Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 137:2
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
2. Upon the willows in the midst thereof,
We hung out harps.
the willows ] Cp. Isa 44:4. The tree meant, however, was probably not the weeping willow, but the populus Euphratica.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
We hanged our harps upon the willows – The harps once used to accompany the songs of praise and the service of God in the temple; the harps with which they had sought to beguile their weary hours, and to console their sad spirits in their captivity. The word rendered willows – arabiym – used only in the plural, denotes the willow or osier, so called from its white, silvery leaves. Gesenius, Lexicon. Compare Isa 15:7. It is probable that the weeping willow – the willow with long pendulous branches – is here referred to. Trees in desert lands spring up along the courses of the streams, and appear, in the wide desolation, as long and waving lines of green wherever the rivers wind along. The course of a stream can thus be marked by the prolonged line of meandering green in the desert as far as the eye can reach. It has been objected to the statement here that the willow is not now found in the neighborhood of ancient Babylon, but that the palm is the only tree which grows there. I saw, however, in 1852, in James Park in London, a willow-tree with a label on it, stating that it was taken from the site of ancient Babylon; and there seems no reason to doubt the correctness of the account. The willow may be less abundant there now than it was in former times, as is true of the palm. tree in Palestine, but there is no reason to doubt that it grew there. All that the psalm, however, would necessarily demand in a fair interpretation would be that there should have been even a single clump of these trees planted there, under which a little band of exiles may have seated themselves when they gave utterance to the plaintive language of this psalm.
In the midst thereof – In the midst of Babylon; showing that this referred to the city proper. They could not sing, such was their grief, though they had their harps with them; and they hung them up, therefore, on the branches of the trees around them; or, poetically, they were as dumb as if they had hung up their harps there.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 137:2
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
Harps on the willows
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, etc. 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. Think of the constitution of our nature, wherein a place is secured for joy. The body is attuned to pleasure. How exquisitely has God harmonized 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, and 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. The joy of learning–when 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 effects–these and others afford keen and lasting delight.
4. The pleasure which belongs to the still higher sphere which we are privileged to enter.
(1) Let me 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. The best music of all the Christian poets fails 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.
(2) Remember, this harp must be tuned and practised on. Let Zion re-echo with your songs.
II. But sometimes the harp has to be hung upon the willows.
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 men–such 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.
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 (Ezr 3:9-13). So, 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. 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. 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. (Lt. D. Bevan, LL. B.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 2. We hanged our harps upon the willows] The arabim or willows were very plentiful in Babylon. The great quantity of them that were on the banks of the Euphrates caused Isaiah, Isa 15:7, to call it the brook or river of willows. This is a most affecting picture. Perhaps resting themselves after toil, and wishing to spend their time religiously, they took their harps, and were about to sing one of the songs of Zion; but, reflecting on their own country, they became so filled with distress, that they unstrung their harps with one consent, and hung them on the willow bushes, and gave a general loose to their grief. Some of the Babylonians, who probably attended such meetings for the sake of the music, being present at the time here specified, desired them to sing one of Zion’s songs: this is affectingly told.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
These are, not without great probability, supposed to be the words of some holy Levites, who had been accustomed to music, both vocal and instrumental, in the service of the temple. Harps are here put by a synecdoche for all instruments of music. It is further to be observed, that although the harp was used by the Grecians in mourning, yet it was used by the Hebrews in rejoicing, as is manifest from Gen 31:27; 2Ch 20:27,28; Psa 43:4, &c. This passage is to be understood either,
1. Figuratively, signifying only that they abandoned all signs and means of comfort; or rather,
2. Properly, as the following songs are, which the Babylonians required them to sing to their harps. And these harps they might either,
1. Bring from Jerusalem, which they might desire to do to preserve those sacred utensils, and their enemies might either permit or command them to do for their own delight: or,
2. Procure in Babylon, that they might sometimes solace themselves with the practice of some of the temple music, which they desired and intended to do; but when they came to the trial, they were not able to do it, and therefore laid them by. Upon the willows; which commonly grow upon the banks of rivers, as they did by Euphrates in such plenty, that from thence it is called the brook of willows, Isa 15:7.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. upon the willowswhich mayhave grown there then, if not now; as the palm, which was oncecommon, is now rare in Palestine.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. These were musical instruments, used in the temple service by the Levites, who seem to be the persons here speaking; who took care of them, and preserved them from the plunder of the enemy; and carried them with them to Babylon, in hope of returning with them to use them as before, or to solace themselves and others in captivity; though now they had no heart to make use of them, their sorrow was so great, and therefore hung them upon the willows as useless things: these willows grew upon the banks of the rivers where they were, as such trees usually do; hence called willows of the brook x, and willows by water courses, Le 23:40; and particularly upon the banks of the river Euphrates, which ran through the midst of Babylon, with which the phrase here agrees; and therefore Babylon itself is thought to be called “the brook”, or “valley, of the willows”, Isa 15:7. And, according to Ovid y, not only reeds and poplars, but willows, grew on the banks of the Euphrates. Now the state of these people was an emblem of the case of the backsliding children of God; who, through the prevalence of corruption, the force of temptation, and the snares of the world, are brought into a kind of captivity to the law of sin and death, though not willingly; nor is it pleasing to them when sensible of it, Ro 7:23; who, though they are called out of the world, and are not of it; yet sometimes are so overcome with it, and immersed in the things of it, that they are as it were in Babylon. An emblem of this world, of the confusion in it, as its name signifies; of the fading glories of it, and the wickedness and idolatry it abounds with: and here they sit by the rivers of carnal pleasures in it for a while, till brought to themselves; and then they weep over their sins, and lament them; especially when they remember what opportunities they have formerly had in Zion, and what a low condition she is now in through the conduct of themselves and others: these make use of their harps when Zion is in good and prosperous circumstances, Re 14:1; but when there are corruptions in doctrine, neglect or abuse of ordinances, animosities and divisions prevail, declensions in the life and power of religion, and the lives of professors disagreeable; then they hang their harps on willows, and drop their notes.
