Psalm 137:1-7

1 An den Flüssen Babels, da saßen wir und weinten, indem wir Zions gedachten.

2 An die Weiden in ihr hängten wir unsere Lauten.

3 Denn die uns gefangen weggeführt hatten, forderten daselbst von uns die Worte eines Liedes, und die uns wehklagen machten, Freude: "Singet uns eines von Zions Liedern!"

4 Wie sollten wir ein Lied Jehovas singen auf fremder Erde?

5 Wenn ich dein vergesse, Jerusalem, so vergesse meine Rechte!

6 Es klebe meine Zunge an meinem Gaumen, wenn ich deiner nicht gedenke, wenn ich Jerusalem nicht erhebe über die höchste meiner Freuden!

7 Gedenke, Jehova, den Kindern Edom den Tag Jerusalems, die da sprachen: Entblößet, entblößet sie bis auf ihre Grundfeste!

Psalm 137:1-7 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.