Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 137:4
How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a strange land?
4 6. The exiles indignantly repudiate the idea of doing what would be treason to the memories of Zion. The protest is dramatically expressed in the words which they would have used at the time.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
How shall we sing the Lords song – The song designed to celebrate his praise; that is, appropriate to the worship of Yahweh.
In a strange land – Far from our home; far from the temple; exiles; captives: how can we find spirit in such circumstances to sing? How can we do that which would be indicative of what we do not feel, and cannot feel – joy and happiness! The idea is not that those psalms or songs would be profaned by being sung there, or that there would be anything improper in itself in singing them, but that it would be misplaced and incongruous to sing them in their circumstances. It would be doing violence to their own feelings; their feelings would not allow them to do it. There are states of mind when the language of joy is appropriate and natural; there are states where the heart is so sad that it cannot sing.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 137:4
How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land?
The Lords song in a strange land
The temple music had a reputation even among the heathen peoples of Central Asia; and it seemed natural that the sacred words and music, which had for ages set forth the worship of the one true God, should furnish a more refined amusement for the cultivated pagans who had trodden down the sanctuary and had enslaved Gods people. But the heart of captive Israel beat true to what was due to the honour of God, and to the memories of their ancient worship. How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land? Nay, this request of the heathen oppressor that the captives should sing the Lords song for his aesthetic gratification nerves the psalmist to a sterner mood. He cannot forget how, in those dark hours, a race of kinsmen by blood had cheered on the heathen foe in his work of destruction. Already he sees the approaching capture of the city by Darius Hystaspis. Her young children are dashed against the stones by the Persian invader. But, meanwhile, if the psalmist is asked to prostitute his gift by singing the old temple songs merely to amuse the heathen, there are many reasons which make compliance impossible. How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land?
I. The Lords song.
1. It meant for Israel all that was precious to the soul; but for the Babylonians it meant merely entertainment, merely a newly incited curiosity, merely a new sensation in the world of art. There was nothing common to Israel and Babylon in their way of looking at it.
2. Any ancient hymn of king or prophet which had passed into the service of the sanctuary bore that name. There is one prayer with which no other prayer may compare, and which alone in Christendom bears the name of the Lords Prayer. But there is, at least on earth, no one psalm or hymn which bears the name of the Lords song. Whatever may be the case with the new song of the everlasting future, the religious hymnology of earth is, and always has been, almost infinitely varied in its expression; and yet at bottom it is one–one in its motive, one in its spirit and its effort, one in its surrounding moral atmosphere.
3. What is it but the ascent of the soul towards the infinite and the eternal, the upward bounding of the understanding, the expansion of the affections, the effort of faith, and hope, and love, to utter themselves somehow in praise? Although the words, the languages, the rhythms, the melodies, should be most dissimilar, this–this, the true song of the Lord; springing out of the very heart of the people of revelation, and embodying its creed in poems of the most different ages and characters–this it was which could not be uttered for the mere gratification of pagan Babylon–could not, at least, without profanity.
4. If it had only been the old poetry of the Hebrews–only their ancient music–they might, perhaps, have consented to render it before a Babylonian audience. But, for the Jews, language was a much more sacred tiring, speaking generally, than, I fear, it is to us. The Jews did not conceive of language as a something which might be stripped off thought, like bark from the surface of a tree. For them, thought and language always went together.
5. It sounded through the corridors of the soul before it took shape in language, and resounded beneath the vaults of the temple; and this–this sense of its reality, made it impossible for a good Jew to prostitute it for the benefit of a pagan audience who might think of it as a new sensation in art.
6. Poetry, music, painting, architecture, all have their place in the sanctuary of God. And what has once been given to Him is His–His irrevocably–His for ever. Poetry or music which has been dedicated to Him, and which has lifted souls up to Him for many a generation, cannot be divested of its purpose, and made the amusement of the unbelieving, without wounding Him to whom it was given by the faith and love of the gifted dead.
