Psalms 137

Psalms 137THEME: Singing the Lord’s song in a strange landReading through the Book of Psalms is like driving on a divided highway through some lovely section of the countryside. We pass through new and beautiful scenery with a spectacular landscape on each side. The beginning of each psalm is like coming to an intersection. We casually observe the highway marker, but we proceed at the same speed, and we have the feeling of sameness. On each side of the highway marker the view is very much the same. That is true especially after we leave Psalms 119. As we are traveling along the highway, all of a sudden we come to Psalms 137. When we come to this psalm we begin to slow down because we see down the highway that three flares have been thrown down. In fact, these three flares are telling us to StopLookListen. By way of introduction, will you note these three flares. The first one is marked STOP. As we come to this psalm we find that it is designated an imprecatory psalm. Somebody says, “Well, a flare with that word on it wouldn’t make me stop because I wouldn’t know what it meant anyway.” May I say to you that imprecatory simply means that it is a psalm that pronounces a curse. It is a psalm that voices a prayer or a wish for vengeance. Listen to this concluding verse: “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones”! That is a red flare, let me tell you! It is a shocker, and it causes a great deal of difficulty. Many folk detour around it. In fact, it would be very easy for me to avoid it, but I feel that this psalm is one that we should stop and look at. There are several ways men have of dealing with this psalm. The liberal critics deal with it very simply: they reject it. They say that it does not belong in the Bible. It expresses feelings that are contrary to what they think it ought to say. Therefore they reject it. Of course, the method of the higher critic is to take out of the Bible what he likes and reject what he does not like.

He is like the simpleminded country boy who bought a cow. After he had bought the cow he learned it cost something to feed the front end of the cow, but he got the milk from the back end of the cow. He decided to concentrate on the back end and forget about the front end so he could make more money. You know what happenedhis cow died. But he was a “higher critic.” Higher critics take what they like and reject what they do not like. This philosophy does not satisfy, nor does it solve the problem at all. Then there is another way of dealing with this. There are those who say, in a naive sort of way, “I believe the Bible from cover to cover"yet they are ignorant of what is between the covers! This is the reason those of us who are conservative are accused of being anti-intellectual. Multitudes of conservative folk claim to believe the Bible but are ignorant of it. This is the reason I put such an emphasis on teaching the Word of God. It is one thing to say you believe; it is another thing to know what it says. This leads us to the third viewpoint. It is to believe the Bible from cover to cover and attempt to understand it. It is to determine what God’s meaning is, to discover what He had in mind when He recorded certain things. I want to know what I am believing and be able to give a reason for the hope that is in me. Therefore with this attitude let us come to Psalms 137, an imprecatory psalm. Although it expresses something here that sounds very terrible on the surface, let’s look at it and see what it really says. The second flare tells us not only to stop, but to LOOK. That is, Psalms 137 deals with a particular portion of the history of God’s chosen people. It is an historical psalmwhich is very unusual. The historical books of the Old Testament do not record the history of the nation Israel during the seventy years of captivity in Babylon. There is no record of that captivity. It is true that Jeremiah prophesied about it, but he did not go with the captives to Babylon.

Ezekiel was in Babylon, but he was prophesying to the captives there. We can only draw by inference the conditions of the people. He was concerned more with his visions than he was with history. Also Daniel was in Babylon during that period; but he was in the court, prophesying to the gentile rulers. We have no record from him at all concerning the captives. The seventy years of Babylonian captivity are a period of silence.

It is a vacuum. It is a void as far as the historical books are concerned. The two Books of Kings and the two Books of Chronicles bring us right up to the Babylonian captivity and the destruction of Jerusalem. The next historical books, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, pick up the story after the seventy-year captivity is over and the people are back in their land. The captivity in Babylon is passed over, because in God’s plan His clock stops when His people are out of their land. For this reason we have no record of this period.

This fact gives great emphasis to Psalms 137 because it is a bridge over the “Grand Canyon” of silence. It is like a vista point along the highway where you can pull off the road and look at scenery you have never seen before. We don’t see very much, but we see something of this silent period. Then the third flare that has been thrown down is LISTEN. It is a question that has been raised: “How shall we sing the LORD’S song in a strange land?” (Psa_137:4). I’m not sure that this question can be answered for these people. I’m not sure today that it can be answered for you and me unless we are willing to meet certain conditions. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? Psalms 137 records the tragic yet tender experience of these people during the seventy years of captivity. You will find in this psalm bitter hatred and deep love. You will find a people that are overwhelmed and overpowered by their emotions. They feel very deeply about what is recorded here.

