This plaintive ode is one of the most charming
compositions in the whole Book of Psalms for its poetic power.
If it were not inspired it would nevertheless occupy a high
place in poesy, especially the former portion of it, which is
tender and patriotic to the highest degree. In the later verses
(Ps 137:7-9), we have utterances of burning indignation against
the chief adversaries of Israel,—an indignation as righteous
as it was fervent. Let those find fault with it who have never
seen their temple burned, their city ruined, their wives
ravished, and after children slain; they might not, perhaps, be
quite so velvet mouthed if they had suffered after this fashion.
It is one thing to talk of the bitter feeling which moved
captive Israelites in Babylon, and quite another thing to be
captives ourselves under a savage and remorseless power, which
knew not how to show mercy, but delighted in barbarities to the
defenceless. The song is such as might fitly be sung in the
Jews' wailing place. It is a fruit of the Captivity in Babylon,
and often has it furnished expression for sorrows which else had
been unutterable. It is an opalesque Psalm within whose mild
radiance there glows afire which strikes the beholder with
wonder.
EXPOSITION
Verse 1. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat
down. Water courses were abundant in Babylon, wherein were
not only natural streams but artificial canals: it was place of
broad rivers and streams. Glad to be away from the noisy
streets, the captives sought the river side, where the flow of
the waters seemed to be in sympathy with their tears. It was
some slight comfort to be out of the crowd, and to have a little
breathing room, and therefore they sat down, as if to rest a
while and solace themselves in their sorrow. In little groups
they sat down and made common lamentation, mingling their
memories and their tears. The rivers were well enough, but,
alas, they were the rivers of Babylon, and the ground whereon
the sons of Israel sat was foreign soil, and therefore they
wept. Those who came to interrupt their quiet were citizens of
the destroying city, and their company was not desired.
Everything reminded Israel of her banishment from the holy city,
her servitude beneath the shadow of the temple of Bel, her
helplessness under a cruel enemy; and therefore her sons and
daughters sat down in sorrow, Yea, we wept, when we remembered
Zion. Nothing else could have subdued their brave spirits; but
the remembrance of the temple of their God, the palace of their
king, and the centre of their national life, quite broke them
down. Destruction had swept down all their delights, and
therefore they wept—the strong men wept, the sweet singers
wept! They did not weep when they remembered the cruelties of
Babylon; the memory of fierce oppression dried their tears and
made their hearts burn with wrath: but when the beloved city of
their solemnities came into their minds they could not refrain
from floods of tears. Even thus do true believers mourn when
they see the church despoiled, and find themselves unable to
succour her: we could bear anything better than this. In these
our times the Babylon of error ravages the city of God, and the
hearts of the faithful are grievously wounded as they see truth
fallen in the streets, and unbelief rampant among the professed
servants of the Lord. We bear our protests, but they appear to
be in vain; the multitude are mad upon their idols. Be it ours
to weep in secret for the hurt of our Zion: it is the least
thing we can do; perhaps in its result it may prove to be the
best thing we can do. Be it ours also to sit down and deeply
consider what is to be done. Be it ours, in any case, to keep
upon our mind and heart the memory of the church of God which is
so dear to us. The frivolous may forget, but Zion is graven on
our hearts, and her prosperity is our chief desire.
Verse 2. We hanged our harps upon the willows in
the midst thereof. The drooping branches appeared to weep as
we did, and so we gave to them our instruments of music; the
willows could as well make melody as we, for we had no mind for
minstrelsy. In the midst of the willows, or in the midst of the
rivers, or in the midst of Babylon, it matters little which,
they hung their harps aloft—those harps which once in Zion's
halls the soul of music shed. Better to hang them up than to
dash them down: better to hang them on willows than profane them
to the service of idols. Sad indeed is the child of sorrow when
he grows weary of his harp, from which in better days he had
been able to draw sweet solaces. Music hath charms to give
unquiet spirits rest; but when the heart is sorely sad it only
mocks the grief which flies to it. Men put away their
instruments of mirth when a heavy cloud darkens their souls.
Verse 3. For there they that carried us away
captive required of us a song. It was ill to be a singer at
all when it was demanded that this talent should go into bondage
to an oppressor's will. Better be dumb than be forced to please
an enemy with forced song. What cruelty to make a people sigh,
and then require them to sing! Shall men be carried away from
home and all that is dear to them, and yet chant merrily for the
pleasure of their unfeeling captors? This is studied torture:
the iron enters into the soul. It is indeed "woe to the
conquered" when they are forced to sing to increase the
triumph of their conquerors. Cruelty herein reached a refinement
seldom thought of. We do not wonder that the captives sat them
down to weep when thus insulted. "And they that wasted
us required of us mirth." The captives must not only
sing but smile, and add merriment to their music. Blind Samson
in former days must be brought forth to make sport for
Philistines, and now the Babylonians prove themselves to be
loaves of the same leaven. Plundered, wounded, fettered, carried
into captivity and poverty, yet must the people laugh as if it
were all a play, and they must sport as if they felt no sorrow.
This was worm wood and gall to the true lovers of God and his
chosen land. "Saying, Sing us one of the songs of
Zion." Nothing would serve their turn but a holy hymn,
and a tune sacred to the worship of Jehovah. Nothing will
content the Babylonian mockers but one of israel's Psalms when
in her happiest days she sang unto the Lord whose mercy endureth
for ever: this would make rare fun for their persecutors, who
would deride their worship and ridicule their faith in Jehovah.
In this demand there was an insult to their God as well as a
mockery of themselves, and this made it the more intensely
cruel. Nothing could have been more malicious, nothing more
productive of grief. These wanton persecutors had followed the
captives into their retirement, and had remarked upon their
sorrowful appearance, and "there" and then they bade
the mourners make mirth for them. Could they not let the
sufferers alone? Were the exiles to have no rest? The daughter
of Babylon seemed determined to fill up her cup of iniquity, by
torturing the Lord's people. Those who had been the most active
agents of Israel's undoing must needs follow up their ferocities
by mockeries. "The tender mercies of the wicked are
cruel." Worse than the Egyptians, they asked not labour
which their victims could have rendered, but they demanded mirth
which they could not give, and holy songs which they dared not
profane to such a purpose, sufferings of the weary and oppressed
exiles by their mirth and their indecency. We are sorry to say
that the resemblance still holds betwixt the Jews in a state of
captivity and the Christians in the state of their pilgrimage.
We have also to sustain the mockery of the profane and the
unthinking. Ridicule and disdain are often the fate of sincere
piety in this world. Fashion and frivolity and false philosophy
have made a formidable combination against us; and the same
truth, the same honesty, the same integrity of principle, which
in any other cause would be esteemed as manly and respectable,
is despised and laughed at when attached to the cause of the
gospel and its sublime interests.—Thomas Chalmers.
Verses 3-4. St. John Chrysostom observes the
improvement such tribulation effected in the Jews, who
previously derided, nay, even put to death, some of the
prophets; but now that they were captives in a foreign land,
they would not attempt to expose their sacred hymns to the
ridicule of the Gentiles.—Robert Bellarmine.
Verse 4. How shall we sing the LORD's song in a
strange land How shall they sing at all? sing in a strange
land? sing Jehovah's song among the uncircumcised? No, that must
not be; it shall not be. With one voice they refuse, but the
refusal is humbly worded by being put in the form of a question.
If the men of Babylon were wicked enough to suggest the defiling
of holy things for the gratification of curiosity, or for the
creation of amusement, the men of Zion had not so hardened their
hearts as to be willing to please them at such a fearful cost.
There are many things which the ungodly could do, and think
nothing of the doing thereof, which gracious men cannot venture
upon. The question "How can I?" or "How shall
we?" comes of a tender conscience and denotes an inability
to sin which is greatly to be cultivated.