II. In a strange land.
1. This was apparent, first of all, in the difference of the language. Although the Baby-Ionian tongue had affinities with the Hebrew, it was practically for the Jews a foreign language. We know how it affects us, when we first go abroad, to hear another than our mother tongue being talked all around us. It produces, at least at first, a sense of isolation; and this must have been deepened in the ease of the Jews by the fact that they certainly did not go to Babylon for their own satisfaction. In time, no doubt, the captive Jews learned much of the language of their conquerors, and, in fact, brought it back with them to Palestine; but at first it was a barrier between them; and this would, of itself, have made them unwilling to sing the Lords song in their own ancient Hebrew to strangers who could not follow it. The language of religion is, and must be, unintelligible to those who do not share the faith and the feelings which prompt it. The natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. And the sense that this is the case often makes a Christian, when in general society, retire into himself, lest he should break his Masters precept against giving that which is holy unto the dogs, and casting the pearls of heaven before swine. If the soul is to sing the Lords song with the lips as well as with the heart, it must be among those who can speak its own language.
2. Babylon was the land of material wealth; it was the great world-city of the ago. It had its attractions, no doubt, but it was not the place in which to sing the Lords song. That song proclaimed in its very earliest notes–witness the one psalm of Moses, Domine, refugium–it proclaimed the insignificance of this human life at the best–the poverty, the perishableness of all that belongs to time. The soul of man is, after all, finite; and when the soul is filled with this world there is no room for the next. We could not ourselves well sing the Gloria in excelsis in the Stock Exchange or in a West End club; and the Jews felt that Babylon was not the place for singing the song of the Lord which had been the joy and the glory of their ancient sanctuary.
3. Babylon was a land in which life was overshadowed by a vast idolatry. Now, how could the old psalms of Israel, instinct with the memories of Davids life and of Solomons glory, and of the solemnities of the now destroyed temple, be sung in such an atmosphere as this? If sacred associations were to have any value–if sacred words were to mean anything, could they be prostituted to the amusement of a race which was devoted to a hideous and cruel superstition? No. Captive Israel might sing the songs of the captivity, such as was this very psalm itself. It might sing these in secret assemblies of the faithful; but to render the old temple hymns before a heathen crowd of idolaters–this, this was impossible. Is not the Christian soul often carried captive, nowadays, into the Babylon of unbelief or of half belief? Is not the place in our thoughts which is due to God often tenanted by abstractions, which are just as senseless as the idols of Babylon–creations, it is true, of our thoughts, instead of being creations of our fingers? Nature, force, law, and what not–generalizations of our own minds as we look out upon the universe around us–these are, too often, placed upon the throne of the one infinite, eternal, self-existing Being.
4. There hung over all the magnificence of Babylon a dense atmosphere of sin, which made it impossible for the servant of God to sing his song–to do more than complain: How long, O Lord? How long? And the regenerate soul may be carried captive, some of us must know, too well, into this Babylon of deadly sin. It may be carried captive; it may at once make its escape and return. Happy are they with whom it fares thus. But, supposing that the soul is detained in Babylon–supposing that habits of evil are formed, and that the enfeebled will is held down by bolts and bars which it cannot break–then how is it to sing the Lords song? How is it to mount upon the wings of desire and hope to the throne of the All-Holy, whose laws it the while sets steadily at defiance? How can we sing the praises of our Maker, if we have not reason to be thankful to Him for the gift of an undying existence?–or the praises of our Redeemer, if our hearts do not tell us that we have been washed with His blood, and have not defiled our garments?–or of our Sanctifier, if we know that we have grieved Him, and that He has taken Himself from us? Better far–I had almost allowed myself to say–better far sing the songs of Babylon itself, than burn out the last surviving tenderness of the conscience by a service which cannot be but as odious to God as it is degrading to ourselves.
