Having just meditated on Psalm 136, with its often-repeated phrase concerning Yahweh, His love endures forever, we find ourselves reading a very different Psalm 137. This psalm is described by Wilcock as “memorable for its evocative opening phrase… and [retributive] closing verses.” He then reminds us that “the Anglican ASB liturgy decreed in 1980 that it ‘may be omitted’ (# 5), such was the sense of unsuitability of such a “prayer” to be used in the Anglican liturgy.
Having read a number of such psalms already, we are not totally unaware of these types of prayers. Wilcock suggests: “we have to face the fact that the psalmist did write the objectionable closes verses of [Psalm] 137, [and] that the compilers of the book [of Psalms] saw no reason to edit them out, and that generations of Hebrew worshipers were prepared to sing them.” (# 5)
So, I guess, if we truly believe that, as Paul said to Timothy when he spoke of,
the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Then, it seems that just maybe, we ought to take time to try and understand this psalm and why the psalmist wrote it. A good place to start is just to sit quietly and read it in full, asking God to teach, rebuke, correct and train us as we do this.
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
4 How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
7 Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”
8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
Understanding the context is always valuable. And “in the context of Israel’s history. This psalm is not about just another of the recurrent disasters that God’s people have suffered down the years. It is about an event of the first magnitude.” (# 5) It concerns the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the captivity and taking forcibly into exile of the people of Israel by the Babylonians. In fact, the NIV Study Bible suggests that it is “a plaintive song of the exile – of one who has recently returned from Babylon but in whose soul there lingers the bitter memory of the years in a foreign land and of the cruel events that led to that enforced stay.”
Have you ever sat with someone pouring out their heart after some traumatic event such as the death of a loved one or loss of everything that was dear to them? Not an easy thing to do, and a more difficult task if you have not suffered in some similar way. Well, here we have such a person.
His situation is as Brueggemann describes it when he says that “It is when the core, [the] meaning, and structure of life are undone…” He continues that at these times “one dares to go in this posture to the throne [of God].” (# 2)
Just to remind ourselves, consider the description of the event in Psalm 79:1-4 as follows:
O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance;
they have defiled your holy temple,
they have reduced Jerusalem to rubble.
2 They have left the dead bodies of your servants
as food for the birds of the sky,
the flesh of your own people for the animals of the wild.
3 They have poured out blood like water
all around Jerusalem,
and there is no one to bury the dead.
4 We are objects of contempt to our neighbors,
of scorn and derision to those around us.
Unless you have lived through war, it is hard to imagine such wanton destruction of life and infrastructure (even when we see it on TV!).
No wonder the psalmist says, By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
Father, we pray today for war zones around the world, particularly in Palestine and in Ukraine. We pray for peace. We pray for comfort for the suffering. We pray for wisdom and common sense amongst the leaders. We pray that many, in their distress will discover Him who is called the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), Jesus the Son of God. Amen.
Worship and Wisdom - Psalms and Proverbs 