Verse 5. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my
right hand forget her cunning. To sing Zion's songs for the
pleasure of Zion's foes, would be to forget the Holy City Each
Jew declares for himself that he will not do this; for the
pronoun alters from "we" to "I."
Individually the captives pledge themselves to fidelity to
Jerusalem, and each one asserts that he had sooner forget the
art which drew music from his harp strings than use it for
Babel's delectation. Better far that the right hand should
forget its usual handicraft, and lose all its dexterity, than
that it should fetch music for rebels out of the Lord's
instruments, or accompany with sweet skill a holy Psalm
desecrated into a common song for fools to laugh at. Not one of
them will thus dishonour Jehovah to glorify Belus and gratify
his vetaries. Solemnly they imprecate vengeance upon themselves
should they so false, so faithless prove.
Verse 6. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth. Thus the singers imprecate
eternal silence upon their mouths if they forget Jerusalem to
gratify Babylon. The players on instruments and the sweet
songsters are of one mind: the enemies of the Lord will get no
mirthful tune or song from them. If I prefer not Jerusalem
above my chief joy. The sacred city must ever be first in
their thoughts, the queen of their souls; they had sooner be
dumb than dishonour her sacred hymns, and give occasion to the
oppressor to ridicule her worship. If such the attachment of a
banished Jew to his native land, how much more should we love
the church of God of which we are children and citizens. How
jealous should we be of her honour, how zealous for her
prosperity. Never let us find jests in the words of Scripture,
or make amusement out of holy things, lest we be guilty of
forgetting the Lord and his cause. It is to be feared that many
tongues have lost all power to charm the regations of the saints
because they have forgotten the gospel, and God has forgotten
them.
Verse 7. Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in
the day of Jerusalem. The case is left in Jehovah's hands.
He is a God of recompenses, and will deal out justice with
impartiality. The Edomites ought to have been friendly with the
Israelites, from kinship; but there was a deep hatred and cruel
spite displayed by them. The elder loved not to serve the
younger, and so when Jacob's day of tribulation came, Esau was
ready to take advantage of it. The captive Israelites being
moved by grief to lodge their complaints with God, also added a
prayer for his visitation of the nation which meanly sided with
their enemies, and even Urged the invaders to more than their
usual cruelty. Who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the
foundation thereof. They wished to see the last of Jerusalem
and the Jewish state; they would have no stone left standing,
they desired to see a clean sweep of temple, palace, wall, and
habitation. It is horrible for neighbours to be enemies, worse
for them to show their enmity in times of great affliction,
worst of all for neighbours to egg others on to malicious deeds.
Those are responsible for other men's sins who would use them as
the tools of their own enmity. It is a shame for men to incite
the wicked to deeds which they are not able to perform
themselves. The Chaldeans were ferocious enough without being
excited to greater fury; but Edom's hate was insatiable. Those
deserve to be remembered by vengeance who in evil times do not
remember mercy; how much more those who take advantage of
calamities to wreak revenge upon sufferers. When Jerusalem's day
of restoration comes Edom will be remembered and wiped out of
existence.
Verse 8. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be
destroyed. Or the destroyer: let us accept the word either
way, or both ways: the destroyer would be destroyed, and the
Psalmist in vision saw her as already destroyed. It is usual to
speak of a city as a virgin daughter. Babylon was in her prime
and beauty, but she was already doomed for her crimes. Happy
shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. The
avenger would be fulfilling an honourable calling in
overthrowing a power so brutal, so inhuman. Assyrian and
Chaldean armies had been boastfully brutal in their conquests;
it was meet that their conduct should be measured back into
their own bosoms. No awards of punishment can be more
unanswerably just than those which closely follow the lex
talionis, even to the letter. Babylon must fall, as she caused
Jerusalem to fall; and her sack and slaughter must be such as
she appointed for other cities. The patriot poet sitting
sorrowfully in his exile, finds a solace in the prospect of the
overthrow of the empress city which holds him in bondage, and he
accounts Cyrus right happy to be ordained to such a righteous
work. The whole earth would bless the conqueror for ridding the
nations of a tyrant; future generations would call him blessed
for enabling men to breathe again, and for once more making
liberty possible upon the earth. We may rest assured that every
unrighteous power is doomed to destruction, and that from the
throne of God justice will be measured out to all whose law is
force, whose rule is selfishness, and whose policy is
oppression. Happy is the man who shall help in the overthrow of
the spiritual Babylon, which, despite its riches and power, is
"to be destroyed." Happier still shall he be who shall
see it sink like a millstone in the flood, never to rise again.
What that spiritual Babylon is none need enquire. There is but
one city upon earth which can answer to the name.
Verse 9. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth
thy little ones against the stones. Fierce was the heart of
the Jew who had seen his beloved city the scene of such terrific
butchery. His heart pronounced like sentence upon Babylon. She
should be scourged with her own whip of wire. The desire for
righteous retribution is rather the spirit of the law than of
the gospel; and yet in moments of righteous wrath the old fire
will burn; and while justice survives in the human breast it
will not lack for fuel among the various tyrannies which still
survive. We shall be wise to view this passage as a prophecy.
History informs us that it was literally fulfilled: the
Babylonian people in their terror agreed to destroy their own
offspring, and men thought themselves happy when they had put
their own wives and children to the sword. Horrible as was the
whole transaction, it is a thing to be glad of if we take a
broad view of the world's welfare; for Babylon, the gigantic
robber, had for many a year slaughtered nations without mercy,
and her fall was the rising of many people to a freer and safer
state. The murder of innocent infants can never be sufficiently
deplored, but it was an incident of ancient warfare which the
Babylonians had not omitted in their massacres, and, therefore,
they were not spared it themselves. The revenges of providence
may be slow, but they are ever sure; neither can they be
received with regret by those who see God's righteous hand in
them. It is a wretched thing that a nation should need an
executioner; but yet if men will commit murders tears are more
fitly shed over their victims than over the assassins
themselves. A feeling of universal love is admirable, but it
must not be divorced from a keen sense of justice. The captives
in Babylon did not make music, but they poured forth their
righteous maledictions, and these were far more in harmony with
their surroundings than songs and laughter could have been.
Those who mock the Lord's people will receive more than they
desire, to their own confusion: they shall have little enough to
make mirth for them, and more than enough to fill them with
misery. The execrations of good men are terrible things, for
they are not lightly uttered, and they are heard in heaven.
"The curse causeless shall not come; " but is there
not a cause? Shall despots crush virtue beneath their iron heel
and never be punished? Time will show.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Whole Psalm. Observe that this very Psalm in which the
question is asked, "How can we sing?" is itself a
song, one of the Lord's songs, still. Nothing can be more sad,
more desponding. It speaks of weeping in the remembrance of
Zion; it speaks of harps hung upon the willows by exiles who
have no heart to use them; and yet the very telling of these
sorrows, of this incapacity for song, is a song still. We chant
it in our congregations now, hundreds and thousands of years
after its composition, as one of the Church's melodies, as one
of the Lord's songs. It gives us a striking example of the
variety, of the versatility of worship, even in that department
which might seem to be all joyous, all praise. The very refusal
to sing may be itself a song. Any real utterance of good
thoughts, whether they be thoughts of gladness or thoughts of
sorrow, may be a true hymn, a true melody for the congregation,
even though it may not breathe at every moment the very thought
of all the worshippers. "How shall we sing?" is itself
a permanent hymn, an inspired song, for all the churches.—C.
J. Vaughan.
Whole Psalm. This Psalm is composed of two parts. The
first is, an heavy complaint of the church, unto Ps 137:7. The
other is an heavy imprecation and a prophetical denunciation
against the enemies of the church, unto the end of the Psalm.—Robert
Rollock.
