Holy Bible

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept. Psalm 137 The tears of memory and the cry for vengeance Homilist. I. THE TEARS OF MEMORY (vers. 1-6). 1. Their sorrow had reference to the loss of the highest blessing — Zion, where their nation met their God to worship Him, etc. 2. Their sorrow was deliberate and all-absorbing. Now these tears of memory —(1) Reveal one of the most wonderful faculties of our nature, the faculty of memory.(2) Reveal a view of retribution opposed to modern scepticism. Modern sceptics say we pay our moral debts as we go on, that retribution for sin is prompt and adequate here. Not so, memory brings up the sufferings of the past.(3) Reveal a view of our mortal life terribly solemn. We do not, as the brute does, finish with life as we go on; we are bound by memory to re-visit the past, and to re-live our yesterdays.(4) Reveal a futurity which must reverse our present calculations. How different do things appear to the eye of memory to what they do to the eye of sense. II. A CRY FOR VENGEANCE (vers. 7-9). ( Homilist. ) The patriot's psalm A. Whyte, D. D. This psalm celebrates the splendid constancy of the Jews amid the oppressions of the Babylonian captivity, and is the production of some son of Korah or Asaph. The knowledge and love of music was widespread among the Sews; and it was most natural that the Babylonians, who were great musicians themselves, should ask their captives to sing them a song of Judaea. Whether they did it in scorn and mockery, or from genuine interest, the thought of singing of home was none the less painful to the exiles. The whole of the later books of the Old Testament are full of this consuming fire of Israelitish patriotism, a patriotism which burns in every nation under heaven, and in no nation more strongly than our own. Where it is trampled on, it breaks the oppressor like a potter's vessel; where it is respected, it binds nations together in the strongest of bonds. So deep, so strong is the divine passion for fatherland in every human breast. Yet, loyal as you are, and lovers of old Caledonia, with heart and hand ever open to a "brither Scot," you are free-born subjects of another country, owning another sovereign, like Andrew Melville, and fellow-citizens with the saints. Henceforth heaven is our home, our true and only home, and hero we are strangers and pilgrims. Many of the younger Jews had been born in captivity, but none the less did they love far-off Jerusalem, for their fathers talked of nothing else. The very fact that they had never seen it made them dream about it the more. So we often in imagination cross the Jordan and the wilderness, and enter one of the many mansions. We read and read again Revelation 21 ., 22.; the "Pilgrim's Progress," and the "Paradise," and call curses on ourselves if we ever forget what we read there. The Jews sat down by the rivers of Babylon with a set purpose to weep. They deliberately intended to weep, and they had a never-failing specific for bringing tears to their eyes. It was deep, silent, solemnized, and deliberate weeping, reserved for a time when the Babylonians were not by. Nor do we intrude with our weeping into your feasts and dancing, nor hang our heads like bulrushes over the wine-cup; but never for one moment do we forget Jerusalem. Materially, the Jews lost little or nothing by having to migrate to Babylon. They were not slaves as they had been in Egypt, but prosperous colonists, and some of them were so well to do, so contented, that they let Zion and Jerusalem slip from their minds. Yet there was ever a remnant (or elect) whom no material prosperity could ever satisfy, who said, better a cottage in a vineyard in Jerusalem than a palace here. Asaph did not sell his harp nor tear its strings to pieces; he only hanged it on a willow-tree against the time he knew was coming. Then he struck it to some purpose, as we know in this far-off island of the sea. Not till her golden gates have closed and all her glorious children have gone in, will Jerusalem awake to her own full joy, and then will be heard the voice of mirth, and gladness, and feasting, the sound as of many waters, and the harpers harping with their harps. ( A. Whyte, D. D. ) Injurious retrospection W. E. Barnes, D. D. The psalm opens with words of which the melancholy sweetness blinds us from seeing the evil tendencies which lie hid in them. "By the rivers of Babylon," etc. Are the words so sweet? Is there not suppressed bitterness in them? What right had these exiles to sit down and weep, when it was God who had brought them to Babylon? What right had they to fold their hands and hang up their harps when God had told them by His prophet Jeremiah to build houses, and seek the peace of the city to which they were led captive ( Jeremiah 29:5-7 )? God sends trouble to make men look forward, not backward. Living back in an irrevocable past is worse than mere waste of time. So it proved with the captives by the waters of Babylon. They thought upon the wrongs, but not upon the wrongful dealings of Zion. Zedekiah's broken oath to the king of Babylon ( Ezekiel 17:16 ), and their own intrigues with the enemies of Nebuchadnezzar were forgotten; the destruction of Jerusalem and the joys of their neighbours on the day of destruction were remembered too well. ( W. E. Barnes, D. D. ) We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. Psalm 137:2 Harps on the willows Lt. D. Bevan, LL. B. I. EVERY MAN HAS A HARP. The harp was the well-known instrument for the accompaniment of song. Its music was sweet and delightful. When calamity fell upon the nation their harps were silenced, etc. And thus it is with all our lives. We have the elements of joy in them, the powers of song and gladness, and there is no man who has not the capacity and the occasion for delightful mirth. 