Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 137:1
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
1. the rivers of Babylon ] Not only the Euphrates and its tributaries, such as the Chebar (Eze 1:1; Eze 3:15), but the numerous canals with which the country was intersected. Babylonia was characteristically a land of streams, as Palestine was a land of hills; it was the feature of the country which would impress itself upon the mind of the exiles. Cp. Jer 51:13. They may have resorted to the banks of the rivers and canals to mourn; partly for the sake of the shade of the trees which grew there, partly because such places were suitable to melancholy meditation.
It is hardly likely that there is any reference to places of prayer chosen near water for the sake of ceremonial lustrations (Act 16:13).
sat down ] As mourners. Cp. Isa 47:1; Isa 47:5.
Zion ] The name is chosen specially to suggest the sacred memories of the city.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1 3. The silence of sacred song in the sorrow of exile.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
By the rivers of Babylon – The streams, the water-courses, the rivulets. There was properly only one river flowing through Babylon – the Euphrates; but the city was watered, as Damascus now is, by means of canals or water-courses cut from the main river, and conveying the water to different parts of the city. For a description of Babylon, see the introductory notes to Isa. 13. If the reference here is to Babylon proper, or the city, the allusion would be to the Euphrates flowing through it; if to Babylonia, the allusion would be to the Euphrates, and the other rivers which watered the country, as the Tigris, the Chaboras, and the Ulai. As it is most probable that the captive Hebrews were not scattered through the empire, but were concentrated in one or a few places, it is, perhaps, not improper to understand this of Babylon itself.
There we sat down – There we were sitting. Perhaps a little company of friends; perhaps those assembled for worship; perhaps those who happened to come together on some special occasion; or, perhaps, a poetic representation of the general condition of the Hebrew captives, as sitting and meditating on the desolations of their native land.
Yea, we wept – We sat there; we meditated; we wept. Our emotions overpowered us, and we poured forth tears. So now, there is a place in Jerusalem, at the southwest corner of the area on which the temple was built, where the Jews resort on set occasions to weep over the ruins of their city and nation.
When we remembered Zion – When we thought on our native land; its former glory; the wrongs done to it; the desolations there; when we thought of the temple in ruins, and our homes as devastated; when we thought of the happy days which we had spent there, and when we contrasted them with our condition now.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 137:1-9
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept.
The tears of memory and the cry for vengeance
I. The tears of memory (Psa 137:1-6).
1. Their sorrow had reference to the loss of the highest blessing–Zion, where their nation met their God to worship Him, etc.
2. Their sorrow was deliberate and all-absorbing. Now these tears of memory–
(1) Reveal one of the most wonderful faculties of our nature, the faculty of memory.
(2) Reveal a view of retribution opposed to modern scepticism. Modern sceptics say we pay our moral debts as we go on, that retribution for sin is prompt and adequate here. Not so, memory brings up the sufferings of the past.
(3) Reveal a view of our mortal life terribly solemn. We do not, as the brute does, finish with life as we go on; we are bound by memory to re-visit the past, and to re-live our yesterdays.
(4) Reveal a futurity which must reverse our present calculations. How different do things appear to the eye of memory to what they do to the eye of sense.
II. A cry for vengeance (Psa 137:7-9). (Homilist.)
The patriots psalm
This psalm celebrates the splendid constancy of the Jews amid the oppressions of the Babylonian captivity, and is the production of some son of Korah or Asaph. The knowledge and love of music was widespread among the Sews; and it was most natural that the Babylonians, who were great musicians themselves, should ask their captives to sing them a song of Judaea. Whether they did it in scorn and mockery, or from genuine interest, the thought of singing of home was none the less painful to the exiles. The whole of the later books of the Old Testament are full of this consuming fire of Israelitish patriotism, a patriotism which burns in every nation under heaven, and in no nation more strongly than our own. Where it is trampled on, it breaks the oppressor like a potters vessel; where it is respected, it binds nations together in the strongest of bonds. So deep, so strong is the divine passion for fatherland in every human breast. Yet, loyal as you are, and lovers of old Caledonia, with heart and hand ever open to a brither Scot, you are free-born subjects of another country, owning another sovereign, like Andrew Melville, and fellow-citizens with the saints. Henceforth heaven is our home, our true and only home, and hero we are strangers and pilgrims. Many of the younger Jews had been born in captivity, but none the less did they love far-off Jerusalem, for their fathers talked of nothing else. The very fact that they had never seen it made them dream about it the more. So we often in imagination cross the Jordan and the wilderness, and enter one of the many mansions. We read and read again Rev 21:22.; the Pilgrims Progress, and the Paradise, and call curses on ourselves if we ever forget what we read there. The Jews sat down by the rivers of Babylon with a set purpose to weep. They deliberately intended to weep, and they had a never-failing specific for bringing tears to their eyes. It was deep, silent, solemnized, and deliberate weeping, reserved for a time when the Babylonians were not by. Nor do we intrude with our weeping into your feasts and dancing, nor hang our heads like bulrushes over the wine-cup; but never for one moment do we forget Jerusalem. Materially, the Jews lost little or nothing by having to migrate to Babylon. They were not slaves as they had been in Egypt, but prosperous colonists, and some of them were so well to do, so contented, that they let Zion and Jerusalem slip from their minds. Yet there was ever a remnant (or elect) whom no material prosperity could ever satisfy, who said, better a cottage in a vineyard in Jerusalem than a palace here. Asaph did not sell his harp nor tear its strings to pieces; he only hanged it on a willow-tree against the time he knew was coming. Then he struck it to some purpose, as we know in this far-off island of the sea. Not till her golden gates have closed and all her glorious children have gone in, will Jerusalem awake to her own full joy, and then will be heard the voice of mirth, and gladness, and feasting, the sound as of many waters, and the harpers harping with their harps. (A. Whyte, D. D.)
Injurious retrospection
The psalm opens with words of which the melancholy sweetness blinds us from seeing the evil tendencies which lie hid in them. By the rivers of Babylon, etc. Are the words so sweet? Is there not suppressed bitterness in them? What right had these exiles to sit down and weep, when it was God who had brought them to Babylon? What right had they to fold their hands and hang up their harps when God had told them by His prophet Jeremiah to build houses, and seek the peace of the city to which they were led captive (Jer 29:5-7)? God sends trouble to make men look forward, not backward. Living back in an irrevocable past is worse than mere waste of time. So it proved with the captives by the waters of Babylon. They thought upon the wrongs, but not upon the wrongful dealings of Zion. Zedekiahs broken oath to the king of Babylon (Eze 17:16), and their own intrigues with the enemies of Nebuchadnezzar were forgotten; the destruction of Jerusalem and the joys of their neighbours on the day of destruction were remembered too well. (W. E. Barnes, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
PSALM CXXXVII
The desolate and afflicted state of the captives in Babylon,
1, 2.
How they were insulted by their enemies, 3, 4.
Their attachment to their country, 5, 6.
Judgments denounced against their enemies, 7-9.
NOTES ON PSALM CXXXVII
The Vulgate, Septuagint, AEthiopic, and Arabic, say, ridiculously enough, a Psalm of David for Jeremiah. Anachronisms with those who wrote the titles to the Psalms were matters of no importance. Jeremiah never was at Babylon; and therefore could have no part in a Psalm that was sung on the banks of its rivers by the Israelitish captives. Neither the Hebrew nor Chaldee has any title; the Syriac attributes it to David. Some think it was sung when they returned from Babylon; others, while they were there. It is a matter of little importance. It was evidently composed during or at the close of the captivity.
Verse 1. By the rivers of Babylon] These might have been the Tigris and Euphrates, or their branches, or streams that flowed into them. In their captivity and dispersion, it was customary for the Jews to hold their religious meetings on the banks of rivers. Mention is made of this Ac 16:13, where we find the Jews of Philippi resorting to a river side, where prayer was wont to be made. And sometimes they built their synagogues here, when they were expelled from the cities.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Rivers of Babylon; either,
1. Of the city of Babylon, and then the river is Euphrates, here called rivers for its greatness, and by a common enallage of the plural for the singular, as Tigris also is, Nah 2:6, yea, and Jordan, Psa 74:15. Or,
2. Of the territory of Babylon, in which there were many rivers, as Euphrates, which also was divided into several streams or rivulets; and Tigris and others. Here they were either by the appointment of their lords for the making or repairing of the works beside the river; or by choice, retiring themselves thither from the noise and observation of their enemies, as they had opportunity, that they might disburden their oppressed minds before the Lord.
We sat down; the usual posture of mourners, Ezr 9:4, &c.; Job 2:13; Isa 47:1,5.
When we remembered Zion; either,
1. Our former enjoyments in Zion, which greatly aggravated their present misery, Lam 1:7. Or,
2. Zions present desolations and pollutions.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. rivers of Babylonthe nameof the city used for the whole country.
remembered Zionor,Jerusalem, as in Ps 132:13.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down,…. If by Babylon is meant the country, then the rivers of it are Chebar, Ulai, Tigris, Euphrates, and others; see Eze 1:1; but if the city itself, then only Euphrates, which ran through it; and is expressed by rivers, because of the largeness of it, and because of the several canals cut out of it, for the service of the city; hence Babylon is said to dwell upon many waters, Jer 51:13; upon the banks whereof the captive Jews were; either through choice, where they could be alone, and mourn their fate, indulge their sorrows, and give vent to their grief; or by the order of these who carried them captive, there to be employed, either in taking goods from ships here unloaded, or to repair and maintain the banks of the rivers, or to do some servile work or another; see Eze 1:1; and where they would sometimes “sit down” pensive, as mourners used to do, and lament their case, Job 2:8. Or this phrase may express their residence here, and the continuance and length of their captivity, which was seventy years: yea, Babylon itself may be meant by the waters of it; just as Thebes, in Pindar w is called the Dircaean waters, near to which it was;
yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion; they imitated the flowing stream by which they sat, and swelled it with their tears; they wept for their sins, which brought them thither; and it increased their sorrow, when they called to mind what privileges they had enjoyed in Zion, the city of their solemnities; where they had often seen the tribes of Israel bowing before and worshipping the God of Israel; the daily sacrifices and others offered up; the solemn feasts kept; the songs of Zion, sung by the Levites in delightful harmony; and, above all, the beauty of the Lord their God, his power and glory, while they were inquiring in his sanctuary: and also when they reflected upon the sad condition and melancholy circumstances in which Zion now was; the city, temple, and altar, lying in heaps of rubbish; no worship and service performed; no sacrifices offered, nor songs sung; nor any that came to her solemn feasts; see La 1:2.
w Pythia, Ode 9. d. v. 6.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Beginning with perfects, the Psalm has the appearance of being a Psalm not belonging to the Exile, but written in memory of the Exile. 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. The rivers of Babylon are here those of the Babylonian empire: not merely the Euphrates with its canals, and the Tigris, but also the Chaboras ( Chebar ) and Eulaeos ( ‘Ulai ), on whose lonesome banks Ezekiel (Eze 1:3) and Daniel (ch. Dan 8:2) beheld divine visions. The is important: there, in a strange land, as captives under the dominion of the power of the world. And is purposely chosen instead of : with the sitting down in the solitude of the river’s banks weeping immediately came on; when the natural scenery around contrasted so strongly with that of their native land, the remembrance of Zion only forced itself upon them all the more powerfully, and the pain at the isolation from their home would have all the freer course where no hostilely observant eyes were present to suppress it. The willow ( ) and viburnum, those trees which are associated with flowing water in hot low-lying districts, are indigenous in the richly watered lowlands of Babylonia. ( ), if one and the same with Arab. grb , is not the willow, least of all the weeping-willow, which is called safsaf mustah in Arabic, “the bending-down willow,” but the viburnum with dentate leaves, described by Wetzstein on Isa 44:4. The Talmud even distinguishes between tsaph – tsapha and araba , but without our being able to obtain any sure botanic picture from it. The , whose branches belong to the constituents of the lulab of the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev 23:40), is understood of the crack-willow [ Salix fragilis ], and even in the passage before us is surely not distinguished with such botanical precision but that the gharab and willow together with the weeping-willow ( Salix Babylonica ) might be comprehended under the word . On these trees of the country abounding in streams the exiles hung their citherns. The time to take delight in music was past, for , Sir. 22:6. Joyous songs, as the word designates them, were ill suited to their situation.
In order to understand the in Psa 137:3, Psa 137:3 and Psa 137:4 must be taken together. They hung up their citherns; for though their lords called upon them to sing in order that they might divert themselves with their national songs, they did not feel themselves in the mind for singing songs as they once resounded at the divine services of their native land. The lxx, Targum, and Syriac take as a synonym of , synonymous with , and so, in fact, that it signifies not, like , the spoiled and captive one, but the spoiler and he who takes other prisoners. But there is no Aramaic = . It might more readily be referred back to a Poel (= ), to disappoint, deride (Hitzig); but the usage of the language does not favour this, and a stronger meaning for the word would be welcome. Either = , like , Psa 102:9, signifies the raving one, i.e., a bloodthirsty man or a tyrant, or from , ejulare , one who causes the cry of woe or a tormentor, – a signification which commends itself in view of the words and , which are likewise formed with the preformative . According to the sense the word ranks itself with an Hiph. , like , , with and , in a mainly abstract signification (Dietrich, Abhandlungen, S. 160f.). The beside is used as in Psa 35:20; Psa 65:4; Psa 105:27; Psa 145:5, viz., partitively, dividing up the genitival notion of the species: words of songs as being parts or fragments of the national treasury of song, similar to a little further on, on which Rosenmller correctly says: sacrum aliquod carmen ex veteribus illis suis Sionicis . With the expression “song of Zion” alternates in Psa 137:4 “song of Jahve,” which, as in 2Ch 29:27, cf. 1Ch 25:7, denotes sacred or liturgical songs, that is to say, songs belonging to Psalm poesy (including the Cantica ).
Before Psa 137:4 we have to imagine that they answered the request of the Babylonians at that time in the language that follows, or thought thus within themselves when they withdrew themselves from them. The meaning of the interrogatory exclamation is not that the singing of sacred songs in a foreign land ( ) is contrary to the law, for the Psalms continued to be sung even during the Exile, and were also enriched by new ones. But the shir had an end during the Exile, in so far as that it was obliged to retire from publicity into the quiet of the family worship and of the houses of prayer, in order that that which is holy might not be profaned; and since it was not, as at home, accompanied by the trumpets of the priests and the music of the Levites, it became more recitative than singing properly so called, and therefore could not afford any idea of the singing of their native land in connection with the worship of God on Zion. From the striking contrast between the present and the former times the people of the Exile had in fact to come to the knowledge of their sins, in order that they might get back by the way of penitence and earnest longing to that which they had lost Penitence and home-sickness were at that time inseparable; for all those in whom the remembrance of Zion was lost gave themselves over to heathenism and were excluded from the redemption. The poet, translated into the situation of the exiles, and arming himself against the temptation to apostasy and the danger of denying God, therefore says: If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, . has been taken as an address to Jahve: obliviscaris dexterae meae (e.g., Wolfgang Dachstein in his song “ An Wasserflssen Babylon ”), but it is far from natural that Jerusalem and Jahve should be addressed in one clause. Others take as the subject and transitively: obliviscatur dextera mea, scil. artem psallendi (Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, Pagninus, Grotius, Hengstenberg, and others); but this ellipsis is arbitrary, and the interpolation of after (von Ortenberg, following Olshausen) produces an inelegant cadence. Others again assign a passive sense to : oblivioni detur (lxx, Italic, Vulgate, and Luther), or a half-passive sense, in oblivione sit (Jerome); but the thought: let my right hand be forgotten, is awkward and tame. Obliviscatur me (Syriac, Saadia, and the Psalterium Romanum) comes nearer to the true meaning. is to be taken reflexively: obliviscatur sui ipsius , let it forget itself, or its service (Amyraldus, Schultens, Ewald, and Hitzig), which is equivalent to let it refuse or fail, become lame, become benumbed, much the same as we say of the arms of legs that they “go to sleep,” and just as the Arabic nasiya signifies both to forget and to become lame (cf. Gesenius, Thesaurus, p. 921 b). La Harpe correctly renders: O Jerusalem! si je t’oublie jamais, que ma main oublie aussi le mouvement! Thus there is a correspondence between Psa 137:5 and Psa 137:6: My tongue shall cleave to my palate if I do not remember thee, if I do not raise Jerusalem above the sum of my joy. has the affixed Chirek , with which these later Psalms are so fond of adorning themselves. is apparently used as in Psa 119:160: supra summam (the totality) laetitiae meae , as Coccejus explains, h.e. supra omnem laetitiam meam . But why not then more simply , above the totality? here signifies not , but : if I do not place Jerusalem upon the summit of my joy, i.e., my highest joy; therefore, if I do not cause Jerusalem to be my very highest joy. His spiritual joy over the city of God is to soar above all earthly joys.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Sorrows of Captivity. | |
1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. 2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 4 How shall we sing the LORD‘s song in a strange land? 5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. 6 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.
We have here the daughter of Zion covered with a cloud, and dwelling with the daughter of Babylon; the people of God in tears, but sowing in tears. Observe,
I. The mournful posture they were in as to their affairs and as to their spirits. 1. They were posted by the rivers of Babylon, in a strange land, a great way from their own country, whence they were brought as prisoners of war. The land of Babylon was now a house of bondage to that people, as Egypt had been in their beginning. Their conquerors quartered them by the rivers, with design to employ them there, and keep them to work in their galleys; or perhaps they chose it as the most melancholy place, and therefore most suitable to their sorrowful spirits. If they must build houses there (Jer. xxix. 5), it shall not be in the cities, the places of concourse, but by the rivers, the places of solitude, where they might mingle their tears with the streams. We find some of them by the river Chebar (Ezek. i. 3), others by the river Ulai, Dan. viii. 2. 2. There they sat down to indulge their grief by poring on their miseries. Jeremiah had taught them under this yoke to sit alone, and keep silence, and put their mouths in the dust,Lam 3:28; Lam 3:29. “We sat down, as those that expected to stay, and were content, since it was the will of God that it must be so.” 3. Thoughts of Zion drew tears from their eyes; and it was not a sudden passion of weeping, such as we are sometimes put into by a trouble that surprises us, but they were deliberate tears (we sat down and wept), tears with consideration–we wept when we remembered Zion, the holy hill on which the temple was built. Their affection to God’s house swallowed up their concern for their own houses. They remembered Zion’s former glory and the satisfaction they had had in Zion’s courts, Lam. i. 7. Jerusalem remembered, in the days of her misery, all her pleasant things which she had in the days of old, Ps. xlii. 4. They remembered Zion’s present desolations, and favoured the dust thereof, which was a good sign that the time for God to favour it was not far off, Psa 102:13; Psa 102:14. 4. They laid by their instruments of music (v. 2): We hung our harps upon the willows. (1.) The harps they used for their own diversion and entertainment. These they laid aside, both because it was their judgment that they ought not to use them now that God called to weeping and mourning (Isa. xxii. 12), and their spirits were so sad that they had no hearts to use them; they brought their harps with them, designing perhaps to use them for the alleviating of their grief, but it proved so great that it would not admit the experiment. Music makes some people melancholy. As vinegar upon nitre, so is he that sings songs to a heavy heart. (2.) The harps they used in God’s worship, the Levites’ harps. These they did not throw away, hoping they might yet again have occasion to use them, but they laid them aside because they had no present use for them; God had cut them out other work by turning their feasting into mourning and their songs into lamentations, Amos viii. 10. Every thing is beautiful in its season. They did not hide their harps in the bushes, or the hollows of the rocks; but hung them up in view, that the sight of them might affect them with this deplorable change. Yet perhaps they were faulty in doing this; for praising God is never out of season; it is his will that we should in every thing give thanks,Isa 24:15; Isa 24:16.
II. The abuses which their enemies put upon them when they were in this melancholy condition, v. 3. They had carried them away captive from their own land and then wasted them in the land of their captivity, took what little they had from them. But this was not enough; to complete their woes they insulted over them: They required of us mirth and a song. Now, 1. This was very barbarous and inhuman; even an enemy, in misery, is to be pitied and not trampled upon. It argues a base and sordid spirit to upbraid those that are in distress either with their former joys or with their present griefs, or to challenge those to be merry who, we know, are out of tune for it. This is adding affliction to the afflicted. 2. It was very profane and impious. No songs would serve them but the songs of Zion, with which God had been honoured; so that in this demand they reflected upon God himself as Belshazzar, when he drank wine in temple-bowls. Their enemies mocked at their sabbaths, Lam. i. 7.
III. The patience wherewith they bore these abuses, v. 4. They had laid by their harps, and would not resume them, no, not to ingratiate themselves with those at whose mercy they lay; they would not answer those fools according to their folly. Profane scoffers are not to be humoured, nor pearls cast before swine. David prudently kept silence even from good when the wicked were before him, who, he knew, would ridicule what he said and make a jest of it, Psa 39:1; Psa 39:2. The reason they gave is very mild and pious: How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? They do not say, “How shall we sing when we are so much in sorrow?” If that had been all, they might perhaps have put a force upon themselves so far as to oblige their masters with a song; but “It is the Lord’s song; it is a sacred thing; it is peculiar to the temple-service, and therefore we dare not sing it in the land of a stranger, among idolaters.” We must not serve common mirth, much less profane mirth, with any thing that is appropriated to God, who is sometimes to be honoured by a religious silence as well as by religious speaking.
IV. The constant affection they retained for Jerusalem, the city of their solemnities, even now that they were in Babylon. Though their enemies banter them for talking so much of Jerusalem, and even doting upon it, their love to it is not in the least abated; it is what they may be jeered for, but will never be jeered out of, Psa 137:5; Psa 137:6. Observe,
1. How these pious captives stood affected to Jerusalem. (1.) Their heads were full of it. It was always in their minds; they remembered it; they did not forget it, though they had been long absent from it; many of them had never seen it, nor knew any thing of it but by report, and by what they had read in the scripture, yet it was graven upon the palms of their hands, and even its ruins were continually before them, which was ann evidence of their faith in the promise of its restoration in due time. In their daily prayers they opened their windows towards Jerusalem; and how then could they forget it? (2.) Their hearts were full of it. They preferred it above their chief joy, and therefore they remembered it and could not forget it. What we love we love to think of. Those that rejoice in God do, for his sake, make Jerusalem their joy, and prefer it before that, whatever it is, which is the head of their joy, which is dearest to them in this world. A godly man will prefer a public good before any private satisfaction or gratification whatsoever.
2. How stedfastly they resolved to keep up this affection, which they express by a solemn imprecation of mischief to themselves if they should let it fall: “Let me be for ever disabled either to sing or play on the harp if I so far forget the religion of my country as to make use of my songs and harps for the pleasing of Babylon’s sons or the praising of Babylon’s gods. Let my right hand forget her art” (which the hand of an expert musician never can, unless it be withered), “nay, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I have not a good word to say for Jerusalem wherever I am.” Though they dare not sing Zion’s songs among the Babylonians, yet they cannot forget them, but, as soon as ever the present restraint is taken off, they will sing them as readily as ever, notwithstanding the long disuse.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Psalms 137
Sadness In Babylon
Scripture v. 1-9:
Verse 1 recounts Israel’s sad days in Babylon, “By the river of Babylon, (along flowing streams) there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion,” the city of their God, Eze 1:1; Dan 8:2. The Jews usually had their places of prayer by the riverside, Act 16:13; La 2:18; 3:48; Act 20:37; Isa 66:10.
Verse 2 adds “We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof,” which harps they no longer used in Babylon, for they were away from God, or Zion, where God revealed His presence, therefore away from joy and gladness, Gen 31:27; 2Sa 6:5; Job 30:31; Isa 24:8; Rev 18:22. See also Isa 5:12; Isa 24:11; Lev 23:40; Isa 15:7; La 5:15.
Verse 3 relates that the people of Babylon who had carried them into captivity “required of us a song,” to sing the words of a song, repeatedly saying, “sing us one of the joyful songs of Zion,” Though they were then in captivity, in great sorrow, Gen 14:12; Psa 80:6.
Verse 4 asks just how they may really sing the Lord’s song, the joyful song of deliverance, in a strange (heathen) land, 2Ch 29:27.
Verse 5 addresses Jerusalem, the city of peace, saying, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand (of strength) forget her cunning,” to even play the harp, Psa 76:5; Job 31:22.
Verse 6 adds “If I do not remember thee (which would be ingratitude) let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, become speechless. If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy, “as my primary source of joy, Eze 3:26; Job 19:10; Isa 2:2.
Verse 7 appeals “Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom,” their malice, “in the day of Jerusalem,” when it was destroyed, “who said, raze it (burn it to the ground) raze it, make it bare, even to the foundation thereof,” Eze 25:12; Eze 35:5; La 4:21,22; Jer 49:7-22; Hab 3:13; 2Ki 1:10.
