Psalms 137:1

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. Psalms 137:1.-Israel's sad state in Babylon; her inability to sing Zion's songs in a strange land: her indelible remembrance of Jerusalem (Psalms 137:1); Edom's doom for her spite against Jerusalem in her calamity; Babylon's doom in kind (Psalms 137:7.) As Psalms 135:1; Psalms 136:1, gave hope of Israel's deliverance, so this psalm, the third of the trilogy, is of judgment upon Israel's enemies. The two are combined by the contemporary...

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 we...

1-4 Their enemies had carried the Jews captive from their own land. To complete their woes, they insulted over them; they required of them mirth and a song. This was very barbarous; also profane, for no songs would serve but the songs of Zion. Scoffers are not to be compiled with. They do not say, How shall we sing, when we are so much in sorrow? but, It is the Lord's song, therefore we dare not sing it among idolaters....

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...

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 Isaiah 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....

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 (Psalms 137:1). Then the writer lays bare to us the predominant feelings of his own heart. These are two—intense love for Jerusalem (Psalms 137:5, Psalms 137:6); and intense hatred of Israel's and Jehovah's principal foes, Edom and Babylon ...

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 Ezekiel 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, Jeremiah 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 a

Psalms 137:1. _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

Psalms 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 Israel's enemies will be punished for their sins committed against His people. The fate of the final Babylon as given in Isaiah 13:16 corresponds with the last verse of this Ps

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. PSALMS 137:1. The day's 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 Yahweh's songs in a land which is not Yahweh's. They cannot forget they are Jews: sooner may their right hand wither (Psalms 137:5 emended) than