Whole Psalm. What a wonderful mixture is the Psalm of soft
melancholy and fiery patriotism! The hand which wrote it must
have known how to smite sharply with the sword, as well as how
to tune the harp. The words are burning words of a heart
breathing undying love to his country, undying hate to his foe.
The poet is indeed
"Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love."
—J. J. Stewart Perowne.
Whole Psalm. Several of the Psalms obviously refer to
the time of the Babylonian captivity...The captives' mournful
sentiments of pensive melancholy and weary longing during its
long and weary continuance constitute the burden of the hundred
and thirty-seventh. It was probably written by some gifted
captive Levite at the time. Some suppose it to have been
composed by Jeremiah, the prophet of tears, and sent to his
countrymen in the land of their exile, in order to awaken fond
memories of the past and sustain a lively hope for the future;
and certainly the ode is worthy even of his pen, for it is one
of the sweetest, most plaintive, and exquisitely beautiful
elegies in any language. It is full of heart melting, tear
bringing pathos. The moaning of the captive, the wailing of the
exile, and the sighing of the saints are heard in every line.—W.
Ormiston, in "The Study," 1874.
Whole Psalm. Here,
1. The melancholy captives cannot enjoy themselves, Ps
137:1-2.
2. They cannot humour their proud oppressors, Ps 137:3-4.
3. They cannot forget Jerusalem, Ps 137:5-6.
4. They cannot forget Edom and Babylon, Ps 137:7-9.—Matthew
Henry.
Verse 1. By the rivers of Babylon. The canals
of Babylon itself, probably (comp. Ps 137:2.)—William Kay.
Verse 1. By the rivers. Euphrates, Tigris,
Chaboras, etc., and the canals which intersected the country.
The exiles would naturally resort to the banks of the streams as
shady, cool and retired spots, where they could indulge in their
sorrowful remembrances. The prophets of the exile saw their
visions by the river. Eze 1:1 Da 8:2 10:4.—"Bibliotheca
Sacra and Theological Review," 1848.
Verse 1. By the rivers. The bank of a river,
like the seashore, is a favourite place of sojourn of those whom
deep grief drives forth from the bustle of men into solitude.
The boundary line of the river gives to solitude a safe back;
the monotonous splashing of the waves keeps up the dull,
melancholy alternation of thoughts and feelings; and at the same
time the sight of the cool, fresh water exercises a soothing
influence upon the consuming fever within the heart.—Franz
Delitzsch.
Verse 1. By the rivers. The peculiar reason for
the children of Israel being represented as sitting at the
streams is the weeping. An internal reference of the
weeping to the streams, must therefore have been what gave rise
to the representation of the sitting. Nor is this reference
difficult to be discovered. All languages know of brooks, or
streams of tears, compare in Scripture, La 2:18; "Let tears
run down like a river day and night"; La 3:48; also Job
28:11, where inversely the gushing of the floods is called weeping
(Marg.). The children of Israel placed themselves beside the
streams of Babel because they saw in them the image and symbol
of their floods of tears.—E. W. Hengstenberg.
Verse 1. We sat down. Among the poets, sitting
on the ground is a mark of misery or captivity.
Multos ilia dies incomtis moesta capillis
Sederat.—Propertius.
With locks unkempt, mournful, for many days
She sat.
O utinam ante tuos sedeam captiva penates.—Propertius.
O might I sit a captive at thy gate!
You have the same posture in an old coin that celebrates a
victory of Lucius Verus over the Parthians.
We find Judea on several coins of Vespasian and Titus in the
posture that denotes sorrow and captivity.—From Joseph
Addison's Dialogues on Medals.
Verse 1. Sat down implies that the burst of
grief was a long one, and also that it was looked on by the
captives as some relaxation and repose.—Chrysostom.
Verse 1. We wept when we remembered Zion. A
godly man lays to heart the miseries of the church. I have read
of certain trees, whose leaves if cut or touched, the other
leaves contract and shrink up themselves, and for a space hang
down their heads: such a spiritual sympathy is there among
Christians; when other parts of God's church suffer, they feel
themselves, as it were, touched in their own persons. Ambrose
reports, that when Theodosius was sick unto death, he was more
troubled about the church of God than about his own sickness.
When Aeneas would have saved Anchises' life, saith he, "Far
be it from me that I should desire to live when Troy is buried
in its ruins." There are in music two unisons; if you
strike one, you shall perceive the other to stir, as if it were
affected: when the Lord strikes others a godly heart is deeply
affected, Isa 16:11: "My bowels shall sound like an
harp." Though it be well with a child of God in his own
particular, and he dwells in an house of cedar, yet he grieves
to see it go ill with the public. Queen Esther enjoyed the
king's favour, and all the delights of the court, yet when a
bloody warrant was signed for the death of the Jews she mourns
and fasts, and ventures her own life to save theirs.—Thomas
Watson.
Verse 1. For Sion only they wept, unlike many
who weep with the weeping and rejoice with the joy of Babylon,
because their whole interests and affections are bound up in the
things of this world.—Augustine.
Verse 1. Let us weep, because in this life we are
forced to sit by the waters of Babylon, and are yet strangers
and as it were banished and barred from being satisfied with the
pleasures of that river which gladdens the city of God. Alas, if
we did consider that our country were heaven, and did apprehend
this place here below to be our prison, or place of banishment,
the least absence from our country would draw tears from our
eyes and sighs from our hearts, with David (Ps 120:5): "Woe
is me that I sojourn in Mesech, and am constrained to dwell in
the tents of Kedar." Do you remember how the Jews behaved
themselves in the time of their exile and captivity, while they
sat by the rivers and waters of Babylon! They wept, would not be
comforted; hanged up their harps and instruments. What are the
waters of Babylon but the pleasures and delights of the world,
the waters of confusion, as the word signifies! Now when the
people of God sit by them, that is to say, do not carelessly,
but deliberately, with a settled consideration, see them slide
by and pass away, and compare them with Sion, that is to say,
with the inconceivable rivers of pleasure, which are permanent
in the heavenly Jerusalem; how can they choose but weep, when
they see themselves sitting by the one, and sojourning from the
other! And it is worthy your observing, that notwithstanding the
Jews had many causes of tears, the Chaldeans had robbed them of
their goods, honours, countries, liberty, parents, children,
friends: the chief thing, for all this, that they mourn for is
their absence from Sion,—"We wept when we remembered
thee, O Sion"—for their absence from Jerusalem. What
should we then do for our absence from another manner of
Jerusalem! Theirs was an earthly, old, robbed, spoiled, burned,
sacked Jerusalem; ours a heavenly, new one, into which no arrow
can be shot, no noise of the drum heard, nor sound of the
trumpet, nor calling unto battle: who would not then weep, to be
absent from thence!—Walter Balcanqual, in "A Sermon
Preached at St. Maries Spittle," 1623.
Verse 1. We remembered Zion. It necessarily
implies they had forgot, else how could they now
remember! In their peace and plenty the had but little regard of
Zion then.—John Whincop, in a Sermon entitled,
"Israel's Tears for Distressed Zion," 1645.