Verse 8 addresses Israel’s captors, “O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed, (by Divine decree). Happy shall be he that rewardeth (administers retribution to) thee as thou hast served us,” 2Ki 19:21; Jer 48:10; Psa 18:3; Isa 13:19; Isa 59:18.
Verse 9 concludes that “Happy shall be he that taketh (seizes) and dasheth (repeatedly) thy little ones against the stones,” until they have killed, annihilated them, as described Isa 13:16; 2Ki 8:12; 2Ki 6:21; Mar 6:19.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. By the rivers of Babylon (178) there we sat down I have elsewhere said, that it is a great mistake to suppose that it is David who here prophetically apprises the people of God of the captivity which should come upon them. The Prophets in speaking of future events employ very different language. What is brought under notice is the event as now historically come, and matter of experience. We shall briefly explain the scope of the Psalmist. There was danger that the Jews when cast off in such a melancholy manner should lose hold altogether of their faith and of their religion. Considering how ready we are, when mixed up with the wicked and ungodly, to fall into superstition or evil practices, it was to be feared that they might wax profane amongst the population of Babylon. The people of the Lord might be thrown into despondency, besides, by their captivity, the cruel bondage they were subjected to, and the other indignities which they had to endure. The writer of this Psalm, whose name is unknown, drew up a form of lamentation, that by giving expression to their sufferings in sighs and prayers, they might keep alive the hope of that deliverance which they despaired of. Another end he has in view, is to warn them against, the decline of godliness in an irreligious land, and against; defilement with the contaminations of the heathen. Accordingly he denounces merited judgment upon the children of Edom, and declares that Babylon, whose prosperity, shortlived as it was destined to be in itself, eclipsed at that time the rest of the world, was an object of pity, and near to destruction. The length of time during which the captivity lasted, may of itself convince us how useful and even necessary it must have been to support the fainting minds of God’s people. They must have been ready to acquiesce in the corrupt practices of the heathen, unless endued with surprising mental fortitude through a period of seventy years.
When they are said to have sat, this denotes a continued period of captivity, that they were not only torn from the sight of their native country, but in a manner buried and entombed. (179) The demonstrative adverb of place, שם , sham, there, is emphatical, setting the subject, as it were, before the eyes of the reader. Though the pleasantness of the country, irrigated by streams, might have had an effect in soothing their dejected minds, we are told that the Lord’s people, so long as they dwelt there, were continually in tears. The particle גם , gam, even, is used as being intensative, to let us know that the true fearers of the Lord could not be tempted by all the luxuries of Babylon to forget their native inheritance. The language is such as to intimate at the same time that they were not so entirely overwhelmed by their calamities as not to recognize in them the deserved chatisement of God, and that they were not chargeable with obstinately struggling against him; for tears are the expression of humility and penitence, as well as of distress. This appears still more plainly from its being Zion they remembered, which proves that what had charms for them was not any advantage of a worldly kind they might there enjoy:, but the worship of God. God had erected his sanctuary like a flag upon mount Zion, that as often as they looked to it, they might be assured of his salvation. Fair then and fertile as was the region where they dwelt, with charms which could corrupt effeminate minds, and long as they ‘were detained in it, tears, which are proverbially soon dried up, never ceased to stream from their eyes, because they were cut off from the worship of God, upon which they ‘were wont to attend, and felt that they were torn from the inheritance of promise.
(178) By “Babylon” is meant, not the city, but the kingdom; and the mention of rivers, according to the suggestion of Rosenmuller, is because the synagogues were usually built near rivers, for the greater convenience of the Jews, who were obliged to wash their hands before prayer. But as they had no synagogues in Babylon, they might frequent such localities as would, be suitable sites for places of worship, and there in the open air perform divine service. It is conjectured by Chrysostom that the Jewish captives were not suffered at first to dwell in any of their conquerors’ towns or cities, but were dispersed all along several rivers of the country, where they built for themselves tabernacles or cottages.
(179) It may also be observed that sitting on the ground is a posture which indicates mourning and deep distress. Thus it is said in Isa 3:26, where the captivity of the Jews in Babylon is foretold, “And she [Judea] being desolate shall sit upon the ground.” And the Prophet Jeremiah, in portraying the sorrow which afflicted his pious and patriotic countrymen under the desolation of their country, says,
“
The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and keep silence.” (Lam 2:10)
“
We find Judea,” says Mr. Addison, “on several coins of Vespasian and Titus in a posture that denotes sorrow and captivity. I need not mention her sitting on the ground, because we have already spoken of the aptness of such a posture to represent an extreme affliction. I fancy the Romans might have an eye on the customs of the Jewish nation, as well as those of their own country, in the several marks of sorrow they have set on this figure. The Psalmist describes the Jews lamenting their captivity in the same pensive posture: ‘By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Zion!’” — Addison on Medals, Dial. 2.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
INTRODUCTION
There can be no doubt whatever, says Perowne, as to the time when this Psalm was written. It expresses the feeling of an exile who has but just returned from the land of his captivity. In all probability the writer was a Levite, who had been carried away by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar when Jerusalem was sacked and the Temple destroyed, and who was one of the first, as soon as the edict of Cyrus was published, to return to Jerusalem. He is again in his own land. He sees again the old familiar scenes, the mountains and the valleys that his foot trod in youth are before him. The great landmarks are the same, and yet the change is terrible. The spoiler has been in his home, his vines and his fig-trees have been cut down, the house of his God is a heap of ruins. His heart is heavy with a sense of desolation, and bitter with the memory of wrong and insult from which he has but lately escaped.
He takes his harp, the companion of his exile, the cherished relic of happier days,the harp which he could not string at the bidding of his conquerors by the waters of Babylon; and now with faltering hand he sweeps the strings, first in low, plaintive, melancholy cadence pouring out his griefs, and then with a loud crash of wild and stormy music, answering to the wild and stormy numbers of his verse, he raises the pan of vengeance over his foes.
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 his harp. The words are burning words of a heart breathing undying love to his country, undying hate to his foe. The poet is indeed
Dowerd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.
PRECIOUS, YET SORROWFUL, RECOLLECTIONS
(Psa. 137:1-6)
The poet here expresses the deep sorrow of Israel during their exile from the land of their fathers, and their solemn vow never to forget the holy city. No song of praise was heard amongst them, their harps were hung upon the willows, and their recollections of Zion filled them with sadness. Attracted by a common sympathy, a fellowship of suffering, they assembled in companies upon the banks of the Babylonian streams, and expressed their deep grief in sighs and tears. The scene is intensely poetic; it awakens our sympathy, and excites our imagination. But our business is to elicit its teachings.
I. They wept at the recollection of lost privileges. We wept when we remembered Zion.
1. Their tears express their patriotism. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, &c. (Psa. 137:5-6). We all know something of love of country. Whatever may be the natural, political, or moral characteristics of the country which gave us birth and education, there is none like unto it in heart attractions. In everything else it may be greatly surpassed by other countries; but in its hold upon our heart it stands unrivalled. No power can sever our heart from the land of our birth. But if a country be beautiful or sublime in its scenery, fertile in its soil, wise and liberal in its institutions and government, and rich in historical associations, then its hold upon the heart of its people is more intense and close. Thus stood the case in respect of the Jews and their country. To them there was no land like Canaan. It was a magnificent country, with grand old mountains towering sky-ward, and delicious plains fertile and flower-clad, and watered by delightful streams. A good land, a land of brooks of water, &c. (Deu. 8:7-9). Moreover, it was sacred to them by immortal and precious memories,memories of Abraham and Moses, Joshua and Samuel, David and Solomon, Elijah and Elisha,memories of the glorious doings of God on behalf of their fathers. Well may these Jews love such a country. But this country they had lost; and these tears bewail their loss.
2. Their tears express their yearning for freedom. Once they were free under their glorious theocracy. But their freedom they had lost. They had lost their civil liberty, and were captives; their religious liberty, and were in the land of idolaters. Their tears expressed their sorrow for the loss of their liberty, and their longing for its recovery. Their tears expressing their yearning for liberty tell us that man was not made for bondage, that in proportion to the force and fulness of his manhood will be his unwillingness to submit to bondage in any form. In the same proportion he will feel the degradation and smart of the yoke of the oppressor, and pine and struggle for liberty. God made man to be free. Freedom is the birthright of man as man, and of every man.
3. Their tears express their love for the house of God and the ordinances of worship. The loss of their country and of their political privileges was great, and was deeply felt by them; but their spiritual deprivation in being sundered from Zion was a greater loss, and was more deeply felt by them. We wept when we remembered Zion. (On Zion and its associations, see Hom. Com. on Psa. 48:1-3; Psa. 76:2; Psa. 132:13-14.) Zion was inseparably connected with the supply of their spiritual requirements, and the development of their moral and religious nature. The loss of those things which tend to ennoble and develop our higher natureour true selfis the greatest of all losses. Having those things upon which the growth and progress of our soul depend we are rich, though in other respects we may be as destitute as Lazarus: without those things we are abjectly poor, though in other respects we may be as rich as he at whose gate Lazarus was laid. These most costly things, these divinest things, the Jews had lost. From Zion, with all its sacred mementoes, and delightful associations, and divine ordinances, and religious privileges, they were ruthlessly torn. They had lost all. Country lost, liberty lost, the Temple lost, the manifestation of God lost,all lost! Well may they weep! Two facts are suggested by this portion of our subject:
(1.) True love is independent of bodily presence or nearness. When far removed from Zion the love of the captive Jew for the sacred place became not cold, but more fervent. Material distance cannot quench the holy flame. Moral distance is the only thing which can.
(2.) True love endures through time and all its changes. Seventy weary years of deprivation and sorrow failed to extinguish the love of the pious and patriotic Jew for Zion. Neither duration nor change can exhaust genuine affection: it is a growing and abiding thing.
II. They wept at the recollection of privileges which they had lost by reason of their non-appreciation of them. They were removed from their country and their home because of their sins. They were carried to Babylon in consequence of their neglect of Divine ordinances, their idolatry, rebellion against God, and spiritual apostacy. No people were more favoured, or were so favoured as they were. They had been warned, exhorted, entreated, encouraged, &c. (Comp. Jer. 7:25-26; Jer. 25:1-11.) They were thoughtless, disobedient, stiff-necked, determined to pursue their own course; and it led them to Babylon with all its sorrows. And now in the sufferings of exile they begin to consider, now recollection plays its part, now their eye is turned upon themselves, and reflection brings self-reproach and added sorrow. How painful must have been their recollections of Zion! Zion which they had neglected, dishonoured, despised; and from which they were justly exiled;Zion which once in the beauty of its situation they had regarded as the joy of the whole earth, now ruined and desolated by their Pagan foes, the fertile vales of Palestine all dreary and neglected, the walls of Jerusalem levelled to the ground, the city destroyed, the Temple desecratedpainful, indeed, must have been their recollections! Yet, could they forget their country and Zion? Never! Recollection constantly led them there, and their sins rose darkly before them. When they had their privileges they failed to appreciate them, neglected them; when they lost them they saw their value. The well is never prized until it is dry.
Observe here three important facts
1. We are prone to disparage the ordinary and regular blessings of life. We see this as regards the blessings of the kind and pious home, the Christian ministry and means of grace, the Bible, and even salvation and the Saviour. Familiarity engenders neglect.
2. The disparagement of these blessings is an ample cause for their withdrawal. The Jews disparaged their privileges, and for seventy years God withdrew from them some of His most precious gifts. Let those who neglect the familiar blessings of this Christian land and age be warned. God may withdraw His most precious gifts from you, &c.
3. Should these blessings be withdrawn their value would then be feltbe felt when it is too late. The privileges of Zion were valued by the Jews in Babylon; they were valued when lost.
Like birds whose beauties languish, half concealed,
Till mounted on the wing, their glossy plumes
Expanded shine with azure, green, and gold;
How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
Young.
Let us be wise and appreciate Heavens gifts while we have them.
What a solemn view of life this subject presents! Every circumstance and action of life by the operation of memory is endless in its influence. Memory eternalises the records of life. Memory makes the fleeting present everlasting. How important then is life! Do you love Zion? Are you wisely estimating and using your religious advantages and opportunities? Or are you penitently sorrowing at the recollections of the past? What opportunities neglected, blessings depreciated! &c. Thank God! the blessings are not yet withdrawn; salvation is still offered, &c. Look from the guilty past to Jesus for pardon and life. Then take your harp from the willows, and join in the song of the ransomed, Unto Him that loved us, &c. Our responsibilities are proportioned to our privileges. The Jews were banished from their Temple and country for neglecting their privileges. This was the most bitter ingredient in their sorrow by the rivers of Babylon. How great, then, are the responsibilities of the people of this land and age!
HARPS ON THE WILLOWS
(Psa. 137:2)
This is a beautiful and pathetic picture of the captive Jews and their sorrows in the land of Babylon.
And is not that a picture of many conditions of your human life? Sorrow has invaded our lives. We wander by the side of some Babylonian stream. We hang our harp upon the willow that bends above it. We weep when we remember the happier moments that have fled.
There are three things that we would learn from this picture of sorrow.
I. Every man has a harp.
The harp was the well-known instrument for the accompaniment of song. Its music was sweet and delightful. When calamity fell upon the nation their harps were silenced, &c.
And thus it is with all our lives. We have the elements of joy in them, the powers of song and gladness, and there is no man who has not the capacity and the occasion for delightful mirth.
1. Just think of the constitution of our nature, wherein a place is secured for joy. The body is attuned to pleasure. God might have made us with organisations fitted for life, for recreation, for intelligence and activity, and yet altogether without the capacity of experiencing pleasure. Consider the sense of hearing. Sounds might have been so indistinct that to hear would have required the constant exercise of attention, the strain of effort painful and wearying; or they might have been so powerful that a whisper would be shocking, whilst the natural speech of our friends would be like the explosion of cannon close to the ear. And yet how exquisitely has God harmonised the sound and the sense!
2. What a harp man possesses in physical nature if he would only let its music be heard. Every sight and sound, every scene and action, all things fair and good, bright and godly, are but fingers of Natures skilful hand, which will touch the strings of the harp of our being, and wake their perfect tones of rapture.
3. Man has the harp for pleasant accompaniment of happy song in the region of the immaterial and the intellectual. What delights there are in intellectual operations! The joy of learningwhen it is indeed learning worthy of the name; the discovery of the unknown; the pursuit of the law which underlies obscure phenomena; the search for causes; the enumeration of effectsthese and others afford keen and lasting delight.
4. The pleasure which belongs to the still higher sphere which we are privileged to enter. I forbear to pursue the delights of our soul in its affectionsthe raptures of home; the loves of children, &c. Let me now only remind you of that sacred melody which is attuned when the joys of the spirit are experienced. The sinner seeks his Saviour, and finds the pardon of Father and of Friend. You remember the hour of forgiveness. Heavens clouds were cleared, the storm was bushed, the dread was dissipated, and a Fathers love received you through the mighty merits of a Saviours death. The best music of all the Christian poets falls far short of the rapture which dwells within the forgiven heart.
And with what language shall we tell of the occasions for harping that have occurred so often since the first forgiveness! Have there not been Bethels of a Divine covenanting, Horebs of refreshment, and Red Sea passages of deliverance and triumph? Prayer has had its blessed answers, and meditation its holy raptures. Nothing but song could express our heightened feeling; and we felt as if angel-hands were sweeping the cords of our harp of life, and making the glad accompaniment to our joyous mood. (Comp. Isa. 51:11.)
Remember, this harp must be tuned and practised on. And yet it is the last thing some Christians think oftuning their harp. Let Zion re-echo with your songs.
II. But sometimes the harp has to be hung upon the willows. In the land of Babylon the Israelites had no heart to sing. Tears were the only out-pourings of which they were capable. And so it is with the harps of life. We have to lay them aside or hang them upon willows that droop over rivers of sadness, by whose banks we sit and wail.
1. It is thus when disease invades our bodies or sorrow smites the soul. Songs are not suitable to funerals, and harpings in the house of mourning are out of place and impertinent.
2. There are some silences still more profound that fall upon the music of our life. The father whose eldest son forswears his fathers faith, and throws away his fathers virtues, and wins only a name that will be a dishonour among mensuch a father has little heart for harpings, and is, indeed, in a silent land of bitter exile.
3. And then how useless is the harp when we ourselves are in the hours of spiritual distress. God is absent, and we know no gladness till He shows His face again. They sang a hymn when the Master was among them, even though when they rose from the supper it was to pass to Gethsemane, and Pilates bar, and Calvary. But their hearts had no desire for singing in the suspense and numb agony of the hour when the Christ lay dead. And so it is with the Christian still, &c.
III. But though there is no heart or place for song, and the harp must be laid aside, it needs not to be cast away.
They had been foolish and wicked men of Israel if they had flung their harps beneath the running river, and thus deprived themselves altogether of the means of melody when the days of joy came back again. (See Ezr. 3:9-13.)
So, brethren, cast not away your harp. The weather will clear and the soul will awake to gladness when the sunshine comes.
And the sickness will depart, and the strengthened frame shall recover its wonted sense of health and vigour. Not always the darkened room, &c.
Yea, and there shall be some hours of gladness even for the wailing weary heart that sickens over the sinfulness of child and friend. It was a sad home when the prodigal was far away. But one day the father saw the returning son, ragged, worn, and disgraced, and that night there was music and dancing in the long silent homestead. Keep your harp, my friend, &c.
And thou, too, depressed and cast down Christian, throw not away thy harp. There shall be peace and joy and fulness of blessing yet for thee. God shall show Himself, and Christ will yet return.
The time when the harp shall be needed may not come until the moment of death. A life of sorrow, doubt, or conflict may not have one hour of leisure or delight, and only swan-like can be the song; and yet, then the harp will be needed, though only one chord may be struck from it upon earthits strains sounding amid the music of heaven. Then, for all a harp will be gained, for all shall sing the new song of Moses and the Lamb.Ll. D. Bevan, LL.B.
THE DIFFICULTY OF SINGING SONGS IN EXILE
(Psa. 137:4)
I. What the world is to the Christian. A strange land. Like Babylon to the Israelites. There they had many comforts; for God made them to be pitied of all those that carried them captives. They were treated more like colonists than captives; and many of them grew wealthy and were even loth to return. But it was not their home. What Babylon was to Israel such is the present evil world to the Christian. Like a man born in a cottage, the son of a prince, to whom a rich inheritance belongs in another country, when he comes to know the secret of his birth, the rank he sustains, and the possessions that belong to him; then that which was his home ceases to be so, and he longs to cross the river, or climb the mountain, or set sail for his true country: so it is with the Christian who, though born a worldling, and once satisfied with his portion, now learns the secret of his true and nobler birth. Many of the sons of the captives were born in Babylon; but, having the heart of an Israelite, felt it not a home: it was a strange land to them.
On earth the Christian feels himself to be an exiledistant from his Fathers homedistant from near and beloved connections and friends who have got home before him. True, he has many comforts, &c. But still this is not his rest; not his birthplace; not the condition for which his faculties and affections were originally designed. There are times in which his hope is full of immortality, and he has bright glimpses of the better country in his hours of faith and devotion; and then he feels indeed a stranger and a pilgrim; he spurns the yoke; he mourns the chain; and, like a captive minstrel, hangs his harp upon the willows, and cries, Oh, that I had wings like a dove, &c.
II. Whence arises the difficulty of singing the Lords song in a world like this? It may be done; it is important that it should be done; provisions are made for doing it, for they had harps and they had the subject of their song, just as Christians have now the means, the materials, and the elements of their spiritual joy. Yet there are obstructions to the full enjoyment of the peace which the Gospel brings. Whence arises the hindrance?
1. From want of sympathy in those around us Their oppressors did not ask for the song from love to the religion, or sympathy with the captives, but to add insult to their misery by holding up their religion to contempt, and mocking at the hope and promise it contained. Here we admire the captives. They did not forget to take their harps with them to Babylon. They did not refuse to sing because they were ashamed of their religion, or would make a secret of it. They did not hide their harps, as if they were afraid of their avowal; and they did not break their harps, as if they were abandoned to despair; but they hung them upon the willows in sight of the foe, and only refused to sing because the company was uncongenial.
And is it not so still? Are not the peace and happiness of the children of Zion grievously diminished by the uncongenial society with which they are called to minglesometimes in their own families, when a believing wife is yoked to an unbelieving husband, or a religious husband to an irreligious wife? Can two walk together, except they be agreed? (Amo. 3:3). How much less can two sing together? When Christians mingle with irreligious persons in the same house, the same shop, the same workroom, &c.
2. From the pressure of outward trial and of mental grief. I know that all the troubles of the wilderness ought not to put us out of tune for singing the songs of Zion; but they sometimes do. We have often observed a counter-effect produced for a season by the calamities of lifethat whereas they are both designed and adapted to lead us at once and directly to God, yet under the first and immediate pressure an opposite effect is produced, till principle has time to rally and grace obtains her triumph. The cup intoxicates; the blow stuns. David expresses this in Psa. 60:3.
But even then the Christian does not break his harp: he only suspends it; and if he cannot find a song, he will at least hush the breath of murmuring and complaint. David corrects his despondency, and at the very worst anticipates brighter times (Psa. 42:11). Yet the Lord Jesus anticipates even His sufferings with a song (Mat. 26:30.)
3. Because our hearts are out of tune for the exercise. Under the consciousness of spiritual declension it is very difficult to sing the Lords song.
III. What answer shall be returned to the inquiryHow shall we sing the Lords song? &c.
1. If you would sing the Lords song in adversity, make yourself well acquainted with it in prosperity. It is bad to have our comforts to seek when we want to enjoy them; our anchor to provide when we want to use it; our song to learn, &c. (Isa. 12:1).
2. Live close to God, and exercise renewed acts of faith in Christ. Retrace your steps if you have wandered. Repent, and do thy first works.
3. Be much in prayer. Open Thou my lips, &c.
4. Honour the work and agency of the Holy Spirit.Samuel Thodey.
SONGS IN A STRANGE LAND
(Psa. 137:4)
I. The Christian on earth is in a strange land
1. As to his feelings.
2. As to his supplies.
3. As to his dangers.
II. The Christian on earth, although in a strange land, has songs
1. Of gratitude.
2. Of penitence.
3. Of resignation.
4. Of hope.George Brooks.
RETRIBUTION
(Psa. 137:7-9)
We have in these verses
I. An important feature of the Divine government of the world. The designs of God are sometimes wrought out by wicked men, but this affords no excuse to such men, nor will it secure to them any exemption from the just consequences of their deeds. In the Babylonish captivity this is strikingly exemplified. The Jews were carried into Babylon by the permission of God as a punishment for their many sins, particularly their idolatry. And in one respect, at least, the captivity accomplished its purpose; for the Jews have never since relapsed into idolatry. So far the Babylonians did the work of God. But they did it unintentionally, unconsciously. They had no thought of working out the purposes of God in so doing, but simply of fulfilling their own proud and lawless designs. The captivity was overruled by God for the accomplishment of His designs, yet on the part of Babylon it was unjustifiable and wicked. And did she go unpunished? No. The hour of retribution struck, the strange fingers appeared in the royal banquet hall, the letters of doom with appalling distinctness and mystery were inscribed upon the wall, the enemy even then was close upon the city: in that night was Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans slain, and Babylon, the lady of kingdoms, was a kingdom no longer. We see the same principle in operation in the life of Joseph (Gen. 50:20; Psa. 76:10).
How magnificent is this aspect of the Divine government! All things in the universe are under the control of the Almighty, and the most malignant powers are used for the accomplishment of His glorious purposes. There is no real triumph of falsehood and evil. Their victories are only brief appearances. All things in the universe are aiding to enthrone the True and the Good.
II. A cry for retribution. Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom, &c. Deepest of all, says Dean Stanley, was the indignation roused by the sight of the nearest of kin, the race of Esau, often allied to Judah, often independent, now bound by the closest union with the power that was truly the common enemy of both. There was an intoxication of delight in the wild Edomite chiefs, as at each successive stroke against the venerable walls they shouted, Down with it! down with it! even to the ground! They stood in the passes to interrupt the escape of those who would have fled down to the Jordan valley; they betrayed the fugitives; they indulged in their barbarous revels on the Temple hill. Long and loud has been the wail of execration which has gone up from the Jewish nation against Edom. It is the one imprecation which breaks forth from the Lamentations of Jeremiah; it is the culmination of the fierce threats of Ezekiel; it is the sole purpose of the short, sharp cry of Obadiah; it is the bitterest drop in the sad recollections of the Israelite captives by the waters of Babylon; and the one warlike strain of the Evangelical Prophet is inspired by the hope that the Divine Conqueror should come knee deep in Idumean blood (Lam. 4:21-22; Eze. 25:12-14; Oba. 1:1-21; Jer. 49:7-22; Isa. 63:1-4).