Psalms 137:1

THE CENTRAL EXPERIENCENotice first of all the central experience of these people. The location is all important"by the rivers of Babylon.” These people have had an experience that no other people have had. From the land of Goshen to the ghettos of Europe they have known what it is to be away from their homeland, to be in a strange land. They know what it is to go all the way from the brickyards of Egypt to Babylonian canals. They know what it is to spend time in slave labor camps. By the rivers of Babylon was one place where they were persecuted, where they performed slave labor, a place where they suffered. By the rivers of Babylon. The question arises: What were they doing there? To begin with, they had no business being there. God had put them in the Promised Land, and God had promised to keep them there as His witnesses as long as they were true to Him. What are they doing by the rivers of Babylon?The rivers of Babylon are, of course, the canals. I think it is well accepted today that these are the people that dug those canals off the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Those canals threaded through that section to irrigate the land.

These are the people who from sunup to sundown wearily dug through that dry desert terrain. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down.” What a picture of deep dejection. What a picture of despair. What a picture of dire desperation. “There we sat down.” What else could they do? “Yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.” How woebegone can you get! The Psalms are songs of praise. The Psalms express joy, wonderful faith, hope, and confidence. But not this psalm. This is the psalm in which they throw in the crying towel. “Yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.” This is no psalm of praise. This is a psalm of deep indigo, as blue as you can possibly get. “We wept, when we remembered Zion.” What a contrast between Jerusalem and Babylon! Jerusalem yonder in the hills, beautiful for situation. Babylon, down on a dry plain. The people are not there because they want to be there. They are there because their city has been destroyed. They are there because the Babylonians, a people stronger than they, had invaded their city, taken them captive, herded them like animals, and put them on slave labor. Now they are homesick. “We wept, when we remembered Zion.” Why are they there? They are there because they have sinned. If you want the explanation from another weeping one of that period, turn to Jeremiah. He was a crybaby, but don’t find fault with him because, you see, when God chose a man to pronounce His judgment upon them, He chose a man with a tender heart. It was Jeremiah who told them their city was to be destroyed. It was Jeremiah who said they were going into captivity.

God didn’t use a brutal man to give that brutal message. He didn’t choose a harsh man to give a harsh message. He chose a man with the heart of a woman. Jeremiah says, “My eyes were a fountain of tears. This message broke my heart.” God sent that kind of man so they would know how He felt about it. Listen to him in Lamentations. “Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed …” (Lam_1:8).

Why are these people down there on the banks of the canals in Babylon? They have grievously sinned. That is the reason they are there. Now listen to them:

Psalms 137:2

They have no heart for singing. They have quit singing now. They will not have a choir there. There won’t be any song service there. They are wailing instead of singing. They have put their harps upon the willows; they won’t be needing them anymore. They couldn’t sing the songs of Zion by the rivers of Babylon! It was yonder at the temple in Jerusalem where they went to sing praises to God. Now by the rivers of Babylon they hanged up their harps. These instruments of praise they put up on the willow treesweeping willows. Today there are multitudes of Christians who have put their harps on the weeping willow trees. They have lost their song. They have no harp, but they are harping just the same about this and that. Christian friend, have you lost your song? Maybe you can remember the joy you had when you first came to Christ. Have you lost your song today?

Psalms 137:3

THE CRITICAL EXPERIENCENow the people of Babylon had heard about the singing in Israel. The Israelites were world famousas we shall see in a momentfor a very definite reason. And when it was heard that they were being brought to the canals outside the city of Babylon, that they were colonized there and put in slave labor camps, the “Tanner Bus” company started running a tour out there because people wanted to see them. You see, Israel was world famous because in Jerusalem there was a temple to the living and true God. When visitors came to Jerusalem they found a people, not worshiping an image, but serving the living God, approaching Him through redemption and forgiveness of sins, and singing praises unto Him. They had never seen anything like it.

They had never heard anything like it. The news of it spread throughout the world. The Queen of Sheba came from the ends of the earth when she heard of it. She thought the report couldn’t be true. During Israel’s feast seasons the people would gather together in Jerusalem, and they would sing these psalms. Probably all of the psalms were set to music.

David arranged a choir and an orchestra with hundreds of musicians. It is estimated that there were times when one hundred thousand people gathered in and around that temple singing praises unto God! To hear them was a sensational experience. But now the temple was burned, Jerusalem lay in rubble, and the people were doing slave labor in Babylon. Many travelers came to Babylon saying something like this: “I was in Jerusalem during a feast day those people had. They were there from all over the world.

They gathered around their temple over one hundred thousand strong. When that sacrifice was burned and the smoke ascended, out from the throats of those people rose a psalm that lifted me off the ground into the heavens! I have never heard anything like it!” (These people have been musicians, whether you like it or not, through the centuriesall the way from David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, to Meyerbeer, Offenbach, Fritz Kreisler, Felix Mendelssohn, George Gershwin, Paul Whiteman, Irving Berlin and to the present crop.) When these people met together and sang praises to God, the world heard about it. God intended the world to hear about it. Now that they were captives in Babylon, the Babylonians said, “We’re going out there and listen to a concert!” When they got out there the Babylonians saw the harps hanging on the willow trees; they saw these people sitting in deep dejectioninstead of singing they were weeping. And with a sneer they said to them, “Sing us a song of Zion. We’ve been hearing about you. We thought you people could sing!” They taunted and ridiculed them, “Hoist us a tune. Let’s hear it.” Listen to them.