5. We may well, indeed, feel, all of us, that this life is an exile from our true home, and that, while we live it, we cannot, at our best, sing aright the song of the redeemed. The new song of the four awful creatures, and of the four and twenty elders before the throne of the Lamb–the new song which go man could learn bug the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed from the earth–the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, which is sung for ever and ever by them that have gotten the victory over the beast, and that stand on the sea of glass having the harps of God–what is all this but a description of the psalmody of the blessed, with the volume and with the perfections of which nothing that is heard on earth can compare? (Canon Liddon.)
The difficulty of singing the Lords song in a strange land
1. I cannot doubt that we have felt it at times despondingly. I cannot sing the Lords song. 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 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, in creation, redemption, and grace, in His Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and in His Spirit the Lord and Giver of life.
(1) The very life which we live here in the body is a life of sight and sense. If we wish to realize heaven, to meditate upon eternity, to hold converse with Jesus Christ, to ask something of God, it has all to be done by strenuous resolution; by drawing down, as it were, the blinds of the mind against the sights and sounds of our street, and opening the windows of the soul to let in the light of another world. All this is difficult. And without this we cannot worship.
(2) The feelings of the present life are often adverse to praise. The exiles in Babylon could not sing because they were in heaviness. Gods hand was heavy upon them. Now the feelings of many of us are in like manner adverse to the Lords song. Some of us are in great sorrow. We have lost a friend–we are in anxiety about one who is all to us–we know not which way to turn for to-morrows bread or for this days comfort. How can we sing the Lords song? And there is another kind of sorrow, still more fatal, if possible, to the lively exercise of adoration–unforgiven sin.
(3) There is a land yet more strange and foreign to the Lords song even than the land of unforgiven guilt–and that is the land of unforsaken sin.
2. But there is a land, could we but reach it, where praise is, as it were, indigenous. In heaven praise bursts forth spontaneously from all the blessed–it is their voice–they cannot speak but in praise. But how shall we sing it? May not heaven be a strange land to us, though it is the native land of the Lords song? The Lords song will sound for ever in heaven; but shall we be there to sing it? It takes a lifetime to make heaven our own land. O how many things go to this! Heaven means–we have no other definition of it–where God is. Then, if heaven is to be our land, it must be by our knowing God–God in Christ. We must know Him in His holiness as the God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. We must know Him in His love. We must know Him in His power as the Resurrection and the Life, able to re-create in His own image those who have most utterly lost and sullied it. Then we shall be no strangers in the land that is very far off, because it is the land where we shall see the King in His beauty, and praise Him for ever with joyful lips. (Dean Vaughan.)
The Lords song in a strange land
Babylon stands for the kingdom of this world; Jerusalem for the kingdom of God, which is above. We are sitting by the waters of Babylon while on this earth, where nothing continueth in one stay, we watch all things eddying and drifting by us, slowly or quickly carried away down the stream of time. Of course we can but too easily learn to acquiesce in our exile, content with Babylon, and forgetting Jerusalem; and then this psalm has nothing to say to us but to condemn us for not being able to make its words our own. And often in some shape does the question flash into his mind, How shall I sing the Lords song in this strange land? Many, indeed, of the songs of Zion are sung by us with but little effort. Those that tell God of our past sins, and present weaknesses, and that cry sadly but hopefully for pardon and help through Christ, readily, I say, do they come forth from every heart that knows its own history. But the Lords song in its highest sense, the song which sings unto the Lord only of the Lord Himself, and forgetting man loses itself in giving glory and praise unto Christ, does a melody of this kind never seem as much out of place in our heaviness as it once seemed by the waters of Babylon? When a man is down of heart about himself, or those whom he cares for, when things have been going amiss with him in mind, body, or estate, through the week just past, and he is anxious indeed as to what another week will bring forth, then here on Sunday morning it may seem somewhat inopportune and out of place for him to have to say to others even as they say to him, O come, let us sing unto the Lord, etc. Not a few of us here now have, I doubt not, some secret care or sorrow pressing sore upon us, and yet we ought to have been singing, My soul doth magnify the Lord, etc. And does it not, I say, cost us a struggle in this our heaviness to put our hearts into such words of joy? Does not this earth sometimes seem a strange land, indeed, in which to sing the Lords songs? And yet these songs of the Lord are really among the strongest helps and aids to our comfort. The more I am feeling some evil of this land of my captivity, the more thankfully let me, while I may, make my escape from it by fixing my heart upon my Saviour. (John Gray, M. A.)