x “Amnicolae salices”, Ovid. Metamorph. l. 10. Fab. 2. v. 96. “Fluminibus salices”, Virgil. Georgic. l. 2. v. 110. y “Venit ad Euphratem—-Populus et cannae riparum summa tegebant, spemque dabant salices—-“. Ovid. Fasti, l. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
2. We hanged our harps upon the willows (180) He deplores the suspension of the songs of praise, which God had enjoined in his Temple. The Levites were set over the department of singing, and led the way among the people in this devotional exercise. Is it asked how they had carried their harps with them so far from their native land, we have in this another proof mentioned by the Psalmist of their faith and fervent piety, for the Levites when stripped of all their fortunes had preserved their harps at least as a piece of precious furniture, to be devoted to a former use when opportunity presented itself. We may suppose that those who truly feared God put a high value upon the relics of his worship, and showed the greatest care in preserving them, till the period of their restoration. (181) When willows are mentioned, this denotes the pleasantness of the banks, which were planted with willows for coolness. But the Psalmist says that these shades, however delightful, could not dispel a grief which was too deeply seated to admit of common consolations or refreshment. As they sat upon the banks of the rivers covered with the shadows of the trees, this was just the place where they might have been tempted to take up their harps, and soothe their griefs with song; but the Psalmist suggests that their minds were too heavily wounded with a sense of the displeasure of the Lord to deceive themselves with such idle sources of comfort. He would even go farther, and intimate that joy of a good and holy kind was at this time suspended. For though it was neither right nor well judged to encourage their grief, we cannot wonder if the singing of praises in public was given up till their return from the captivity, called as they were by the chastisements of God to mourning and lamentation.
(180) “On the banks of the Babylonian rivers (say the Euphrates and Tigris) there are no woods or forests, or any considerable trees besides the cultivated date-palm. But these rivers are in some parts rather extensively lined with a growth of tall shrubs and bushes, interspersed with some small, and a few middling trees, amongst which the willow is at this day the most frequet and remarkable.” — Illustrated Commentary upon the Bible. Hence Isa 15:7 calls the Euphrates “the brook or river of willows.”
(181) “It is probable that the Levites, (Ezr 2:40,) who were the singers and the musicians of the temple, had taken their harps with them to Babylon, and that their captors, having heard of their skill in music, demanded of them a specimen of it. ” — Cresswell.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(2) Willows.It is perhaps not necessary to attempt to identify the trees mentioned in this verse, since the touching picture may only be a poetical way of expressing the silence during the exile of all the religious and festal songs. The ereb is certainly not the willow, a tree not found in Babylonia, but the poplar (Populus Euphraticus).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2. We hanged our harps upon the willows The weeping willows, the Salix Babylonica of Linnaeus. They densely fringed the canals and artificial rivers of Babylonia. The ancient temple worship was joyful and attended with music, but these gatherings were with weeping, and their harps silent. The suspended harp was a symbol of mourning.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
We may form some idea of a poor captive minstrel, hanging up his harp as useless, by the representation of the far more deplorable state of an enslaved soul, led away captive by the enemy, or fallen into a, state of deadness and indifferency to divine things. Creature enjoyments, nay, even ordinances, without Jesus, are lifeless and insipid. Where Jesus is not, there is no use for the harp; and where he is, there is melody in the soul without the harp.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 137:2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
Ver. 2. We hanged our harps ] Harps we had, and knew how to handle them (the Jews were famous artists, noted for their skill, specially in poetry, music, and mathematics), but we had little mind to it as now the case stood with us; our country lying desolate, ourselves could not be but disconsolate. Barbiton hic paries habebit (Horat. lib. 3, Od. 26).