Verse 1. Nothing could present a more striking
contrast to their native country than the region into which the
Hebrews were transplanted. Instead of their irregular and
picturesque mountain city, crowning its unequal heights, and
looking down into its deep and precipitous ravines, through one
of which a scanty stream wound along, they entered the vast,
square, and level city of Babylon, occupying both sides of the
broad Euphrates; while all around spread immense plains, which
were intersected by long straight canals, bordered by rows of
willows. How unlike their national temple—a small but highly
finished and richly adorned fabric, standing in the midst of its
courts on the brow of a lofty precipice—the colossal temple of
the Chaldean Bel, rising from the plain, with its eight
stupendous stories or towers, one above the other, to the
perpendicular height of a furlong! The palace of the Babylonian
kings was more than twice the size of their whole city; it
covered eight miles, with its hanging gardens built on arched
terraces, each rising above the other, and rich in all the
luxuriance of artificial cultivation. How different from the
sunny cliffs of their own land, where the olive and the vine
grew spontaneously, and the cool, shady, and secluded valleys,
where they could always find shelter from the heat of the
burning noon! No wonder then that, in the pathetic words of
their own hymn, "by the waters of Babylon they sat down
and wept, when they remembered thee, O Zion." Of their
general treatment as captives we know little. The Psalm above
quoted seems to intimate that the Babylonians had taste enough
to appreciate the poetical and musical talent of the exiles, and
that they were summoned occasionally to amuse the banquets of
their masters, though it was much against their will that they
sang the songs of Zion in a strange land. In general it seems
that the Jewish exiles were allowed to dwell together in
considerable bodies, not sold as household or personal or
praedial slaves, at least not those of the better order of whom
the Captivity chiefly consisted. They were colonists rather than
captives, and became by degrees possessed of considerable
property. They had taken the advice of the prophet Jeremiah (who
gave them no hopes of speedy return to their homes): they had
built houses, planted gardens, married and brought up children,
submitted themselves as peaceful subjects to the local
authorities: all which implies a certain freedom, a certain
degree of prosperity and comfort. They had free enjoyment of
their religion, such at least as adhered faithfully to their
belief in Jehovah. We hear of no special and general religious
persecution.—Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868), in
"The History of the Jews."
Verse 1. They sat in silence; they remembered in
silence; they wept in silence.—J. W. Burgon.
Verses 1-6. Israel was a typical people. 1. They were
typical of God's church in all ages of the world. And, 2. They
were typical of the soul of every individual believer. This
Psalm is composed for Israel in her captivity. Let us go over
it, taking its typical meaning.
1. When a believer is in captivity he has a sorrowful
remembrance of Zion. So it was with God's ancient people:
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept,
when we remembered Zion" (Ps 137:1). In the last chapter of
2Ch 36:14-20, we find the melancholy tale of Judah's captivity.
Many of their friends had been slain by the sword—the house of
God was burned—the walls of Jerusalem were broken down—and
they themselves were captives in a foreign land. No wonder that
they sat down and wept when they remembered Zion. So it is often
with the believer when led captive by sin—he sits down and
weeps when he remembers Zion. Zion is the place where God makes
himself known. When a poor awakened sinner is brought to know
the Saviour, and to enter through the rent veil into the holiest
of all, then he becomes one of the people of Zion: "A day
in thy courts is better than a thousand." He dwells in
Zion; and the people that dwell therein are forgiven their
iniquity. But when a believer falls into sin he falls into
darkness—he is carried a captive away from Zion. No more does
he find entrance within the veil; no more is he glad when they
say to him, "Let us go up to the house of the Lord."
He sits down and weeps when he remembers Zion.
2. The world derides the believer in his captivity. So
it was with ancient Israel. The Chaldeans were cruel conquerors.
God says by his prophet,—"I was but a little displeased,
and they helped forward the affliction." Not only did they
carry them away from their temple, their country, and their
homes, but they made a mock of their sorrows. When they saw them
sit down to shed bitter tears by the rivers of Babylon, they
demanded mirth and a song, saying, "Sing us one of the
songs of Zion." So is it with the world and the captive
Christian. There are times when the world does not mock at the
Christian. Often the Christian is filled with so strange a joy
that the world wonders in silence. Often there is a meek and
quiet spirit in the Christian, which disarms opposition. The
soft answer turneth away wrath; and his very enemies are forced
to be at peace with him. But stop till the Christian's day of
darkness comes—stop till sin and unbelief have brought him
into captivity—stop till he is shut out from Zion, and carried
afar off, and sits and weeps; then will the cruel world help
forward the affliction—then will they ask for mirth and song;
and when they see the bitter tear trickling down the cheek, they
will ask with savage mockery, "Where is your Psalm singing
now?" "Sing us one of the songs of Zion." Even
Christ felt this bitterness when he hung upon the cross.
3. The Christian cannot sing in captivity. So it was
with ancient Israel. They were peculiarly attached to the sweet
songs of Zion. They reminded them of the times of David and
Solomon—when the temple was built, and Israel was in its
greatest glory. They reminded them, above all, of their God, of
their temple, and the services of the sanctuary. Three times a
year they came up from the country in companies, singing these
sweet songs of Zion—lifting their eyes to the hills whence
came their help. But now, when they were in captivity, they
hanged their harps upon the willows; and when their cruel
spoilers demanded mirth and a song, they said: "How shall
we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" So is it with
the believer in darkness. He hangs his harp upon the willows,
and cannot sing the song of the Lord. Every believer has got a
harp. Every heart that has been made new is turned into a harp
of praise. The mouth is filled with laughter—the tongue with
most divine melody. Every true Christian loves praise—the
holiest Christians love it most. But when the believer falls
into sin and darkness, his harp is on the willows, and lie
cannot sing the Lord's song, for lie is in a strange land.
(a) He loses all sense of pardon. It is the sense of
pardon that gives its sweetest tones to the song of the
Christian. But when a believer is in captivity he loses this
sweet sense of forgiveness, and therefore cannot sing.
(b) He loses all sense of the presence of God. It is
the sweet presence of God with, the soul that makes the believer
sing. But when that presence is away, the Lord's house is but a
howling wilderness; and you say, "How can we sing the
Lord's song in a strange land?"
(c) He loses sight of the heavenly Canaan. The sight
of the everlasting hills, draws forth the heavenly melodies of
the believing soul. But when a believer sins, and is carried
away captive, he loses this hope of glory. He sits and
weeps,—he hangs his harp upon the willows, and cannot sing the
Lord's song in a strange land.
(d) The believer in darkness still remembers Zion, and
prefers it above his chief joy. He often finds, when he has
fallen into sin and captivity, that he has fallen among worldly
delights and worldly friends. A thousand pleasures tempt him to
take up his rest here; but if he be a true child of Zion he will
never settle down in a strange land. He will look over all the
pleasures of the world and the pleasures of sin, and say,
"A day in thy courts is better than a
thousand"—"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my
right hand forget her cunning."—Condensed from Robert
Murray M'Cheyne, 1813-1843.
Verses 1-2. The Psalm is universally admired. Indeed,
nothing can be more exquisitely beautiful. It is written in a
strain of sensibility that must touch every soul that is capable
of feeling. It is remarkable that Dr. Watts, in his excellent
versification, has omitted it. He has indeed some verses upon it
in his Lyrics; and many others have written on this ode. We have
seen more than ten productions of this kind; the last, and
perhaps the best, of which is Lord Byron's. But who is satisfied
with any of these attempts? Thus it begins: "By the rivers
of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered
Zion." These rivers were probably some of the streams
branching off from the Euphrates and Tigris. Here it is commonly
supposed these captive Jews were placed by their task masters,
to preserve or repair the water works. But is it improper to
conjecture that the Psalmist refers to their being here; not
constantly, but occasionally; not by compulsion, but choice?
Hither I imagine their retiring, to unbend their oppressed minds
in solitude. "Come", said one of these pious Jews to
another, "come, let us for a while go forth, from this
vanity and vileness. Let us assemble together by ourselves under
the refreshing shade of the willows by the watercourses. And let
us take our harps with us, and solace ourselves with some of the
songs of Zion." But as soon as they arrive, and begin to
touch the chords, the notes—such is the power of
association—awaken the memory of their former privileges and
pleasures. And, over whelmed with grief, they sit down on the
grass; and weep when they remember Zion; their dejected looks,
averted from each other, seeming to say, "If I forget thee,
O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not
remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if
I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." But what do
they with their harps? The voice of mirth is heard no more, and
all the daughters of music are brought low. Melody is not in
season to a distressed spirit. "Is any afflicted? Let him
pray. Is any merry? Let him sing Psalms." "As he that
taketh away a garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon nitre,
so is he that singeth songs to a heavy heart." They did
not, however, break them to pieces, or throw them into the
stream—but hanged them up only. They hoped that what
they could not use at present they might be able to resume as
some happier period. To be cast down is not to be destroyed.