Sin takes all the music out of our hearts
Music suggests perfect harmony of character. To have a musical instrument that will adequately express musical thought in sound and harmony requires very care-fully-selected woods as to acoustic properties for its construction. John Albert, who has been called the Stradivarius of America, died the other day at the age of ninety years. His great success in making violins, that won him fame through the world, was as much due to the care with which he selected the woods from which they were made as to his skill as a workman. So much depended on the proper woods that Albert sought them sometimes at the risk of his life. Once he lay for weeks between life and death, the victim of an accident while he was on the hunt for a certain wood in an almost impassable forest. Ole Bull, the great violinist, pronounced him one of the great violin makers of the world because he possessed the greatest knowledge of the acoustic properties of woods of any man living at that time. Surely if a violin maker must pay such great heed to the character of the wood out of which he constructs a violin, in order that he may make it a perfect interpreter of musical thought to human ears, we should not wonder at the care of God in seeking to so purify and cleanse our hearts that they shall be resonant, and responsive to the slightest touch of the Holy Spirit, and thus be able to interpret the melodies of heaven. (L. A. Banks, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. How shall we sing the Lord’s song] eich! nashir; O, we sing! Who does not hear the deep sigh in the strongly guttural sound of the original eich! wrung, as it were, from the bottom of the heart? Can WE, in this state of slavery, – WE, exiles, from our country, – WE, stripped of all our property, – WE, reduced to contempt by our strong enemy, – WE, deprived of our religious privileges, – WE, insulted by our oppressors, – WE, in the land of heathens, – WE sing, or be mirthful in these circumstances? No: God does not expect it; man should not wish it; and it is base in our enemies to require it.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The Lords song; those songs which were appointed by God, and to be sung only to his honour and in his service. In a strange land; when we are banished from our own temple and land, and amongst those who are strangers and enemies to God and to his worship. So we should prostitute and profane Gods ordinances. And this answer they either expressed to their enemies, or kept in their own breasts when they refused to comply with their desire.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?] This is the answer returned by the Jews to the above request or demand; it may be, particularly, by the Levites, whose business it was to sing these songs: so the Targum,
“immediately the Levites said, how shall we sing the hymns of the Lord in a strange land?”
This they said, not merely on account of their unsuitable circumstances, being in distress and affliction, and so not disposed for such work; nor as if unlawful to them, being forbidden: for, though sacrifices were not to be offered but at Jerusalem, yet songs of praise might be sung elsewhere, on proper occasions, as David did,
Ps 18:49; but as wondering at their insolence, and complaining of their cruelty and inhumanity, thus to insult them and jeer at them: or rather, because it was “the Lord’s song” they required, and so sacred, and not to be sung in any place, or at any time, and in any company; which would be but casting pearls before swine, and giving that which was holy to dogs, Mt 7:6; or it may be they required this to be done in one of their temples, and to their idols, just as these songs were sung in the temple at Jerusalem, and to the honour of Jehovah; and therefore they refused to do it: for it may be rendered, or however interpreted, “in the land of a strange god” c; as it is by Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech: they required them to sing with mirth and joy, which they could not do in their present case; see Ps 137:2.
