Psalm 137:1-6

1 By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion.

2 Upon the willows in the midst thereof We hanged up our harps.

3 For there they that led us captive required of us songs, And they that wasted us [required of us] mirth, [saying], Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

4 How shall we sing Jehovah's song In a foreign land?

5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, Let my right hand forget [her skill].

6 Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, If I remember thee not; If I prefer not Jerusalem Above my chief joy.

Psalm 137:1-6 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 137

The occasion of this psalm was the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, and the treatment they met with there; either as foreseen, or as now endured. Aben Ezra ascribes this psalm to David; and so the Syriac version, which calls it,

``a psalm of David; the words of the saints, who were carried captive into Babylon.''

The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Ethiopic versions, make it to be David's, and yet add the name of Jeremiah; and the Arabic version calls it David's, concerning Jeremiah: but, as Theodoret observes, Jeremiah was not carried into Babylon, but, after some short stay in or near Jerusalem, was forced away into Egypt; and could neither be the writer nor subject of this psalm: and though it might be written by David under a spirit of prophecy; who thereby might foresee and foretell the Babylonish captivity, and what the Jews would suffer in it; as the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah did, many years before it came to pass; yet it seems rather to have been written by one of the captivity, either while in it, or immediately after it.