Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 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.
3. For there &c.] The reason why their harps were silent. It might have been expected that they would soothe their sorrow with plaintive music; but the heartless demand of their captors made it impossible.
asked of us songs] Lit. words of song.
they that wasted us ] The exact meaning is doubtful. The A.V. marg. ‘Heb. laid us on heaps ’ rests on an impossible derivation, and the R.V. marg. our tormentors on an improbable one. Perhaps with the change of a single letter shlelnu, ‘our spoilers,’should be read instead of the obscure tllnu.
Coverdale’s rendering in the P.B.V., and melody in our heaviness, comes from Luther, ‘und in unserm Heulen ein frhlich Gesang.’
one of the songs of Zion ] Or, some of the songs. As these songs are called in the next verse Jehovah’s songs, it is clear that it is not secular songs that are meant, but the sacred hymns of the Temple worship (2Ch 29:27). To sing these for the amusement of their conquerors would have been the grossest profanation of all that they held most dear; an act comparable to Belshazzar’s use of the consecrated vessels at his feast (Dan 5:2). Cp. Mat 7:6.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For there they that carried us away captive – The Babylonians.
Required of us a song – Asked of us a song. The word does not express the idea of compulsion or force. Margin, as in Hebrew, words of a song. Perhaps the idea is that they did not merely ask music, but they wished to hear the words – the songs themselves – in which they were accustomed to praise God. This may have been a taunt, and the request may have been in derision; or it may have been seriously, and with no desire to reproach them, or to add to their sorrows. We are not to impute bad motives to others where there is no evidence that there are any, and where the supposition of good motives will answer just as well; and the expression here may have been a kind and natural wish to hear the songs of these foreigners – songs of which they might have heard much by report; perhaps songs which they had overheard them singing when they were in a less desponding state of mind, and when they sought to comfort themselves by these ancient national melodies. As the only reason assigned for not complying with this request was that they could not sing the Lords song in a strange land Psa 137:3, we are rather led to infer that there was no bad motive – no disposition to taunt and ridicule them by the request that was made.
And they that wasted us – Margin, laid us on heaps. The Hebrew word means a tormentor; properly, one who extorts lamentation from others, or who causes them to howl – to wit, under oppression or wrong. The Septuagint and Latin Vulgate render it, They who led us away. The general idea is, those under whom they were then suffering; or, who had caused these trials to come upon them.
Required of us mirth – literally, Our tormentors, joy. The Hebrew word means joy; and the sense is, that they asked them to give the usual indications of joy and happiness – to wit, a song. The language means, Cheer up; be happy; give us one of the beautiful songs which you were accustomed to sing in your own land. It may, indeed, have been in derision; but there is no proof that it was.
Saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion – The songs – the sacred hymns – which you were accustomed to sing in worship in your own land.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 137:3
Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
The phases of psalmody
The noblest employment of which the nature of man is capable is the worship of his Maker. One of the elements of the worship is the rendition of praise, and in the songs of Zion we are amply provided with material for this purpose.
I. The song of the pardoned penitent. This song can be sung by him who no longer looks to his own righteousness for salvation, but whose desire is to be found in Christ as the righteousness of God.
II. The song of the adoring creature. This song is sung not for any special gift received, but in contemplation of the great acts of God–His past acts in the Church and in the world–for the laws of nature–for all those marvellous exhibitions of power and wisdom that are before our eyes.
III. The song of the recipient of mercy. This is well brought out in Psa 103:1-22. The mercies that are renewed to us daily are not to be taken as a matter of course. Count up your daily mercies and sing.
IV. The song of the Heaven-round pilgrim, Thy statutes have been my songs, etc. Gods people should not go on their way as if to be a Christian were the most gloomy thing hi the world. They are commanded to rejoice. Let us attain to the apostolic stand and come to Zion with songs.
V. The song of the sorrower. He giveth songs in the night. Where sufferings abound, consolations abound. God never lays one hand on us but He lays the other hand under us. Paul and Silas sang in prison in the night.
VI. The song of the sanctuary. The service of song in public worship was very prominent under the old dispensation. Music should be edifying; not a sensuous enjoyment, but a part–a noble part–of the worship of God.
VII. The song of Zion which is to be sung by the glorified above. That song is to be the utterance–the ceaseless utterings–of their gratitude and praise for all the eternal love wherewith they were loved, for the grace by which they were redeemed, kept there, sanctified there, brought there–Salvation to God and to the Lamb. Are you in training for that choir which is in heaven–for exchanging the songs which we sung in a strange land for the songs of the New Jerusalem and all her beauty? (J. C. Miller, D. D.)