This cry to the Lord for retribution to Edom implies
1. The existence of the sense of justice in the human soul.
2. Belief in the righteous government of God.
3. Belief in the efficacy of prayer to God.
III. An illustration of the nature of retribution. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Margin: That recompenseth unto thee thy deed which thou didst to us. Perowne, literally: The requital wherewith thou hast requited us. Agreeably to His justice, says Tholuck, God exercises the justalionis. Justice is elastic; the unjust blow I inflict upon another, by the order of the moral world, recoils upon myself. (Comp. Jdg. 1:6-7; Jer. 51:54-56.) God has undertaken, says Bushnell, to dispense justice by a law of natural consequence. He has connected thus, with our moral and physical nature, a law of reaction, by which any wrong of thought, feeling, disposition, or act, provokes a retribution exactly fitted to it, and to the desert of it. And this law is just like every law of natural order, inviolable, not subject to suspension, or discontinuance, even by miracle itself. And justice is, in this view, a fixed principle of order, as truly as the laws of the heavenly bodies.
IV. The desire for retribution is prone to develop into vindictiveness towards those who have injured us. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the rock. In ancient warfare the indiscriminate slaughter of persons of all ages and of both sexes was common. Perhaps the Psalmist in this utterance only acts as a Divine herald to confirm former predictions. As a matter of fact Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon, is reckoned amongst the heroes of history. But there is great need to have the heart well guarded with the fear of God, for, otherwise to allow the dashing of little ones against the stones, might make a man guilty of savage cruelty. Guard earnestly against a vindictive spirit.
Consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.Shakespeare.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Psalms 137
DESCRIPTIVE TITLE
A Returned Levites Memories of Babylon, Apostrophe to Jerusalem, and Imprecations on Edom and on Babylon.
ANALYSIS
Stanza I., Psa. 137:1-3, A Returned Captives Record of the Declinature of Himself and Brethren to Sing Songs of Zion on Foreign Soil. Stanza II., Psa. 137:4-6, To his Brethren, he excuses the Refusal and Apostrophises Jerusalem. Stanza III., Psa. 137:7, He prays for the Punishment of Edoms Perfidy. Stanza IV., Psa. 137:8-9, He Bitterly Apostrophises Babylon.
(Nm.)
1
By the streams of Babylon
there we sat down yea we wept
when we remembered Zion.
2
On[793] the poplars[794] in the midst thereof
[793] Or: by. So Br.
[794] So O.G. arab, as is now established by botanists, denotes the Populus Euphratica, very young specimens of which with their narrow leaves may easily be confounded with willow underwood, upon a superficial inspectionDelitzsch.
we hung up our lyres.
3
For there asked our captors of us
words of song!
And our spoilers[795]
[795] So Gt.; and so (prob.) Dr.
of gladness![796]
[796] Cp. Psa. 137:6, same word. Here prob. words that is of gladness shd. again be understood from previous line.
Sing to us of the Songs of Zion.
4
How could we sing the songs of Jehovah
on a foreign soil?
5
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem
let my right hand play me false![797]
[797] So Gt. (ml.) fail or deceive. M.T.: forget.
6
let my tongue cleave to my palate
If I lift not up Jerusalem above mine own crowning gladness.[798]
[798] Same word as in Psa. 137:3; and shd. by all means be rendered both times alike.
7
Remember O Jehovah, to the sons of Edom
the day of Jerusalem!
Who kept saying Lay bare! Lay bare!
as far as the foundation within her!
8
O despoiling[799] daughter of Babylon!
[799] So Gt. Targ., Pesh. and many moderns, read (with different vowels), thou wasterDr. M.T.: that hast been despoiled.
how happy he who shall repay thee
the dealing which thou didst deal out to us!
9
how happy he who shall snatch away
and dash to piecesthy childrenagainst the crag!
(Nm.)
PARAPHRASE
Psalms 137
Weeping, we sat beside the rivers of Babylon thinking of Jerusalem.
2 We have put away our lyres, hanging them upon the branches of the willow trees,
3, 4 For how can we sing? Yet our captors, our tormentors, demand that we sing for them the happy songs of Zion!
5, 6 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her skill upon the harp. If I fail to love her more than my highest joy, let me never sing again.
7 O Jehovah, do not forget what these Edomites did on that day when the armies of Babylon captured Jerusalem. Raze her to the ground! they yelled.
8 O Babylon, evil beast, you shall be destroyed. Blessed is the man who destroys you as you have destroyed us.
9 Blessed is the man who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks![800]
[800] Perhaps this could be paraphrased, Blessed is he who invades and sacks your city.
EXPOSITION
Is this the voice of a returned captive, or of one still in Babylon? If the former, as appears the natural conclusion from the references to a past time and a distant placethere we sat down,then the further question arises, whether this sounds like the voice of an aged man who has dwelt nearly a lifetime in captivity, and who is therefore old and feeble, whose hand and tongue now falter from playing and singing the songs of Zion as once they did; or of one who has been permitted to return with vigour and delight to the crowning joys of home and the still higher joy of Levite work in Jerusalem? To this question also it will be easy to give the obvious answer, once we realise the strength of the position taken up by Thirtle, when he reminds us of the devastation of many cities of Judah by the Assyrians in the days of King Hezekiah before Jerusalem was approached; of the fact that the kings of Assyria were also kings of Babylon; and of the likelihood that dwellers in the cities of Judah would actually be deported to Babylon, long before the great Exile in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. For certainly it is the obvious answerto say, that the poet who writes this vigorous psalm has manifestly been a captive only long enough to realise the bitterness of exile and to return to the joys of home and the exhilaration of renewed Levitical functions in Jerusalem. Everything, down to the minutest shade of language and feeling, agrees with such an outlook.
Before verifying this, we may quote from Delitzsch his beautiful picture of the mourners by Babels streams. The psalm is evidently a song not written during the time of the Exile, but in recollection of it. The banks of rivers, like the shores of the sea, are a favorite haunt of such as deep grief drives away from the tumult of men into solitude: the boundary line of the river gives to solitude a secure background; the monotonous splashing of the waves nourishes 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 in the heart. The rivers of Babylon are the Tigris and Euphrates along with the tributary streams that feed them and the canals that connect them . . . As soon as they sat down in the loneliness of the rivers banks they immediately began to weep, inasmuch as, at the sight of the so totally different nature around them, the remembrance of Zion only forced itself upon them all the more strongly, and their sorrow at being cut off from their native land indulged itself all the more freely, where no hostilely observant eyes repressed it.
How easily grafts itself into this picture the persuasion that these captives were Levites; and so, as practised singers, wedded to their lyres, had them with them in the land of their banishment; and were prone to use them, if only by stealth; sometimes in snatches of Temple-songs of joy, when secure in their homes, or otherwise, and indeed oft, for improvising dirges suited to their sorrow. They were skilled musicians, with melodious tongues and skilful right-hands, wherewith to lift the song and sweep the strings. Their furtive exercises in their favourite work had revealed their musical accomplishments to their heathen neighbours; who, following them to their lonely water-side haunts, begged of them to let them hear some of those ravishing strains of sacred joy which- they had occasionally overheard. The request was pointed: not wailings by the water-side, was the kind of song requested; but genuine songs of Zion, which the harpists well knew meant the sacred songs of Jehovahs joyful praise.
This was a form of request with which compliance was not possible: the only answer was, with respectful but mournful gesture, to hang up their lyres on the neighbouring trees, as emphasising decisively the impossibility of granting that pointed request. The connecting For which opens the third verse of the psalm sufficiently indicates that such decisive action was the only reply then given; and, indeed, it is not easy to see how the words of the fourth verse could have been then spoken without needlessly provoking captor-spoilers; far less would prudent captives there and then indulge in the patriotic outbursts of Psa. 137:5-6; which, indeed, could not but have seemed to the ears of foreign masters to breathe defiance. How unspeakably more natural to postpone the apostrophe to Jerusalem to a point of time after the accomplished return; and, with that transfer, to regard the preceding question also as spoken to the sympathetic ears of brethren at home, causing it to mean: The feeling, that compliance would have been profanation, as you brethren can at once appreciate, is why no other answer to our captors was possible but to hang up our lyres on the neighbouring poplars.
It serves as an independent confirmation of this exegesis to rescue from dislocation the two connected occurrences of the word gladness as found in both Psa. 137:3 and Psa. 137:6. It is an exegetical sin against continuity of thought to render the original word first as mirth and then as joy. It was not mere secular mirth that was requested in Psa. 137:3; but, as the parallelism shows, the sacred gladness audible in the songs of Zion, which were at the same time the songs of Jehovah. Every sensitive mind instinctively feels that, second only to the joy of regained Temple worship, would be, to the psalmist, the crowning joy of his recovered home; and that it is something worth saying to aver that the supreme joy of sacred service towered above even domestic blessedness.
This song has been described as blended of tears and fire. We are easily touched by the tears; but the fire finds us less sympathetic. Nevertheless a strong appeal is made to our respectful considerateness, both by the prayer against Edom, and by the apostrophe to Babylon. Edom, the near neighbour and blood relation of Israel, brought on herself the bitter resentment of the prophets, as their piled-up reproaches attest (Amo. 1:11, Oba. 1:10 ff, Joe. 3:19, Jer. 49:7 ff, Lam. 4:21 f, Eze. 25:2 ff; Eze. 35:12 ff, Isaiah 34, Isa. 63:1 f), and Babylon had already begun those cruelties in Israel and Judah (Jeremiah 50-51, Hab. 1:5-11 and others), which were yet to serve further as Jehovahs chastising rod on his faithless people. The barbarous customs of Oriental warfare spared neither women nor children in a war of extermination. Cp. Isa. 13:16, Hos. 10:14; Hos. 13:16, Nah. 3:10, 2Ki. 8:12, Horn. II. 22:63. The stern law of retaliation demanded that Babylon should be treated as she had treated JerusalemKp. We cannot wonder that the demand of blood for blood had not then been hushed, when we consider how often even now, in cases of excited racial hatred, it still makes itself heard. The people of Jehovah had not then been led up to those difficult heights from which alone can come the prayer, Father! forgive them; they know not what they do! But Israels Messiah has already led the way.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1.
There is quite a discussion as to the historical setting of this psalm. Just when was it written? Why?
2.
The captive who wrote this psalm has certain distinct characteristics. Discuss two of them.
3.
It would seem the shores of a river is a good place to mourn. Why? Why not singor even refuse to sing?
4.
Is the condemnation of Edom just? cf. Amo. 1:11; Oba. 1:11; Joe. 3:19.
5.
How was the law of retaliation applied to Babylon?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(1) By the rivers . . .Mentioned as the characteristic feature of the country, as we say among the mountains of Wales. The canals which irrigated Babylonia made it what an ancient writer called it, the greatest of cities of river places.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1. Rivers of Babylon Beside the Euphrates, Tigris, Chebar, (Chaboras,) (Eze 1:1,) and Ulai, (Ulaeus,) near Susa, (Dan 8:2; Dan 8:16,) the vast plains of the Euphrates and Tigris were everywhere intersected with a network of canals, chiefly for irrigation.
We sat down The word may signify that they abode or dwelt there, or that they “sat down” for rest or conversation. It also indicates a habit of meeting, and that the captives were chiefly distributed throughout the rich province of Babylonia proper.
We wept we remembered Zion An elegiac description of inimitable tenderness. The mention of these gatherings by the rivers seems to suggest that it was a custom, and Phillips supposes, that, as it was prior to the period of synagogues, they might nevertheless frequent such localities as suitable places for worship, and there, in the open air, perform divine service. Such an instance is recorded Act 16:13; Act 16:16. Hengstenberg thinks they met there to weep. Similar to this has been the Jewish custom, more or less regularly observed for fifteen hundred years, and regularly for about seven hundred years, of meeting at the “place of ‘wailing,” so called, by the southwest wall of the area of their ancient temple in Jerusalem, to bewail their ruined nation and altars.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psalms 137
Authorship and Date of Writing Psalms 137 is considered a post-exilic psalm, as are many of the psalms written in the fourth and fifth books of Psalms. Its author is unknown. It was probably composed during or soon after the Babylonian Captivity.
Structure – We can imagine a group of exiled Jews finding the time to come and sit down beside the riverbank under the willow trees, perhaps on the Sabbath day (Psa 1:1-2). It would have been a beautiful and tranquil place of rest and meditation. They had brought their harps to play their traditional songs. But such rest and worship reminded them of their homeland. With emotions high they hung their harps up on the branches of the willow trees in order to keep them from being damaged on the ground, either from being trampled or from moisture and damp soil (Psa 1:2). They had been required to amuse and entertain their captor with their songs from a far away land (Psa 1:3), but their hearts were still in Jerusalem (Psa 1:4). They resolve with a vow to never forget their beloved city, and to cling to a hope that they will one day return (Psa 1:5-6). They cry out to God to remember what their enemies had done and vindicate them (1:7-9).
Psa 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
Psa 137:1
Psa 137:2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
Psa 137:2
Act 16:13, “And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither.”
Willow trees were abundant enough around the Euphrates River for the prophet Isaiah to call it “the brook (or river) of willows” (Isa 15:7).
Isa 15:7, “Therefore the abundance they have gotten, and that which they have laid up, shall they carry away to the brook of the willows.”
Psa 137:3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
Psa 137:5 Psa 137:5
Psa 137:6 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.
Psa 137:6
Psa 137:7 Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
Psa 137:7
Psa 137:9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
Psa 137:8-9
2Ki 8:12, “And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child.”
Hos 11:5-6, “He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return. And the sword shall abide on his cities, and shall consume his branches, and devour them, because of their own counsels.”
Nah 3:10, “Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.”
The Jews are asking God to vindicate them with the same judgment that Babylon judged them. In other words, they were asking for an “eye for an eye.” Such vindication was justified by them because it was in the Mosaic Law (Exo 21:24, Lev 24:20, Deu 19:21).
Exo 21:24, “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,”
Lev 24:20, “Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.”
Deu 19:21, “And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”
As in Psa 137:8-9, Isaiah also prophesied of judgment upon Babylon:
Isa 13:1-6, “The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see….Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Song of Grief of the Captive Jews.
v. 1. By the rivers of Babylon, v. 2. We hanged our harps, v. 3. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song, v. 4. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? v. 5. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, v. 6. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, v. 7. Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom, v. 8. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed, v. 9. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
“THE most direct and striking reminiscence of the Babylonish exile in the whole Psalter” (Professor Alexander). The psalm divides into two parts. First, we are given a picture of the unhappy condition of the exiles, drawn so evidently from the life, that almost every commentator has felt it must have been painted by one of those who had experienced the reality (Psa 137:1-4). Then the writer lays bare to us the predominant feelings of his own heart. These are twointense love for Jerusalem (Psa 137:5, Psa 137:6); and intense hatred of Israel’s and Jehovah’s principal foes, Edom and Babylon (Psa 137:7-9). The two parts are strongly contrasted. “The plaintive sweetness, which (in the first) melted us into tears, is overpowered (in the second)by a crash of discords” (Cheyne).
Psa 137:1
By the rivers of Babylon The Euphrates and the canals derived from it, which were many, and filled with running, not stagnant, water. These would present themselves to the exiles as “rivers.” There we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. The exiles had their leisure hoursthey were not kept by their masters at hard work continually. During these leisure hours they naturally “sat down” by the rivers of Babylon, as the most pleasant and attractive places. They brought their harps with them (Psa 137:2), with some idea, perhaps, of indulging in mournful strains. Grief, however, overpowered themZion came to their recollection-and they could do nothing but weep.
Psa 137:2
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. The superfluous “harps” were “hung” up upon the trees that grew by the watercourses. These are called “willows,” or, according to some, “poplars,” but were probably of a different species from any of the trees that grew in Palestine. The chief Babylonian tree was the palm, which grew in the greatest luxuriance along the courses of all the streams. Tamarisks, poplars, and acacias were also common, but true “willows” hardly appear to have ever been a product of the country. The ‘arabah of our author was probably either a poplar or a tamarisk.
Psa 137:3
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; literally, words of song. The oppressors break into the retired gathering of their captives, and “require of them a song”demand roughly and rudely to be entertained with the foreign music, which is perhaps sweeter than their own, or at any rate more of a novelty. And they that wasted us required us mirth. Not only was “a song” wanted but a joyous song – one that would wake feelings of mirth and gladness in those who heard it. Saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion; literally, sing us frown a song of Zion. The captives had, no doubt, spoken of the joyous strains which they had been wont to pour forth in their own city upon festive occasions. Their conquerors demand a specimen, but are repulsed with the words of the next verse.
Psa 137:4
How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? The “songs of Zion” are Jehovah’s songs, used in his worship, suited only for religious occasions. It would be desecration to sing them “in a strange land,” among strange people, not to call forth devotional sentiment, but to gratify curiosity.
Psa 137:5
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; literally, let my right hand forget; but the words supplied in the Authorized Version are necessary to bring out the sense, which is, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, so far as to desecrate thy sacred songs by making them an entertainment for the heathen, may I never have power to strike a note again!”
Psa 137:6
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. Let me be deprived of the power of song. What was wished in the preceding verso with respect to the power of instrumental performance is here wished with respect to the vocal organs. If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy. This seems to be the true sense, and is equivalent to “If I prefer not Jerusalem above aught else.”
Psa 137:7
Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; rather, remember, O Lord, to the children of Edom the day of Jerusalem. “The day of Jerusalem” is the day of her fall, when Edom took part with her enemies, and rejoiced at her destruction (see Lam 4:21, Lam 4:22; Eze 25:12; Eze 35:5; Oba 1:10-14). The psalmist prays God to “remember” this to Edom, and requite it upon her (comp. Psa 132:1, where the same expression is used in a good sense). Who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof; i.e. “destroy the city utterlyleave not one stone upon another.” The enmity between Edom and Israel was of the intensest character (see 1Ki 11:15, 1Ki 11:16; 1Ch 18:12; Jer 49:7-22; Amo 1:11, Amo 1:12; Mal 1:3-5).
Psa 137:8
O daughter of Babylon; i.e. O nation of the Babylonians (comp. Isa 47:1, Isa 47:5; Psa 9:14, etc.). Who art to be destroyed; literally, thou desolated one. The desolation of Babylon began with its capture by Cyrus, but was not completed for many centuries. In the Archaemenian period it was one of the chief cities of the empire. Even under the Parthians it was still a flourishing town. But from the time of Isaiah’s prophecy (Isa 13:1-22) it was a doomed city, and in the eyes of a devout Jew already “desolate.” Happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us; i.e. happy shall he be that completes thy destruction, and the destruction of thy people. He will be the instrument for carrying out God’s vengeance.
Psa 137:9
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones; i.e. that brings on thee the worst calamities of war (see 2Ki 8:12; Isa 12:1-6 :16-18; Hos 10:14; Hos 13:16; Nah 3:10).
HOMILETICS
Psa 137:1-9
Incongruity in religion.
The psalm brings before us in very vivid color
I. THE DARK SHADOW CAST BY A GREAT GOOD. Patriotism is an excellent thing, and we are all of us glad and thankful to belong to a land of light and liberty. We would not, on any account, forego so great an advantage, so valuable a privilege. But how much suffering that blessing may entail! Who can measure the intensity of the humiliation and distress which the children of Israel endured when they were torn from their native land, or when they were made to feel their subjection in the streets or the fields of Babylon? They “wept when they remembered Zion.” The very beauties of its situation (Psa 48:2), as contrasted with the dreary levels before their eyes; the very fullness of its privileges, as contrasted with the privations to which they were then submitting, filled their souls with grief. The richer our treasure, the severer our loss; the deeper and stronger our love, the keener and the more sustained our sorrow. “Our affections bring great afflictions, but they are well worth the cost.” If we are wise we shall be more than content to pay that price for so great a good. For these sorrows are sacred; they are softening, and they are purifying; they provide the best opportunity for filial resignation; they draw us to God in hallowing communion, and in the prayer which brings down a large blessing from his Holy Spirit.
II. THE LIMITS OF THE MOSAIC CIVILIZATION. No doubt the Law given by Moses was a civilizing institution, and made Israel much wiser and worthier in every way than that people would otherwise have been. But it left much to be desired. Among ether things it left its disciples unredeemed from the cruelties (or many of them) practiced in war. No Christian writer could, with any sort of propriety or consistency, have written the last verse of this psalm. It pains and shocks us as we read it. We conclude that the world wanted another Teacher, whose spirit should inspire, and whose principles should guide and control, his disciples in their treatment of friend and foe. It is not, indeed, that passages could not be found in the Law enjoining mercy; it is that there was needed One who by his own life, and by his gracious Spirit, and by his sovereign power, should be able to influence and inspire his followers with his own thought, and be able to lead them along a higher and nobler way.
III. SOME MARKED INCONGRUITIES IN OUR EXPERIENCE. “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” How shall we sing the happy songs of Zion when we are in the power of the enemy, away from the city that we love, the sanctuary which is our spiritual home? There are “strange lands” to the Christian man, in which the sounds that are native to the soil cannot be expected to be heard. There are spiritual conditions in which the graces of Christian character will not flourish, but will die away. Of such are pride, selfishness, covetousness, self-indulgence, uncharitableness. It would be quite an incongruous thing for thankfulness, helpfulness, piety, forbearance, anticipation of the heavenly kingdom, consecration to the cause of Christ and man, to abound in such “strange lands” as these. When we are called upon to practice the graces of Christian character, and when we find ourselves quite indisposed to do so, when any one of these is uncongenial to us, we should seriously inquire of ourselves where we stand. Are we on Immanuel’s ground? Are we on the King’s highway? Or are we in some strange land which belongs to the enemy? Is there good reason why we should return, promptly and penitently, to the kingdom from which we have been carried away captive? This is the first thing to do; and the way home is open to all earnest souls.
HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY
Psa 137:1-9
Fruits of exile from God.
It was Israel’s, or rather Judah’s, exile from Zion and Jerusalem that this psalm commemorated; but the fruits that exile bore, and which are here told of, set forth the fruits of the yet sadder exile from God which many a soul has known.
I. THE MEMORY OF WHAT HAS BEEN LOST IS FULL OF SORROW. (Psa 137:1.) “Yea, we sat down and wept.” And if, as with God’s ancient people, we through sin are banished from God, then, when we remember, we too shall weep.
II. MUSIC, MIRTH, AND SONG ARE IMPOSSIBLE. (Psa 137:2-4.) How could Israel sing? How can we under like conditions? He who has once known, yet more if he has lived for a long time in, the joy of God’s love, when he loses that, loses all joy along with it. How can he sing the Lord’s song, etc. (Psa 137:4)?
III. PASSIONATE DEVOTION AND DESIRE TOWARDS WHAT HAS BEEN LOST FILL THE SOUL. (Psa 137:5, Psa 137:6.) His one desire is to return back; his most fervent vows that never, never will he again forget.
IV. BURNING HATRED OF THOSE WHO HAVE WROUGHT THIS WRONG TAKES POSSESSION OF HIM. (Cf. 2Co 7:10, 2Co 7:11.) In this sense we may use language which towards earthly enemies would be contrary to the spirit of Christ.S.C.
Psa 137:4
The Lord’s song in a strange land.
What a wonderful mixture this psalm contains of tears and tragedy, of pathetic sorrow and fiery patriotism! We can almost certainly fix the time when it was written. The first party of exiles had just returned from Babylon, and had come to Jerusalem, where everything on which their gaze restedthe universal desolation and ruinreminded them of what the spoiler had done, and brought back to their memory the horrors of those dreadful days when Jerusalem was besieged, and at length captured and destroyed. The psalm tells also of the land of their exiletheir widespread plains watered by the artificial canals and rivers, in the construction and maintenance of which it is probable that many of the exiles were employed. These were the rivers of Babylon, by which they sat down and wept. And he speaks of the exiles themselves; how their captors bade them sing one of those songs for which their land was famous; but they would not. Their captors wanted to be amused, and thought that these Jews should help them by their song. But the sorrow and shame of their exile had smitten their hearts too terribly, and stifled all their power of song. All that there they were capable of was the fierce and almost frantic prayer for revenge with which the psalm concludes. But the text has wider application than merely to those sad circumstances which first called it forth. Hence
I. INQUIRE WHAT IS MEANT BY “THE LORD‘S SONG.” Not only one inspired utterance, however beautiful or sacred, but all such psalms and hymns as they had been wont to sing in their happy homeland. And the Lord’s song includes those many sweet songs which may have no words, but are sung in the heart of God’s people, to their great joy and help. And in every case, whether with or without words, it is a song of the heart; the lips alone can never sing the Lord’s song, for such song is not alone to the Lord, but from the Lord, inspired by his Spirit and taught by his grace.
II. WHEREFORE CANNOT THIS SONG BE SUNG IN A STRANGE LAND? It was not from mere sullenness that the exiled Jews refused to sing; nor from that pride in which the unhappy often entrench themselves; nor because they had lost all hope in God: they had not. But it was because of what Babylon itself was to them.