c “in terra peregina, sc. Dei”, Muis, Michaelis.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
4. How shall we sing, etc. The Psalmist puts a lofty and magnanimous answer into the mouth of the Lord’s people to their insolent reproach, which is this, that they abstained from their songs, as from their legal sacrifices, because the land where they now were was polluted. The Chaldeans thought the Jews were bound down permanently to this place of their exile; the Psalmist, when he calls it a foreign land, suggests that it was but the place of their temporary stay. But the main idea is, that Chaldea was not worthy of the honor of having God’s praises sung in it. No doubt the children of God wherever they have lived have always been strangers and foreigners in the world, but the land of Canaan was the sacred rest provided for them, and the Psalmist well describes them as being foreigners and sojourners when they were in other climes. He would in this way have them to be always ready and prepared for their return, tacitly enforcing what Jeremiah had prophesied, when, in order to prevent them from forgetting their native country, he had definitely foretold the time during which their exile should last, (Jer 25:11; Jer 29:10.) He would in the meantime animate them to constancy, and have them not to coalesce with the Babylonians through motives of fear. In our own day under the Papacy, great as the danger may be to which the faithful expose themselves by not conforming to the example around them, the Holy Spirit makes use of such a barrier as this to separate them from sinful compliances. (183) To those, whether Frenchmen, Englishmen, or Italians, who love and practice the true religion, even their native country is a foreign clime when they live under that tyranny. And yet there is a distinction between us and God’s ancient people, for at that time the worship of God was confined to one place, but now he has his Temple wherever two or three are met together in Christ’s name, if they separate themselves from all idolatrous profession, and maintain purity of divine worship. The Psalmist by the language which he employs would by no means put down every attempt on their part to celebrate God’s praises. He rather exhorts them under their affliction to wait with patience till the liberty of publicly worshipping God was restored, saying’ upon the matter — We have been bereft of our Temple and sacrifices, we wander as exiles in a polluted land, and what remains but that in remembrance of our outcast state we should sigh and groan for the promised deliverance.
(183) “ Toutesfois le Sainct Esprit leur met ia comme une barre pour les separer de toute simulation perverse, comme aussi elle emporteroit impiete.” — Fr.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) Strange land.The feeling expressed in this question is too natural to need any such explanation as that it was contrary to the Law to sing a sacred song in a strange land. Nehemiahs answer (Neh. 2:2-3) offers a direct illustration.
Of Jerusalems choir in Babylon it might truly be said:
Like strangers voices here they sound,
In lands where not a memory strays.
Nor landmark breathes of other days,
But all is new unhallowed ground.
TENNYSON: In Mcmoriam.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. The Lord’s song in a strange land Jehovah’s song was the song that celebrated Him as king and in covenant with his people. The Hebrew psalms are highly national and theocratic, celebrating the great acts of Jehovah, and his love and faithfulness to his people. They were suited only to their national life, their temple worship, their faith and covenant. How, then, could they sing them when in captivity among the heathen?
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 137:4 How shall we sing the LORD’S song in a strange land?
Ver. 4. Shall we sing the Lord’s song? &c.] No; for that were to profane holy things; and as Nazianzen speaketh, . And besides, they had as much mind to be merry then, and thus, as Samson had to play before the Philistines. Music in mourning is not more unseasonable than unsavoury. When our Edward III had the king of Scots and the French king both prisoners together here in England, he held royal jousts, and feasted them sumptuously. After supper, perceiving the French king to be sad and pensive, he desired him to be merry as others were. To whom the French king answered, as here, How shall we sing in a strange land? Quid nobis cum fabulis, cum risu, saith Bernard, in hoc exilio, in hoc ergastulo in hac valle lachrymarum? Let us cast away carnal mirth, and groan earnestly to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, 2Co 5:2 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 137:4-6
4How can we sing the Lord’s song
In a foreign land?
5If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
May my right hand forget her skill.
6May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
If I do not remember you,
If I do not exalt Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.
Psa 137:4 How can we sing the Lord’s song
In a foreign land Some have identified this statement with the concept of national deities, but it seems to me that it refers more to the religious character of the songs and that it was impossible to sing praises to YHWH in the midst of such judgment and alienation. I’m sure that the Jews really wondered if God’s covenant was forever broken, if He would ever love them again, and if there was any hope for their nation. God would answer these questions in a positive way in the future but at this period of time there was great confusion and misunderstanding.
