Psalms 137

Psalms 137:1-9

Psalms 137THIS is the most direct and striking reminiscence of the Babylonish Exile in the whole collection, and could scarcely have been Written but by one who had partaken of its trials. The first part of the psalm recalls the treatment of the Jews in Babylonia, Psalms 137:1-6; the second anticipates the punishment of Edom and of Babylon, as persecuting enemies of Israel, Psalms 137:7-9.

1. (Psalms 137:1) By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept when we remembered Zion. The first word sometimes means along, and especially along the course of streams, as in Psalms 23:2. Babel or Babylon is here put for the whole country which we call Babylonia. Its rivers are the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Chaboras, and the Ulai, with their tributary branches. Various explanations have been given of the exiles being represented as sitting by the rivers; but none of them are so satisfactory as the obvious and simple supposition, that the rivers are mentioned as a charac teristic feature of the country, just as we might speak of the mountains of Switzerland or the plains of Tartary, meaning Switzerland or Tartary itself. There is emphatic; there, even in that distant heathen country.

Sat or sat down, if significant at all, may mean that they sat upon the ground as mourners. Yea, literally also; we not only sat but also wept. When we remembered, literally in our remembering, i.e. at the time, and as the effect of our so doing. Zion, not merely as the mother country or its capital, but as the seat of the theocracy and earthly centre of the true religion.

2. (Psalms 137:2) On willows in the midst of it we hung our harps. It has been objected that the willow is unknown in the region once called Babylonia, which is said to produce nothing but the palm tree. Some avoid this difficulty by explaining the whole verse as metaphorical, hanging up the harps being a figure for renouncing music, and willows being suggested by the mention of streams, perhaps with some allusion to associations connected with this particular tree. It may also be observed that extraordinary changes have taken place in the vegetable products, and especially the trees, of certain countries. Thus the palm-tree, so frequently referred to in the Scriptures, and so common once that cities were called after it, is now almost unknown in Palestine.

3. (Psalms 137:3) For there our captors asked of us the words of a song, and our spoilers mirth, (saying) Sing to us from a song of Zion. Words of a song may either be an idiomatic pleonasm meaning simply song itself, or denote, as in English, the words sung as distinguished from the music. Our spoilers is bysome taken in a passive sense, our spoiled or plundered ones; but the usual explanation is favoured by tradition and analogy. One of the Songs can hardly be the meaning of the Hebrew phrase, in which the noun is singular. The literal translation above given yields a perfectly good sense. A Song of Zion is a psalm, a religious lyric, such as many of the heathen knew to be employed in the temple worship atlerusalem. Many interpreters suppose the object of this request to be contempt or ridicule; but the words themselves necessarily suggest nothing more than curiosity.

4. (Psalms 137:4) How shall we sing the song of Jehovah on a foreign soil? These are the words with which the invitation was or might have been rejected at the time. The question implies a moral impossibility. The idea is not that the psalms themselves would be profaned by being sung there, but that the expresslion of religious joy would be misplaced and incongruous, implying an oblivion of the sanctuary and its forfeited advantages. A foreign soil, a ground or land of strangeness. See above, on Psalms 18:44-45.

5. (Psalms 137:5) If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget (its skill). This is a disavowal of the forgetfulness which would have been implied in yielding to the wishes of their captors. Jerusalem is here used precisely as Zion is in Psalms 137:1; Psalms 137:3. The object of the verb in the last clause is supposed by some to be me; let my right hand forget me, i. e. let me be forgotten by myself. But most interpreters concur in the correctness of the common version, in which cunning has its old English sense of skill. The only question then is, whether this is to be understood indefinitely of all that the right hand can do, and is wont to do, for the convenience of the person, or whether it is to be understood specifically of its use in playing on an instrument.

The former is the more comprehensive meaning, but the latter is more pointed and better suited to this context. The sense will then be: if I so far for get thee as to strike the harp while in this condition, let my right hand lose the power so to do. 6. (Psalms 137:6) Let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember thee, if I do not raise Jerusalem above the head of my rejoicing. What he had first wished as to his power of instrumental performance, he now wishes with respect to his vocal organs. If I forget thee, let my hand for ever cease to strike the harp, and my tongue to utter sound! The most natural meaning of the last clause is the one paraphrastically given in the English version, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy. 7. (Psalms 137:7) Remember, O Jehovah, against the sons of Edom, the day of Jerusalem, (against) those saying, Make bare, make bare, to the very foundation in it. Most interpreters regard this as a kind of comment by the Psalmist on the preceding recollection of the Captivity. But the transition then seems too abrupt and unaccountable. The best explanation is, that these are still the real or supposed words of the captives, in reply to the request of their oppressors, far from granting which they break forth in a prayer for the destruction of those who had destroyed Jerusalem. As if they had said No; instead of singing psalms to gratify your idle or malignant curiosity, we will rather pray God to avenge the insults offered to his holy city. This interpretation is moreover recommended by its rendering the strong terms that follow more natural than if uttered in cold blood and in calm deliberation at a later period.

Remember against, literally for or with respect to. See above, on Psalms 132:1; Psalms 136:23, where the same idiomatic phrase is used in a favourable sense. The day of Jerusalem is the day of its calamity or great catastrophe. Compare Obadiah 1:11-13, where the same crime is charged upon Edom, namely that of concurring and rejoicing in the downfall of his kinsman Israel. See also Jeremiah 49:7-22, Lamentations 4:21-22, Ezekiel 25:12-14.

8. (Psalms 137:8) Daughter of Babylon, the desolated! Happy (he) who shall repay to thee thy treatment wherewith thou hast treated us. The daughter of Babylon (or virgin Babylon) is the people or kingdom of Babylonia, personified as a woman. See above, on Psalms 9:13. The wasted or desolated is the epithet belonging to her by way of eminence in prophecy and history. There is no need therefore of distinguishing between a partial and total desolation, or between that of the city and the kingdom at large. The last clause may mean nothing more than that such a revolution is at hand that he will be esteemed a fortunate man who treats thee as thou hast treated us. For the true sense of the last verb, see above, on Psalms 13:5-6.

9. (Psalms 137:9) Happy he (who) shall seize and dash thy little ones against the stones. This revolting act was not uncommon in ancient warfare. See 2 Kings 8:12, Hosea 14:1, Nahum 3:10, Isaiah 13:16; Isaiah 13:18. The more revolting, the stronger the description of the change awaiting Babylon. The day is coming when he shall be deemed fortunate who, according to the usages of war, requites thy own sanguinary cruelties. The word translated dash means really to dash in pieces, as in Psalms 2:9. The act here meant is commonly expressed by a different Hebrew verb. Taketh and dasheth is equivocal, the first of these verbs being used in familiar English as a kind of auxiliary, whereas the corresponding verb in Hebrew denotes a distinct and independent act.