1. Babylon was “a strange land.” In its merely physical aspects it was utterly different from all they had been accustomed to; but how much more in all its moral, social, and spiritual character! Hence there settled down upon them the deep depression and sadness which the sense of complete isolation and loneliness ever produces. Tears, but not songs, abound in such circumstances. It is ill to be separate, to stand apart, especially by our own will.
2. There was no sympathy, but a chill, designed contempt and dislike of all they held most precious. Let any one choose such surroundings, the Lord’s song will be quickly silenced.
3. Babylon was the embodiment of the world-spirit. Splendid, proud, magnificent; but hard, cruel, godless. That spirit and the Lord’s song cannot coexist.
4. Was full of idols. See the prophet’s scorn of them (Psa 135:15, etc.). And human hearts are yet haunted by idols not a few; but if so, then the Lord’s song cannot be sung.
5. Was full of sin, corrupt to the core. But the heart that holds to sin, any sin, silences the Lord’s song.S.C.
Psa 137:9
A horrible kind of happiness.
Can the sentiments of our text, and of these verses, and the many like them in these psalms, be justified? Are they not wicked, cruel, unchristian, and so to be utterly condemned by all good men? Such questions are continually asked. But let it be remembered
I. OPPRESSION DRIVES EVEN WISE MEN MAD. These terrible utterances are the product of a cruelly oppressed and suffering people. Let us put ourselves in their place.
II. THAT IT IS THE LANGUAGE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, NOT OF THE NEW. Now, the Old Testament taught:
1. That God‘s retributions, both to the good and evil, were given here and now, in temporal blessing or the reverse. They had no clear knowledge of a future life, still less of any judgment to come.
2. That the Divine character was to be known by these retributions, and God’s honor maintained, and the true religion upheld by them.
3. Hence they were told to invoke curses on the wicked, and they would feel it wrong not to do so. How else could God be glorified?
4. The prosperity of the wicked was a great trial to them. It seemed so to dishonor God and to imperil his truth in the world. Hence:
5. We are net justified in attributing these utterances to mere personal spite and revenge. Their motive was far other and higher.
III. THAT ALL WAR IS THE PRACTICAL CARRYING OUT OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. Even with all the alleviations and mitigations of modern and more Christian days, war does the very things which in these psalms many think so wrong.
IV. THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO DREADFUL THINGS WITHOUT BEING POSSESSED OF A DREADFUL SPIRIT. Many men deem war to be at times necessary and just; and surely it can be so, and often has been; and they have urged such war as in the sight and under the fear of God. The magistrate is not to bear the sword in vain, but to remember that he is the minister of God.
V. RECOGNIZE OUR INDEBTEDNESS TO THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. And rejoice in it and spread it far and wide. For this gospel not only takes away all excuse for the vindictive spirit, but ever tends to lessen the occasions which provoke it. Let it but spread, and there shall be no more such horrible happiness as that which our text seems to contemplate and approve.S.C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Psa 137:1
The tears of memory.
“Yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.” The rivers of Babylon and the district were the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the branch streams of those rivers. The writer of the psalm is not in Babylon, but is recalling to mind what happened when he was there. It is not easy to recognize the mood of the psalmist when he composed this psalm. Usually it is assumed that there was first a gentle and plaintive mood, and then a fierce and revengeful mood; but perhaps it is true to the weaknesses of human nature to regard it throughout as a bitter retrospect. The mood is one of intensity, excitement, and anger in the remembrance of sufferings and humiliations that had been endured. There is a weeping of anger and of remembered sufferings and humblings; as there is a weeping when enduring humiliations in the thought of bygone joys, relations, and privileges.
I. MEMORY MAY AFFECTINGLY RECALL LOST PRIVILEGES. The psalmist seems to himself to be again in Babylon, again oppressed with the burden of the lost national liberty and the present national bondage. He no longer belonged to a nation. He no longer had any capital city. He no longer had any center for the religious life. The kingdom was broken up, the city was desolated, the temple lay in ruins, the nation was scattered, and the people were virtual slaves to severe and even cruel taskmasters. Some sullenly endured their fate; but to some every remembrance of the old days was a cutting painit either made them angry and forced bitter tears, or in softer moods it broke them down and caused tears of regret. How often the memory of the past still brings pain and tears! There is so much in it that might have been otherwise. Often our memory-tears are bitter. Only in good moods are they gentle and tender. They may be, they should be, tears of thankful, trustful love.
II. MEMORY MAY AFFECTINGLY RECALL THE CAUSE OF LOST PRIVILEGES. It was only an imperfect memory that recalled a desolated Zion. There was something more than loss and woe to rememberthere was the sin of the nation that caused the loss, and was punished in the woe. And it is only when memory of past sorrows includes the sin that brought the sorrows, that memory brings worthy and healing tears.R.T.
Psa 137:2
Willow-types.
It is remarked that there are now no willows in Babylon. The name ereb is also applied to the tamarisk and poplar. But the drooping form of the willow branches and leaves is specially suggestive of tears. It is clear that a tree growing on the river-banks, and hanging over the stream, is meant. The weeping-willow is known as the Salix Babylonica. Of this tree Evelyn says, “Its branches being long, slender, and pendulous, makes it proper to be planted upon the banks of rivers and 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 their hanging branches, cause a most lugubrious appearance.”
I. THE WILLOW IS A TYPE OF THE WEEPING OF HUMILIATION, There is a weeping of love, and a weeping of joy; but these imply an uplifted face. Love looks through its tears into the face of its loved one. Joy lifts up its head, and mingles smiles with tears. Neither of these looks down, so neither can be fairly represented by the down-drooping willow. There is a weeping of simple grief and sorrow, that has in it no sense of sin, and this does not look down, because there is always trust and hope in the heart, and behind the tears; and the soul is not afraid to let the merciful Father see the tears. The weeping-willow is no fitting type of that holy or sympathetic weeping. But there is a weeping of conviction, of humiliation under God’s judgment on sin, and of penitence, whose essential feature is down-looking; the whole man is bent down, flagging in shame and hopelessness and fear. He dare not look up. That kind of weeping is well represented by the willow, which is wholly bent down, branch and leaf ever hanging down.
II. THE WILLOW IS A TYPE OF THE WEEPING OF INSINCERITY, A poet-souled man has pointed out that the willow, which looks so meek, as if always in tears, is really beholding itself and admiring itself in the mirror of the water. And much religious weeping is no better than sentimentality and self-seeking. It is attitude to attract attention, and win praise of piety. Our Lord warned us of such insincerity when he said, “Thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast.” Sincere weeping looks out and looks up; it tries not to look down.R.T.
Psa 137:3
A reasonable call for songs.
We fix attention on the fact that the people of Babylon expected the religion of Jehovah to be a joyous religion. They may have asked for a song partly as a taunt, but below the taunt must have been the association of the Jehovah-religion with harp and song. And men were right in this. The religion of Jehovah, and of Jehovah-Jesus, ought to make hearts glad: we should “sing on our heavenward way.” Dr. Barry thinks the call for a song may have meant “an exhortation to forget a lost home, and make the best of a new country;” but the psalmist was in no mood to respond to such an exhortation.
I. THE CAPTIVES MIGHT HAVE SUNG EVEN IN CAPTIVITY. They would if their faith in God had mastered their circumstances. It is not much to say for them that they were so overwhelmed by their sorrows, and so crushed by their humiliations, that they could not even sing a song. True, their Zion was a desolation; but God, their God, still lived. True, they were under his chastening hand; but then he only chastens for our profit. True, a long waiting-time was before them; but then God’s promises never fail. It was not praiseworthy that they should hang up their harps on the willows for the wind to make melancholy music through them. They had better have kept them in their hands, and cheered each other with enlivening strains of trust and hope. And as to the people of Babylon, they would have honored God much more if they had responded to the request brightly and cheerfully, put their own feelings aside, and sung them songs of high confidence and joy and hope. These captives who refused a reasonable request did nothing praiseworthy. A Christian’s harp has no business on the willows.
II. THE CAPTIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO SING IF THEY HAD THOUGHT LESS OF THEIR OWN AFFAIRS. Their patriotism was self-centeredness; and that always makes people feel weak and miserable. It led these captives to neglect their duty. They were put in Babylon to witness for God to the Babylonians; and instead, they made themselves miserable and helpless by brooding over their miseries, so that when a song was asked for in honor of Jehovah, they could not sing. If they had thought about God, and less about themselves and about their country, they would have found the joy of serving even by “singing the Lord’s song in a strange land.”R.T.
Psa 137:5, Psa 137:6
Sanctified patriotism.
“Let my right hand forget,” i.e. be numbed into deadness. The psalm expresses the feelings of an exile who has but just returned from the land of his captivity. He is oppressed with the desolation around him. His heart is heavy and bitter with the memory of wrong and insult from which he has but lately escaped. “He takes his harp, which he could not sound at the bidding of his conqueror by the waters of Babylon; and now with faltering hand he sweeps the strings, first in low, plaintive, melancholy cadence pouring out his griefs, and then with a loud crash of wild and stormy music, answering to the wild and stormy numbers of his verse, he raises the paean of vengeance over his foes” (Perowne). “Jerusalem is still the center round which the exiled sons of Judah build, in imagination, the mansions of their future greatness, in whatever part of the world he may live, the heart’s desire of a Jew is to be buried in Jerusalem.”
I. THE LOVE OF COUNTRY MAY TAKE THE PLACE OF LOVE OF GOD. Not all patriots are personal servants of God. Indeed, it is curious to observe that, as a matter of fact, active patriots have seldom been actively religious men; and interest in God has tended to shunt men aside from interest in country, some pious sections even going so far as to withdraw altogether from political and even social life. It is, however, the other side of the matter to which attention is now drawn. Supreme interest in the material things of patriotism tends to loosen the hold on a man of spiritual things. The patriotism of the returned exiles seems very beautiful; but it was a most serious peril to them, and proved so engrossing that patriotism, not Divine service, became the great national characteristic during the age of the Maccabees. Men fought for Jerusalem, not for God.
II. THE LOVE OF COUNTRY MAY EXPRESS THE LOVE OF GOD. Of this it is possible to take David as an example. There could not be a worthier instance of patriotism, but back of the patriotism, and its inspiration, was the love of God. His country was God’s country; and service to his country was service to God. And this relation he kept up right through his life, and so he stands, in the historic page, the supreme example of “sanctified patriotism.”R.T.
Psa 137:7-9
The bad moods of good people.
The psalm closes with what must be regarded as the unrestrained utterance of over-excitement. The psalmist was in a bad mood; perhaps it did him good, and relieved undue strain, for him thus to utter his bad feelings. But no devices of explanation should be allowed to relieve our conviction that they were very bad and unworthy feelings; and for us the record can but be a warning against cherishing sentiments of vengeance. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” If we have the spirit that Christ taught us to cherish, we shall not even pray against our enemies, we shall only pray for them. The last verse of the psalm is wholly repulsive to one who can take the Christian standpoint. With this denunciation of Edom should be compared the Book of Obadiah, and especially Oba 1:10-15. “It is a fierce outburst of natural resentment, which borrows almost a grandeur from the religious fervor, the devoted patriotism, from which it springs. The psalm is a wonderful mixture of soft melancholy and fiery patriotism.”
I. GOOD PEOPLE MAY HAVE BAD MOODS. It is a fact that they do have such moods, and we must make the best that we can of the fact. We should read the Psalms much more sympathetically, and be much less distressed by some of their intense expressions, if we simply accepted the fact. We never judge our friends fairly unless we take into account their bad moods, and slip kindly over what they say at such times.
II. GOOD PEOPLE MAY BE RELIEVED BY SPEAKING OUT WHEN IN THEM BAD MOODS. It is better to speak out, even dreadful things, than to keep brooding over them in our hearts. Not only is feeling thus relieved, but pitifulness and considerate gentleness is called forth from others. We kindly say, “Poor fellow, he is not quite himself; bear with him awhile.” And oftentimes speaking out reveals a man to himself, and becomes the very best cure of his bad mood. One fully expects that the psalmist must have been ashamed of himself when he had said out these dreadful things. How pitiful towards him God must have been!
III. GOOD PEOPLE MUST NEVER KEEP LONG IN THEIR BAD MOODS. It is precisely there that men so often go wrong. Storm-times ought to pass. Passionate moments leave but a light impress. But keep bitter feeling; brood over wrongs; cherish revenge, and the soul must inevitably be deteriorated, and the vision of God must be darkened. We must never forget that he loves our enemies.R.T.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT
Psa 137:1-6
By the rivers of Babylon, etc.
“The psalm expresses the feelings of an exile who has but just returned from the land of his captivity.”
I. THE LOSS OF LIBERTY TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL.
1. Brings after it the most despondent sorrow. They hung their harps on the willows, and sat down and wept.
2. Blights the exercise of the highest gifts. They could not sing the joyful songs of Zionthe songs of the Lord. An enslaved people lose the power, as a rule, which they had when they were free.
3. Converts the world into a place of exile. Home is lost, and the world becomes a “strange,” mysterious place.
II. FIDELITY TO THE HOLIEST MEMORIES AND HOPES. “If I forget thee.” We cannot blot out from the heart the holiest things, however much they may be mutilated and injured by ourselves or by others. The most eloquent writings in all languages have been pleas for liberty and religion, when nations have been struggling to recover or attain their liberty.S.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Psalms 137.
The constancy of the Jews in captivity. The prophet curseth Edom and Babel.
THIS melancholy song, says Mr. Mudge, was composed by one of the captives, just upon their coming to Babylon: In it the author remembers his country with great affection, and the enemies of it, particularly Edom and Babylon, with much sacred indignation. It has been thought that Jeremiah composed this psalm, and sent it to the captives of Babylon upon hearing of the scorn wherewith their insulting enemies treated them in that strange land; which, he here foretels, God would severely punish by the hands of some other cruel people, who would shew them as little mercy as they had shewn the Israelites. I should rather think for my own part, that the psalm was written by one of the captives on the spot, than by Jeremiah; and I cannot help favouring Mr. Bedford’s idea, who supposes that the writer was the prophet Ezekiel; placing the date of it in the year 583 before Christ. See his Scrip. Chronol. p. 710.
Psa 137:1. By the rivers of Babylon, &c. They seem to be just then resting themselves after the fatigue of their captivity, when they were called upon to sing one of their country songs. This they refused and, instead of gratifying such an insulting request, hanged their harps upon the willows which grew in the province of Babylon. St. Chrysostom thinks, that, at the beginning of their captivity, the Jews were dispersed all along several rivers in the country, and not suffered to dwell in the towns of the province of Babylon. Bishop Patrick has followed him in this: and he supposes that the waters, or rivers of Babylon, are here mentioned as a circumstance which aggravated their distress; nay, it is supposed by some, that they were employed in draining the marshy parts of the country: But it seems more probable, that no part of their distress consisted in this circumstance, but in their reflecting upon Zion; indeed, their being seated by rivers of waters may equally well be considered as a circumstance in their favour. Mr. Johnson says, the captive Jews were obliged to dwell in the watery marshy parts of Babylon, and refers to Eze 1:1 to prove it. But Ezekiel only says, The word of the Lord came to him as he was among the captives by the river Chebar; and this river is thought by the best judges to be in Mesopotamia, the soil whereof being dry and sandy, the vicinity of a river must certainly be deemed an agreeable circumstance. This allowed, it seems to heighten the beauty of the psalm, if we imagine the person here speaking was endeavouring to amuse and divert himself, at least to soothe his melancholy with his instrument. But the reflection on the loss of Zion, cast such a damp over him, that he was obliged to desist from his purpose. He unstrung his harp; he laid it by as useless, while tears flowed from him instead of melody. In one word, the thought here appears to be much the same with that of Isaiah’s in his prophetical description of this captivity, ch. Psa 24:7-8. All the merry-hearted do sigh; the mirth of tabrets ceaseth; the noise of them that rejoice endeth; the joy of the harp ceaseth.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psalms 137
1By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept,
When we remembered Zion.
2We hanged our harps
Upon the willows in the midst thereof.
3For there they that carried us away captive required of us
A song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,
Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
4How shall we sing the Lords song
In a strange land?
5If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget her cunning.
6If I do not remember thee,
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth;
If I prefer not Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.
7Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem;
Who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
😯 daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed;
Happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
9Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones
Against the stones.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Contents and Composition.The poetically-gifted author, at one time speaking in an elegiac, at another in an epic strain, begins with a mournful reminiscence of the occasion when the exiles were derisively invited by the inhabitants of Babylon to sing their devotional songs, and could only answer by silence (Psa 137:1-3). He then makes the strongest assurances of his personal attachment to Jerusalem, which he ever loves in faithful remembrance and prefers to all joys (Psa 137:4-6). Finally, he entreats the divine retributive judgment upon Babylon and Edom in a tone of threatening and imprecation (Psa 137:7-9).
The time when this despite was endured seems still to remain in lively remembrance and to reach into the personal experience of the Psalmist (Venema and most); and there is no support for the assumption which connects the Psalm specially with the dedication of the Second Temple and the restoration of the sacred music (Rudinger), or for that which discovers (Hengstenberg) a more definite indication of the time in Psa 137:8 (see the exposition). It would make the poem artificial to suppose that the longing of the exiles was introduced merely as the counterpart of that of the poet himself who lived in the Maccaban age (Hitzig). The superscription: by David (Sept.), with the addition in some Greek versions: by Jeremiah, can be defended neither by the assumption of a prophetical poem of David representing the feelings of Jeremiah (Geier, J. H. Michaelis), nor by that of a composition by Jeremiah after the manner and model of David (Du Pin, et al.).
[Perowne says, that there can be no doubt whatever as to the time when the Psalm was composed. He then says; It expresses the feeling of an exile who had but just returned from the land of his captivity. In all probability the writer was a Levite who had been carried away captive by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, . and was one of the first, after the edict of Cyrus was published, to return to Jerusalem. But for this specializing view he does not adduce the least evidence. Alexander rejects the opinion of Hengstenberg that the composition took place after the final destruction of Babylon by Darius Hystaspis. It is best to adhere to the general view mentioned above.J. F. M.]
Psa 137:1-2.By the rivers of Babylon. Not only the capital city with the Euphrates and its canals are here brought into view, but the whole Babylonian territory, intersected everywhere by rivers and canals. Ezekiel also (Psa 1:3) and Daniel (Psa 8:2) experienced their prophetic visions on the banks of the Chaboras and Eulus. These surroundings, moreover, suggested the image of the willows upon which the captives sorrowfully hung their harps. This expression, if not exactly a proverbial one (Geier, J. H. Michaelis) is, at all events, a poetical method of referring to the hushing of their joyful and festal songs, especially those in which the harp was employed (Gen 31:27; 2Sa 6:5, and frequently in the Psalms), and whose silence indicated public misfortune and national grief (Isa 24:8; Eze 26:13; Amo 5:23; Job 30:31; Lam 5:14 f). The silent and pensive sitting among the willows by the side of the gently-flowing stream is in admirable agreement with the feeling of home-sickness. There is no allusion to the situation of the Jewish houses of devotion placed near water for the sake of the ceremonial lustrations (Venema, et al.). [Alexander: 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.Delitzsch: The , whose boughs formed a part of the Lulab at the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev 23:40), is understood to mean the brook-willow, and in our passage there is scarcely such a close botanical distinction made, that the weeping-willow (salix babylonica) could not be included under this term. Del. also states that in the lower, well-watered portions of Babylonia, the willow and viburnum are indigenous.J. F. M.]
Psa 137:3.The grief occasioned by their lengthened sojourn as captives in a foreign land was heightened, on the one hand, by their oppressors insisting that they should strike up some one of their sacred songs, and, on the other, by the recollection of the blessings received in Jerusalem through these songs and the celebration of Gods worship generally. Nothing could supply their place as long as this celebration was inseparable from the Temple, and God was found there as His only dwelling-place on earth. The singing of sacred songs which were connected with the public worship of Jehovah (2Ch 29:27, comp. 1Ch 25:7), and therefore of a liturgical character, in a foreign country, was, however, not contrary to the Law, but, under the present circumstances, was opposed to religious and moral feelings. In Psa 137:3 c joy [E. V. mirth] may, according to the parallelism, mean here the expression of joy (Geier), especially in hymns of praise (Sept.) and joyful songs (Rosenmller, De Wette, Hengst.). But it may also denote merely the frame of mind inspiring such songs (Hupfeld). [The translation in E. V.: They that wasted us, follows the Sept, Chald. and Syr. The word is thus regarded as an Aramaic form. But no such form exists; the one most resembling it being shlal, which has a passive meaning and instead of . It is therefore now usually taken from , to howl, and translated: those who made us to cry outour torturers. The second clause of the verse is in E. V. rendered simply: a song. The Hebr. is: the words of a song. Del.: Words of the songs, as portions or fragments of the national treasure of song, like farther on, which Rosenmller correctly explains: sacrum aliquod carmen ex veteribus illis suis Sionicis. Psa 137:5. Perowne:Forget. Probably there is an aposiopesis, or we may supply either, as E. V.: her cunning, i.e. her skill with the harp, or more generally the power of motion.J. F. M.]
Psa 137:6-7.The head of my joy is the highest joy (Exo 30:23; Song Son 4:14). [Wordsworth literally: If I advance not Jerusalem above the head of my joy. If I set not Jerusalem as a diadem upon the head of my rejoicing and crown all my happiness with it. J. F. M.]The Edomites were particularly active in the destruction of Jerusalem (Amo 1:11; Joel 4:19; Oba 1:10 f), for which they are threatened with the divine vengeance (Jer 49:7 f; Lam 4:21 f; Eze 25:12 f; Isaiah 34; Isa 63:1 f). As the kindred of Israel, they were still more odious to them than the Chaldans were, and possibly for this reason are here mentioned before the latter (Hupfeld). [See Stanley, Jewish Church, ii., p. 556, quoted by Perowne. Psa 137:7 a b should be rendered: Remember, Jehovah, for the children of Edom, the day of Jerusalem. The day, according to the common Oriental usage of the word, is the day of calamity.J. F. M.]
Psa 137:8.Thou that art destroyed. It is not admissible to substitute for this rendering: thou who art to be destroyed (Theodotion, Amyrald, J. H. Michaelis, et al.), or: thou destroyer (Rosenm., De Wette), or: thou murderess (Hitzig). or: robber (Syr., Chald., Symmachus). The form, according to the existing pointing, is the pass. part., and therefore means: vastata (Jerome). From this it does not follow, that there is an allusion here to the second capture of Babylon by Darius (Hengst.), which was the only one that could be connected with a real destruction. For the object addressed is the daughter of Babel, i.e., her population, and the process of destruction, already begun, is represented in the following wish as still to be completed before the final destruction can take place. It is therefore also unsuitable to assume, with some expositors, that in this expression that event is prophetically represented as having actually taken place. It is threatened against the Babylonians in Isa 13:16 f, also, that their children shall be dashed to pieces. The custom was not unknown to antiquity generally, comp. Homer, Iliad 22:63; 24:732, nor to the Israelites (2Ki 6:12; Hos 10:14; Hos 14:1; Nah 3:10). No new generation is to be permitted to raise from her ruins the shattered world-power (Isa 14:21 f).
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
There is a sorrow which becomes the pious and is pleasing to God, even though the world does not understand it.No earthly calamity, no worldly pleasure, no allurement of men, should make us forget that which we have received from God as members of His people, or what we have still to expect from Him, or what, for these reasons it is due to Him, to ourselves, and to the Church, that we should leave undone as well as perform.It is well for us if we do not begin to prize and love the highest blessings of life only when we are in danger of losing them!
Starke: Remember your blessings with hearty thanksgiving to God while you have them, lest they be taken from you for your ingratitude.Many a one hungers and thirsts in captivity for the nourishment of the Divine word, to whom it was once distasteful when he had more abundant opportunities of listening to it.A true Christian cannot rightly ridicule the word of God, or quote sacred songs or Scripture phrases in jest.A Christian cannot be truly joyful in this world, for here he is not at home, but in a strange land; his Fatherland is above, in heaven.No place, no country, no tyrant, no imprisonment, no created object whatever can sever from Christ the citizen of the spiritual Zion.Citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem, compared to which everything which this world can give is only a shadow, must be the chief joy of a believer.Gods punishment awaits not only those who make actual assaults upon His Church, but also those who by counselling, conniving, and inciting, become partakers of other mens sins.
Arndt: It is the highest joy and delight of a true Christian to know, to extol, and to praise God, and to be in the society and citizenship of the heavenly Jerusalem.Frisch: We should ever have before our eyes the Lord of all Lords, and never let dishonor be done to His name.Diedrich: He who loves only the new nature, hates the old, and wishes his destruction.Taube: The deep sorrow of Gods people in Babylon; their ardent zeal of love for Zion; their holy zeal of vengeance against Edom and Babylon.
