Salmos 137:1-8

1 Junto aos rios da Babilônia nós nos sentamos e choramoscom saudade de Sião.

2 Ali, nos salgueiros,penduramos as nossas harpas;

3 ali os nossos captores pediam-nos canções,os nossos opressores exigiam canções alegres, dizendo:“Cantem para nós uma das canções de Sião!”

4 Como poderíamos cantar as canções donuma terra estrangeira?

5 Que a minha mão direita definhe,ó Jerusalém, se eu me esquecer de ti!

6 Que me grude a língua ao céu da boca,se eu não me lembrar de tie não considerar Jerusaléma minha maior alegria!

7 Lembra-te, SENHOR, dos edomitas e do que fizeramquando Jerusalém foi destruída,pois gritavam: “Arrasem-na!Arrasem-na até aos alicerces!”

8 Ó cidade^[a] de Babilônia, destinada à destruição,feliz aquele que lhe retribuiro mal que você nos fez!

Salmos 137:1-8 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.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebraico: "filha."