1. Think of the constitution of our nature, wherein a place is secured for joy. The body is attuned to pleasure. How exquisitely has God harmonized the sound and the sense! 2. What a harp man possesses in physical nature if he would only let its music be heard. Every sight and sound, every scene and action, all things fair and good, and bright and godly, are but fingers of Nature's skilful hand, which will touch the strings of the harp of our being, and wake their perfect tones of rapture. 3. Man has the harp for pleasant accompaniment of happy song in the region of the immaterial and the intellectual. The joy of learning — when it is indeed learning worthy of the name; the discovery of the unknown; the pursuit of the law which underlies obscure phenomena; the search for causes; the enumeration of effects — these and others afford keen and lasting delight. 4. The pleasure which belongs to the still higher sphere which we are privileged to enter.(1) Let me remind you of that sacred melody which is attuned when the joys of the spirit are experienced. The sinner seeks his Saviour, and finds the pardon of Father and of Friend. The best music of all the Christian poets fails far short of the rapture which dwells within the forgiven heart. And with what language shall we tell of the occasions for harping that have occurred so often since the first forgiveness! Have there not been Bethels of a Divine covenanting, Horebs of refreshment, and Red Sea passages of deliverance and triumph? Prayer has had its blessed answers, and meditation its holy raptures.(2) Remember, this harp must be tuned and practised on. Let Zion re-echo with your songs. II. BUT SOMETIMES THE HARP HAS TO BE HUNG UPON THE WILLOWS. 1. It is thus when disease invades our bodies or sorrow smites the soul. Songs are not suitable to funerals, and harpings in the house of mourning are out of place and impertinent. 2. There are some silences still more profound that fall upon the music of our life. The father whose eldest son forswears his father's faith, and throws away his father's virtues, and wins only a name that will be a dishonour among men — such a father has little heart for harpings, and is, indeed, in a silent land of bitter exile. 3. And then how useless is the harp when we ourselves are in the hours of spiritual distress. God is absent, and we know no gladness till He shows His face again. They sang a hymn when the Master was among them, even though when they rose from the supper it was to pass to Gethsemane, and Pilate's bar, and Calvary. But their hearts had no desire for singing in the suspense and numb agony of the hour when the Christ lay dead. And so it is with the Christian still. III. But though there is no heart or place for song, and the harp must be laid aside, IT NEEDS NOT TO BE CAST AWAY. They had been foolish and wicked men of Israel if they had flung their harps beneath the running river, and thus deprived themselves altogether of the means of melody when the days of joy came back again ( Ezra 3:9-13 ). So, cast not away your harp. The weather will clear and the soul will awake to gladness when the sunshine comes. And the sickness will depart, and the strengthened frame shall recover its wonted sense of health and vigour. Yea, and there shall be some hours of gladness even for the wailing weary heart that sickens over the sinfulness of child and friend. It was a sad home when the prodigal was far away. But one day the father saw the returning son, ragged, worn, and disgraced, and that night there was music and dancing in the long silent homestead. And thou, too, depressed and cast-down Christian, throw not away thy harp. There shall be peace, and joy, and fulness of blessing yet for thee. God shall show Himself, and Christ will yet return. ( Lt. D. Bevan, LL. B. ) Sing us one of the songs of Zion. Psalm 137:3 The phases of psalmody J. C. Miller, D. D. The noblest employment of which the nature of man is capable is the worship of his Maker. One of the elements of the worship is the rendition of praise, and in the songs of Zion we are amply provided with material for this purpose. I. THE SONG OF THE PARDONED PENITENT. This song can be sung by him who no longer looks to his own righteousness for salvation, but whose desire is to be found in Christ as the righteousness of God. II. THE SONG OF THE ADORING CREATURE. This song is sung not for any special gift received, but in contemplation of the great acts of God — His past acts in the Church and in the world — for the laws of nature — for all those marvellous exhibitions of power and wisdom that are before our eyes. III. THE SONG OF THE RECIPIENT OF MERCY. This is well brought out in Psalm 103 . The mercies that are renewed to us daily are not to be taken as a matter of