[Matt. Henry: It argues a base and sordid spirit to upbraid those who are in distress, either with their former joys or present griefs, or to challenge those to be merry whom we know are out of time for it; this is adding affliction to the afflicted.We must not serve common mirth, much less profane mirth, with anything that is appropriated to God, who is sometimes to be honored by a religious silence as well as by religious speaking.The destruction of Babylon: (1) a just destruction; (2) an utter destruction; (3) a destruction which should reflect honor upon the instruments of it.The fall of the New Testament Babylon will be the triumph of all the saints.Bp. Horne: The hope of a return to Thee is my only comfort in this vale of tears, where I am and will be a mourner until my captivity be brought back, and my sorrow be turned into joy.Barnes: When the joy of religion is sacrificed for the joy of the world, it proves that there is no true piety in the soul. Religion, if it exists at all, will always be supreme.J. F. M.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
There can be but little question concerning the date of this Psalm: speaking, as it doth at the opening of it, of Babylon, it seems very plainly to refer to the time of the Church’s captivity there. In reading or singing this Psalm, it would be profitable to have the mind suitably affected, to take part with the Church’s trouble.
Psa 137:1
Ezekiel, who was of the children of the captivity, gives us the largest account of the river Chebar, on the banks of which Zion’s sons and daughters were placed in their captivity, Eze 1:1-3 . The mournful situation of the Church at that time was such, that they sat down and wept in remembrance of Zion! Yes! ordinances, means of grace, and the enjoyment of sabbaths, would be painful subjects of recollection, if the Lord, for the sin of a land, were to remove the candlestick out of its place.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 137:1
There are many causes which may well bring the Psalmist’s sad words to our lips, ‘By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Thee, O Zion’.
I. The present condition of the Christian Church is a spectacle which must arouse sad thoughts as we contrast what is with what was. Is there any greater obstacle to the triumph of Christianity at the present day than the miserable fact that Christians are not agreed among themselves as to what Christianity means? As we think of the loss of spiritual power consequent on this loss of unity, we can but cry with the Psalmist, ‘By the waters of Babylon we sit down and weep when we remember Thee, O Zion’. We hear a great deal about the Reunion of Christendom, and many laments are made over the disunion that we see. If reunion is ever to be attained by the Church Militant here on earth, it must be preceded by the penitence of the Christian world. Until we have sorrowed for the sins which have caused and do cause it, until we realize the spiritual force which we have lost by our divisions, until we sorrow for schism as not only an unfortunate inconvenience but as a sin, we cannot expect God will grant the unity for which we pray.
II. Worship, Work, Submission these are the steps to the assurance of personal protection, of present deliverance from evil. Personal penitence really draws us away from ourselves, and suggests to us worship, work, submission as the primary duties of the penitent life. But the penitence must be personal to begin with. It is our own shortcomings, not those of other people with which we are concerned.
J. H. Bernard, Via Domini, p. 72.
Reference. CXXXVII. 1. E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation (2nd Series), p. 484.
The Songs of Zion
Psa 137:3
Various kinds of song may be classed as songs of Zion.
I. First there is the song of the pardoned penitent. Mark that he does not attempt to praise God until he has asked for the fullest absolution of his foul crimes; and he then declares that if God will wash him, if God will create in him a clean heart, then will be the opening of his lips. In one single sentence this song of Zion is to be sung by the pardoned and the justified believer.
II. Another of the songs of Zion is the song of the adoring creature. And here I am reminded that one of our English divines has drawn a distinction, of which I would not make much, but still which seems to have some element of truth in it, namely, that there is some difference a difference well worthy at any rate to be noticed, between thanksgiving and praise. When we are thanking God we are directly acknowledging mercies which we, or others for whom we are giving thanks, have received. But in the case of praise we are not necessarily to connect it with a special gift. Look, for instance, at the Psalms of David, the great manual of devotion for believers, both under the New and Old Testament. We find there in the early chapters, but notably in the concluding Psalms, that there is praise rendered to God not simply for mercies that we have received, but for His great acts for His past acts in the Church, for His past acts in the world, for the laws of nature, for all those marvellous exhibitions of His power and wisdom which are before our eyes; and even the very inanimate creation and the irrational creation are called upon to praise God.
III. Then again we have, as one of the songs of Zion, the song of the recipient of mercy. And here I am speaking, not only of those great mercies which throw into the shade even all the other mercies of God for awhile, but I am speaking of the most ordinary mercies which we receive at God’s hands. Do not forget the giver when the freshness of the enjoyment of the mercy is past. It will be well for us to recollect that every mercy, as it is renewed to us day by day, is not to be taken as a matter of course.
IV. Again, there is the song as we read in Scripture of the heaven-bound pilgrims, how they shall come to Zion with songs upon their heads, the redeemed of the Lord. ‘Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage;’ what does that mean? It means to say that while we are journeying to heaven if we are indeed God’s people in Christ Jesus, if we have received and are by humble faith realizing His salvation, and are delivered from the bondage of sin as well as from its burdens, and if we have the blessed gift of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, that we are not to go onward toward heaven as if every Christian man were the most gloomy being in the world. The joy of the Lord is not only our privilege but our strength.
V. Again, to come closer home there is the song of the sanctuary. When we turn to the Saviour’s own example, we find that when He instituted the Holy Sacrament, in which I believe we are not only to commemorate His death, but by living faith are to have spiritual communion with Him, He followed the custom of the festal supper, and gave us an example by singing a hymn before they went from that table.
VI. Lastly, there is one more of the songs of Zion. There is the song of Zion which is to be sung by the glorified above, that song which is to be the utterance the ceaseless utterance of their gratitude and praise for all the eternal love wherewith they were loved, for the grace by which they were redeemed, the grace which gave the Saviour, and the grace which brought the Saviour, and the grace which gave the Spirit, and the grace which educated and kept them and brought them home. That will be the song in which they will find that even angels will join them. J. C. Miller, Penny Pulpit, vol. XCI No. 911, p. 9.
References. CXXXVII. 4. C. Bradley, Faithful Teaching, p. 40. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iv. p. 221. H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi. p. 197.
Christian Patriotism
Psa 137:5
There is a blustering and hectoring and noisy patriotism with which religion can have nothing whatever to do. If a man be bad his patriotism never can be good. No sentiment is more human than true patriotism and none is more Divine. It takes the dearest memories of earth and links them with the august purposes of heaven.
I. Now, of course, we will be ready to admit that patriotism is not exclusively a Christian virtue. Much of the noblest patriotism that the world has known has been witnessed in countries that knew nothing of Christ Jesus; the love of country like a mother’s love for her children, blossomed and fruited long before Christ was born. Patriotism, then, is not a Christian virtue only. But just as the love of the mother for her child has been ennobled and transfigured by Christ Jesus, so the love of one’s country, that is a common heritage implanted in the natural heart by God, has been touched into new glory by Christ Jesus. What are the features then of a distinctive Christian patriotism? To answer that, I shall ask you to think for a moment of the patriotism of Jesus Christ Himself.
II. What then distinguished the patriotism of Jesus? Two features, and ( a ) first the absence of contempt. There was no scorn of other nationalities, nor was there any disdain of outlanders, in the deep-seated patriotism of Jesus Christ. He never preached beyond the boundaries of His Israel, yet He foresaw the day of a universal Gospel. So for the first time in human history the claims of the whole wide world were recognized, and the disdain that had been part and parcel of true patriotism once, was banished from that Christian grace for ever. ( b ) The second feature of Christ’s patriotism was His recognition that the worst enemies of a people are their sins. To the average Jew the great enemy was Rome, for Rome had enslaved Palestine. To the average Jew the first task of a true patriot was to hurl defiance at that intruding power. It is very significant and very strange that no such defiance fell from the lips of Jesus. He never cried, ‘Woe unto you, ye Romans’. He cried ‘Woe unto ye, ye Scribes and Pharisees’; and that, too, was the cry of a patriot, only it brought the patriot to Calvary. In the long run, if a nation perishes, it is not another’s guns, it is its own sins that ruin it. And so you see that what we call Christian patriotism is a far wider and larger thing than the world knew of once. Wherever men are fighting against evil in their own hearts, in their own village or town, wherever there is a brave and steady effort to give us a purer, a better, and a soberer land, there, there is Christian patriotism just as surely as in the heroic daring of the field of war.
G. H. Morrison, The Unlighted Lustre, p. 93.
Reference. CXXXVII. 5. J. Percival, Some Helps for School Life, p. 254.
Imperial Patriotism
Psa 137:5-6
I. It has been urged that whilst our faith revived virtues which were languishing unto death under the former civilization, and called into existence others unknown, Christianity has been a cruel stepmother to one of the noblest qualities of Paganism. Chastity and pity have come to their full height under the inspiration of Christ, humility and self-sacrifice have been vindicated by His example; but patriotism has been starved. One is haunted with the feeling that in proportion as people become spiritual they cease to be national, and the more they think of the world which is to come, the less they are concerned about the world which is, and especially about that portion which God has given them for a habitation. Let us lay it to heart that if the Church be of God, so also is the State, and that if anyone imagines that religion has loosed him from those civic duties which were a law of love to the Pagan conscience, he really holds that religion is in conflict with the order of God. As a matter of fact the most intensely Christian nations have been the most national witness the Irish and the Scots, two extremes of rigorous and unbending faith.
II. What Jesus did for patriotism was not to abrogate it, which would have been sorry work for one sprung from the loins of the royal house of Judah, or to depreciate it and set His Church against the State in every century, but to cleanse it from impurities and give it a noble direction. Jesus rendered two services to patriotism and one was to inspire it with a noble mind. Patriotism must labour for the good of all and the injury of none, to build up a nation in faith towards God, and love towards man. Jesus has also taught us by His charity to believe that men of different views may have an equally good intention, and that there may be politics which will rise above parties. If indeed any party should claim to have the monopoly of honesty it is self-condemned; it is the party not of nationalism but of Pharisaism. Nothing can be more unworthy than to impute bad motives to fellow-citizens who attempt the good of the commonwealth by other means than ours, nothing more ungrateful than to belittle the labour of any who serve the State with a true heart.
III. One infers from the spirit of Christianity that the Church as represented by her ministers ought not to meddle with the machinery of politics. It is not for the Church of Christ to play upon the ambition of parties, offering and receiving bribes which are not less binding because they do not happen to be pecuniary, or to agitate the State for the passing of laws. But surely it is within her commission to feed the spirit of nationality in the hearts of the English people, teaching them that as God trained the Jews apart, that they might give His law to the world, so has He placed us in our island home that we may dispense justice to distant nations.
John Watson, The Inspiration of Our Faith, p. 249.
References. CXXXVII. 5, 6. C. D. Bell, The Power of God, p. 277. CXXXVII. B. F. Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life, p. 41. International Critical Commentary, vol. ii. p. 484. Expositor (1st Series), vol. iv. p. 232. CXXXVIII. 5. Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 32.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
XV
PSALM AFTER DAVID PRIOR TO THE BABYLONIAN EXILE
The superscriptions ascribed to Asaph twelve palms (Psa 50 ; 73-83) Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun presided over the Levitical singers in the time of David. Their sons also directed the various bands of musicians (1Ch 25 ). It seems that the family of Asaph for many generations continued to preside over the service of song (Cf. Ezr 3:10 ).
The theme of Psa 50 is “Obedience is better than sacrifice,” or the language of Samuel to Saul when he had committed the awful sin in respect to the Amalekites. This teaching is paralleled in many Old Testament scriptures, for instance, Psa 51:16-17 . For thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou hast no pleasure in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
The problem of Psa 73 is the problem of why the wicked prosper (Psa 73:1-14 ), and its solution is found in the attitude of God toward the wicked (Psa 73:15-28 ). [For a fine exposition of the other psalms of this section see Kirkpatrick or Maclaren on the Psalms.]
The psalms attributed to the sons of Korah are Psa 42 ; Psa 44 ; Psa 45 ; Psa 47 ; Psa 48 ; Psa 49 ; Psa 84 ; Psa 85 ; Psa 87 . The evidence that Psalms 42-43 were one poem is internal. There are three stanzas, each closing with a refrain. The similarity of structure and thought indicates that they were formerly one psalm. A parallel to these two psalms we find in the escape of Christian from the Castle of Giant Despair in Pilgrim’s Progress .
Only two psalms were ascribed to Solomon, viz: Psa 72 and 127. However, the author believes that there is good reason to attribute Psa 72 to David. If he wrote it, then only one was written by Solomon.
The theme of Psa 72 is the reign of the righteous king, and the outline according to DeWitt, which shows the kingdom as desired and foretold, is as follows: (1) righteous (Psa 72:1-4 ) ; (2) perpetual (Psa 72:5-7 ); (3) universal (Psa 72:8-11 ); (4) benign (Psa 72:12-14 ); (5) prosperous (Psa 72:15-17 ).
Psa 127 was written when Solomon built the Temple. It is the central psalm of the psalms of the Ascents, which refer to the Temple. It seems fitting that this psalm should occupy the central position in the group, because of the occasion which inspired it and its relation to the other psalms of the group. A brief interpretation of it is as follows: The house here means household. It is a brief lyric, setting forth the lessons of faith and trust. This together with Psa 128 is justly called “A Song of Home.” Once in speaking to Baylor Female College I used this psalm, illustrating the function of a school as a parent sending forth her children into the world as mighty arrows. Again I used this psalm in one of my addresses in our own Seminary in which I made the household to refer to the Seminary sending forth the preachers as her children.
The psalms assigned to the era of Hezekiah and Isaiah are Psa 46 ; Psa 47 ; Psa 48 . The historical setting is found in the history of the reign of Hezekiel. Their application to Judah at this time is found in the historical connection, in which we have God’s great deliverances from the foreign powers, especially the deliverance from Sennacherib. We find in poetry a description of the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem in the Lamentations of Jeremiah and in Psa 74 ; Psa 79 .
The radical critics ascribe Psa 74 ; Psa 79 to the Maccabean period, and their argument is based upon the use of the word “synagogues,” in Psa 74:8 . The answer to their contention is found in the marginal rendering which gives “places of assembly” instead of “synagogues.” The word “synagogue” is a Greek word translated from the Hebrew, which has several meanings, and in this place means the “place of assembly” where God met his people.
The silence of the exile period is shown in Psa 137 , in which they respond that they cannot sing a song of Zion in a strange land. Their brightening of hope is seen in Psa 102 . In this we have the brightening of their hope on the eve of their return. In Psa 85:10 we have a great text:
Mercy and truth are met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
The truth here is God’s law demanding justice; mercy is God’s grace meeting justice. This was gloriously fulfilled in Christ on the cross. He met the demands of the law and offers mercy and grace to all who accept them on the terms of repentance and faith.
Three characteristics of Psa 119 are, first, it is an alphabetical psalm; second, it is the longest chapter in the Bible, and third, it is an expansion of the latter part of Psa 19 . Psalms 146-150 were used for worship in the second temple. The expressions of innocence in the psalms do not refer to original sin, but to a course of conduct in contrast with wicked lives. The psalmists do not claim absolute, but relative sinlessness.
The imprecations in the psalms are real prayers, and are directed against real men who were enemies of David and the Jewish nation, but they are not expressions of personal resentment. They are vigorous expressions of righteous indignation against incorrigible enemies of God and his people and are to be interpreted in the light of progressive revelation. The New Testament contains many exultant expressions of the overthrow of the wicked. (Cf. 1Co 16:22 ; 2Ti 4:14 ; Gal 5:12 ; Rev 16:5-6 ; Rev 18:20 .) These imprecations do not teach that we, even in the worst circumstances, should bear personal malice, nor take vengeance on the enemies of righteousness, but that we should live so close to God that we may acquiesce in the destruction of the wicked and leave the matter of vengeance in the hands of a just God, to whom vengeance belongs (Rom 12:19-21 ).
The clearest teachings on the future life as found in the psalms, both pro and con, are found in these passages, as follows: Psa 16:10-11 ; Psa 17:15 ; Psa 23:6 ; Psa 49:15 ; Psa 73:23-26 . The passages that are construed to the contrary are found in Psa 6:5 ; Psa 30:9 ; Psa 39:13 ; Psa 88:10-12 ; Psa 115:17 . The student will compare these passages and note carefully their teachings. The first group speaks of the triumph over Sheol (the resurrection) ; about awaking in the likeness of God; about dwelling in the house of the Lord forever; about redemption from the power of Sheol; and God’s guiding counsel and final reception into glory, all of which is very clear and unmistakable teaching as to the future life.
The second group speaks of DO remembrance in death; about no profit to the one when he goes down to the pit; of going hence and being no more; about the dead not being able to praise God and about the grave as being the land of forgetfulness ; and about the dead not praising Jehovah, all of which are spoken from the standpoint of the grave and temporal death.
There is positively no contradiction nor discrepancy in the teaching of these scriptures. One group takes the spirit of man as the viewpoint and teaches the continuity of life, the immortality of the soul; the other group takes the physical being of man as the viewpoint and teaches the dissolution of the body and its absolute unconsciousness in the grave.
QUESTIONS
1. How many and what psalms were ascribed to Asaph?
2. Who presided over the Levitical singers in the time of David?
3. What is the theme of Psa 50 , and where do we find the same teaching in the Old Testament?
4. What is the problem of Psa 73 , and what its solution?
5. What psalms are attributed to the sons of Korah?
6. What is the evidence that Psalms 42-43 were one poem and what the characteristic of these two taken together?
7. What parallel to these two psalms do we find in modern literature?
8. What psalms were ascribed to Solomon?
9. What is the theme of Psa 72 ?
10. What is the outline according to DeWitt, which shows the kingdom as desired and foretold?
11. When was Psa 127 written and what the application as a part of the Pilgrim group?
12. Give a brief interpretation of it and the uses made of it by the author on two different occasions.
13. What psalms are assigned to the era of Hezekiah and Isaiah, and what their historical setting?
14. What is their application to Judah at this time?
15. Where may we find in poetry a description of the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem?
16. To what period do radical critics ascribe Psalms 74-79; what is their argument, and what is your answer?
17. Which psalm shows the silence of the exile period and why?
18. Which one shows their brightening of hope?
19. Explain Psa 85:10 .
20. Give three characteristics of Psa 119 .
21. What use was made of Psalms 146-150?
22. Explain the expression of innocence in the psalms in harmony with their teaching of sin.
23. Explain the imprecations in the psalms and show their harmony with New Testament teachings.
24. Cite the clearest teachings on the future life as found in the psalms, both pro and con.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
PSALMS
XI
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS
According to my usual custom, when taking up the study of a book of the Bible I give at the beginning a list of books as helps to the study of that book. The following books I heartily commend on the Psalms:
1. Sampey’s Syllabus for Old Testament Study . This is especially good on the grouping and outlining of some selected psalms. There are also some valuable suggestions on other features of the book.
2. Kirkpatrick’g commentary, in “Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges,” is an excellent aid in the study of the Psalter.
3. Perowne’s Book of Psalms is a good, scholarly treatise on the Psalms. A special feature of this commentary is the author’s “New Translation” and his notes are very helpful.
4. Spurgeon’s Treasury of David. This is just what the title implies. It is a voluminous, devotional interpretation of the Psalms and helpful to those who have the time for such extensive study of the Psalter.
5. Hengstenburg on the Psalms. This is a fine, scholarly work by one of the greatest of the conservative German scholars.
6. Maclaren on the Psalms, in “The Expositor’s Bible,” is the work of the world’s safest, sanest, and best of all works that have ever been written on the Psalms.
7. Thirtle on the Titles of the Psalms. This is the best on the subject and well worth a careful study.
At this point some definitions are in order. The Hebrew word for psalm means praise. The word in English comes from psalmos , a song of lyrical character, or a song to be sung and accompanied with a lyre. The Psalter is a collection of sacred and inspired songs, composed at different times and by different authors.
The range of time in composition was more than 1,000 years, or from the time of Moses to the time of Ezra. The collection in its present form was arranged probably by Ezra in the fifth century, B.C.
The Jewish classification of Old Testament books was The Law, the Prophets, and the Holy Writings. The Psalms was given the first place in the last group.
They had several names, or titles, of the Psalms. In Hebrew they are called “The Book of Prayers,” or “The Book of Praises.” The Hebrew word thus used means praises. The title of the first two books is found in Psa 72:20 : “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.” The title of the whole collection of Psalms in the Septuagint is Biblos Psalman which means the “Book of Psalms.” The title in the Alexandrian Codex is Psalterion which is the name of a stringed instrument, and means “The Psalter.”
The derivation of our English words, “psalms,” “psalter,” and “psaltery,” respectively, is as follows:
1. “Psalms” comes from the Greek word, psalmoi, which is also from psallein , which means to play upon a stringed instrument. Therefore the Psalms are songs played upon stringed instruments, and the word here is used to apply to the whole collection.
2. “Psalter” is of the same origin and means the Book of Psalms and refers also to the whole collection.
3. “Psaltery” is from the word psalterion, which means “a harp,” an instrument, supposed to be in the shape of a triangle or like the delta of the Greek alphabet. See Psa 33:2 ; Psa 71:22 ; Psa 81:2 ; Psa 144:9 .
In our collection there are 150 psalms. In the Septuagint there is one extra. It is regarded as being outside the sacred collection and not inspired. The subject of this extra psalm is “David’s victory over Goliath.” The following is a copy of it: I was small among my brethren, And youngest in my father’s house, I used to feed my father’s sheep. My hands made a harp, My fingers fashioned a Psaltery. And who will declare unto my Lord? He is Lord, he it is who heareth. He it was who sent his angel And took me from my father’s sheep, And anointed me with the oil of his anointing. My brethren were goodly and tall, But the Lord took no pleasure in them. I went forth to meet the Philistine. And he cursed me by his idols But I drew the sword from beside him; I beheaded him and removed reproach from the children of Israel.
It will be noted that this psalm does not have the earmarks of an inspired production. There is not found in it the modesty so characteristic of David, but there is here an evident spirit of boasting and self-praise which is foreign to the Spirit of inspiration.
There is a difference in the numbering of the psalms in our version which follows the Hebrew, and the numbering in the Septuagint. Omitting the extra one in the Septuagint, there is no difference as to the total number. Both have 150 and the same subject matter, but they are not divided alike.
The following scheme shows the division according to our version and also the Septuagint: Psalms 1-8 in the Hebrew equal 1-8 in the Septuagint; 9-10 in the Hebrew combine into 9 in the Septuagint; 11-113 in the Hebrew equal 10-112 in the Septuagint; 114-115 in the Hebrew combine into 113 in the Septuagint; 116 in the Hebrew divides into 114-115 in the Septuagint; 117-146 in the Hebrew equal 116-145 in the Septuagint; 147 in the Hebrew divides into 146-147 in the Septuagint; 148-150 in the Hebrew equal 148-150 in the Septuagint.
The arrangement in the Vulgate is the same as the Septuagint. Also some of the older English versions have this arangement. Another difficulty in numbering perplexes an inexperienced student in turning from one version to another, viz: In the Hebrew often the title is verse I, and sometimes the title embraces verses 1-2.
The book divisions of the Psalter are five books, as follows:
Book I, Psalms 1-41 (41 chapters)
Book II, Psalms 42-72 (31 chapters)
Book III, Psalms 73-89 (17 chapters)
Book IV, Psalms 90-106 (17 chapters)
Book V, Psalms 107-150 (44 chapters)
They are marked by an introduction and a doxology. Psalm I forms an introduction to the whole book; Psa 150 is the doxology for the whole book. The introduction and doxology of each book are the first and last psalms of each division, respectively.
There were smaller collections before the final one, as follows:
Books I and II were by David; Book III, by Hezekiah, and Books IV and V, by Ezra.
Certain principles determined the arrangement of the several psalms in the present collection:
1. David is honored with first place, Book I and II, including Psalms 1-72.
2. They are grouped according to the use of the name of God:
(1) Psalms 1-41 are Jehovah psalms;
(2) Psalms 42-83 are Elohim-psalms;
(3) Psalms 84-150 are Jehovah psalms.
3. Book IV is introduced by the psalm of Moses, which is the first psalm written.
4. Some are arranged as companion psalms, for instance, sometimes two, sometimes three, and sometimes more. Examples: Psa 2 and 3; 22, 23, and 24; 113-118.
5. They were arranged for liturgical purposes, which furnished the psalms for special occasions, such as feasts, etc. We may be sure this arrangement was not accidental. An intelligent study of each case is convincing that it was determined upon rational grounds.
All the psalms have titles but thirty-three, as follows:
In Book I, Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 10 ; Psa 33 , (4 are without titles).
In Book II, Psa 43 ; Psa 71 , (2 are without titles).
In Book IV, Psa 91 ; Psa 93 ; Psa 94 ; Psa 95 ; Psa 96 ; Psa 97 ; Psa 104 ; Psa 105 ; Psa 106 , (9 are without titles).