Babylonian captivity
1. Certainly there are many men and women to whom this psalm will be full of a touching significance if they look back on the time when they first found themselves alone in London. A young man, after being brought up with loving care in the country, is sent with a book of the Lords songs packed by his mother in his trunk to serve his time at some business in our modern Babylon. Will he not be ready to shed tears on his first Sundays spent in town when he thinks of friends at home singing one of the songs of Zion, in which he can no longer join, deterred perhaps by the ridicule or want of sympathy of strangers? And the very desire of others that he should keep up his spirits and be a jolly fellow–such jarring requests will only increase his heaviness. What should such a young man do? Let him, before his better feelings grow cold, resolve rather to forget the cunning of his hand if he be an artisan, or the cunning of his business faculty if he be in a merchants or lawyers office; let him resolve to forget these or never to acquire them at all rather than to forget the love of his home and the worship of his mothers God–in one word, Jerusalem.
2. When travelling abroad did Englishmen remember Jerusalem, and prefer her above their chief joy, they would realize the presence of One who could dispel the loneliness of a strange land, and deliver them from the many temptations of friendlessness.
3. Again, there are many generous souls whose best impulses are imprisoned by circumstances over which they have no control. Bound men have got into square holes, and find no scope for the best energies of their nature. Children long to help their parents; but they are far from home, or their desire is in captivity, by reason of poverty, ill-health, or anything else. Parents cannot do all they desire for their children. Let these, and all who find themselves in adverse circumstances, think of Israel weeping on the banks of the Euphrates–let them think of how she waited patiently on the Lord in poverty, in humiliation, in a strange land, full of sin and scoffing; and of how He delivered her from Babylon in His own good time, as of old He delivered the same Israel out of bondage in Egypt. (E. J. Hardy, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. They that carried us away captive required of us a song] This was as unreasonable as it was insulting. How could they who had reduced us to slavery, and dragged us in chains from our own beautiful land and privileges, expect us to sing a sacred ode to please them, who were enemies both to us and to our God? And how could those who wasted us expect mirth from people in captivity, deprived of all their possessions, and in the most abject state of poverty and oppression?
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Such songs as you used to sing in the temple at Zion; which they required either out of curiosity, or to delight their ears, or rather by way of scoffing and insultation over them, and their temple and religion.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3, 4. Whether the request was incuriosity or derision, the answer intimates that a compliance wasincongruous with their mournful feelings (Pr25:20).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song,…. Or, “words of a song” z. To repeat the words of one of the songs of Zion, as it is afterwards expressed: this the Babylonians did, as the Targum; who were they that carried the Jews into captivity; and this is given as a reason why they hung their harps on willows, and were so sorrowful, because such a request as this was made;
and they that wasted us [required of us] mirth: the Chaldeans, who plundered them of their substance, and reduced their city and temple to heaps of rubbish, as the word a used signifies; or who heaped reproaches upon them, as Jarchi: these insisted not only on having the words of a song repeated to them, but that they should be set to some tune and sung in a manner expressing mirth, or would provoke unto it: or “our lamentations”, according to Kimchi; that is, the authors of them b, so barbarous were they;
[saying], sing us [one] of the songs of Zion; which used to be sung in Zion in the temple, called the songs of the temple, Am 8:3; this demand they made either out of curiosity, that they might know something of the temple songs and music they had heard of; or rather as jeering at and insulting the poor Jews in their miserable and melancholy circumstances; as if they had said, now sing your songs if you can: or in order to make themselves sport and diversion with them, as the Philistines with Samson. The spiritual songs of Zion are the songs of electing, redeeming, calling, pardoning, and justifying grace; which natural men neither understand, nor can learn, but scoff at and despise.
z “verba cantici”, Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, Piscator, Gejerus, Michaelis; “verba earminis”, Cocceius. a “qui veluti in acervos nos redegerunt”, Tigurine version, Grotius. b Vid. Stockium, p. 447.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
3. Then they that carried us away captive, etc. We may be certain that the Israelites were treated with cruel severity under this barbarous tyranny to which they were subjected. And the worst affliction of all was, that their conquerors reproachfully insulted them, and even mocked them, their design being less to wound the hearts of these miserable exiles, than to cast blasphemies upon their God. The Babylonians had no desire to hear their sacred songs, and very likely would not have suffered them to engage in the public praises of God, but they speak ironically, and insinuate it as a reproach upon the Levites that they should be silent, when it was their custom formerly to sing sacred songs. Is your God dead, as if they had said, to whom your praises were formerly addressed? Or if he delights in your songs, why do you not sing them? The last clause of the verse has been variously rendered by interpreters. Some derive תוללינו, tholalenu, from the verb ללי, yalal, to howl, reading — they required mirth in our howlings. Others translate it suspensions of mirth. (182) Some take it for a participle of the verb הלל , halal, to rage, and read, raging against us. But as תלינו , talinu, the root of the noun here employed, is taken in the preceding verse as meaning to suspend, I considered the reading which I have adopted the simplest one.
