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Psalm 137:8

The New Testament’s use of Psalm

2 places · 2 kinds of echo

The source

Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, he will be happy who rewards you, as you have served us.

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Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.

Allusion1

A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.

Rev 18:4-8

'O daughter of Babylon... happy shall he be who repays you as you have served us' (LXX Ps 136:8). The 'repay/render to Babylon' motif; the doubling ('repay her double') extends the lex talionis. Coherence high; the only Psalter source in the chapter.

High confidence

Echo1

A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.

2 Thess 1:6-7 ?

The repayment formula 'to repay affliction to those who afflict you' resonates with the imprecatory blessing on whoever repays Babylon what she has done to Zion. The measure-for-measure justice is shared, though Paul reserves the act to God's eschatological judgment rather than human agents. Contested as a direct source.

Low confidence