course. Count up your daily mercies and sing. IV. THE SONG OF THE HEAVEN-ROUND PILGRIM, "Thy statutes have been my songs," etc. God's people should not go on their way as if to be a Christian were the most gloomy thing hi the world. They are commanded to "rejoice." Let us attain to the apostolic stand and come "to Zion with songs." V. THE SONG OF THE SORROWER. "He giveth songs in the night." Where sufferings abound, consolations abound. God never lays one hand on us but He lays the other hand under us. Paul and Silas sang in prison in the night. VI. THE SONG OF THE SANCTUARY. The service of song in public worship was very prominent under the old dispensation. Music should be edifying; not a sensuous enjoyment, but a part — a noble part — of the worship of God. VII. THE SONG OF ZION WHICH IS TO BE SUNG BY THE GLORIFIED ABOVE. That song is to be the utterance — the ceaseless utterings — of their gratitude and praise for all the eternal love wherewith they were loved, for the grace by which they were redeemed, kept there, sanctified there, brought there — "Salvation to God and to the Lamb." Are you in training for that choir which is in heaven — for exchanging the songs which we sung in a strange land for the songs of the New Jerusalem and all her beauty? ( J. C. Miller, D. D. ) Babylonian captivity E. J. Hardy, M. A. 1. Certainly there are many men and women to whom this psalm will be full of a touching significance if they look back on the time when they first found themselves alone in London. A young man, after being brought up with loving care in the country, is sent with a book of the Lord's songs packed by his mother in his trunk to serve his time at some business in our modern Babylon. Will he not be ready to shed tears on his first Sundays spent in town when he thinks of friends at home singing one of the songs of Zion, in which he can no longer join, deterred perhaps by the ridicule or want of sympathy of strangers? And the very desire of others that he should "keep up his spirits" and be a "jolly fellow" — such jarring requests will only increase his heaviness. What should such a young man do? Let him, before his better feelings grow cold, resolve rather to forget the cunning of his hand if he be an artisan, or the cunning of his business faculty if he be in a merchant's or lawyer's office; let him resolve to forget these or never to acquire them at all rather than to forget the love of his home and the worship of his mother's God — in one word, Jerusalem. 2. When travelling abroad did Englishmen remember Jerusalem, and prefer her above their chief joy, they would realize the presence of One who could dispel the loneliness of a strange land, and deliver them from the many temptations of friendlessness. 3. Again, there are many generous souls whose best impulses are imprisoned by circumstances over which they have no control. Bound men have got into square holes, and find no scope for the best energies of their nature. Children long to help their parents; but they are far from home, or their desire is in captivity, by reason of poverty, ill-health, or anything else. Parents cannot do all they desire for their children. Let these, and all who find themselves in adverse circumstances, think of Israel weeping on the banks of the Euphrates — let them think of how she waited patiently on the Lord in poverty, in humiliation, in a strange land, full of sin and scoffing; and of how He delivered her from Babylon in His own good time, as of old He delivered the same Israel out of bondage in Egypt. ( E. J. Hardy, M. A. ) How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? Psalm 137:4 The Lord's song in a strange land Canon Liddon. 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 God's 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 Lord's song in a strange land?" Nay, this request of the heathen oppressor that the captives should sing the Lord's 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 Lord's song in a strange land?" I. THE LORD'S 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 Lord's Prayer. But there is, at least on earth, no one psalm or hymn which bears the name of "the Lord's 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 Lord's 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 Master's 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 Lord's 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 Lord's 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 David's life and of Solomon's 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 Lord's 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 Lord's song in a strange land Dean Vaughan. 1. I cannot doubt that we have felt it at times despondingly. I cannot sing the Lord's 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. God's hand was heavy upon them. Now the feelings of many of us are in like manner adverse to the Lord's 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-morrow's bread or for this day's comfort. How can we sing the Lord's 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 Lord's 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 Lord's song? The Lord's 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 Lord's song in a strange land John Gray, M. A. 