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Psalms 137

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Sorrow and Silence in Babylonian Exile 1–4

1
By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion. ​
2
Upon the willows in the midst thereof We hanged up our harps.
3
For there they that led us captive required of us songs, And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. ​
4
How shall we sing Jehovah’s song In a foreign land? ​

An Oath of Undying Loyalty to Zion 5–6

5
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, Let my right hand forget her skill. ​
6
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, If I remember thee not; If I prefer not Jerusalem Above my chief joy.

A Prayer for Vengeance and Justice 7–9

7
Remember, O Jehovah, against the children of Edom The day of Jerusalem; Who said, Rase it, rase it, Even to the foundation thereof. ​
8
O daughter of Babylon, that art to be destroyed, Happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee As thou hast served us.
9
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones Against the rock. ​

Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain

Study Notes for Psalm 137

Verse 1

By the rivers of Babylon — Naharot, rivers or canals, where the captives ‘sat down’ (yashab) and wept. Ezekiel was ‘among the captives by the river of Chebar’ (Ezek 1:1) and sat where they sat (Ezek 3:15). Their weeping begins with ‘remembered’ (zakar): Jeremiah had told the exiles to ‘remember the LORD afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind’ (Jer 51:50).

Verse 3

Sing us one of the songs of Zion — Shaal, to ask, is used of the captors, and ‘wasted us’ is tolal, a word found only here. They ask for ‘mirth’ (simchah) and a shir Tsiyon, one of the songs sung at the house of the LORD. The mocking is in Lam 2:15, where passers-by say ‘Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?’

Verse 4

the LORD’S song in a strange land — Nekar is foreign, belonging to another people, and the ‘land’ is the adamah, the soil. The song is the LORD’s, sung in the place he appointed, and the singers will not give it as entertainment. Lamentations records the same silence: ‘The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick’ (Lam 5:14).

Verse 5

let my right hand forget — ‘Her cunning’ is added by the KJV: the Hebrew has only shakach, to forget, said first of Jerusalem and then of the right hand, so the hand that would lose its skill is the hand that holds the harp. Daniel in Babylon prayed with ‘his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem’ (Dan 6:10).

Verse 7

the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem — Edom is Esau’s line (Gen 36:1), Jacob’s brother. ‘Rase it’ (arah) is to strip bare, ‘even to the foundation’ (yesod). Obadiah sets out the charge: ‘thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger’ (Obad 1:12). The LORD answers it against Edom in Ezek 25:12–14.

Verse 9

Happy shall he be — Esher, ‘happy’, is given to the one who ‘rewardeth thee as thou hast served us’ (v.8). ‘Little ones’ (olal) are sucklings. The LORD had already foretold it of Babylon: ‘Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes’ (Isa 13:16), by the Medes he would stir up. Jer 50:15 has ‘as she hath done, do unto her’.