In Book V, Psa 107 ; III; 112; 113; 114; 115; 116; 117; 118; 119; 135; 136; 137; 146; 147; 148; 149; 150, (18 are without titles).
The Talmud calls these psalms that have no title, “Orphan Psalms.” The later Jews supply these titles by taking the nearest preceding author. The lack of titles in Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; and 10 may be accounted for as follows: Psa 1 is a general introduction to the whole collection and Psa 2 was, perhaps, a part of Psa 1 . Psalms 9-10 were formerly combined into one, therefore Psa 10 has the same title as Psa 9 .
QUESTIONS
1. What books are commended on the Psalms?
2. What is a psalm?
3. What is the Psalter?
4. What is the range of time in composition?
5. When and by whom was the collection in its present form arranged?
6. What the Jewish classification of Old Testament books, and what the position of the Psalter in this classification?
7. What is the Hebrew title of the Psalms?
8. Find the title of the first two books from the books themselves.
9. What is the title of the whole collection of psalms in the Septuagint?
10. What is the title in the Alexandrian Codex?
11. What is the derivation of our English word, “Psalms”, “Psalter”, and “Psaltery,” respectively?
12. How many psalms in our collection?
13. How many psalms in the Septuagint?
14. What about the extra one in the Septuagint?
15. What is the subject of this extra psalm?
16. How does it compare with the Canonical Psalms?
17. What is the difference in the numbering of the psalms in our version which follows the Hebrew, and the numbering in the Septuagint?
18. What is the arrangement in the Vulgate?
19. What other difficulty in numbering which perplexes an inexperienced student in turning from one version to another?
20. What are the book divisions of the Psalter and how are these divisions marked?
21. Were there smaller collections before the final one? If so, what were they?
22. What principles determined the arrangement of the several psalms in the present collection?
23. In what conclusion may we rest concerning this arrangement?
24. How many of the psalms have no titles?
25. What does the Talmud call these psalms that have no titles?
26. How do later Jews supply these titles?
27. How do you account for the lack of titles in Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 10 ?
XII
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS (CONTINUED)
The following is a list of the items of information gathered from the titles of the psalms:
1. The author: “A Psalm of David” (Psa 37 ).
2. The occasion: “When he fled from Absalom, his son” (Psa 3 ).
3. The nature, or character, of the poem:
(1) Maschil, meaning “instruction,” a didactic poem (Psa 42 ).
(2) Michtam, meaning “gold,” “A Golden Psalm”; this means excellence or mystery (Psa 16 ; 56-60).
4. The occasion of its use: “A Psalm of David for the dedication of the house” (Psa 30 ).
5. Its purpose: “A Psalm of David to bring remembrance” (Psa 38 ; Psa 70 ).
6. Direction for its use: “A Psalm of David for the chief musician” (Psa 4 ).
7. The kind of musical instrument:
(1) Neginoth, meaning to strike a chord, as on stringed instruments (Psa 4 ; Psa 61 ).
(2) Nehiloth, meaning to perforate, as a pipe or flute (Psa 5 ).
(3) Shoshannim, Lilies, which refers probably to cymbals (Psa 45 ; Psa 69 ).
8. A special choir:
(1) Sheminith, the “eighth,” or octave below, as a male choir (Psa 6 ; Psa 12 ).
(2) Alamoth, female choir (Psa 46 ).
(3) Muth-labben, music with virgin voice, to be sung by a choir of boys in the treble (Psa 9 ).
9. The keynote, or tune:
(1) Aijeleth-sharar, “Hind of the morning,” a song to the melody of which this is sung (Psa 22 ).
(2) Al-tashheth, “Destroy thou not,” the beginning of a song the tune of which is sung (Psa 57 ; Psa 58 ; Psa 59 ; Psa 75 ).
(3) Gittith, set to the tune of Gath, perhaps a tune which David brought from Gath (Psa 8 ; Psa 81 ; Psa 84 ).
(4) Jonath-elim-rehokim, “The dove of the distant terebinths,” the commencement of an ode to the air of which this song was to be sung (Psa 56 ).
(5) Leannoth, the name of a tune (Psa 88 ).
(6) Mahalath, an instrument (Psa 53 ); Leonnoth-Mahaloth, to chant to a tune called Mahaloth.
(7) Shiggaion, a song or a hymn.
(8) Shushan-Eduth, “Lily of testimony,” a tune (Psa 60 ). Note some examples: (1) “America,” “Shiloh,” “Auld Lang Syne.” These are the names of songs such as we are familiar with; (2) “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood,” are examples of sacred hymns.
10. The liturgical use, those noted for the feasts, e.g., the Hallels and Hallelujah Psalms (Psalms 146-150).
11. The destination, as “Song of Ascents” (Psalms 120-134)
12. The direction for the music, such as Selah, which means “Singers, pause”; Higgaion-Selah, to strike a symphony with selah, which means an instrumental interlude (Psa 9:16 ).
The longest and fullest title to any of the psalms is the title to Psa 60 . The items of information from this title are as follows: (1) the author; (2) the chief musician; (3) the historical occasion; (4) the use, or design; (5) the style of poetry; (6) the instrument or style of music.
The parts of these superscriptions which most concern us now are those indicating author, occasion, and date. As to the historic value or trustworthiness of these titles most modern scholars deny that they are a part of the Hebrew text, but the oldest Hebrew text of which we know anything had all of them. This is the text from which the Septuagint was translated. It is much more probable that the author affixed them than later writers. There is no internal evidence in any of the psalms that disproves the correctness of them, but much to confirm. The critics disagree among themselves altogether as to these titles. Hence their testimony cannot consistently be received. Nor can it ever be received until they have at least agreed upon a common ground of opposition.
David is the author of more than half the entire collection, the arrangement of which is as follows:
1. Seventy-three are ascribed to him in the superscriptions.
2. Some of these are but continuations of the preceding ones of a pair, trio, or larger group.
3. Some of the Korahite Psalms are manifestly Davidic.
4. Some not ascribed to him in the titles are attributed to him expressly by New Testament writers.
5. It is not possible to account for some parts of the Psalter without David. The history of his early life as found in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1and 2 Chronicles, not only shows his remarkable genius for patriotic and sacred songs and music, but also shows his cultivation of that gift in the schools of the prophets. Some of these psalms of the history appear in the Psalter itself. It is plain to all who read these that they are founded on experience, and the experience of no other Hebrew fits the case. These experiences are found in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles.
As to the attempt of the destructive critics to rob David of his glory in relation to the Psalter by assigning the Maccabean era as the date of composition, I have this to say:
1. This theory has no historical support whatever, and therefore is not to be accepted at all.
2. It has no support in tradition, which weakens the contention of the critics greatly.
3. It has no support from finding any one with the necessary experience for their basis.
4. They can give no reasonable account as to how the titles ever got there.
5. It is psychologically impossible for anyone to have written these 150 psalms in the Maccabean times.
6. Their position is expressly contrary to the testimony of Christ and the apostles. Some of the psalms which they ascribe to the Maccabean Age are attributed to David by Christ himself, who said that David wrote them in the Spirit.
The obvious aim of this criticism and the necessary result if it be Just, is a positive denial of the inspiration of both Testaments.
Other authors are named in the titles, as follows: (1) Asaph, to whom twelve psalms have been assigned: (2) Mosee, Psa 90 ; (3) Solomon, Psa 72 ; Psa 127 ; (4) Heman, Psa 80 ; (5) Ethem, Psa 89 ; (6) A number of the psalms are ascribed to the sons of Korah.
Not all the psalms ascribed to Asaph were composed by one person. History indicates that Asaph’s family presided over the song service for several generations. Some of them were composed by his descendants by the game name. The five general outlines of the whole collection are as follows:
I. By books
1. Psalms 1-41 (41)
2. Psalms 42-72 (31)
3. Psalms 73-89 (17)
4. Psalms 90-106 (17)
5. Psalms 107-150 (44)
II. According to date and authorship
1. The psalm of Moses (Psa 90 )
2. Psalms of David:
(1) The shepherd boy (Psa 8 ; Psa 19 ; Psa 29 ; Psa 23 ).
(2) David when persecuted by Saul (Psa 59 ; Psa 56 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 52 ; Psa 54 ; Psa 57 ; Psa 142 ).
(3) David the King (Psa 101 ; Psa 18 ; Psa 24 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 110 ; Psa 20 ; Psa 20 ; Psa 21 ; Psa 60 ; Psa 51 ; Psa 32 ; Psa 41 ; Psa 55 ; Psa 3:4 ; Psa 64 ; Psa 62 ; Psa 61 ; Psa 27 ).
3. The Asaph Psalms (Psa 50 ; Psa 73 ; Psa 83 ).
4. The Korahite Psalms (Psa 42 ; Psa 43 ; Psa 84 ).
5. The psalms of Solomon (Psa 72 ; Psa 127 ).
6. The psalms of the era of Hezekiah and Isaiah (Psa 46 ; Psa 47 ; Psa 48 )
7. The psalms of the Exile (Psa 74 ; Psa 79 ; Psa 137 ; Psa 102 )
8. The psalms of the Restoration (Psa 85 ; Psa 126 ; Psa 118 ; 146-150)
III. By groups
1. The Jehovistic and Elohistic Psalms:
(1) Psalms 1-41 are Jehovistic;
(2) Psalms 42-83 are Elohistic Psalms;
(3) Psalms 84-150 are Jehovistic.
2. The Penitential Psalms (Psa 6 ; Psa 32 ; Psa 38 ; Psa 51 ; Psa 102 ; Psa 130 ; Psa 143 )
3. The Pilgrim Psalms (Psalms 120-134)
4. The Alphabetical Psalms (Psa 9 ; Psa 10 ; Psa 25 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 37 ; 111:112; Psa 119 ; Psa 145 )
5. The Hallelujah Psalms (Psalms 11-113; 115-117; 146-150; to which may be added Psa 135 ) Psalms 113-118 are called “the Egyptian Hallel”
IV. Doctrines of the Psalms
1. The throne of grace and how to approach it by sacrifice, prayer, and praise.
2. The covenant, the basis of worship.
3. The paradoxical assertions of both innocence & guilt.
4. The pardon of sin and justification.
5. The Messiah.
6. The future life, pro and con.
7. The imprecations.
8. Other doctrines.
V. The New Testament use of the Psalms
1. Direct references and quotations in the New Testament.
2. The allusions to the psalms in the New Testament. Certain experiences of David’s life made very deep impressions on his heart, such as: (1) his peaceful early life; (2) his persecution by Saul; (3) his being crowned king of the people; (4) the bringing up of the ark; (5) his first great sin; (6) Absalom’s rebellion; (7) his second great sin; (8) the great promise made to him in 2Sa 7 ; (9) the feelings of his old age.
We may classify the Davidic Psalms according to these experiences following the order of time, thus:
1. His peaceful early life (Psa 8 ; Psa 19 ; Psa 29 ; Psa 23 )
2. His persecution by Saul (Psa 59 ; Psa 56 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 7 ; Psa 52 ; Psa 120 ; Psa 140 ; Psa 54 ; Psa 57 ; Psa 142 ; Psa 17 ; Psa 18 )
3. Making David King (Psa 27 ; Psa 133 ; Psa 101 )
4. Bringing up the ark (Psa 68 ; Psa 24 ; Psa 132 ; Psa 15 ; Psa 78 ; Psa 96 )
5. His first great sin (Psa 51 ; Psa 32 )
6. Absalom’s rebellion (Psa 41 ; Psa 6 ; Psa 55 ; Psa 109 ; Psa 38 ; Psa 39 ; Psa 3 ; Psa 4 ; Psa 63 ; Psa 42 ; Psa 43 ; Psa 5 ; Psa 62 ; Psa 61 ; Psa 27 )
7. His second great sin (Psa 69 ; Psa 71 ; Psa 102 ; Psa 103 )
8. The great promise made to him in 2Sa 7 (Psa 2 )
9. Feelings of old age (Psa 37 )
The great doctrines of the psalms may be noted as follows: (1) the being and attributes of God; (3) sin, both original and individual; (3) both covenants; (4) the doctrine of justification; (5) concerning the Messiah.
There is a striking analogy between the Pentateuch and the Psalms. The Pentateuch contains five books of law; the Psalms contain five books of heart responses to the law.
It is interesting to note the historic controversies concerning the singing of psalms. These were controversies about singing uninspired songs, in the Middle Ages. The church would not allow anything to be used but psalms.
The history in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles, and in Ezra and Nehemiah is very valuable toward a proper interpretation of the psalms. These books furnish the historical setting for a great many of the psalms which is very indispensable to their proper interpretation.
Professor James Robertson, in the Poetry and Religion of the Psalms constructs a broad and strong argument in favor of the Davidic Psalms, as follows:
1. The age of David furnished promising soil for the growth of poetry.
2. David’s qualifications for composing the psalms make it highly probable that David is the author of the psalms ascribed to him.
3. The arguments against the possibility of ascribing to David any of the hymns in the Hebrew Psalter rests upon assumptions that are thoroughly antibiblical.
The New Testament makes large use of the psalms and we learn much as to their importance in teaching. There are seventy direct quotations in the New Testament from this book, from which we learn that the Scriptures were used extensively in accord with 2Ti 3:16-17 . There are also eleven references to the psalms in the New Testament from which we learn that the New Testament writers were thoroughly imbued with the spirit and teaching of the psalms. Then there are eight allusions ‘to this book in the New Testament from which we gather that the Psalms was one of the divisions of the Old Testament and that they were used in the early church.
QUESTIONS
1. Give a list of the items of information gathered from the titles of the psalms.
2. What is the longest title to any of the psalms and what the items of this title?
3. What parts of these superscriptions most concern us now?
4. What is the historic value, or trustworthiness of these titles?
5. State the argument showing David’s relation to the psalms.
6. What have you to say of the attempt of the destructive critics to rob David of his glory in relation to the Psalter by assigning the Maccabean era as the date of composition?
7. What the obvious aim of this criticism and the necessary result, if it be just?
8. What other authors are named in the titles?
9. Were all the psalms ascribed to Asaph composed by one person?
10. Give the five general outlines of the whole collection, as follows: I. The outline by books II. The outline according to date and authorship III. The outline by groups IV. The outline of doctrines V. The outline by New Testament quotations or allusions.
11. What experiences of David’s life made very deep impressions on his heart?
12. Classify the Davidic Psalms according to these experiences following the order of time.
13. What the great doctrines of the psalms?
14. What analogy between the Pentateuch and the Psalms?
15. What historic controversies concerning the singing of psalms?
16. Of what value is the history in Samuel, 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles, and in Ezra and Nehemiah toward a proper interpretation of the psalms?
17. Give Professor James Robertson’s argument in favor of the Davidic authorship of the psalms.
18. What can you say of the New Testament use of the psalms and what do we learn as to their importance in teaching?
19. What can you say of the New Testament references to the psalms, and from the New Testament references what the impression on the New Testament writers?
20. What can you say of the allusions to the psalms in the New Testament?
XVII
THE MESSIAH IN THE PSALMS
A fine text for this chapter is as follows: “All things must be fulfilled which were written in the Psalms concerning me,” Luk 24:44 . I know of no better way to close my brief treatise on the Psalms than to discuss the subject of the Messiah as revealed in this book.
Attention has been called to the threefold division of the Old Testament cited by our Lord, namely, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luk 24:44 ), in all of which were the prophecies relating to himself that “must be fulfilled.” It has been shown just what Old Testament books belong to each of these several divisions. The division called the Psalms included many books, styled Holy Writings, and because the Psalms proper was the first book of the division it gave the name to the whole division.
The object of this discussion is to sketch the psalmist’s outline of the Messiah, or rather, to show how nearly a complete picture of our Lord is foredrawn in this one book. Let us understand however with Paul, that all prophecy is but in part (1Co 13:9 ), and that when we fill in on one canvas all the prophecies concerning the Messiah of all the Old Testament divisions, we are far from having a perfect portrait of our Lord. The present purpose is limited to three things:
1. What the book of the Psalms teaches concerning the Messiah.
2. That the New Testament shall authoritatively specify and expound this teaching.
3. That the many messianic predictions scattered over the book and the specifications thereof over the New Testament may be grouped into an orderly analysis, so that by the adjustment of the scattered parts we may have before us a picture of our Lord as foreseen by the psalmists.
In allowing the New Testament to authoritatively specify and expound the predictive features of the book, I am not unmindful of what the so-called “higher critics” urge against the New Testament quotations from the Old Testament and the use made of them. In this discussion, however, these objections are not considered, for sufficient reasons. There is not space for it. Even at the risk of being misjudged I must just now summarily pass all these objections, dismissing them with a single statement upon which the reader may place his own estimate of value. That statement is that in the days of my own infidelity, before this old method of criticism had its new name, I was quite familiar with the most and certainly the strongest of the objections now classified as higher criticism, and have since patiently re-examined them in their widely conflicting restatements under their modern name, and find my faith in the New Testament method of dealing with the Old Testament in no way shattered, but in every way confirmed. God is his own interpreter. The Old Testament as we now have it was in the hands of our Lord. I understand his apostle to declare, substantially, that “every one of these sacred scriptures is God-inspired and is profitable for teaching us what is right to believe and to do, for convincing us what is wrong in faith or practice, for rectifying the wrong when done, that we may be ready at every point, furnished completely, to do every good work, at the right time, in the right manner, and from the proper motive” (2Ti 3:16-17 ).
This New Testament declares that David was a prophet (Act 2:30 ), that he spake by the Holy Spirit (Act 1:16 ), that when the book speaks the Holy Spirit speaks (Heb 3:7 ), and that all its predictive utterances, as sacred Scripture, “must be fulfilled” (Joh 13:18 ; Act 1:16 ). It is not claimed that David wrote all the psalms, but that all are inspired, and that as he was the chief author, the book goes by his name.
It would be a fine thing to make out two lists, as follows:
1. All of the 150 psalms in order from which the New Testament quotes with messianic application.
2. The New Testament quotations, book by book, i.e., Matthew so many, and then the other books in their order.
We would find in neither of these any order as to time, that is, Psa 1 which forecasts an incident in the coming Messiah’s life does not forecast the first incident of his life. And even the New Testament citations are not in exact order as to time and incident of his life. To get the messianic picture before us, therefore, we must put the scattered parts together in their due relation and order, and so construct our own analysis. That is the prime object of this discussion. It is not claimed that the analysis now presented is perfect. It is too much the result of hasty, offhand work by an exceedingly busy man. It will serve, however, as a temporary working model, which any one may subsequently improve. We come at once to the psalmist’s outline of the Messiah.
1. The necessity for a Saviour. This foreseen necessity is a background of the psalmists’ portrait of the Messiah. The necessity consists in (1) man’s sinfulness; (2) his sin; (3) his inability of wisdom and power to recover himself; (4) the insufficiency of legal, typical sacrifices in securing atonement.
The predicate of Paul’s great argument on justification by faith is the universal depravity and guilt of man. He is everywhere corrupt in nature; everywhere an actual transgressor; everywhere under condemnation. But the scriptural proofs of this depravity and sin the apostle draws mainly from the book of the Psalms. In one paragraph of the letter to the Romans (Rom 3:4-18 ), he cites and groups six passages from six divisions of the Psalms (Psa 5:9 ; Psa 10:7 ; Psa 14:1-3 ; Psa 36:1 ; Psa 51:4-6 ; Psa 140:3 ). These passages abundantly prove man’s sinfulness, or natural depravity, and his universal practice of sin.
The predicate also of the same apostle’s great argument for revelation and salvation by a Redeemer is man’s inability of wisdom and power to re-establish communion with God. In one of his letters to the Corinthians he thus commences his argument: “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? -For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preach-ing to save them that believe.” He closes this discussion with the broad proposition: “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God,” and proves it by a citation from Psa 94:11 : “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.”
In like manner our Lord himself pours scorn on human wisdom and strength by twice citing Psa 8 : “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Mat 11:25-26 ). “And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children that were crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, and said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” (Mat 21:15-16 ).
But the necessity for a Saviour as foreseen by the psalmist did not stop at man’s depravity, sin, and helplessness. The Jews were trusting in the sacrifices of their law offered on the smoking altar. The inherent weakness of these offerings, their lack of intrinsic merit, their ultimate abolition, their complete fulfilment and supercession by a glorious antitype were foreseen and foreshown in this wonderful prophetic book: I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; And thy burnt offerings are continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, Nor he-goat out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, And the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all of the birds of the mountains; And the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee; For the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats? Psa 50:8-13 .
Yet again it speaks in that more striking passage cited in the letter to the Hebrews: “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshipers, once purged should have no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, But a body didst thou prepare for me; In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure: Then said I, Lo, I am come (In the roll of the book it is written of me) To do thy will, O God. Saying above, Sacrifice and offering and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldst not, neither hadst pleasure therein, (the which are offered according to the law), then hath he said, Lo, I am come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second” (Heb 10:1-9 ).
This keen foresight of the temporary character and intrinsic worthlessness of animal sacrifices anticipated similar utterances by the later prophets (Isa 1:10-17 ; Jer 6:20 ; Jer 7:21-23 ; Hos 6:6 ; Amo 5:21 ; Mic 6:6-8 ). Indeed, I may as well state in passing that when the apostle declares, “It is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins,” he lays down a broad principle, just as applicable to baptism and the Lord’s Supper. With reverence I state the principle: Not even God himself by mere appointment can vest in any ordinance, itself lacking intrinsic merit, the power to take away sin. There can be, therefore, in the nature of the case, no sacramental salvation. This would destroy the justice of God in order to exalt his mercy. Clearly the psalmist foresaw that “truth and mercy must meet together” before “righteousness and peace could kiss each other” (Psa 85:10 ). Thus we find as the dark background of the psalmists’ luminous portrait of the Messiah, the necessity for a Saviour.
2. The nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation to be wrought by the coming Messiah. In no other prophetic book are the nature, fullness, and blessedness of salvation so clearly seen and so vividly portrayed. Besides others not now enumerated, certainly the psalmists clearly forecast four great elements of salvation:
(1) An atoning sacrifice of intrinsic merit offered once for all (Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:4-10 ).
(2) Regeneration itself consisting of cleansing, renewal, and justification. We hear his impassioned statement of the necessity of regeneration: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts,” followed by his earnest prayer: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me,” and his equally fervent petition: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psa 51 ). And we hear him again as Paul describes the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputes righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, And whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin Psa 32:1 ; Rom 4:6-8 .
(3) Introduction into the heavenly rest (Psa 95:7-11 ; Heb 3:7-19 ; Heb 4:1-11 ). Here is the antitypical Joshua leading spiritual Israel across the Jordan of death into the heavenly Canaan, the eternal rest that remaineth for the people of God. Here we find creation’s original sabbath eclipsed by redemption’s greater sabbath when the Redeemer “entered his rest, ceasing from his own works as God did from his.”
(4) The recovery of all the universal dominion lost by the first Adam and the securement of all possible dominion which the first Adam never attained (Psa 8:5-6 ; Eph 1:20-22 ; Heb 2:7-9 ; 1Co 15:24-28 ).
What vast extent then and what blessedness in the salvation foreseen by the psalmists, and to be wrought by the Messiah. Atoning sacrifice of intrinsic merit; regeneration by the Holy Spirit; heavenly rest as an eternal inheritance; and universal dominion shared with Christ!
3. The wondrous person of the Messiah in his dual nature, divine and human.
(1) His divinity,
(a) as God: “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever” (Psa 45:6 and Heb 1:8 ) ;
(b) as creator of the heavens and earth, immutable and eternal: Of old didst thou lay the foundation of the earth; And the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, And thy years shall have no end Psa 102:25-27 quoted with slight changes in Heb 1:10-12 .
(c) As owner of the earth: The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; The world, and they that dwell therein, Psa 24:1 quoted in 1Co 10:26 .
(d) As the Son of God: “Thou art my Son; This day have I begotten thee” Psa 2:7 ; Heb 1:5 .
(e) As David’s Lord: The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool, Psa 110:1 ; Mat 22:41-46 .
(f) As the object of angelic worship: “And let all the angels of God worship him” Psa 97:7 ; Heb 1:6 .
(g) As the Bread of life: And he rained down manna upon them to eat, And gave them food from heaven Psa 78:24 ; interpreted in Joh 6:31-58 . These are but samples which ascribe deity to the Messiah of the psalmists.