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 Lord's 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 Lord's 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 Lord's 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 L. A. Banks, D. D. 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. ) If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Psalm 137:5, 6 Recollection and preference of the Church of Christ P. J. Wright. I. THE OBJECT OF RECOLLECTION AND PREFERENCE BY THE CHRISTIAN. The Church of Jesus Christ — the universal Church, consisting of all, throughout the world, who believe and obey the Gospel. 1. The Church of Jesus Christ is the dwelling-place of God. 2. It is the light of the world. 3. It is the depository of ordinances and truths requisite for the weal of the human race. 4. It is the sanctuary of salvation. 5. It is a type of the Church in heaven. II. THE EMPHASIS WITH WHICH THE CHRISTIAN EXPRESSES HIS RECOLLECTION OF, AND PREFERENCE FOR, THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST. 1. Because of its wonderful revelations. 2. Because of its sacred exercises. 3. Because of its ennobling associations. 4. Because of its momentous interests — truth, righteousness, joy. ( P. J. Wright. ) Religious public-spiritedness D. Young, D. D. I. WHAT IT IS. It is love to the Church of Christ, regulated by knowledge, and prompting to zealous and steady activity in advancing the Church's interests. It is in the kingdom of God on earth what patriotism is in the body politic. It directs and rules him; he lives for the Church; he consecrates to her welfare all that he is, and all that he has. II. HOW IT IS TO BE EXEMPLIFIED. 1. By self-denial for the sake of the Church. This includes a disposition to forego everything, however innocent and lawful in itself, which we cannot enjoy without doing less than we ought to do for the interests of religion. 2. By identifying ourselves with the interests of the Church. 3. By promoting the purity of the Church. Not only is the Church of Christ a holy community, but holiness is the very thing which distinguishes it from the world. 4. By strenuously maintaining the integrity of the Church. It is not a mutilated, vitiated Christianity that is to convert the nations. It is when the Church goes forth in all the might of her Divine simplicity and in

Benson Commentary Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. Psalm 137:1 . By the rivers of Babylon — Of the city, or rather of the territory of Babylon, in which there were many rivers, as Euphrates, which also was divided into several streams or rivulets, and Tigris, and others; there sat we down — The usual posture of mourners, Ezra 9:4 ; Job 2:12 ; Isaiah 47:1 ; Isaiah 47:5 . It is supposed by some, that they were employed in draining the marshy parts of the country; but it seems more probable, that their present distress did not arise from that circumstance, but from their reflecting on Zion, and their banishment from it: and that they seated themselves down by the rivers from choice, retiring thither from the noise and observation of their enemies, as they had opportunity, in order that they might unburden their oppressed minds before the Lord, and to one another. We wept when we remembered Zion — He means, either their former enjoyments in Zion, which greatly aggravated their present misery, Lamentations 1:7 , or Zion’s present desolation. “What an inexpressible pathos is there in these few words! How do they, at once, transport us to Babylon, and place before our eyes the mournful situation of the Israelitish captives! Driven from their native country, stripped of every comfort and convenience, in a strange land among idolaters, wearied and broken- hearted, they sit in silence by those hostile waters. Then the pleasant banks of Jordan present themselves to their imaginations; the towers of Salem rise to view; and the sad remembrance of much loved Zion causes tears to run down their cheeks!” Psalm 137:2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. Psalm 137:2 . We hanged our harps upon the willows, in the midst thereof. — These are, not without great probability, supposed to be the words of some holy Levites, who had been accustomed to music, both vocal and instrumental, in the service of the temple. Harps are here put, by a synecdoche, for all instruments of music. It is further to be observed, that although the harp was used by the Greeks in mourning, yet it was used by the Hebrews in rejoicing, as is manifest from Genesis 31:27 ; 2 Chronicles 20:27-28 ; Psalm 43:4 . This passage is to be understood, either, 1st, Figuratively, signifying only, that they abandoned all signs and means of comfort; or rather, 2d, Properly, as the songs are which the Babylonians required them to sing to their harps, Psalm 137:3 . Upon the willows — Which commonly grow upon the banks of rivers, as they did on the banks of the Euphrates, in such an abundance that from thence it is called the brook, or torrent, or river, (as ??? may be properly rendered,) of willows, Isaiah 15:7 . Thus “the sincere penitent, like these captives, hath bidden adieu to mirth; his soul refuseth to be comforted with the comforts of Babylon; nor can he sing any more till pardon and restoration shall have enabled him to sing in the temple a song of praise and thanksgiving.” Psalm 