Distress is not despondency.
"Beware of deperated steps; the darkest day
Live till to-morrow, will have passed away."
"We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst
thereof." Let us pass from the Jew to the Christian in his
Spritiual Sorrows. He who preach well, says Luther, must
distinguish well. It is peculiarly necessary to discriminate,
when we enter upon the present subject. For all the sorrows of
the Christian are not of the same kind or descent. Let us
consider four sources of his moral sadness.
1. The first will be physical.
2. The second will be criminal.
3. The third will be intellectual.
4. The fourth will be pious.
—William Jay in "The Christian Contemplated."
Verse 2. "Our harps." Many singers
were carried captives: Ezr 2:41. These would of course carry
thier instruments with them, and be insulted, as here. Their
songs were sacred, and unfit to be sung before idolaters.—From
"Anonymous Notes" in James Merrick's Annotations,
1768.
Verse 2. "Willows." All the flat,
whereon Babylon stodd, being by reason of so many rivers and
canals running through it made in many places marsh, expecially
near the said rivers and canals, this caused it to abound much
in willows, and therefore it is called in Scripture the
"Valley of Willows"; for so the words in Is 15:7,
which we translate "the brook of the willows, "ought
to be rendered.—Humphrey Prideaux (1648-1724), in "The
Old and New Testament Connected," etc.
Verse 2. "Willows." The Weeping
Willow of Babylon will grow to be a large tree; its branches
being long, slender, and pendulous, makes it proper to be
planted upon the banks of rivers, ponds, and over springs; the
leaves, also, are long and narrow; and when any mist or dew
falls, a drop of water is seen hanging at their extremities,
which, together with with their hanging branches, cause a most
lugubrious appearance. Lovers' garlands are said to have been
made of a species of this willow, the brancehs of which are very
slender and pliable; and the the plant itself has always been
sought after for ornamental plantations, either to mix with
others of the like growth in the largest quaters, of to be
planted out singly over springs, or in large opens, for the
peculiar variety occasioned by its mournful look.—John
Evelyn (1620-1706) in "Silva; or, A Discourse of
Trees."
Verse 2. "Willows." It is a curious
fact, that during the Commonwealth of England, when Crowmwell,
like a wise politician, allowed them to settle in London and to
have synagogues, the Jews cam hither in sufficient numbers to
celebrate the feast of Tabernacles in booths, among the Willows
on the borders of the Thames. The disturbance of their comfort
from the innumerable spectators, chiefly London apprentices,
called for some protection from the local magistrates. Not that
any insult was offered to their persons, but a natural
curiosity, excited by so new and extraordinary a spectacle,
induced many to press too closely round their camp, and perhaps
intrude upon their privacy.—Maria Callcott (1788-1842), in
"A Scripture Herbal," 1842.
Verse 2. "Willows." There is a pretty
story told about the way in which the Weeping Willow was
introduced into England.* Many years ago, the well-known poet,
Alexander Pope, who resided at Twickenham, received a basket of
figs as a present from Turkey. The basket was made ofthe supple
branches of the Weeping Willow, the very same species under
which the captive Jews sat when they wept by the waters of
Babylon. "We hanged our harps upon the willows." The
poet valued highly the small slender twigs as assoicated with so
much that was interesting, and untwisted the basket, and planted
one of the branches on the ground. It had some tidy buds upon
it, and he hoped he might be able to rear it, as none of theis
species of willow was know in England. Happily the willow is
very quick to take root and grow. The little branch soon became
a tree, and drooped gracefully over the river, in the same
matter that its race had done over the waters of Babylon. From
that one branch all the Weeping Willows in England are
descended.—Mary and Elizabeth Kirby, in "Chapters
on Trees," 1873.
*The two preceding extracts would seem to prove that this
story is not true; at least Evelyn's willow is evidently the
weeping willow, and would seem to have long been known.
Verse 2. "In the midst thereof." This
is most naturally understood of the city of Babylon;
which was nearly as large as Middlesex, and had parks and
gardens inside it.—William Kay.
Verse 3. "They that carried us away captive
required of us a song; " or rather, as it should be
rendered, "the words of a song." They see no
inconsistancy in a religion which freely mixes with the world.
In their ignorance they only require "the words of a
song; "its heavenly strain they have never caught.
"They that wasted us" required of us
mirth." Remember, it is this worldly element which wasteth,
or lays on heaps, whether so far as our own hearts of the church
of God is concerned. But, true to his spiritual instincts, the
child of God replies, "How shall we sing Jehovah's
song in the land of a stranger?" and then, so far
from being utterly cast down or overcome, rises with fresh
outburst or resolution and intenseness of new vigour, to utter
the vows of verses 5 and 6. For, after having passed through
such a spiritual conflict, we come forth, not wearied, but
refreshed; not weaker, but stronger. It is one of the seeming
contradictions of the gospel, that the cure of weariness, and
the relief of heavy-ladenness, lies in this—to take the
cross upon ourselves. After the night long conflict of
Israel," as he passed over Peniel, the sun rose upon
him, "and that though "he halted upon his
thigh."—Alfred Edersheim.
Verse 3. "Sing us one of the songs of
Zion." No music will serve the epicures in the prophet
but temple music: Am 6:5, "They invent to themselves
instruments of music like David." As choice and excellent
as David was in the service of the temple, so would they be in
their private feasts. Belshazzar's draughts are not half so
sweet in other vessels as in the utensils of the temple: Da 5:2,
"He commanded to bring forth the golden and silver vessels
that were taken out of the house of God." So the Babylonian
humour is pleased with nothing so much as with one of the
songs of Zion; not an ordinary song, but "Sing us one
of your songs of Zion." No jest relisheth with a
profane spirit so well as when Scripture is abused, and anmde to
lackey to their sportive jollity. Vain man thinketh he can never
put hunour upon his pleasures, and scorn enough upon God and
holy things.—Thomas Manton.
Verse 3. "Sing us one of the songs of
Zion." The insulting nature of the demand will become
the more conspicuous, if we consider, that the usual subjects of
these songs were the omnipotence of Jehovah, and his love
towards his chosen people.—William Keatinge Clay, 1839.
Verse 3. The Babylonians asked them in derision for
one of the songs of Zion. They loaded with ridicule their pure
and venerable religion, and aggravated the sufferings of the
weary and oppressed exiles by their mirth and their indecency.
We are sorry to say that the resemblence still holds betwixt the
Jews in a state of captivity and the Christians in the state of
their pilgrimage. We have also to sustain the mockery of the
profane and the unthinking. Ridicule and disdain are often the
fate of sincere piety in this world. Fashion and frivolity and
false philosophy have made a formidable combination against us;
and the same truth, the same honesty, the same integrity of
principle, which in any other cause would be exteemed as manly
and respectable, is despised and laughed at when attached to the
cause of the gospel and its sublime interests.—Thomas
Chalmers.
Verses 3, 4. St. John Chrysostom observes the
improvement such tribulation effected in the Jews, who
previously derided, nay, even put to death, some of the
prophets; but now that they were captives in a foreign land,
they would not attempt to expose their sacred hymns to the
ridicule of the Gentiles.—Robert Bellarmine.