Lord’s This is YHWH. See Special Topic: Names for Deity.
Psa 137:5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem This shows their faith amidst dark times. Psa 137:5-6 is a self curse used for literary intensity!
May. . .May These are both Qal imperfects used in a jussive sense.
my right hand forget her skill Notice that the words her skill are italicized in the NASB, which means that they are not in the MT. Because the context is singing this may be an allusion to the fact that these Jewish musicians were apostacizing by singing religious songs while in captivity and may have lost their skill as musicians. This seems to be the emphasis in Psa 137:6, which implies the loss of singing ability.
Psa 137:6 If I do not exalt Jerusalem
Above my chief joy The literal phrase, above head, is unique and may refer to some cultic gesture or symbolic head covering. The LXX takes head as beginning or origin (see Special Topic: Head ).
As is so often with these rare poetic words, it is best to remember that
1. the parallel gives us a clue
2. the etymology of cognate roots is often a pointer to meaning
3. the thrust of the Psalm as a whole
JPSOA has keep Jerusalem in memory at my happiest hour.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
the LORD’S. Hebrew. Jehovah.s. App-4.
strange = foreigner’s.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 137:4-6
Psa 137:4-6
CURSES UPON THEMSELVES
Their extremely distasteful assignment of entertaining their captors and amusing them precipitated the bitter thoughts of the next three verses.
“How shall we sing Jehovah’s song
In a foreign land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget her skill.
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
If I remember thee not;
If I prefer not Jerusalem Above my chief joy.”
There was indeed a remnant of true Israelites, the faithful believers in God, among the multitudes of the Babylonian captives. These were the `righteous remnant’ spoken of by Isaiah. They were the ones who clung tenaciously to the blessed memories of Jerusalem and the glory of Israel’s past history.
That this segment of the children of the captivity was a definite minority is revealed by the relatively small “handful” of the once mighty nation of Israel who actually returned to Jerusalem when God’s servant Cyrus permitted and encouraged it. Josephus gave the total number of the returnees as, “Forty-two thousand four hundred and sixty two; yet did many of them stay at Babylon, as not willing to leave their possessions.
“How shall we sing Jehovah’s song in a foreign land?” (Psa 137:4). This is not a reference to their inability to sing such songs for their captors. It is an exclamation of their extreme displeasure in being compelled to do so. The following lines became their muttered pledges to themselves, perhaps out of the hearing of their tormentors.
“Let my right hand forget her skill … my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth” (Psa 137:5-6). These are curses upon themselves, applicable in case of their forgetting Jerusalem, or preferring not Jerusalem above their chief joy.
“If I prefer not Jerusalem” (Psa 137:6). The implication here is that many did indeed learn to prefer Babylon. It appears that the status of the captive Israelites in Babylon was not unbearable. The prophet Ezekiel evidently was permitted to own property, as were many others; and, in time, as the `seventy years’ expired, many of the Jews became prosperous and even wealthy. If this situation was common when this song was written, it would explain this line.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 137:4. Even had their feelings permitted them to sing at that time, their sense of propriety forbade their doing so. They were in a strange (foreign) land, a land possessed and controlled by heathen, and where the true God was unknown. Under those conditions they could not engage in devotions to God.
Psa 137:5. If I forget thee. We know that no one would actually forget a city as prominent as Jerusalem, in the ordinary sense of the word. The original is defined also as “failing to pay attention to,” and that is the meaning here. Her cunning is not in the original and has been supplied from the thought in the context. The hand is not an intelligent thing as is the mind and cannot literally forget. Therefore, the statement is a sort of self-imposed curse or wish for some evil to come, such as losing the use of the hand, if ever they forget to give attention to Jerusalem.