137:3 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. Psalm 137:3 . There they that carried us away — Our new masters, who had made us their slaves, and carried us captives out of our own land; required of us a song — ???? ???? , the words of a song: in the LXX., ?????? ???? , words of songs. They required us to entertain them with our music and singing. And they that wasted us — Hebrew, ???????? , contumulatores nostri, they that laid us on heaps, namely, that laid Jerusalem and the temple in ruins, required of us mirth, ????? , joy, or gladness; saying, Sing us of the songs (so it is in the Hebrew) of Zion — Sing us some of those songs which were wont to be sung in the temple on occasions of public joy. This they required, probably partly out of curiosity, and partly by way of scoffing and insult over them and their temple and worship, not without “a tacit reflection on their God, who could not protect his favoured people against their enemies. Thus the faithful have been, and thus they will be insulted over in the day of their calamity.” Psalm 137:4 How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land? Psalm 137:4 . How shall we sing the Lord’s 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.” Psalm 137:5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning . Psalm 137:5-6 . If I forget thee, O Jerusalem — If I do not retain a deep and sorrowful sense of thy desolations, though never so far removed from thee; or if I indulge myself in mirth and jollity, as if I had forgotten thee; let my right hand — The hand chiefly used in playing on musical instruments, and in all other actions; forget her cunning — That is, lose its skill of playing. In the Hebrew it is only, Let my right hand forget, without expressing what, to intimate the extent and generality of this wish; let it forget, or be disabled for every action, in which it was formerly used. If I do not remember thee — With affection and sympathy, so as to damp my joys; let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth — Become incapable of singing, speaking, or moving; if I prefer not Jerusalem, &c. — If I do not value and desire Jerusalem’s prosperity more than all other delights, and consequently, if Jerusalem’s misery do not so deeply affect me as to hinder my delighting in any other thing. Hebrew, ?? ?? ???? , literally, If I advance not Jerusalem in the beginning, or at the head, (as ?? ???? properly signifies,) of my joy; that is, “if I again sing any such festive song till that joyful day shall come, when I shall see Jerusalem and her holy solemnities restored.” “The whole nation,” says Dr. Horne, “may be supposed, in these words, to declare as one man, that neither the afflictions nor the allurements of Babylon should efface from their minds the remembrance of Jerusalem, or prevent their looking forward to her future glorious restoration. If any temptation should induce them to employ their tongues and their hands in the service of Babel rather than that of Sion, they wish to lose the use of the former, and the skill of the latter.” Thus, “the thoughts and affections of true penitents, both in prosperity and adversity, are fixed upon their heavenly country and city: they had rather be deprived of their powers and faculties than of the will to use them aright; and the hope of glory hereafter to be revealed in the church is the flower and crown of their joy.” Psalm 137:6 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. Psalm 137:7 Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it , rase it, even to the foundation thereof. Psalm 137:7 . Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom — Their constant and inveterate enemies, who had no regard either to consanguinity or humanity, but, instead of pitying Jerusalem, as became kind neighbours and relations, were glad to see the day of its desolations; and encouraged their destroyers with their acclamations, saying, Rase it, rase it, &c. Hebrew, ??? ??? , make it bare, empty it, or lay it flat, even to the foundation thereof, or the ground on which it stands. Edom is charged with this unnatural behaviour, and threatened for it by God himself in the prophecy of Obadiah, Obadiah 1:10 , and for it God’s judgments came upon them, as it was here foretold they should do. Psalm 137:8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be , that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Psalm 137:8-9 . O daughter of Babylon — By which he understands the city and empire of Babylon, and the people thereof, who art to be destroyed — Who by God’s righteous and irrevocable sentence, art devoted to certain destruction, and whose destruction is particularly and circumstantially foretold by God’s holy prophets. For the subject of these two verses is the same with that of many chapters in Isaiah and Jeremiah; namely, the vengeance of Heaven executed upon Babylon by Cyrus, raised up to be king of the Medes and Persians for that purpose. Happy shall he be — He shall be blessed and praised in his deed, as having done a glorious work in executing the divine justice upon Babylon, and at the same time, as an instrument in God’s hand, rescuing and delivering the people of God. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones, &c. — That retaliates upon thee the calamities thou didst bring upon us. It has been objected, that the imprecations, in these verses, against Babylon, do not well comport with God’s directions to his captive people, Jeremiah 29:7 , to pray for the peace of Babylon. But here we must distinguish between the ordinary rule of practice and the extraordinary commission given to prophets. The psalmist was a prophet, and wrote by the special direction of the Holy Spirit; while the common people of Israel, and prophets also, in their private capacity, were to follow the ordinary rule of praying for those very enemies whose destruction was coming on, but in God’s own time. In the meanwhile the safety of the Jewish captives depended on the safety of Babylon, and was wrapped up in it; and so it concerned them, both in point of duty and interest, to submit peaceably and quietly to their new masters, and to pray for their prosperity: notwithstanding all which, they might justly hope for a deliverance at the seventy years’ end, and God might instruct his prophets to declare it before hand, together with the manner of it: “see Waterland’s Script. Vind., part 3. page 28. “The meaning of the words, happy shall he be,” says Dr. Horne, “is, He shall go on and prosper, for the Lord of hosts shall go with him, and fight his battles against the enemy and oppressor of his people, empowering him to recompense upon the Chaldeans the works of their hands, and to reward them as they served Israel. The slaughter of the very infants, mentioned in the last verse, is expressly predicted by Isaiah 13:16 ; Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished. The destruction was to be universal, sparing neither sex nor age. Terrible, but just, are thy judgments, O Lord! The fall of the mystical Babylon is described Revelation 18. in terms and phrases borrowed from this and other prophecies, relating primarily to the ancient city called by that name. Whoever will carefully read over the chapter referred to, with the three subsequent ones, concerning the triumph of Messiah, and the glory of the new Jerusalem, will be able to form proper ideas of the world and the church, and will know where to choose his portion.” Psalm 137:9 Happy shall he be , that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. Psalm 137:1-9 THE captivity is past, as the tenses in Psalm 137:1-3 show, and as is manifest from the very fact that its miseries have become themes for a psalm. Grief must be somewhat removed before it can be sung. But the strains of triumph heard in other psalms are wanting in this, which breathes passionate love for Jerusalem, tinged with sadness still. The date of the psalm is apparently the early days of the Return, when true-hearted patriots still felt the smart of recent bondage and sadly gazed on the dear ruins of the city. The singer passes in brief compass from tender music breathing plaintive remembrance of the captives’ lot, to passionate devotion, and at last to an outburst of vehement imprecation, magnificent in its fiery rush, amply explicable by Israel’s wrongs and Babylon’s crimes, and yet to be frankly acknowledged as moving on a lower plane of sentiment than is permissible to those who have learned to repay scorn with gentleness, hate with love, and injuries with desires for the injurer’s highest good. The coals of fire which this psalmist scatters among Israel’s foes are not those which Christ’s servants are bidden to heap on their enemies’ heads. Nothing sweeter or sadder was ever written than that delicate, deeply felt picture of the exiles in the early verses of the psalm. We see them sitting, as too heavy-hearted for activity, and half noting, as adding to their grief, the unfamiliar landscape round them, with its innumerable canals, and the monotonous "willows" (rather, a species of poplar) stretching along their banks. How unlike this flat, tame fertility to the dear homeland, with its hills and glens and rushing streams! The psalmist was probably a Temple singer, but he did not find solace even in "the harp, his sole remaining joy." No doubt many of the exiles made themselves at home in captivity, but there were some more keenly sensitive or more devout, who found that it was better to remember Zion and weep than to enjoy Babylon. "Alas, alas! how much less it is to hold converse with others than to remember thee!" So they sat, like Michaelangelo’s brooding figure of Jeremiah in the Sistine Chapel, silent, motionless, lost in bittersweet memories. But there was another reason than their own sadness for hanging their idle harps upon the willows. Their coarse oppressors bade them sing to make mirth. They wished entertainment from the odd sounds of foreign music, or they were petulantly angry that such dumb hang-dog people should keep sullen faces, like unilluminated windows, when their masters were pleased to be merry. So, like tipsy revellers, they called out "Sing!" The request drove the iron deeper into sad hearts, for it came from those who had made the misery. They had led away the captives, and now they bid them make sport. The word rendered plunderers is difficult. The translation adopted here is that of the LXX and others. It requires a slight alteration of reading, which is approved by Hupfeld (as an alternative), Perowne, Baethgen, Graetz, etc . Cheyne follows