Psalms 137:4

With a sob in their soul they said, “We’ve lost our song. You mock us when you tell us to sing you a song of Zion. Our Zion is back yonder in ashes and rubble and ruin. We can’t sing anywhere but back there. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” The interesting thing is that the Christian is to sing in a strange land. The people of Israel were not; they were perfectly right in refusing. To begin with, they couldn’t sing. Neither did God ask them to sing where they were. They were to sing the songs of Zion at Zion. The child of God today is a pilgrim and stranger in this world.

Centuries before this time the people of Israel were going through the wilderness, with slavery in Egypt behind them, on their way to the Promised Land. In the lead were the Levites carrying the ark, and they were singing. Immediately behind them came Judah, the tribe whose name means “praise.” They went through the wilderness with praise on their lips. Today this is the way in which the child of God is to go through the wilderness of this world. Every Christian today should have a song in his heart. I don’t say a song on his lipsDavid made it very clear that we’re to make a joyful noise unto the Lord.

It’s best for some of us not to sing aloud. I don’t sing in public; I sing privately for my own amusement, usually in the car alone. But we are to sing in a strange land. God has given us a song, the song of redemption. Now there are reasons for people losing their song: First of all, there is the natural tendency; that is, the psychological factor. Psychologists tell us that some folk are sanguine in their nature. That is, they are smiling, joyful all the time regardless of the circumstances. Other people are the opposite. They are filled with melancholy. Some races are like that.

The Scottish have a reputation of being the dour Scots. I do not know, but I think I must have enough Scottish blood to give me a pessimistic view of life. Conversely, the contribution the black race has made in our midst is that they are a happy race. Under all circumstances they have revealed that. I heard the story of the black woman who was so radiant, regardless of circumstances, that they asked her what was her secret. She said, “Well, when I works, I works hard.

When I rest, I sits loose, and when I worries, I goes to sleep.” Isn’t it wonderful to have that kind of a nature that when you worry you go to sleep! But a great many folk today don’t look joyful. Some of us don’t feel like smiling all the time. We’re not made that way. The second factor is that discouragement and disappointment come to a great many Christians. Life buffets some people more than it buffets others. You know some Christians that seem to have more trouble than anyone else. Shakespeare calls it “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Some people seem to get more of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. When I first came to Los Angeles, I went out and stood on a street corner, watching the faces of those who went by. Folk had come there from everywhere.

They had come largely to improve their condition, for entertainment, and for relaxation. But you will see as many unhappy faces on the streets of Southern California as you will see any place in the world. As I watched, in the midst of the many unhappy faces, I saw the face of a woman that just stood out. I had never seen a face that had tragedy marked on it as hers did. I wondered about it. I was startled when the next Sunday morning I looked out at the faces in my congregation, and there she sat.

I was even more startled when that morning after the benediction she came to me and said, “I must talk to you.” And when she told her story I agreed that her face should have looked just as it didthe saddest face I have ever seen. The discouragements of life sometimes beat in upon even children of God, and they lose their song. Then there is the third reason. Sometimes folk lose their song because of sin. You remember that David in his great confession, recorded in Psa_51:12, cried, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.” David never did lose his salvation, but he certainly lost the joy of it. That is what he asked God to restore. And in Psalms 32 he spoke of that awful, oppressive period when his sin was unconfessed. He said that his bones ached and he could not sleep. What a picture! It was said of the Lord Jesus Christ that He was a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. But before you make Him out a sad personfor He was notnote that Isaiah makes it very clear that He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows (Isa_53:4). When all the sorrow and all the grief of your sin and my sin was put upon Him, He was a Man of Sorrows. But He had none of His own, for He had no sin of His own. He was made sin for us, and He was made our sin offering, completely identified with your sin and mine. Why are these people by the rivers of Babylon? I can answer it now. They have sinned. Why have they lost their song? They sinned, and sin will rob you of your song.

Psalms 137:5

THE CROWNING EXPERIENCENotice now in conclusion the crowning experience of these people. And under the taunting of that mob of curious Babylonians who said, “Come on, let’s hear something,” they said, “We can’t sing.” Then they made a pledge to God. They said, “O Jerusalem, if I ever forget you, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. I’ll never, never, never forget Jerusalem.” This is the ray of hope that is here. This is repentance. This is a pledge of allegiance. This is saying, “We’ll become obedient now to God, and we want back in the will of God. We want to go back to Jerusalem.” This is their confession. “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem….”

