Of the cursing Psalms I suppose most of us make our own moral allegories - well aware that these are personal and on a quite different level from the high matters I have been trying to handle. We know the proper object of utter hostility - wickdness, especially our own. Thus in 36, "My heart showeth me the wickedness of the ungodly," each can reflect that his own heart is the specimen of that wickedness best known to him. After that, the upward plunge at verse 5 into the mercy high as heaven and the righteousness solid as the mountains takes on even more force and beauty. From this point of view I can use even the horrible passage in 137 about dashing the Babylonian babies against the stones. I know things in the inner world which are like babies; the infantile beginning of small indulgences, small resentments, which may one day become dipsomania or settled hatred, but which woo us and wheedle us with special pleadings and seem so tiny, so helpless that in resisting them we feel we are being cruel to animals. They begin whimpering to us 'I don't ask much, but,' or 'I had at least hoped,' or 'you owe yourself some consideration.' Against all such pretty infants (the dears have such winning ways) the advice of the Psalm is the best. Knock the little bastard's brains out. And 'blessed' he who can, for it's easier said than done.
C. S. Lewis (Psalm 137:9)Reflections on the Psalms(Second Meanings in the Psalms)
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