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 137:2-3
Psa 137:2-3
“Upon the willows in the midst thereof
We hanged up our harps.
For there they that led us captive required of us songs,
And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,
Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
The willows were a quick-growth tree that sprang up in abundance along the many canals of the Euphrates.
“They that led us captive required of us songs.” The songs of the captives would have been considered as sport or entertainment by their masters; and the very fact of their hanging their harps on the willows indicates that they unwillingly complied with such demands, muttering to themselves, perhaps, the curses upon themselves and their terrible imprecations upon the enemy.
The marginal readings here substitute “words of songs” for “songs” in Psa 137:3 a and “tormentors” for “them that wasted us” in Psa 137:3 b. Kidner stated that, “`Tormentors’ here is as likely a meaning as most of the others that have been proposed or substituted for this expression, which is found only here in the Bible.
It was the “words” of the Jewish songs which the captors wished to hear, because the poor status of the captives was a stark and embarrassing contrast to the triumphant words of the hymns of the Chosen People.
“Them that wasted us, or `tormentors'” (Psa 137:3 b). The Babylonian slave masters were a cruel, sadistic company of evil men who made sport of the helpless captives, forcing them into actions that appeared mirthful to the captors. The picture that emerges here is one of pity and sympathy for the oppressed.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 137:2. The harp was a stringed instrument of music and had been used much as an accompaniment in song. The crestfallen Jews did not feel like singing or making music in such a situation, and so they hung their harps up on the willows that grew on the banks of the streams. I shall quote a paragraph from history that will shed light upon this verse. “All the flat whereon Babylon stood being by reason of so many rivers and canals running through it, made in many places marshy, especially near the said rivers and canals, this caused it to abound much in willows; and, therefore, it is called, in scripture, the valley of willows, (for so the words, Isa 15:7, which we translate the brook of the willows, ought to be rendered:) and, for the same reason, the Jews (Psa 137:1-2,) are said, when they were by the rivers of Babylon in the land of their captivity, to have hung their harps upon the willows, that is, because of the abundance of them which grew by the river.” Prideaux’s Connexion, Part 1, Book 2, Year 570.
Psa 137:3. We are not informed as to the motive that prompted the Babylonians to call for these songs. It could have been curiosity, or genuine desire for an exhibition of foreign devotions, or a mixture of both. These new people had been brought in from a distant country, and doubtless it was known that their trouble was connected with their religion. They saw these harps in the hands of the captives and knew they were used in connection with their religious devotions. It was natural, then, to wish to hear some of them. But the Jews were in no mood for singing or making music, so they hung up their harps and sat down on the river banks, sad, discouraged, and completely broken in spirit, almost dying with homesickness for their native land.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
we hanged: Willows were so plentiful at Babylon, on the banks of the Euphrates, that Isaiah calls it “the brook or river of willows.” Psa 33:2, Psa 81:2, Isa 24:8, Eze 26:13, Amo 8:10, Rev 18:22
Reciprocal: 1Ch 23:30 – stand Psa 52:1 – goodness Psa 149:3 – with the timbrel Isa 15:7 – to the Isa 44:4 – willows Isa 52:5 – make Dan 6:18 – and passed
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 137:2. We hanged our harps upon the willows, in the midst thereof. These are, not without great probability, supposed to be the words of some holy Levites, who had been accustomed to music, both vocal and instrumental, in the service of the temple. Harps are here put, by a synecdoche, for all instruments of music. It is further to be observed, that although the harp was used by the Greeks in mourning, yet it was used by the Hebrews in rejoicing, as is manifest from Gen 31:27; 2Ch 20:27-28; Psa 43:4. This passage is to be understood, either, 1st, Figuratively, signifying only, that they abandoned all signs and means of comfort; or rather, 2d, Properly, as the songs are which the Babylonians required them to sing to their harps, Psa 137:3. Upon the willows Which commonly grow upon the banks of rivers, as they did on the banks of the Euphrates, in such an abundance that from thence it is called the brook, or torrent, or river, (as may be properly rendered,) of willows, Isa 15:7. Thus the sincere penitent, like these captives, hath bidden adieu to mirth; his soul refuseth to be comforted with the comforts of Babylon; nor can he sing any more till pardon and restoration shall have enabled him to sing in the temple a song of praise and thanksgiving.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
137:2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst {b} thereof.
(b) That is, of that country.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The exiles could not bring themselves to sing about Zion even when their Babylonian neighbors urged them to sing songs about their native land. Normally this would have brought back pleasant memories, but the memories broke the Israelites’ hearts. Their songs were about the Lord. The exiles could not sing at all, so they hung their harps on the poplar trees