CXXXVII. This fine song, blended as it is of tears and fire, with its plaintive opening and its vindictive close, is one of the clearest records left in Hebrew literature of the captivity, but whether it dates immediately from it, or looks back with a distant though keen and clear gaze, is difficul... [ Continue Reading ]
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.”... [ Continue Reading ]
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 Bab... [ Continue Reading ]
A SONG. — See margin. The expression is generally regarded as pleonastic, but may be explained as in Psalms 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. a... [ Continue Reading ]
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. Nehemiah’s answer (Nehemiah 2:2) offers a direct illustration. Of Jerusalem’s choir in Babylon it might truly be said: “Lik... [ Continue Reading ]
HER CUNNING — _i.e.,_ the skill of playing on the harp. If at such a moment the poet can so far forget the miserable bondage of Jerusalem as to strike the strings in joy, may his hand for ever lose the skill to touch them.... [ Continue Reading ]
REMEMBER... — _Remember, Jehovah, for the children of Edom the day of Jerusalem._ The prophecy of Obadiah gives the best comment on this verse: “For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever. In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in... [ Continue Reading ]
DAUGHTER OF BABYLON — i.e., Babylon itself. (See Psalms 9:14, Note.) WHO ART TO BE DESTROYED. — Considerable doubt attaches to the meaning of the Hebrew word here. Our version is that of Theodotion. Aquila and Jerome have “wasted” (comp. Prayer Book version); Symmachus, “robber;” the LXX. and Vulg.... [ Continue Reading ]
LITTLE ONES. — Literally, _sucklings._ STONES. — Better, _cliff_ or _rock._ For this feature of barbarous cruelty with which ancient war was cursed see 2 Kings 8:12; Isaiah 13:16; Hosea 10:14, &c; and comp. Homer, _Iliad, xxii._ 63: “My bleeding infants dashed against the floor.”... [ Continue Reading ]