(2) His humanity, (a) As the Son of man, or Son of Adam: Psa 8:4-6 , cited in 1Co 15:24-28 ; Eph 1:20-22 ; Heb 2:7-9 . Compare Luke’s genealogy, Luk 3:23-38 . This is the ideal man, or Second Adam, who regains Paradise Lost, who recovers race dominion, in whose image all his spiritual lineage is begotten. 1Co 15:45-49 . (b) As the Son of David: Psa 18:50 ; Psa 89:4 ; Psa 89:29 ; Psa 89:36 ; Psa 132:11 , cited in Luk 1:32 ; Act 13:22-23 ; Rom 1:3 ; 2Ti 2:8 . Perhaps a better statement of the psalmists’ vision of the wonderful person of the Messiah would be: He saw the uncreated Son, the second person of the trinity, in counsel and compact with the Father, arranging in eternity for the salvation of men: Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:5-7 . Then he saw this Holy One stoop to be the Son of man: Psa 8:4-6 ; Heb 2:7-9 . Then he was the son of David, and then he saw him rise again to be the Son of God: Psa 2:7 ; Rom 1:3-4 .
4. His offices.
(1) As the one atoning sacrifice (Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:5-7 ).
(2) As the great Prophet, or Preacher (Psa 40:9-10 ; Psa 22:22 ; Heb 2:12 ). Even the method of his teaching by parable was foreseen (Psa 78:2 ; Mat 13:35 ). Equally also the grace, wisdom, and power of his teaching. When the psalmist declares that “Grace is poured into thy lips” (Psa 45:2 ), we need not be startled when we read that all the doctors in the Temple who heard him when only a boy “were astonished at his understanding and answers” (Luk 2:47 ); nor that his home people at Nazareth “all bear him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth” (Luk 4:22 ); nor that those of his own country were astonished, and said, “Whence hath this man this wisdom?” (Mat 13:54 ); nor that the Jews in the Temple marveled, saying, “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?” (Joh 7:15 ) ; nor that the stern officers of the law found their justification in failure to arrest him in the declaration, “Never man spake like this man” (Joh 7:46 ).
(3) As the king (Psa 2:6 ; Psa 24:7-10 ; Psa 45:1-17 ; Psa 110:1 ; Mat 22:42-46 ; Act 2:33-36 ; 1Co 15:25 ; Eph 1:20 ; Heb 1:13 ).
(4) As the priest (Psa 110:4 ; Heb 5:5-10 ; Heb 7:1-21 ; Heb 10:12-14 ).
(5) As the final judge. The very sentence of expulsion pronounced upon the finally impenitent by the great judge (Mat 25:41 ) is borrowed from the psalmist’s prophetic words (Psa 6:8 ).
5. Incidents of life. The psalmists not only foresaw the necessity for a Saviour; the nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation; the wonderful human-divine person of the Saviour; the offices to be filled by him in the work of salvation, but also many thrilling details of his work in life, death, resurrection, and exaltation. It is not assumed to cite all these details, but some of the most important are enumerated in order, thus:
(1) The visit, adoration, and gifts of the Magi recorded in Mat 2 are but partial fulfilment of Psa 72:9-10 .
(2) The scripture employed by Satan in the temptation of our Lord (Luk 4:10-11 ) was cited from Psa 91:11-12 and its pertinency not denied.
(3) In accounting for his intense earnestness and the apparently extreme measures adopted by our Lord in his first purification of the Temple (Joh 2:17 ), he cites the messianic zeal predicted in Psa 69:9 .
(4) Alienation from his own family was one of the saddest trials of our Lord’s earthly life. They are slow to understand his mission and to enter into sympathy with him. His self-abnegation and exhaustive toil were regarded by them as evidences of mental aberration, and it seems at one time they were ready to resort to forcible restraint of his freedom) virtually what in our time would be called arrest under a writ of lunacy. While at the last his half-brothers became distinguished preachers of his gospel, for a long while they do not believe on him. And the evidence forces us to the conclusion that his own mother shared with her other sons, in kind though not in degree, the misunderstanding of the supremacy of his mission over family relations. The New Testament record speaks for itself:
Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them. How is it that ye sought me? Knew ye not that I must be in my Father’s house? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them Luk 2:48-51 (R.V.).
And when the wine failed, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. And Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. Joh 2:3-5 (R.V.).
And there come his mother and his brethren; and standing without; they sent unto him, calling him. And a multitude was sitting about him; and they say unto him. Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answereth them, and saith, Who is my mother and my brethren? And looking round on them that sat round about him, he saith, Behold, my mother and my brethren) For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother Mar 3:31-35 (R.V.).
Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand. His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may behold thy works which thou doest. For no man doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou doest these things, manifest thyself to the world. For even his brethren did not believe on him. Jesus therefore saith unto them, My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that its works are evil. Go ye up unto the feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; because my time is not fulfilled. Joh 7:2-9 (R.V.).
These citations from the Revised Version tell their own story. But all that sad story is foreshown in the prophetic psalms. For example: I am become a stranger unto my brethren, And an alien unto my mother’s children. Psa 69:8 .
(5) The triumphal entry into Jerusalem was welcomed by a joyous people shouting a benediction from Psa 118:26 : “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mat 21:9 ); and the Lord’s lamentation over Jerusalem predicts continued desolation and banishment from his sight until the Jews are ready to repeat that benediction (Mat 23:39 ).
(6) The children’s hosanna in the Temple after its second purgation is declared by our Lord to be a fulfilment of that perfect praise forecast in Psa 8:2 .
(7) The final rejection of our Lord by his own people was also clear in the psalmist’s vision (Psa 118:22 ; Mat 21:42-44 ).
(8) Gethsemane’s baptism of suffering, with its strong crying and tears and prayers was as clear to the psalmist’s prophetic vision as to the evangelist and apostle after it became history (Psa 69:1-4 ; Psa 69:13-20 ; and Mat 26:36-44 ; Heb 5:7 ).
(9) In life-size also before the psalmist was the betrayer of Christ and his doom (Psa 41:9 ; Psa 69:25 ; Psa 109:6-8 ; Joh 13:18 ; Act 1:20 ).
(10) The rage of the people, Jew and Gentile, and the conspiracy of Pilate and Herod are clearly outlined (Psa 2:1-3 ; Act 4:25-27 ).
(11) All the farce of his trial the false accusation, his own marvelous silence; and the inhuman maltreatment to which he was subjected, is foreshown in the prophecy as dramatically as in the history (Mat 26:57-68 ; Mat 27:26-31 ; Psa 27:12 ; Psa 35:15-16 ; Psa 38:3 ; Psa 69:19 ).
The circumstances of his death, many and clear, are distinctly foreseen. He died in the prime of life (Psa 89:45 ; Psa 102:23-24 ). He died by crucifixion (Psa 22:14-17 ; Luk 23 ; 33; Joh 19:23-37 ; Joh 20:27 ). But yet not a bone of his body was broken (Psa 34:20 ; Joh 19:36 ).
The persecution, hatred without a cause, the mockery and insults, are all vividly and dramatically foretold (Psa 22:6-13 ; Psa 35:7 ; Psa 35:12 ; Psa 35:15 ; Psa 35:21 ; Psa 109:25 ).
The parting of his garments and the gambling for his vesture (Psa 22:18 ; Mat 27:35 ).
His intense thirst and the gall and vinegar offered for his drink (Psa 69:21 ; Mat 27:34 ).
In the psalms, too, we hear his prayers for his enemies so remarkably fulfilled in fact (Psa 109:4 ; Luk 23:34 ).
His spiritual death was also before the eye of the psalmist, and the very words which expressed it the psalmist heard. Separation from the Father is spiritual death. The sinner’s substitute must die the sinner’s death, death physical, i.e., separation of soul from body; death spiritual, i.e., separation of the soul from God. The latter is the real death and must precede the former. This death the substitute died when he cried out: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me.” (Psa 22:1 ; Mat 27:46 ).
Emerging from the darkness of that death, which was the hour of the prince of darkness, the psalmist heard him commend his spirit to the Father (Psa_31:35; Luk 23:46 ) showing that while he died the spiritual death, his soul was not permanently abandoned unto hell (Psa 16:8-10 ; Act 2:25 ) so that while he “tasted death” for every man it was not permanent death (Heb 2:9 ).
With equal clearness the psalmist foresaw his resurrection, his triumph over death and hell, his glorious ascension into heaven, and his exaltation at the right hand of God as King of kings and Lord of lords, as a high Driest forever, as invested with universal sovereignty (Psa 16:8-11 ; Psa 24:7-10 ; Psa 68:18 ; Psa 2:6 ; Psa 111:1-4 ; Psa 8:4-6 ; Act 2:25-36 ; Eph 1:19-23 ; Eph 4:8-10 ).
We see, therefore, brethren, when the scattered parts are put together and adjusted, how nearly complete a portrait of our Lord is put upon the prophetic canvas by this inspired limner, the sweet singer of Israel.
QUESTIONS
1. What is a good text for this chapter?
2. What is the threefold division of the Old Testament as cited by our Lord?
3. What is the last division called and why?
4. What is the object of the discussion in this chapter?
5. To what three things is the purpose limited?
6. What especially qualifies the author to meet the objections of the higher critics to allowing the New Testament usage of the Old Testament to determine its meaning and application?
7. What is the author’s conviction relative to the Scriptures?
8. What is the New Testament testimony on the question of inspiration?
9. What is the author’s suggested plan of approach to the study of the Messiah in the Psalms?
10. What the background of the Psalmist’s portrait of the Messiah and of what does it consist?
11. Give the substance of Paul’s discussion of man’s sinfulness.
12. What is the teaching of Jesus on this point?
13. What is the teaching relative to sacrifices?
14. What the nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation to be wrought by the coming Messiah and what the four great elements of it as forecast by the psalmist?
15. What is the teaching of the psalms relative to the wondrous person of the Messiah? Discuss.
16. What are the offices of the Messiah according to psalms? Discuss each.
17. Cite the more important events of the Messiah’s life according to the vision of the psalmist.
18. What the circumstances of the Messiah’s death and resurrection as foreseen by the psalmist?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Psa 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
Ver. 1. By the rivers of Babylon ] Tigris and Euphrates; for the land of Shinar (where Babel was founded, and afterwards Babylon built) was, as most geographers think, a part of the garden of Eden, fruitful beyond credulity; but to the poor captives all this was no comfort, when they remembered the desolations of their country, and the loss of their former liberty. The bird of paradise, they say, once taken and enraged, groaneth incessantly, till she die.
There we sat down, yea, we wept
When we remembered Zion
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Very different were Babylon and Edom, yet both the enemies of Zion, one to humble her for her sins, the other hating her for divine favour, alike to suffer before Zion’s joy, who must sorrow till then and not sing.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 137:1-3
1By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down and wept,
When we remembered Zion.
2Upon the willows in the midst of it
We hung our harps.
3For there our captors demanded of us songs,
And our tormentors mirth, saying,
Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
Psa 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon Possibly a better translation would be by the waterways. The water system of Babylon of that day involved not only rivers but also manmade canals, like the Canal Chebar (cf. Eze 1:1).
We learn from Act 16:13 that it was an ancient custom for cities with no synagogue to meet by the local river for worship. This may be the case here.
There we sat down and wept Because of the combination of the words sat and wept this seems to relate to a funeral dirge setting. Sitting flat on the ground was a Jewish form of mourning.
we remembered Zion It is interesting that in the Bible it was important for humans to remember (cf. Psa 137:5 [implied],6,7). The term exalt in Psa 137:6 is translated by the Jewish Publication Society of America, in their new translation, as keep Jerusalem in memory as my happiest hour.
The term Zion is a synonym for the entire city of Jerusalem and the temple area located on Mt. Moriah (see Special Topic: Moriah, Salem, Jebus, Jerusalem, Zion). It is very hard for us to understand the full implication of Israel in exile. She had been promised a Davidic king forever (2Sa 7:10; 2Sa 7:13; 2Sa 7:16). She had been protected during the invasion of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, in Hezekiah’s day (cf. Isaiah 37). However, Jeremiah told them that exile was imminent unless they repented and turned back to God. The Covenant (see SPECIAL TOPIC: COVENANT ) had always been conditional (cf. 1Sa 13:12-13), but they relied on ancient traditions instead of personal relationships. Therefore, God’s covenant was made inoperative (i.e., exile) in their day.
Psa 137:2 the willows Horticulturalists tell us that willows do not grow in the ANE but that this tree (BDB 788 II) is probably a type of poplar tree that grows along the Euphrates and Jordan Rivers. See UBS, Fauna and Flora of the Bible, p. 170. Some even suggest that the branches of this particular tree were used during the Feast of Tabernacles to build the booths that the people lived in.
We hung our harps It is interesting to note that all of the verbs in Psa 137:1-3 are in the perfect tense, which may imply that the author lived sometime later than the exile and was writing about a bitter past experience.
The RSV translates the term harps (BDB 490) as lyres. It is very difficult to ascertain the exact kind of musical instruments involved because the names changed from culture to culture, as did the design of the instruments. It was a small stringed musical instrument.
Psa 137:3 For there our captors. . .our tormentors It has been suggested by some commentators that this verse is an example of the mockery committed by the Babylonian captors, but the term translated by NASB, demanded, is, in reality, the much more simple Hebrew word ask (BDB 981, KB 1371, Qal perfect). It is quite possible that the Babylonians were only interested in the new type of music which the Jews produced. However, for the Jews, they could not sing religious songs in a foreign land because they were committed to the worship of YHWH, who had seemingly been defeated by Marduk. This was a time of great confusion for the Jews during this period of history. There was the concept in the ANE that whoever won the battle was empowered by their national gods. YHWH was willing for His own name to be impugned in order for His people to turn back in trust to Him.
Notice there are several words that begin with .
1. Psa 137:3 verb, ask – BDB 981, KB 1371, Qal perfect
2. Psa 137:3 participle, captors – BDB 985, KB 1382, Qal participle
3. Psa 137:3 noun, songs – BDB 1010
4. Psa 137:3 noun, mirth – BDB 970
5. Psa 137:3 verb, sing – BDB 1010, KB 1479, Qal imperative
6. Psa 137:4 noun, songs – BDB 1010
7. Psa 137:4 verb, sings’ – BDB 1010, KB 1479, Qal imperfect
8. Psa 137:4 noun, song – BDB 1010
9. Psa 137:5 verb, forget – BDB 1013, KB 1489, Qal imperfect
10. Psa 137:5 verb, forget – BDB 1013, KB 1489, Qal imperfect used in a jussive sense
11. Psa 137:6 noun, joy – BDB 970
our tormentors This word (BDB 1064, KB 1700) is found only here. It could be
1. a parallel to our captors of Psa 137:3 a
2. those who led us away (REB), LXX, Peshitta, Vulgate
3. from another Hebrew root ( – BDB 237), make a mockery of
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Babylon. The Psalm is anonymous, and probably by Hezekiah. No need to refer it to post-exilic times. The Psalm reads as though it were a reminiscence of past experience in Babylon, and a contrast with previous joys in Zion; not, as during or after the seventy years, or an experience of a then present exile in Babylon. The writer is in Jerusalem after an absence not of long duration; and is full of joy. The post-exilic captives were full of sorrow on their return (Ezr 3:12. Hag 2:3). These exiles had obeyed Isaiah’s call (Isa 48:20. Compare Psa 43:14-21).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 137:1-9 is a psalm of captivity written many years after David’s time, written by one of those who were captive in Babylon.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For they that carried us away captive required us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. But how shall we sing the LORD’S song in a strange land? 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. Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall be he, that rewards thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones ( Psa 137:1-9 ).
So the psalm reflecting the Babylonian captivity where the Babylonians required them to, “Sing some of your songs.” Now singing is a very important part of Jewish life. One thing I like about the Israelis even today is their music. It has such life to it. And they have big music festivals over there all the time. We always try to purchase the records from these music festivals, even though I don’t understand Hebrew; I enjoy listening to the music. There’s such life to it. Quite often our bus drivers and guides will get together in the evening and they’ll have a time of singing. And it’s always exciting, these evenings of song. Their songs are exciting songs. There’s just a lot of action, a lot of rhythm, a lot of exuberance in their song. You know, they, “Hava nagila, Hava nagila,” you know, and they really get into it. You can feel it, and these guys just really love to sing. It’s a beautiful experience.
But as in Ecclesiastes, there’s a time to sing. And there are times when you don’t feel like singing. And while they were captives in Babylon and they were thinking of the desolation of Jerusalem, it was hard to sing of the joys of the land, of the blessings, of the prosperity, of the goodness of God. And so while in Babylon, the songs were silent. “We hung our harps on the willow trees. We just sat down by the river and wept when we would think of Jerusalem.” Their last memories of Jerusalem was the smoldering smoke ascending from a city that had been devastated. Looking back they could see Solomon’s once glorious temple flattened. And as they saw the desolation, and it was implanted in their minds, now remembering it, hard to sing.
Now the psalmist, first of all, takes off against the Edomites. The Edomites were the descendants of Esau. They were sort of perennial enemies of the Jews. Many battles against them and they would often join with anybody who would attack Israel. They would attack, too. Anytime Israel would be attacked by any of the aggressors from the north, they’d always attack from the south. And when the Babylonians were attacking, they came from Edom and they were encouraging the Babylonians in the destruction of Jerusalem. “Raze it, raze it to its foundation. Wipe it out!” “And God, you reward them. Take care of them for that.” And then, because God’s Word had predicted the fall of Babylon, the psalmist, because of all of the injuries suffered by the people at the hands of the Babylonians, the psalmist with glee actually looked forward to the destruction of Babylon, the enemy of God.
Now in the New Testament, we are taught to love our enemies. These expressions of the psalmist really are not expressions of God in the sense that God never delights in judgment. God never delights in bringing His judgment upon a people or upon a nation. And yet, we so often want to see the judgment of God fall upon the head of the wicked. We can hardly wait for the day of God’s judgment. But God is not anxious to judge at all. God would much rather show mercy, for His mercy endureth forever. And God delights in mercy.
You remember when God sent Jonah to Nineveh to warn that city, the Assyrian capital, of the impending doom, the judgment of God that was coming. Jonah didn’t want to go. Why? He was afraid if he went, they might repent and God wouldn’t judge them. He wanted to see God’s judgment on Assyria. He wanted to see Nineveh wiped out. And so to help ensure God’s judgment against them, he tried to take off for England so he could escape the call of God. And later on, when under pressure and duress, he went to Nineveh and they did repent in sackcloth and ashes before the Lord, and God’s mercy was extended to them, he got angry with God. Went out and sat under a tree and said, “Okay, God, just wipe me out.” And God said, “What’s the matter? Is it right for you to be so angry?” “You bet you are. I knew that You were merciful. I knew. I was afraid this was going to happen. They were going to repent and then You weren’t going to wipe them out.” And he was angry because God’s judgment didn’t fall. But God isn’t anxious to judge.
I think that we oftentimes have a false concept in our mind concerning God, that He is just sort of standing over us with a club, waiting to bash us for the first wrong move. Not so. God is desiring to show His mercy unto you and He’s just looking for an excuse. He’s just looking for you to give Him an excuse to say, “Well, that’s al right. I forgive you.” Just looking for you to say, “Oh God, I’m sorry.” For His mercy endureth forever.
So the psalmist expresses, actually, a glee in the destruction that is to come upon Babylon, but it is not really the expression of God’s heart when the judgment will fall. I’m sure that God always weeps over judgment. We find Jesus looking over the city of Jerusalem and weeping. Why? Because of the judgment that was going to come upon the city. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if you’d only known the things that belong to your peace at least in this thy day. And now they are hid from your eyes, and your little children are going to dashed in the streets” ( Luk 19:42 , Luk 19:44 ). And He’s weeping as He speaks of the judgment that is going to. It’s not a gleeful thing, “All right, you know, we’ll get even with you. You reject Me, you crucify Me. We’ll take care of you, you know. We’ll put you up on a Roman giblet and see how you like it.” Not at all. It’s weeping. Weeping because their actions necessitate the judgment of God. But weeping over the judgment. And I’m certain that whenever God is forced to judge that there’s always a great sorrow in the heart of God. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Psa 137:1-2. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
Babylon was full of canals and rivers; the captive Israelites sought out lonely places where they might be away front their oppressors, and might in the company of their countrymen pour out the sad stream of their griefs and sorrows. The rivers of Babylon seemed congenial to them, and they mingled their tears with the flowing waters. They sat down as if they felt they were to be there a long while, and were not soon to go back to their own land; and they wept not simply because of their banishment and their woes, but also because of the mournful condition of their beloved Zion, which had been ravaged by the Chaldeans, ploughed as a field, and given over to desolation. Some of these poor captives had been singers in the courts of the Lords house which had been burnt with fire, and others had brought their harps with them into their captivity; but they could not find any music in their hearts, and therefore they fetched no melodious, notes out of their harp-strings. They did not break their harps, however, for they might want them someday, so they hung them up on the weeping willows which abounded by the water-courses. Then came one of the sharpest trials they had ever had, a piece of bitter cruelty on the part of their oppressors, who had no compassion upon the poor prisoners whom they had taken from their own land.
Psa 137:3. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
As no cups except those that were taken out of Gods holy house would do for Belshazzar when he wanted to make himself drank, so no music would suit these heathen captors of Israel but the songs of Gods house: Sing us one of the songs of Zion. These poor people were crestfallen and utterly broken down, yet their enemies cried, Make mirthful music for us, sing us one of your sacred songs. They only wanted to laugh at it, or, at the very best, to listen to it simply as a piece of music that they might criticize, so they said, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. But the captives could not and would not sing for any such purpose. Zions songs were not meant to be sung for mere amusement, nor were her chants intended to be made the theme of mockery and ridicule by the ungodly.
Psa 137:4-5. How shall we sing the LORDS song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
No, they said, if we were to make mirth for the Babylonians, we should be doing serious damage to Zion, we should be traitors to Jerusalem; so the harpers said, Sooner than we will play a tune to make mirth for you, let our right hands become paralyzed.
Psa 137:6. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth;-
They said it each one for himself; they would sooner be dumb than sing these sacred songs for the amusement of the ungodly revelers who had gathered round about them. Instead of a song, they offered a prayer which must have sounded terribly in the ears of those who mocked them; it was a fierce prayer, a prayer made under a very different dispensation from that under which we live, a prayer by a patriot who had seen his wife murdered, and his children dashed to pieces, and he prays thus:
Psa 137:6-7. If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy. Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
These Edomites, who ought to have been like brothers to the Jews, were their most ferocious enemies, and they stirred up the Chaldeans to be more terribly cruel than they otherwise would have been.
Psa 137:8-9. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed: happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
For these people had gone all over the world, wherever they could, murdering and mutilating. Tens of thousands of little children had they brutally killed, multitudes of women had they ravished, a vast number of cities had they destroyed. They were the scourges of all nations; and, therefore, moved to righteous indignation, the Jews felt that anybody who should overthrow that city of Babylon, and put to death its inhabitants, would be doing good service to the rest of mankind. And, mark you, all this came to pass in due time. When Cyrus turned aside the waters of the river which had been Babylons great protection, and left the river-bed quite dry, he marched his troops right into the center of the city; and when the Babylonians, to defend themselves and a part of the city, were driven to great straits, we are told by historians that they themselves destroyed their own wives and children, calling them useless mouths, that they might be able to defend themselves a little longer from the sword of Cyrus, so that, literally, it came to pass that the man who had destroyed his own children thought himself happy to be rid of them that he might maintain the fight. How dreadful is God when he deals with nations that have been cruel and ferocious! Go ye to Babylon this day, and see what ruinous heaps he hath made, what desolation he hath wrought in that land.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Psa 137:1
Psalms 137
A SONG FROM THE CAPTIVITY IN BABYLON
For once, there is no need for guessing about the occasion of this Psalm. It reflects the sorrows and thoughts of one of the captives, either during the captivity itself, or shortly afterward when the memories of the terrible experience were still fresh in the psalmist’s mind. As Rhodes noted, “The date therefore would be sometime between 587 B.C. and 537 B.C.
THEIR PITIFUL SITUATION
The psalm is fully self-explanatory. The first three verses describe the situation. The chosen people are suffering the captivity in Babylon, enduring the sporting taunts of their enemies, and weeping over their sorrows as they contrasted their status with what it once was in their beloved Jerusalem.
Psa 137:1
“By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept,
When we remembered Zion.”
“Rivers of Babylon.” The city of Babylon was situated on the Euphrates river, but the plural here probably refers to the great network of canals which had been built for purposes of irrigation. The gardens and industries thus watered were in all likelihood the areas where the Hebrew slaves would have been employed.
“There we sat down, yea, we wept.” The picture that emerges here is one of extreme dejection, sorrow and bitterness. The refreshing altitude of Jerusalem with its mountains pressed upon the memories of the captives sitting and weeping by the canals of Babylon.