Verse 4. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a
strange land? Now, is it not true that, in many senses, we,
like the Jewish exiles, have to sing the Lord's song in a
strange land? If not a land strange to us, then, all the
more strange to it—a land foreign, so to say, and alien
to the Lord's song. The very life which we live here in the body
is a life of sight and sense. Naturally we walk by sight; and to
sing the Lord's song is possible only to faith. Faith is the
soul's sight: faith is seeing the Invisible: this comes not of
nature, and without this we cannot sing the Lord's song, because
we are in a land strange to it. Again, the feelings of the
present life are often adverse to praise. The exiles in Babylon
could not sing because they were in heaviness. God's hand was
heavy upon them. He had a controversy with them for their sins.
Now the feelings of many of us are in like manner adverse to the
Lord's song. Some of us who are in great sorrow. We have lost a
friend; we are in anxiety about one who is all to us; we know
not which way to turn for tomorrow's bread or for this day's
comfort. How can we sing the Lord's song? And there is another
kind of sorrow, still more fatal, if it be possible, to the
lively exercise of adoration. And that is, a weight and burden'
of unforgiven sin. Songs may be heard from the prison cell of
Philippi; songs maybe heard from the calm death bed, or by the
open grave; but songs cannot be drawn forth from the soul on
which the load of God's displeasure, real or imagined, is lying,
or which is still powerless to apprehend the grace and the life
for sinners which is in Christ Jesus. That, we imagine, was the
difficulty which pressed upon the exile Israelite; that
certainly is an impediment now, in many, to the outburst of
Christian praise. And again, there is a land yet more strange
and foreign to the Lord's song even than the land of unforgiven
guilt—and treat is the land of unforsaken sin.—Condensed
from C. J. Vaughan.
Verse 4. The Lord's song—in a strange land.
It was the contrast, it was the incongruity which perplexed
them. The captives in Babylon—that huge, unwieldy city, with
its temple of the Chaldean Bel towering aloft on its eight
stupendous stories to the height of a furlong into the sky—the
Israelite exiles, bidden there to an idolatrous feast, that they
might make sport for the company by singing to them one of the
far famed Hebrew melodies, for the gratification of curiosity or
the amusement of the ear—how could it be done? The Lord's
song—one of those inspired compositions of Moses or David,
in which the saintly soul of the king or the prophet poured
itself forth in lowliest, loftiest adoration, before the one
Divine Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier—how could it
be sung, they ask, in a scene so incongruous? The words would
languish upon the tongue, the notes would refuse to sound upon
the disused harp. Such Psalmody requires its accompaniment and
its adaptation—if not actually in the Temple courts of Zion,
yet at least in the balmy gales of Palestine and the believing
atmosphere of Israel.—C. J. Vaughan, in "The Family
Prayer and Sermon Book."
Verse 4. The Lord's song. These songs of old,
to distinguish them from heathenish songs, were called God's
songs, the Lord's songs; because taught by him, learned of him,
and commanded by him to be sung to his praise.—John Bunyan.
Verse 4. Many were the sad thoughts which the
remembrance of Zion would call up: the privileges they had there
enjoyed; the solemn feasts and happy meetings of their tribes to
worship there before the Lord; the Temple—"the beautiful
house where their fathers had worshipped"—now laid waste.
But the one embittering thought that made them indeed heavy at
heart, silenced their voices, and unstrung their harps, was the
cause of this calamity—their sin. Paul and Silas could sing in
a dungeon, but it was not their sin brought them there: and so
the saints suffering for the name of Christ could say, "we
are exceeding joyful in all our tribulation." There is no
real sorrow in any circumstances into which God brings us, or
where he leads and goes with us; but where sin is, and suffering
is felt to be—not persecution, but—judgment, there is and
can be no joy; the soul refuses to be comforted. Israel cannot
sing beside the waters of Babylon.—William De Burgh.
Verse 4. There is a distinction between us and God's
ancient people; for at that time the worship of God was confined
to one place; but now he has his temple wherever two or three
are met together in Christ's name, if they separate themselves
from all idolatrous profession, and maintain purity of Divine
worship.—John Calvin.
Verse 4. It is one of the pathetic touches about the
English captivity of King John II of France, that once sitting
as a guest to see a great tournament held in his honour, he
looked on sorrowfully, and being urged by some of those about
him to be cheerful and enjoy the splendid pageant, he answered
with a mournful smile, "How shall we sing the LORD'S
song in a strange land?"—Polydore Virgil,
—1555.
Verse 5. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem.
Calvary, Mount of Olives, Siloam, how fragrant are ye with the
Name that is above every name! "If I forget thee, O
Jerusalem!" Can I forget where he walked so often,
where he spake such gracious words, where he died? Can I forget
that his feet shall stand on that "Mount of Olives, which
is before Jerusalem, on the east?" Can I forget that there
stood the Upper Room, and there fell the showers of
Pentecost?—Andrew A. Bonar.
Verse 5. Let my right hand forget her cunning.
There is a striking and appropriate point in this, which has
been overlooked. It is, that, as it is customary for people in
the East to swear by their professions, so one who has no
profession—who is poor and destitute, and has nothing of
recognized value in the world—swears by his right hand, which
is his sole stake in society, and by the "cunning"
of which he earns his daily bread. Hence the common Arabic
proverb (given by Burckhardt) reflecting on the change of
demeanour produced by improved circumstances:—"He was
wont to swear `by the cutting off of his right hand!' He now
swears `by the giving of money to the poor.'"The words, "her
cunning", are supplied by the translators, in whose
time cunning (from the Saxon "cannan", Dutch konnen,
"to know") meant "skill"; and a cunning man
was what we should now call a skilful man. In the present case
the skill indicated is doubtless that of playing on the harp, in
which particular sense it occurs so late as Prior:
"When Pedro does the lute command,
She guides the cunning artist's hand."
Modern translators substitute "skill"; but perhaps
a term still more general would be better—such as, "May
my right hand lose its power."—John Kitto, in
"The Pictorial Bible."
Verse 5. Let my right hand forget. Something
must be supplied from the context...the playing on the stringed
instrument, Ps 137:2, whether the right hand should be applied
to the purpose or not, was the point in question. Then, the
punishment also perfectly accords with the misdeed, as in Job
31:22: If I, misapplying my right hand to the playing of joyful
strains on my instrument, forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right
hand, as a punishment, forget the noble art; and then also Ps
137:6 fits admirably to what goes before: May my misemployed
hand lose its capacity to play, and my tongue, misemployed in
singing cheerful songs, its capacity to sing.—E. W.
Hengstenberg.
Verse 6. If I do not remember thee. Either our
beds are soft, or our hearts hard, that can rest when the church
is at unrest, that feel not our brethren's hard cords through
our soft beds.—John Trapp.
Verse 6. If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief
joy. Literally, "if I advance not Jerusalem above
the head of my joy." If I set not Jerusalem as a diadem
on the head of my rejoicing, and crown all my happiness with
it.—Christopher Wordsworth.
Verse 7. Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom,
etc. The Jews were their brethren: Ob 1:10 Am 1:11. They were
their neighbours, Idumea and Judea bordered upon one another: Mr
3:8. They were confederates with the Jews (Jer 27:3: an
Edomitish ambassador was at Jerusalem), who, together with the
ambassadors of the other kings there mentioned, were
strengthening themselves with Zedekiah against Nebuchadnezzar;
see Ob 1:7. For them, therefore to revenge themselves for former
wrongs done them upon the Jews, and that in the day of their
calamity, this made their sin exceedingly sinful—William
Greenhill, 1591-1677.
Verse 7. Remember, O LORD, the, children of Edom,
etc. Or all kinds of evil speaking against our brother, this sin
of Edom, to sharpen an enemy against our brother in the day of
his sorrow and distress, this opening of the mouth wide against
him, to exult over him in his calamity, is most barbarous and
unchristian. ...Observe how the cruelty of the Edomites is
aggravated by this time; the most woeful time that ever
Jerusalem had, called therefore the day of Jerusalem.
