Psalm CXXXVII
1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion!
2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
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.
4 How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
7 Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom, in the day of Jerusalem; Who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed;
Happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the
stones.
When a fitful gust of wind has blown aside for a time the sand that hid an ancient tomb or monument, the traveller, aiTested by the sight, may muse beside it, and feel himself borne back into other days, sympathising with the mourning friends who piled these monumental stones. But his deepest sympathy can never equal, and scarcely can resemble with much nearness, that burst of grief with which the real mourners consecrated the spot. It is even thus with our Psalm. We feel it to be a peculiar song of Zion, strangely beautiful, full of pathos, and rising to sublimity; but what would be the fresh emotions of those who sang it first, and who dropped their tears into these rivers of Babel? No author’s name is given; but so plaintive is it, that some have ascribed it to Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, of whose Lamentations it has been said, “Every word seems written with a tear, and every sound seems the sob of a broken heart.”
Tholuck says it is a Psalm by an exiled Levite, “A master of song.” Perhaps we expected to find some notice prefixed of the instrument used when it was set to music, such as, “On Gittith,” — when first the sound of its commencing strain broke on our ear — niin>’?y and D’^^lf’^y,” On the hanks of the rivers — On the icillow-trees.’’
But the only instrument before the singer is the murmuring streams of Babylon, with the wind moaning through the willows on either bank. Whether wandering along by Euphrates, or Tigris, or Ulai, or Chabor,* all of them “rivers of Babylon,” the exiles of Israel felt the burden of Jehovah’s anger in their state of estrangement from the land given to their fathers. We have a series of most moving scenes presented to our view: —
1, The river’s banks fringed with mourners, who sit there, shaded by the willows. You see above their heads their harps which they used in Judah, and perhaps in the temple of Jerusalem, some of those mentioned, 1 Chron. xv. 16 (Patrick), carried with them as precious memorials of happier days.
2. You see some of their gay, heartless oppressors approaching the weeping band, asking a song. Q. Curtius, in his history of Alexander the Great (vi. 2), tells us of the captive
* “In the midst thereof,” in the midst of her (nDiD3.)) means in the midst of the country. The four streams we have named, are four of these that Scripture speaks of in connection with the captives. Alas! not four rivers uf Paradise to them!
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418 PSALM CXXXVII. — EXILED ISEAEL’s TENDER ZEAL
woman from Persia being ordered to sing in the fashion of their country (suo ritu canere), when, in the midst of the scene, the king’s eye caught the spectacle of a mourner on the ground, sadder than all the rest, the wife of Hystaspis; for the lordly oppressors of Israel were then feeling the retribution of being summoned to do as they had done to their captives. The wife of Hystaspis, says the historian, struggled against those who would fain have led her forward to the king, foremost among the captive band with whose songs they sought to entertain themselves; even as here Israel, though fallen, replied in princely dignity, to those who asked of them “words of the song,” some stanza, at least, out of some song of Zion (ltb) —
“How shall we sing Jehovah’s song
On the soil of a stranger?” (Ver. 4.)
3. You see their oppressors retire, and the exiles are alone again, dropping their tears into the stream. They sing now, the one to the other, and this is the burden —
“If Hose my memory of thee, 0 Jerusalem,,
Jjet my right hand lose its memory!
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth
If I do not remember thee — If I do not lift up Jerusalem
On the top of my joy!” (Ver. 5, G.)
They remember the past; and they know it is foretold (Isa. XXXV. 10) that one day they shall return to Zion with songs. But, till that day arrives, they will continue to hang up their harps.
4. You see them assume the attitude of appeal and prayer. They call upon Jehovah to visit their oppressors. Edom is first mentioned. Why is this? We find the explanation in Obad. 8-14, where Edoms unbrotherly exultation over Israel’s day of calamity is described; as it is also in Lam. iv. 21. Babylon is next. The awful cry against this foe, the Antichrist of that day, resembles Rev. xviii. 20, “Rejoice over her!” The emphasis is to be put on “thee,” and in verse 9, “thy children,” in opposition to God’s people and their children. Happy the man who, instead of being an oppressor of God’s heritage, is the Lord’s instrument in bringing low, even to the foundation, the city that has fought against him, thus requiting her ill her own way; yes, happy is that man even though in executing the judgment he be sent to dash the children on the rocks (children being reckoned one with their parents, as in Achan’s case, Josh. vii. 24), in pouring out the vial of wrath.
Could our Master sing this song? If he identified himself with his people in Egypt, as we find him doing in Psa, lxxxi. 5, why should he not sympathise in this strain also? He would use it when on earth. And his Church herself, a stranger in a strange laud, can use it, not only in sympathising with Israel’s ruin, but in thinking of what has endeared Jerusalevi to us. Calvary, Mount of Olives, Siloam, how fragrant are ye with the Name that is above every name! “If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem!” Can I forget where he walked so often, where he spoke such gracious words, where he died? Can I forget that his feet shall stand on that “Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem, on the east?” Can I forget that there stood the Upper Room, and there fell the showers of Pentecost? And can I not pray against Antichrist in using the names of Edom and Babylon, the old foes of the Lord and his people? Yes, I fully sympathise in every verse of this sacred song, for it is
Exiled Israel’s tender zeal for Jerusalem and Jehovah.