A meandering dispute has broken out in Mark Shea's blog concerning Biblical interpretation. Like most discussions there, it ends in no single or firm conclusion, but trickles out in patches of both fertile and infertile soil. As individual stand-ins for a host of issues are the usual passages: Psalm 137's apparent call for the dashing of infants to death, and the requirement that many of the people conquered by Israel should be killed (e.g. Joshua 6). Should we conclude from such passages that the Bible contains things that are wrong, and that the Bible thus cannot be counted as inerrant? No.

The Bible itself in numerous ways points out the difference between hearing and understanding. Isaiah points this out in Isa 6:9, and Jesus later confirms this, in Matt 13:14. One can hear all the words of a message, but not understand them, and thus conclude something incorrectly from them. A clear example of this in the Gospels is Matt 16:15-23. Peter hears and repeats the word of God correctly (as we know, since Jesus confirms him). But then Peter immediately makes a conclusion from those words that is incorrect, and gets an extremely robust rebuke from Jesus.

Peter hears absolutely correctly, but does not immediately understand correctly.

How does this help us understand something like Psalm 137? In that psalm the author addresses the enemies of Jerusalem, and says that it is a correct thing that those enemies should have inflicted on them the same fate that they inflicted on others: "Happy shall he be who requites you with what you have done to us! Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!". Is the author stating this correctly? Yes, the author has this absolutely correct. He has stated what he heard. The appropriate retribution for sin is to have the same thing inflicted on the sinner that they have inflicted on others. By this means justice is restored. And without the restoration of justice, no sin has been forgiven.

Now it is clearly possible to read Psalm 137 and conclude that it requires that the actual real-life historical infants of the enemies are to be killed. It is possible that the first readers of the psalm thought that it was a correct conclusion, and many contemporary readers of the Bible may think it is the only logically valid conclusion (these would be more examples of hearing, but not understanding). Plainly, however, dashing those infants to death does not give them the justice that is due to them — they have done nothing to deserve this, and so that cannot be the means of fulfilling the demands of justice.

Just because a conclusion is incorrect, we cannot thereby conclude that the original message was heard incorrectly. In the case of Psalm 137 this means that other conclusions are possible, that still maintain the requirements of justice, and maintain the absolute truth of what the psalmist says. How so?

Since I can speak as an enemy of Jerusalem (as all sinners are), what are my little ones, and how will they be dashed against a rock? My children are all the things I cause to come about. If they are bad, then they will come to nothing, and be fruitless, when all things are judged. If my children are good things, then (since all good things are in Jesus), they will still be dashed against a rock, and destroyed just as Jesus was — but in Jesus, justice is satisfied, and all the good things will still live. Whether destroyed in judgment, or destroyed and resurrected, the one doing this is blessed. The words of the psalmist are correct.

What about the other example I mentioned, the requirement that the enemies of Israel be destroyed? The authors of the Bible heard this from God correctly. God wishes there to be no enemies in Israel, no Amalekites, no witches, no evildoers of any kind. This was true when the authors wrote it, and it is still true. It is possible that the original readers concluded that this meant that this necessarily meant that they should physically kill these people. But this conclusion too was not correct. They heard correctly, but did not understand correctly.

The Bible contains the word of God repeated correctly. But the hearers of that word did not (and still do not) always understand it correctly. This does nothing to change the absolute truth of what was heard.