E.M. Zerr:
General remarks. This chapter is like many prophetic passages in that it is written in the past tense. That, however, is often the prophetic style, and indicates that the prophet is as certain of the future as he is of the past. It is understandable that it would be so if the prophet was inspired as was David. This whole passage gives such a deplorable picture of the state of mind the Israelites were in after being taken to Babylon, that I wish to connect it with a statement of actual history to make the paragraph as a whole a fitting place to cite from the many other sad predictions that will be found in the regular prophetic books. The historical statement referred to is in Eze 37:11. It is true that this book is one of the major prophets, but we should remember that it was all written in Babylon after the nation had been carried off in captivity. That being the case, some of the things contained in the book are literal history and comprise a fulfillment of an earlier prediction. Such is the case with the verse just cited, and since it is so considered I shall quote verbatim that sad speech of the Jews, in which they actually made the complaints predicted in the chapter we are now studying. “Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.” So this speech of the children of Israel, made while they were actually in the land of Babylon, verfies the predictions of the Psalmist. I shall now consider the several verses separately.
Psa 137:1. As the term Babylon is used here it refers to the territory of which the city of Babylon was the capital. This territory had a number of streams, called rivers by the translators. The Jews were scattered over this territoty after the captivity and doubtless spent much time wandering about, or sitting down on the banks of the streams. There they would meditate dejectedly on their fallen state, with sad remembrance of their beloved capital in the land of their forefathers.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
This is a song of memory. From the midst of the circumstances of restoration the singer looks back to days of captivity and sorrow. The picture is graphic. Babylon was far from their own land, and far removed in every way from the city of God and the temple of Jehovah. All its material splendour was noting to the captive souls who were yet faithful to Jehovah. There they sat, with harps hung, silent, upon the willows, and wept.
Their taunting captors asked them to sing. They sought to be amused by these people of a strange religion, and the request was in itself an insult of their faith. It was impossible, and they refused to sing the song of Jehovah. To have done so would have been to play traitor to their own lost city, and to all that their citizenship stood for. The prayer for vengeance must be interpreted by the first part of the song, with its revelation of the treatment they received. It must of course also be interpreted by the times in which they lived. Our times are different. We have more light. And yet it is well to remember that the deepest sense of justice still makes punishment a necessary thing in the economy of God. That conception of God which denies the equity of retribution is weak and false.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Loyalty in Adversity
Psa 137:1-9
It seems as if the exiles had withdrawn from the city, with its distractions, to some natural retreat beside the Euphrates. They had brought their harps with them, but had not the heart to touch their chords. Songs were choked by sobs. Suddenly a band of insolent revelers broke in on the scene, demanding one of those Temple songs for which Hebrew minstrelsy was famed.
But the Lords song was possible only in the Lords house. To be separated from the Temple seemed to the Jews like separation from God. When we have been led captive by our sins and have lost the sense of Gods presence, we, too, lose the spring of holy joy. Let us make not Jerusalem, but the glory and interests of Christs kingdom, our chief joy. The closing imprecation on Edom reminds one of Jer 49:7-22; Lam 4:2; Lam 4:22; Eze 25:12-14. We can understand it, but we must remember that we belong to another covenant. See Luk 9:54, r.v., margin; Rom 12:20.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Psa 137:4
Let us ask this question and ponder the answer to it in reference to our own poor efforts to awaken heart and voice to the utterance of the Lord’s song, whether of sadness or joy, in the services of the Lord’s house on the Lord’s Day.
I. Consider the difficulty of singing the Lord’s song in a strange land. Difficult as I find it to pray, difficult to confess sin, difficult to ask for grace, it is still more difficult, I find, to praise, to perform that highest, that most unselfish, that most self-forgetting, of all offices of devotion which is the telling forth, in the hearing of others, in the presence, we believe, of the communion of saints, dead as well as living, what God is, in act and in counsel, in power, wisdom, and love. (1) The very life which we live here in the body is a life of sight and sense. The world of our common life is a strange land as regards the realisation of God, and consequently the work of praise. Naturally we walk by sight, and to sing the Lord’s song is possible only to faith. (2) Again, the feelings of the present life are often adverse to praise. The exiles in Babylon could not sing because they were in heaviness. In the common meaning of the words, the distressed and sorrowful cannot sing the Lord’s song. A body of flesh, a sense of unhappiness, a burden of sin, would stop the voice of praise anywhere in any one. The land itself, so to say, is strange to it.
II. But there is a land, could we but reach it, where praise is, as it were, indigenous. In heaven praise is the universal tongue. It takes a lifetime to make heaven our own land. How many things go to this, what a multitude of tears and sorrows, of falls and risings again, of resolutions and repentances, of prayers and watchings, of communions and communings with the Unseen! If heaven is to be our land, it must be by our knowing God-God in Christ. We can never sing the Lord’s song even here below intelligently or spiritually until we know the Lord. Life itself is only just long enough to educate us for God’s eternal praise.
C. J. Vaughan, Last Words at Doncaster.
References: Psa 137:4.-T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 221; F. E. Paget, Sermons for Special Occasions, p. 193; H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 129. Psa 137:5.-J. Percival, Some Helps for School Life, p. 254; T. W. Gittens, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 197. Psa 137:9.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xvii., p. 345. Psalm 137-J. Hammond, Expositor, 1st scries, vol. iv., p. 232. Psa 138:1.-J. Keble, Sermons on Various Occasions, p. 72. Psa 138:1-3.-Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 166. Psa 138:5.-Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 32. Psa 138:6.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 82. Psa 138:7.-Ibid., vol. x., p. 147.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
Psalm 137
Remembering the Exile
This Psalm is in remembrance of the Babylonian captivity written by an unknown person. Some have named Jeremiah, but he was not in Babylon. The Psalm expresseth the never dying love for Zion in the heart of Israel. The same love is alive today after an exile of almost two thousand years. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy. But this Psalm also looks forward to the day when divine retribution will be measured out to the daughter of Babylon, when Israels enemies will be punished for their sins committed against His people. The fate of the final Babylon as given in Isa 13:16 corresponds with the last verse of this Psalm. See also Isa 47:6.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
am cir, 3463, bc cir, 541 – Title The author of this beautiful and affecting elegy is unknown, but the occasion is evident; and it was most probably composed during, or near the close of, the captivity.
the rivers: Gen 2:10-14, Ezr 8:21, Ezr 8:31, Eze 1:1, there sat, Neh 1:3, Neh 1:4, Neh 2:3, Job 2:12, Job 2:13, Jer 13:17, Jer 13:18, Jer 15:17, Lam 2:10, Eze 3:15
we wept: Psa 42:4, Psa 102:9-14, Isa 66:10, Jer 51:50, Jer 51:51, Lam 1:16, Lam 2:11, Lam 2:18, Lam 3:48, Lam 3:51, Dan 9:3, Dan 10:2, Dan 10:3, Luk 19:41, Rev 11:3
Reciprocal: Ezr 8:15 – the river that runneth Job 30:31 – General Psa 52:1 – goodness Psa 87:4 – Babylon Psa 126:5 – that sow Isa 15:7 – to the Isa 21:2 – all the Isa 44:4 – willows Isa 52:5 – make Jer 13:4 – go Eze 6:9 – remember Eze 11:24 – into
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Zion the one controlling object for the heart of the solitary (as cut off from Jehovah’s presence.)
1. In the first psalm, then; here, as already said, we are with the captives in Babylon. The plenteous streams that once enriched with unfailing fertility “the glory of the Chaldee’s excellency” are before their eyes only to remind them that they are far from Zion; and to minister to the awful home-sickness of men who realized, as Jews alone could do, what it was to be cut off from the one place of the presence of God. How unutterable the loneliness, amid crowds that might press around them; of such a condition. There then they sat down -all labor a vain labor there! -to weep as their unflagging memories called up before them the image of Zion. Estranged from joy, they hung their harps upon the willows, in resolute denial of the request of those who had carried them captive for “words of song,” -mere “words” they would be, without music now, -` saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
2. What could they know -these heathen -of “Jehovah’s songs,” or the reproach which they would ring with, to the people of God (alas, such no longer) gone as captives into a strange land? In Jerusalem alone could the blood of atonement -and “without shedding of blood is no remission” -be sprinkled upon the golden mercy-seat, that a holy God might dwell among the praises of His people. It was but a waste spot now; yet there with inseparable attachment their hearts lingered. Their right hand might well forget, if Jerusalem were forgotten. The tongue might cleave to the roof of the mouth that exalted not Jerusalem above every other object of joy.
3. There is no mention of their sins, however, in all this, -no confession. It is the desolation of those who are away from the place of Jehovah’s manifestation; with the prayer only for judgment upon their enemies, who have destroyed or sympathized with the destruction of the home of their affections, in language from which the Christian naturally shrinks. But Edom and Babylon are both doomed by the prophets to extinction as a people; and to this doom of the latter there is distinct reference made here. Judgment is God’s strange work: we may be sure, a necessary one; and the solemn part which God has made His people sometimes take in it, as in the case of the nations of Canaan; has doubtless its deep necessity also. Calamities involve commonly enough babes as well as parents; while, of course, they are but the short and passing evils, which leave the eternity following to make up the balance-sheet.
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary
Psa 137:1. By the rivers of Babylon Of the city, or rather of the territory of Babylon, in which there were many rivers, as Euphrates, which also was divided into several streams or rivulets, and Tigris, and others; there sat we down The usual posture of mourners, Ezr 9:4; Job 2:12; Isa 47:1; Isa 47:5. It is supposed by some, that they were employed in draining the marshy parts of the country; but it seems more probable, that their present distress did not arise from that circumstance, but from their reflecting on Zion, and their banishment from it: and that they seated themselves down by the rivers from choice, retiring thither from the noise and observation of their enemies, as they had opportunity, in order that they might unburden their oppressed minds before the Lord, and to one another. We wept when we remembered Zion He means, either their former enjoyments in Zion, which greatly aggravated their present misery, Lam 1:7, or Zions present desolation. What an inexpressible pathos is there in these few words! How do they, at once, transport us to Babylon, and place before our eyes the mournful situation of the Israelitish captives! Driven from their native country, stripped of every comfort and convenience, in a strange land among idolaters, wearied and broken- hearted, they sit in silence by those hostile waters. Then the pleasant banks of Jordan present themselves to their imaginations; the towers of Salem rise to view; and the sad remembrance of much loved Zion causes tears to run down their cheeks!
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
This psalm has no title, but it was evidently composed in Babylon; and it would seem from the latter part, only a little while before Cyrus took the city. It was probably composed by the prophet Haggai, who was born in Babylon. The hundred and forty sixth and two following psalms bear the title of Hallelujah; psalms of Haggai and Zechariah.
Psa 137:1. By the rivers of Babylon. The Euphrates, two hundred and fifty paces broad; the flood channels, and a canal from the Tigris, as described in Isa 13:14. Jeremiah 1. Many of the poor Jews were dispersed to the extremities of the Babylonian empire, and along the towns of the Euphrates and the Tigris. Daniel, and no doubt many of his companions were at Shushan, or Suses; an ancient palace of the kings of Babylon, now the winter residence of the kings of Persia. It is situate on the Caron, about a hundred miles south west of Ispahan.
Psa 137:3. Sing us one of the songs of Zion. The celebrity of the Hebrew choir, it is evident, stood foremost in the musical profession throughout the east.
Psa 137:7. Remember Edom. It was very wicked in the Edomites to rejoice at the fall of Jerusalem, for they were of one blood: and it was not more than five years before the Chaldeans inflicted the same calamity upon them.
Psa 137:8. Oh daughter of Babylon. The capital of an empire is universally considered as of the feminine gender, as, Oh daughter of Zion. The Greek, metropolis, is literally mother city. , Roma, are both feminine. So also was her language of pride: I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow. Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee. This is proof sufficient that this psalm was composed before the bloody city had received her just reward. Old Priam strives in these words to dissuade his son Hector from fighting Achilles in single combat: Pity an unhappy king, whom Jove, on the last limits of age, has doomed to the bitterest woes. Many evils have I yet to behold; my valiant sons slain in battle, my daughters ravished in my sight, my nuptial chambers disclosed to the foe, my infant offspring dashed to the earth, my people floating in their blood, the wives of my sons led to slavery by the destructive Argives. [Greeks] Iliad 22. Macpherson.
Psa 137:9. Dasheth thy little ones. Isaiah had so prophesied, as in chap. xiii; and so shall all the enemies of Christ be treated, when the days of vengeance shall come from the Lord.
From an original manuscript, by C. Wesley.
Fast by the Babylonish tide, The tide our sorrows made to flow, We dropt our weary limbs and cried, In deep distress at Zions woe; Her we bewailed in speechless groans, In bondage with her captive sons. Our harps, no longer vocal now, We cast aside untuned, unstrung, Forgot them pendant on the bough; Let meaner sorrows find a tongue: Silent we sat and scorned relief, In all the majesty of grief. In vain our haughty lords required A song of Zions sacred strain,
Sing us a song your God inspired: How shall our souls exult in pain, How shall the mournful exiles sing, While bond-slaves to a foreign king? Jerusalem, dear hallowed name, Thee, if I ever less desire, If less distrest for thee I am, Let my right hand forget her lyre; All its harmonious strains forego, When heedless of a mothers woe. Oh Englands desolate church, if thee, Though desolate I remember not, Let me, so lost to piety, Be lost myself and clean forgot; Cleave to the roof, my speechless tongue, When Zion is not all my song. Let life itself with language fail, For thee when I forbear to mourn: Nay, but I will for ever wail, Till God thy captive state shall turn; Let this my every breath employ, To grieve for thee be all my joy. Oh for the weeping prophets strains, The depth of sympathetic woe! I live to gather thy remains, For thee my tears and blood shall flow; My heart amidst thy ruins lies, And only in thy rise I rise. Remember Lord the cruel pride Of Edom, in our evil day, Down with it to the ground, they cried, Let none the tottering ruin stay; Let none the sinking church restore, But let it fall to rise no more. Surely our God shall vengeance take, On those that gloried in our fall, He a full end of sin shall make, Of all that held our souls in thrall: Oh Babylon, thy day shall come, Prepare to meet thy final doom. Happy the man that sees in thee, The mystic Babylon within; And filled with holy cruelty, Disdains to spare the smallest sin; But sternly takes thy little ones, And dashes all against the stones. Thou in thy turn shalt be brought low, Thy kingdom shall not always last, The Lord shall all thy power oerthrow, And lay the mighty waster waste: Destroy thy being with thy power, And pride and self shall be no more.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
CXXXVII. The Bitter Memory of Babylon.The vivid picture of the exiles in their home-sickness, the mockery of their foreign masters, their love for Zion, the mention of Edom, and the savage thirst for vengeance, all go far to justify the supposition that the Ps. was written not very long after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586.
Psa 137:1-3. The days work being over, the Jews sit by one of the many canals between the Tigris and Euphrates. Fain would they play and sing but they cannot, and they hang their harps on the poplar-trees (Populus euphratica). In vain their oppressors ask them for a song of Zion. They cannot sing Yahwehs songs in a land which is not Yahwehs. They cannot forget they are Jews: sooner may their right hand wither (Psa 137:5 emended) than they cease to set their joy in Jerusalem above all other joy.
Psa 137:7-9. The singer denounces the Edomites to Yahweh for their joy in the overthrow of Jerusalem (see Eze 25:12 ff., Oba 1:10 ff.) and ends in furious tirade against Babylon the destroyer (so read in Psa 137:8).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
PSALM 137
The godly remnant in Israel faithful in heart to Zion, though in captivity.
Historically, the psalm sets forth the sorrows of Israel in captivity: prophetically, it expresses the sorrows of the godly in Israel in a latter day.
(vv. 1-3) The psalm opens with the captives of Israel at Babylon in the day of its prosperity and earthly joy, as set forth by its rivers, its mirth, and its songs.
The captives belong to another city – Zion, a city that has its own joy, its song of the Lord, and its day yet to come (v. 7). Nevertheless, Jerusalem is razed to the ground; praise is silent in Zion, and the godly, strangers in a foreign land. They can only weep when they remember Zion. The glory and joy of Babylon are as nothing in their eyes compared with the blessedness of their own city. The world that had wasted the people of God, and ruined their city, would fain hear one of the beautiful songs of Zion.
(vv. 4-6) How can the godly sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? What can the world know of the joy of the Lord, or of the sorrows of Jerusalem? To join with the world in its songs and its mirth would be to forget Jerusalem and its sorrows. The godly man would rather forget his skill in playing the harp, than forget Jerusalem; he would rather his tongue be silent altogether, if Jerusalem is not remembered and preferred above all worldly joys.
(vv. 7-9) The psalm closes with an appeal to the Lord to remember the enemies of Jerusalem when the day of Jerusalem comes. In the time of Jerusalem’s sorrow, Edom had expressed its implacable hatred of Jerusalem. Without mercy Edom had said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundations thereof.
Babylon may be in prosperity, demanding songs and mirth, but the godly are assured that its day of judgment is coming. It is devoted to destruction, for one will arise to deal with Babylon – or the world system of which it is the figure – as it had dealt with God’s people.
Fuente: Smith’s Writings on 24 Books of the Bible
137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we {a} sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
(a) That is, we abode a long time, and even though the country was pleasant, yet it could not stay our tears, nor turn us from the true service of our God.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Psalms 137
The psalmist mourned the plight of the exiled Israelites. He expressed strong love for Zion and strong hatred for Israel’s enemies. This is an imprecatory psalm. [Note: See the appendix in VanGemeren, pp. 830-32, on imprecations in the psalms, and Day, "The Imprecatory . . .," pp. 173-76.]
"This psalm is better known, probably because it is one of the few psalms which contain a certain and explicit historical reference. It invites narrative specificity. It clearly comes out of the exiled community in Babylon after the destruction of 587 B.C.E., the community reflected in the pathos of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It reflects the need of those who have been forcibly removed by the Babylonian imperial policies of relocation and yet who cling to their memory and hope for homecoming with an unshakable passion." [Note: Brueggemann, p. 74.]
"Perhaps this psalm will be understood and valued among us only if we experience some concrete brutalization." [Note: Ibid., p. 77.]
"This psalm needs no title to announce that its provenance was the Babylonian exile. Every line of it is alive with pain, whose intensity grows with each strophe to the appalling climax." [Note: Kidner, Psalms 73-150, p. 459.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
1. Sorrow in exile 137:1-4
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The writer related that he and his fellow exiles mourned over Zion’s destruction as they thought about it in distant Babylon. The rivers of Babylon were the Euphrates and its canals. Even though their situation was pleasant, the exiles wept as they longingly remembered Zion.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 137:1-9
THE captivity is past, as the tenses in Psa 137:1-3 show, and as is manifest from the very fact that its miseries have become themes for a psalm. Grief must be somewhat removed before it can be sung. But the strains of triumph heard in other psalms are wanting in this, which breathes passionate love for Jerusalem, tinged with sadness still. The date of the psalm is apparently the early days of the Return, when true-hearted patriots still felt the smart of recent bondage and sadly gazed on the dear ruins of the city. The singer passes in brief compass from tender music breathing plaintive remembrance of the captives lot, to passionate devotion, and at last to an outburst of vehement imprecation, magnificent in its fiery rush, amply explicable by Israels wrongs and Babylons crimes, and yet to be frankly acknowledged as moving on a lower plane of sentiment than is permissible to those who have learned to repay scorn with gentleness, hate with love, and injuries with desires for the injurers highest good. The coals of fire which this psalmist scatters among Israels foes are not those which Christs servants are bidden to heap on their enemies heads.
Nothing sweeter or sadder was ever written than that delicate, deeply felt picture of the exiles in the early verses of the psalm. We see them sitting, as too heavy-hearted for activity, and half noting, as adding to their grief, the unfamiliar landscape round them, with its innumerable canals, and the monotonous “willows” (rather, a species of poplar) stretching along their banks. How unlike this flat, tame fertility to the dear homeland, with its hills and glens and rushing streams! The psalmist was probably a Temple singer, but he did not find solace even in “the harp, his sole remaining joy.” No doubt many of the exiles made themselves at home in captivity, but there were some more keenly sensitive or more devout, who found that it was better to remember Zion and weep than to enjoy Babylon. “Alas, alas! how much less it is to hold converse with others than to remember thee!” So they sat, like Michaelangelos brooding figure of Jeremiah in the Sistine Chapel, silent, motionless, lost in bittersweet memories.
But there was another reason than their own sadness for hanging their idle harps upon the willows. Their coarse oppressors bade them sing to make mirth. They wished entertainment from the odd sounds of foreign music, or they were petulantly angry that such dumb hang-dog people should keep sullen faces, like unilluminated windows, when their masters were pleased to be merry. So, like tipsy revellers, they called out “Sing!” The request drove the iron deeper into sad hearts, for it came from those who had made the misery. They had led away the captives, and now they bid them make sport.
The word rendered plunderers is difficult. The translation adopted here is that of the LXX and others. It requires a slight alteration of reading, which is approved by Hupfeld (as an alternative), Perowne, Baethgen, Graetz, etc. Cheyne follows Halevy in preferring another conjectural alteration which gives “dancers” (“and of our dancers, festive glee”), but admits that the other view is “somewhat more natural.” The roystering Babylonians did not care what kind of songs their slaves sang. Temple music would do as well as any other; but the devout psalmist and his fellows shrank from profaning the sacred songs that praised Jehovah by making them parts of a heathen banquet. Such sacrilege would have been like Belshazzars using the Temple vessels for his orgy. “Give not that which is holy to dogs.” And the singers were not influenced by superstition, but by reverence, and by sadness, when they could not sing these songs in that strange land. No doubt it was a fact that the Temple music fell into desuetude during the Captivity. There are moods and there are scenes in which it is profanation to utter the deep music which may be sounding on perpetually in the heart. “Songs unheard” are sometimes not only “sweetest,” but the truest worship.
The psalmists remembrances of Babylon are suddenly broken off. His heart burns as he broods on that past, and then lifts his eyes to see how forlorn and forgotten-like Jerusalem stands, as if appealing to her sons for help. A rush of emotion sweeps over him, and he breaks into a passion of vowed loyalty to the mother city. He has Jerusalem written on his heart. It is noteworthy that her remembrance was the exiles crown of sorrow; it now becomes the apex of the singers joy. No private occasion for gladness so moves the depths of a soul, smitten with the noble and ennobling love of the city of God, as does its prosperity. Alas that the so called citizens of the true city of God should have so tepid interest in its welfare, and be so much more keenly touched by individual than by public prosperity or adversity! Alas that so often they should neither weep when they remember its bondage nor exult in its advancement!
Psa 137:5 b is emphatic by its incompleteness. “May my right hand forget!” What? Some word like “power,” “cunning,” or “movement” may be supplied. It would be as impossibly unnatural for the poet to forget Jerusalem as for his hand to forget to move or cease to be conscious of its connection with his body.
Psa 137:6 d reads literally “Above the head of my joy”: an expression which may either mean the summit of my joy-i.e., my greatest joy; or the sum of my joy-i.e., my whole joy. In either case the well-being of Jerusalem is the psalmists climax of gladness; and so utterly does he lose himself in the community founded by God, that all his springs of felicity are in her. He had chosen the better part. Unselfish gladness is the only lasting bliss; and only they drink of an unfailing river of pleasures whose chiefest delight lies in beholding and sharing in the rebuilding of Gods city on earth.
The lightning flashes of the last part of the psalm need little commenting. The desire for the destruction of Zions enemies, which they express, is not the highest mood of the loyal citizen of Gods city, and is to be fully recognised as not in accordance with Christian morality. But it has been most unfairly judged, as if it were nothing nobler than ferocious thirsting for vengeance. It is a great deal more. It is desire for retribution, heavy as the count of crimes which demands it is heavy. It is a solemn appeal to God to sweep away the enemies of Zion, who, in hating her, rebelled against Him. First, the psalmist turns to the treacherous kinsmen of Israel, the Edomites, who had, as Obadiah says, “rejoiced over the children of Judah in the days of their destruction,” {Oba 1:12} and stimulated the work of rasing the city. Then the singer turns to Babylon, and salutes her as already laid waste; for he is a seer as well as a singer, and is so sure of the judgment to be accomplished that it is as good as done. The most repellent part of the imprecation, that which contemplates the dreadful destruction of tender infants, has its harshness somewhat softened by the fact that it is the echo of Isaiahs prophecy concerning Babylon, {Isa 13:16-18}, and still further by the consideration that the purpose of the apparently barbarous cruelty was to make an end of a “seed of evil-doers,” whose continuance meant misery for wide lands.
Undoubtedly, the words are stern, and the temper they embody is harsh discord, when compared with the Christian spirit. But they are not the utterances of mere ferocious revenge. Rather they proclaim Gods judgments, not with the impassiveness, indeed, which best befits the executors of such terrible sentences, but still less with the malignant gratification of sanguinary vengeance which has been often attributed to them. Perhaps, if some of their modern critics had been under the yoke from which this psalmist has been delivered, they would have understood a little better how a good man of that age could rejoice that Babylon was fallen and all its race extirpated. Perhaps, it would do modern tender heartedness no harm to have a little more iron infused into its gentleness, and to lay to heart that the King of Peace must first be King of Righteousness, and that Destruction of evil is the complement of Preservation of Good.