Psalms 137:7

Edom, their eternal enemy, was there at the time Jerusalem fell, and Edom got in the cheering section for Babylon. They got up there and shouted, “Tear it down! Destroy it! We want to get rid of that wicked city!” They remember that nowthese people who had survived that experienceand what they are asking for is justice. It is a cry for justice. Someone is going to say, “But that is not the Christian spirit.” I grant you, it is not. But these people are under law; they are not under grace. They are under law that provided justice. We may have misunderstood our Lord when on the cross He said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do …” (Luk_23:34). Do you think He is dismissing all of the sins of these people? If you do, you are wrong. All He is saying is, “Father, forgive them for this particular thing of crucifying Me. They don’t know what they are doing here.” That crime is not to be held against them, but they are still sinners. And they will have to come to God as sinners, as one of them didSaul of Tarsus, who was probably there at the time. He had to come to Christ and receive forgiveness of sin. Somebody may remark that Stephen when he died said, “…Lord, lay not this sin to their charge …” (Act_7:60). That is true. Stephen is exhibiting the attitude believers should take. Paul expresses it: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Rom_12:19). What is the Christian spirit? The Christian spirit is this: avenge not yourself.

Does that mean that nothing is to be done about it? No. God says this to you and me as Christians: “Have you been harmed or hurt? Don’t you hit back. I want you to turn that over to Me. I’ll handle it.

Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” God is saying that He will not let them get by with it. You see, when you and I take matters in our own hands, we are forsaking the walk of faith. What we are really saying is, “Lord, I can’t trust You to handle this. I’ll handle this one myself.” In other words, we really want to hurt the offender in return. But God is saying, “You walk by faith. Turn this matter over to Me.

I’m the God of justice.” My friend, justice must prevail. It has to prevail. Someone still protests, “But this isn’t like the New Testament.” What do you mean it isn’t like the New Testament? I read this in Rev_6:9-10: “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” A cry for vengeance is not contrary, you see, to the New Testament. My friend, justice must prevail. Our God is just. Things must be made right. How deeply do you feel about evil? Do you hate a mad dog that comes into the yard to bite one of your children? If you don’t love your children, then you wouldn’t mind even bringing the mad dog into your home and urging the children to pet him on the head. But if you love your children, you will hate that mad dog. It is said of our Lord when He comes the next time: “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness …” (Psa_45:7). You can’t love righteousness without hating wickedness. You can’t love God without hating Satan. You can’t love that which is right without hating that which is wrong. How deeply, really, do you feel about evil? These captives, down by the river in Babylon, felt very deeply, and all they were asking for was that justice might prevail.

Psalms 137:8

This is the law of retribution. It is still a principle for the child of God today. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal_6:7). He won’t reap something else, but he will reap the identical thing that he sowed. What these people are saying is, “O God, let that thing happen to them that happened to us” the law of retribution. Our Lord said it: “…they that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Mat_26:52). Now we come to the real difficulty.

Psalms 137:9

This Israelite, sitting yonder by the canals of Babylon, dejected, despondent, being jeered and taunted to sing, says, “I can’t sing.” His mind goes back to the destruction of his beloved city and of God’s temple. He thinks again of what took place. He can see that Edomite in the cheering section, urging the Babylonians on. He sees how the Babylonians had destroyed his city. And then happened that frightful, awful thing. His wife was holding their precious little one. That great big brutal Babylonian soldier came to her, wrested the baby out of her arms, took it by the heels, andwith her screaminghit its head across the rock, dashing its brains out! Remembering that, he says, “Because there is a just God in heaven, somebody will do that to the Babylonians.” Whether you and I like it or not, it is already a matter of history that Cyrus the Great through his general did exactly to the Babylonians what the Babylonians had done to the people of Jerusalem. Is this psalm for the Dark Ages? Is it outmoded in this enlightened day? Has man grown more civilized and loving so that this psalm is no longer relevant? Today on every continent strife is being fomented. And the most tragic casualties are the children. Man’s inhumanity to man makes this psalm very up to date. And there is coming a day when all hell will break loose in this world. I thank God there is a God in heaven who is a God of justice and righteousness, and He is going to put an end to sin. Also I am thankful that He is a God of mercy, that He is not like men, but is merciful. The cross yonder reveals His love; it reveals His holiness. My Savior took upon Himself my sin. God so loved me that He gave His Son to die in my place, because He must judge sin. Oh, today, in this day of grace He is merciful. But don’t let it deceive youHe is also holy, and He is righteous. Those who will not receive the Savior, those who will spurn His grace, those who will turn their backs on His mercy, will be judged. He makes no apologies to us in the twentieth century for doing that, because He has been patient with us. He has been gracious so long. Have you availed yourself of His mercy?