When all things conspired to make their sorrow full, then, in
the anguish and fit of their mortal disease, then did Edom arm
his eye, his tongue his heart, his hand, and join all those with
the enemy against his brother. Learn, that God taketh notice not
only what we do against another, but when;for he will set
these things in order before us; for the God of mercy cannot
abide cruelty.—Edward Marbury, 1649.
Verse 7. Remember, O Loud, the children of Edom.
Edom shall be remembered for the mischievous counsel he gave;
and the daughter of Babylon shall be for ever razed out of
memory for razing Jerusalem to the ground. And let all the
secret and open enemies of God's church take heed how they
employ their tongues and hands against God's secret ones: they
that presume to do either may here read their fatal doom written
in the dust of Edom, and in the ashes of
Babylon.—Daniel Featley (1582-1645), in "Clavis
Mystica."
Verse 7. In Herod, the Idumean, Edom's hatred found
its concentrated expression. His attempt was to destroy
him whom God had laid in Zion as the "sure
foundation."—William Kay.
Verse 7. It may be observed that the Jews afterward
acted the same part toward the Christian church which the
Edomites had acted toward them, encouraging and stirring up the
Gentiles to persecute and destroy it from off the face of the
earth. And God "remembered" them for the Christians'
sakes, as they prayed him to "remember Edom" for their
sakes. Learn we hence, what a crime it is, for Christians to
assist the common enemy, or call in the common enemy to assist
them, against their brethren.—George Horne.
Verse 7. We are not to regard the imprecations of this
Psalm in any other light than as prophetical. They are grounded
on the many prophecies which had already gone forth on the
subject of the destruction of Babylon, if, as we may admit, the
Psalm before us was written after the desolation of Jerusalem.
But these prophecies have not yet been fulfilled in every
particular, and remain to be accomplished in mystic Babylon,
when the dominion of Antichrist shall be for ever swept away,
and the true church introduced into the glorious liberty of the
sons of God, at the appearing of their Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ in his own kingdom.—William Wilson.
Verse 7. Edom's hatred was the hatred with which the
carnal mind in its natural enmity against God always regards
whatever is the elect object of his favour. Jerusalem was the
city of God. "Rase it, rase it even to the
ground", is the mischievous desire of every unregenerate
mind against every building that rests on the elect Stone of
Divine foundation. For God's election never pleases man until,
through grace, his own heart has become an adoring receiver of
that mercy which while in his natural state he angrily resented
and refused to own in its effects on other men From Cain to
Antichrist this solemn truth holds always, good.—Arthur
Pridham.
Verses 7-9. I do not know if the same feeling has
occurred to others, but I have often wished the latter verses of
this Psalm had been disjoined from this sweet and touching
beginning. It sounds as if one of the strings on their well
tuned harps was out of melody, as if it struck a jarring note of
discord. And yet I know the feeling is wrong, for it is no more
than what the Lord himself had foretold and declared should be
the final desolation of proud Babylon itself: yet one longs more
intensely for the period when the nations of the earth shall
learn war no more; and every harp and every voice, even those of
the martyred ones beneath God's altar loudest and sweetest of
all, shall sing the Lord's songs, the song of Moses, and the
Lamb, in that pleasant land, where no sighing and no tears are
seen.—Barton Bouchier.
Verse 8. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be
destroyed. In the beginning of the fifth year of Darius
happened the revolt of the Babylonians which cost him the
trouble of a tedious siege again to reduce them...he besieged
the city with all his forces...As soon as the Babylonians saw
themselves be girt by such an army as they could not cope with
in the field, they turned their thoughts wholly to the
supporting of themselves in the siege; in order whereto they
took a resolution, the most desperate and barbarous that ever
any nation practised. For to make their provisions last the
longer, they agreed to cut off all unnecessary mouths among
them, and therefore drawing together all the women and children,
they strangled them all, whether wives, sisters, daughters, or
young children useless for the wars, excepting only that every
man was allowed to save one of his wives, which he best loved,
and a maid servant to do the work of the house.—Humphrey
Prideaux.
Verse 8. Who art to be destroyed. hdwdvh has
been explained in a variety of ways. Seventy: h talaipwrov;
Vulg. misera: others, destroyer, powerful, violent,
or fierce. Perhaps it best suits the context to regard it
as expressing what is already accomplished: it is so certain, in
the view of the Psalmist, that the ruin will come, that he uses
the past participle, as if the work were now completed. "O
daughter of Babylon, the destroyed!"—"Bibliotheca
Sacra and Theological Review."
Verse 8. He that sows evil shall reap evil; he that
soweth the evil of sin, shall reap the evil of punishment. So
Eliphaz told Job that he had seen (Job 4:8), "they that
plough iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same." And
that either in kind or quality, proportion or quantity. In kind,
the very same that he did to others shall be done to him; or in
proportion, a measure answerable to it. So he shall reap what he
hath sown, in quality or in quantity; either in portion the
same, or in proportion the like. The prophet cursing Edom and
Babel saith thus, "O daughter of Zion, happy shall he be
that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us." The original
is, "that recompenses to thee thy deed which thou didst to
us." ...Thus is wickedness recompensed suo genere,
in its own kind. So often the transgressor is against the
transgressor, the thief robs the thief, proditoros proditor;as
in Rome many unchristened emperors, and many christened popes,
by blood and treason got the sovereignty, and by blood and
treason lost it. Evil men drink of their own brewing, are
scourged with their own rod, drowned in the pit which they
digged for others, as Haman was hanged on his own gallows,
Perillus tormented in his own engine!—Thomas Adams.
Verses 8-9. The subject of these two verses is the
same with that of many chapters in Isaiah and Jeremiah; namely,
the vengeance of heaven executed upon Babylon by Cyrus, raised
up to be king of the Medes and Persians, united under him for
that purpose. The meaning of the words, "Happy shall he be,
"is, He shall go on and prosper, for the Lord of hosts
shall go with him, and fight his battles against the enemy and
oppressor of his people, empowering him to recompense upon the
Chaldeans the works of their hands, and to reward them as they
served Israel.—George Horne.
Verses 8-9. It needs no record to tell us that, in the
siege and carrying away of Jerusalem, great atrocities were
committed by the conquerors. We may be sure that
"Many a chiding mother then
And newborn baby died,"
for the wars of the old world were always attended by such
barbarous cruelties. The apostrophe of Ps 137:8-9, consequently
merely proclaims the certainty of a just retribution—of the
same retribution that the prophets had foretold (Isa 13:16
47:1-15 Jer 50:46; compare, "who art to be destroyed",
Ps 137:8), and the happiness of those who should be its
ministers; who should mete out to her what she had measured to
the conquered Jew. It was the decree of Heaven that their
"children" should "be dashed to pieces before
their eyes." The Psalmist simply recognizes the decree as
just and salutary; he pronounces the terrible vengeance to have
been deserved. To charge him with vindictiveness, therefore, is
to impugn the justice and mercy of the Most High. And there is
nothing to sustain the charge, for his words are simply a
prediction, like that of the prophet. "As thou hast done,
it shall be done unto thee; thy reward shall return upon thine
own head": Ob 1:15.—Joseph Hammond, in "The
Expositor," 1876.
Verse 9. Happy shall he be that taketh, etc.
That is, so oppressive hast thou been to all under thy
domination, as to become universally hated and detested; so that
those who may have the last hand in thy destruction, and the
total extermination of thy inhabitants, shall be reputed "happy"—shall
be celebrated and extolled as those who have rid
the world of a curse so grievous. These prophetic declarations
contain no excitement to any person or persons to commit acts of
cruelty and barbarity; but are simply declarative of what
would take place in the order of the retributive providence and
justice of God, and the general opinion that should in
consequence be expressed on the subject; therefore praying
for the destruction of our enemies is totally out of the
question.—Adam Clarke.
