This verb names the treatment Babylon gives, which the verse then wishes returned.
gemul: Treatment or recompense
גְּמוּל
This noun gathers an act into the recompense due for it, linking conduct with its return.
אַשְׁרֵי
ashrei
GROWS FROM
אשר
ʾ-sh-r
To be fortunate or flourishing; to declare someone fortunate.
אַשְׁרֵי (ashrei, happy or flourishing) is placed on the one who returns Babylon’s treatment. That placement exposes the verse’s moral temperature instead of cooling it.
ALSO GROWS
ashrei: Happy or flourishing
אַשְׁרֵי
The word names the condition assigned here to the one who carries out repayment.
ishruni: They call me fortunate
אִשְּׁרוּנִי
The same root can declare someone fortunate; here that declaration falls on the retaliator.
THE PATTERN
The verse gives retaliation the shape of an exact return: what is done comes back upon the one who did it.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you.Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but give room to wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will give back, says the LORD.THE THREAD
They repay me evil for good, to the bereaving of my living soul.Psalm 137:8’s “served” and Psalm 35:12’s “rewarded” draw from the same root, גמל (g-m-l, to treat or requite). English makes them seem unrelated; the shared root links treatment given with recompense received.
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