Psa 137:6. This verse is more along the same line as the preceding one. If one’s tongue should stick to the roof of his mouth it would render him speechless. But that would not be the worst of it, for then he could not swallow food and soon would perish. In this verse the speaker does not merely vow to remember Jerusalem, but he promises to give the holy city preference over all other joys.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
How shall: Ecc 3:4, Isa 22:12, Lam 5:14, Lam 5:15, Hos 9:4, Amo 8:3
strange land: Heb. land of a stranger, Isa 49:21
Reciprocal: 1Sa 4:13 – his heart 2Ch 29:27 – the song Pro 25:20 – so Isa 26:1 – in the land Lam 1:7 – the adversaries
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
NO HEART TO SING
How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land?
Psa 137:4
I. The condition of the exiles in their new abode was attended with much less of hardship than the mention of captivity suggests.It is an entire mistake to think of them as in a state of slavery, like their fathers in Egypt. They were transported beyond the Euphrates, not to be made slaves of, but that they might help to replenish the central parts of the Babylonish empire with an industrious population. They were subjected to no civil disabilities; and in fact, great numbers of them rose rapidly to wealth and political eminence. Hence they soon got rooted in the new soilso deeply rooted that only a small remnant could ever after be persuaded to return to the place of their fathers sepulchres. In a worldly point of view, the exiles were better off in Babylon than they could hope to be, for many a day, at Jerusalem. These facts will afford assistance in appreciating the true design of the 137th Psalm, which is a voice out of the midst of the Captivity. The recent commentators seem with one consent to regard it as a reminiscence of the Captivity, on the part of the remnant who returned.
II. The air of pensive melancholy which imparts such a charm to this ode, may seem hardly consistent with what has been said regarding the advantageous condition of the exiles.But it is to be remembered that their very prosperity was pregnant with danger to their highest interests, and might well, therefore, be suggestive of alarm to a man like the Psalmista man who set Jerusalem above his chief joy. The ordinances God had appointed for the Old Testament Church, and which were such a copious source of blessing whilst that dispensation lasted, were unalterably bound to the land of promise; they could only be celebrated in the city which the Lord had chosen to place His name there. While the Captivity lasted they ceased. Hence the tears of tender regret with which the Psalmist remembered Zion; hence his determination to regard the place of his present abode as foreign ground to him, and to reserve for the Temple the Temple Songs. The design of the psalm is to guard the people against allowing their affections to settle in the place of their sojourn; with this view, the Psalmist labours to strengthen within their hearts the affectionate remembrance of Jerusalem, the hope and desire to return in Gods good time, and the assured expectation that the haters and oppressors of Zion shall be overthrown.
Illustrations
(1) The exiles in Babylon could not sing because they were in heaviness. Gods hand was heavy upon them. He had a controversy with them for their sins. Songs cannot be drawn forth from the soul on which the load of Gods displeasure, real or imagined, is still lying, or which is still powerless to apprehend the grace and the life for sinners, which is in Christ Jesus. And again, there is a land yet more strange and foreign to the Lords song, even than the land of unforgiven guilt, and that is the land of unforsaken sin.
(2) Are you in a strange land? Have you been carried away into captivity by your sins? I do not wonder that of late the Lords song has died down within your soul, and that His praise is unaccustomed. You cannot forget the past. But ask God to restore it to you, and you to it, that again the old gladness may be yours.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Psa 137:4. How shall we sing the Lords song Those sacred songs which are appropriated to the worship of the true God in his temple, and are appointed by him to be sung only to his honour and in his service; in a strange land When we are banished from our own temple and country, and among those who are strangers and enemies to our God and his worship? How can you imagine that miserable slaves should be disposed to sing songs of joy? Or that we can frame our minds in the land where we are exiles, to sing those songs which recount the mercies of God unto us in our once flourishing country. How, indeed, says Dr. Horne, could they tune their voices to festive and eucharistic strains, when God, by punishing them for their sins, called to mourning and weeping? But then Israel in Babylon foresaw a day of redemption; and so doth the church in the world; a day when she shall triumph, and her enemies shall lick the dust. No circumstances, therefore, should make us forget her and the promises concerning her.