(182) “Others have it from. תלה , he suspended, as thought, they demanded joy on our suspended ones, i.e., harps which we had suspended from the willows.” — Bythner.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(3) A song.See margin. The expression is generally regarded as pleonastic, but may be explained as in Psa. 105:27, where see Note. Perhaps some lyric thing would express the original. No doubt it is a Levite who is requested to sing.
They that wasted us.A peculiar Hebrew word which the LXX. and Vulg. take as synonymous with the verb in the first clause. The modern explanation, they that make us howl, is far preferable. Those whose oppression had raised the wild Oriental scream of lamentation, now asked for mirth.
Songs of Zionor, as in the next verse, songs of Jehovah, were of course the liturgical hymns. Nothing is more characteristic than this of the Hebrew feeling. The captors asked for a national song, as the Philistines asked for sport from Samson, to amuse them. The Hebrew can think only of one kind of song, that to which the genius of the race was dedicated.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. Required of us a song Urgently requested the words of a song. It does not appear that they enforced the request, but only pressed it earnestly. Neither is it necessary to suppose they made the request in derision, or to aggravate the sorrows of the captives. The Hebrew poetry was majestic and solemn, and their music earnest and reverent, superior to anything known to their heathen captors, who might naturally desire, on that account, to hear not only their music but the words of a song, as the Hebrew reads: and the Hebrew poetry, with its elevated themes, far surpassed all that heathen history or mythology could boast.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 137:3. And they that wasted us, &c. Mudge renders this clause, And our destroyers’ mirth.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
God’s people are still subject to insult; but it is impossible to feel warmth at all times in the Lord’s service where scoffers are. Sometimes, indeed, a holy indignation, and a zeal for Jesus, give freedom and liberty to the soul; but a cold frigid atmosphere of hearers, will make a minister’s spirit cold also.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
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.
Ver. 3. For there they required of us a song] sc. In disdain and derision of our religion; q.d. Will ye sing no more holy songs in honour of your God? hath he utterly cast away all care of your welfare, and you the like of his service? Have you never a black sanctus to sing us? or cannot you sing care away? &c.; where are your wonted ditties, the words of a song? Ehodum, bellos nobis illos vestrae Sionis modulos cantillate (Beza).
And they that wasted us
Sing us one of the songs of Zion
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
they that carried us away: i.e. the captives of Judah, as those of Israel had been by Shalmaneser and Sargon. The latter took away only 27,280 from Samaria. See note on 1Ch 5:6; and App-67.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
For there: Psa 123:3, Psa 123:4, Lam 2:15, Lam 2:16
a song: Heb. the words of a song
wasted us: Heb. laid us on heaps, Psa 79:1, Neh 4:2, Jer 9:11, Jer 26:18, Mic 3:12, Luk 21:6
the songs of Zion: Psa 9:14, Psa 65:1, 1Ch 15:27, 1Ch 16:7, Isa 35:10, Isa 51:11, Jer 31:12, Jer 31:13, Rev 14:1-3
Reciprocal: 2Ch 29:27 – the song Pro 25:20 – so Isa 26:1 – in the land Jer 8:21 – the hurt Lam 1:7 – the adversaries Lam 3:14 – General Zep 3:18 – sorrowful
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 137:3. There they that carried us away Our new masters, who had made us their slaves, and carried us captives out of our own land; required of us a song , the words of a song: in the LXX., , words of songs. They required us to entertain them with our music and singing. And they that wasted us Hebrew, , contumulatores nostri, they that laid us on heaps, namely, that laid Jerusalem and the temple in ruins, required of us mirth, , joy, or gladness; saying, Sing us of the songs (so it is in the Hebrew) of Zion Sing us some of those songs which were wont to be sung in the temple on occasions of public joy. This they required, probably partly out of curiosity, and partly by way of scoffing and insult over them and their temple and worship, not without a tacit reflection on their God, who could not protect his favoured people against their enemies. Thus the faithful have been, and thus they will be insulted over in the day of their calamity.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
137:3 For there they that carried us away captive {c} required of us a song; and they that wasted us [required of us] mirth, [saying], Sing us [one] of the songs of Zion.
(c) The Babylonians speak thus in mocking us, as though by our silence we should signify that we hoped no more in God.