Halevy in preferring another conjectural alteration which gives "dancers" ("and of our dancers, festive glee"), but admits that the other view is "somewhat more natural." The roystering Babylonians did not care what kind of songs their slaves sang. Temple music would do as well as any other; but the devout psalmist and his fellows shrank from profaning the sacred songs that praised Jehovah by making them parts of a heathen banquet. Such sacrilege would have been like Belshazzar’s using the Temple vessels for his orgy. "Give not that which is holy to dogs." And the singers were not influenced by superstition, but by reverence, and by sadness, when they could not sing these songs in that strange land. No doubt it was a fact that the Temple music fell into desuetude during the Captivity. There are moods and there are scenes in which it is profanation to utter the deep music which may be sounding on perpetually in the heart. "Songs unheard" are sometimes not only "sweetest," but the truest worship. The psalmist’s remembrances of Babylon are suddenly broken off. His heart burns as he broods on that past, and then lifts his eyes to see how forlorn and forgotten-like Jerusalem stands, as if appealing to her sons for help. A rush of emotion sweeps over him, and he breaks into a passion of vowed loyalty to the mother city. He has Jerusalem written on his heart. It is noteworthy that her remembrance was the exiles’ crown of sorrow; it now becomes the apex of the singer’s joy. No private occasion for gladness so moves the depths of a soul, smitten with the noble and ennobling love of the city of God, as does its prosperity. Alas that the so called citizens of the true city of God should have so tepid interest in its welfare, and be so much more keenly touched by individual than by public prosperity or adversity! Alas that so often they should neither weep when they remember its bondage nor exult in its advancement! Psalm 137:5 b is emphatic by its incompleteness. "May my right hand forget!" What? Some word like "power," "cunning," or "movement" may be supplied. It would be as impossibly unnatural for the poet to forget Jerusalem as for his hand to forget to move or cease to be conscious of its connection with his body. Psalm 137:6 d reads literally "Above the head of my joy": an expression which may either mean the summit of my joy -i.e., my greatest joy; or the sum of my joy -i.e., my whole joy. In either case the well-being of Jerusalem is the psalmist’s climax of gladness; and so utterly does he lose himself in the community founded by God, that all his springs of felicity are in her. He had chosen the better part. Unselfish gladness is the only lasting bliss; and only they drink of an unfailing river of pleasures whose chiefest delight lies in beholding and sharing in the rebuilding of God’s city on earth. The lightning flashes of the last part of the psalm need little commenting. The desire for the destruction of Zion’s enemies, which they express, is not the highest mood of the loyal citizen of God’s city, and is to be fully recognised as not in accordance with Christian morality. But it has been most unfairly judged, as if it were nothing nobler than ferocious thirsting for vengeance. It is a great deal more. It is desire for retribution, heavy as the count of crimes which demands it is heavy. It is a solemn appeal to God to sweep away the enemies of Zion, who, in hating her, rebelled against Him. First, the psalmist turns to the treacherous kinsmen of Israel, the Edomites, who had, as Obadiah says, "rejoiced over the children of Judah in the days of their destruction," { Obadiah 1:12 } and stimulated the work of rasing the city. Then the singer turns to Babylon, and salutes her as already laid waste; for he is a seer as well as a singer, and is so sure of the judgment to be accomplished that it is as good as done. The most repellent part of the imprecation, that which contemplates the dreadful destruction of tender infants, has its harshness somewhat softened by the fact that it is the echo of Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Babylon, { Isaiah 13:16-18 }, and still further by the consideration that the purpose of the apparently barbarous cruelty was to make an end of a "seed of evil-doers," whose continuance meant misery for wide lands. Undoubtedly, the words are stern, and the temper they embody is harsh discord, when compared with the Christian spirit. But they are not the utterances of mere ferocious revenge. Rather they proclaim God’s judgments, not with the impassiveness, indeed, which best befits the executors of such terrible sentences, but still less with the malignant gratification of sanguinary vengeance which has been often attributed to them. Perhaps, if some of their modern critics had been under the yoke from which this psalmist has been delivered, they would have understood a little better how a good man of that age could rejoice that Babylon was fallen and all its race extirpated. Perhaps, it would do modern tender heartedness no harm to have a little more iron infused into its gentleness, and to lay to heart that the King of Peace must first be King of Righteousness, and that Destruction of evil is the complement of Preservation of Good. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.