Verse 9. Happy shall he be, etc. With all
possible might and speed oppose the very first risings and
movings of the heart to sin; for these are the buds that produce
the bitter fruit; and if sin be not nipped in the very bud, it
is not imaginable how quickly it will shoot forth...Now these
sins, though they may seem small in themselves, yet are
exceedingly pernicious in their effects. These little foxes
destroy the grapes as much or more than the greater, and
therefore are to be diligently sought out, hunted, and killed by
us, if we would keep our hearts fruitful. We should deal with
these first streamings out of sin as the Psalmist would have the
people of God deal with the brats of Babylon: Happy shall he
be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
And without doubt most happy and successful will that man prove
in his spiritual welfare, who puts on no bowels of pity even to
his infant corruptions, but slays the small as well as the
great; and so not only conquers his enemies by opposing their
present force, but also by extinguishing their future race. The
smallest children, if they live, will be grown men; and the
first motions of sin, if they are let alone, will spread into
great, open, and audacious presumptions.—Robert South,
1633-1716.
Verse 9. Against the stones. That elM signifies
a rock, is undubitable, from the concurrent testimony of
all the best Hebrew lexicographers. Hence it follows, because
there is no rock, nor mountain, nor hill, either in tim city or
in the province of ancient Babylonia, that the locality against
which the malediction of this Psalm is hurled cannot be the
metropolis of the ancient Assyrian empire, but must be
apocalyptic Babylon, or Papal Rome, built upon seven hills, one
of which is the celebrated Tarpeian Rock. But the eighth verse
emphatically declares that the retributive justice of God will
visit upon apocalyptic Babylon the same infliction which
Assyrian Babylon, and also Pagan Rome, inflicted upon Jerusalem.
As therefore Nebuchadnezzar as well as Titus "burnt the
house of the Lord, and tim king's house, and all the houses of
Jerusalem, and every great man's house burnt he with fire"
(2Ki 25:9), so "the ten horns shall hate the whore, and
shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and
burn her with fire; and she shall be utterly burned with
fire" (Re 17:16 18:8). When the Canaanites had filled up
the measure of their iniquity, Israel received a divine
commission to exterminate the guilty nation. When Papal Rome
shall have filled up the measure of her iniquity, then "a
mighty angel will take up a stone, like a great millstone, and
will cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that
great city Babylon be thrown down": "For her sins have
reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double
according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to
her double" (Re 18:5-6). Then shall issue the divine
proclamation: "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy
apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her" (Re
18:20).—John Noble Coleman, in "The Book of Psalms,
with Notes," 1863.
Verse 9. He that taketh and dasheth thy little ones
against the stones.
My heroes slain, my bridal bed o'erturned,
My daughters ravished, and my city burn'd,
My bleeding infants dashed against the floor;
These have I yet to see, perhaps yet more.
—Homer's Iliad, Pope's Translation, Book 22, 89-91.
HINTS TO THE VILLAGE PREACHER
Verse 1.
1. A duty once the source of joy: "remember Zion."
2. Circumstances which make the remembrance sorrowful.
3. Peculiar persons who feel this joy or sorrow: "we."
Verse 1.
1. Zion forsaken in prosperity. Its services neglected; its
priests demoralized; the worship of Baal and of Ashtaroth
preferred to the worship of the true God.
2. Zion remembered in adversity. In Babylon more than in
Jerusalem; on the banks of the Euphrates more than on the banks
of Jordan; with tears when they might have remembered it with
joy. "I spake unto thee in thy prosperity, and thou saidst,
I will not hear." "Lord, in trouble they have visited
thee. They poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon
them."—G. R.
Verse 2.
1. Harps—or capacities for praise.
2. Harps on willows, or song suspended.
3. Harps retuned, or joys to come.
Verse 2.
1. A confession of joy being turned into sorrow: "we
hanged, "etc. The moaning of their harps upon weeping
willows better harmonized with their feelings than any tunes
which they had been accustomed to play.
2. A holm of sorrow being turned into joy. They took their
harps with them into captivity, and hung them up for future
use.—G. J.
Verse 2. We hanged our harps, etc.
1. In remembrance of lost joys. Their harps were associated
with a glorious past. They could not afford to forget that past.
They kept up the good old custom. There are always means of
remembrance at hand.
2. In manifestation of present sorrow. They could not play on
account of,
(a) Their sinfulness.
(a) Their circumstances.
(c) Their home.
3. In anticipation of future blessing. They did not dash
their harps to pieces. Term of exile limited. Return expressly
foretold. We shall want our harps in the good times coming.
Sinners play their harps now, but must soon lay them aside for
ever.—W. J.
Verse 3. (last clause). Taken away from the
text this is a very pleasant and praiseworthy request. Why do we
wish for such a song?
1. It is sure to be pure.
2. It will certainly be elevating.
3. It will probably be glad some.
4. It will comfort and enliven us.
5. It will help to express our gratitude.
Verses 3-4.
1. The cruel demand.
a) A song when we are captives.
b) A song to please our adversaries.
c) A holy song for unholy purposes.
2. The motive for it. Sometimes mere ridicule; at others,
mistaken kindness seeking by sharpness to arouse us from
despondency; often mere levity.
3. The answer to it, "How can?" etc.
Verses 3-4.
1. When God calls for joy we ought not to sorrow. The songs
of Zion should be sung in Zion.
2. When God calls for sorrow we ought not to rejoice.
"How shall we sing?" etc. See Isa 5:12.—G. R.
Verses 3-4.
1. The unreasonable request: "Sing us one of the songs
of Zion." This was—
a) A striking testimony to the joyful character of Jehovah's
worship. Even the heathen had heard of "the songs of
Zion."
b) A severe trial of the fidelity of captive Israel. It might
have been to their present advantage to have complied with the
request.
c) A cruel taunt of the sad and desponding condition of the
captives.
2. The indignant refusal. "How shall we sing the Lord's
song in a strange land?" There is no singing this song by
true Israelites—
a) When the heart is out of tune, as it must necessarily be
when in "a strange land."
b) In uncongenial society—amongst unsympathetic strangers.
3. For unsanctified purposes—to make mirth for the heathen.
Many so called sacred concerts pain devout Christians as much as
the demand to sing the Lord's song did the devout Israelites.
The Lord's song must be sung only "to the Lord."—W.H
J.P.
Verses 3-4. The burlesque of holy things.
1. The servants of God are in an unsympathetic world.
2. The demand to be amused and entertained. Temple songs to
pass an idle hour! Such the popular demand today. Men would have
us burlesque religion to tickle them.
3. The justly indignant reply of all true men, "How
shall we?" Christian workers have more serious if less
popular business on hand.—W. B. H.
Verse 5. The person who remembers; the thing
remembered; the solemn imprecation.
Verse 5. No harp but for Jesus.
1. The harp consecrated. At conversion.
"One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee."
2. The harp silent:
"Thy songs were made for the brave and free,
They shall never sound in slavery."
3. The harp restrung above:
"And I heard the voice of harpers
Harping with their harps."—W. B. H.
Verses 5-6.
1. To rejoice with the world is to forget the church.
2. To love the church we must prefer her above everything.
3. To serve the church we must be prepared to suffer anything.
Verse 7. The hatred of the ungodly to true religion.
1. Its cause.
2. Its extent. "Rase it", etc.
3. Its season for display: "in the day of
Jerusalem"—trouble, etc.
4. Its reward: "Remember, O Lord."
WORK UPON THE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVENTH PSALM
"An Exposition upon some select Psalms
of David." Written by that faithful servant of God M.
Robert Rollok. And translated out of Latine into English by
Charles Lumisden, Edinborgh, 1600, 8vo. contains a short
exposition on Psalm 137. Of little value.