Psalm 137:7

Verse 7. We are not to regard the imprecations of this Psalm in any other light than as prophetical. They are grounded on the many prophecies which had already gone forth on the subject of the destruction of Babylon, if, as we may admit, the Psalm before us was written after the desolation of Jerusalem. But these prophecies have not yet been fulfilled in every particular, and remain to be accomplished in mystic Babylon, when the dominion of Antichrist shall be for ever swept away, and the true church introduced into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, at the appearing of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in his own kingdom. --William Wilson.

Verse 7. Edom's hatred was the hatred with which the carnal mind in its natural enmity against God always regards whatever is the elect object of his favour. Jerusalem was the city of God. "Rase it, rase it even to the ground", is the mischievous desire of every unregenerate mind against every building that rests on the elect Stone of Divine foundation. For God's election never pleases man until, through grace, his own heart has become an adoring receiver of that mercy which while in his natural state he angrily resented and refused to own in its effects on other men From Cain to Antichrist this solemn truth holds always, good. --Arthur Pridham.

Verse 7-9. I do not know if the same feeling has occurred to others, but I have often wished the latter verses of this Psalm had been disjoined from this sweet and touching beginning. It sounds as if one of the strings on their well tuned harps was out of melody, as if it struck a jarring note of discord. And yet I know the feeling is wrong, for it is no more than what the Lord himself had foretold and declared should be the final desolation of proud Babylon itself: yet one longs more intensely for the period when the nations of the earth shall learn war no more; and every harp and every voice, even those of the martyred ones beneath God's altar loudest and sweetest of all, shall sing the Lord's songs, the song of Moses, and the Lamb, in that pleasant land, where no sighing and no tears are seen. --Barton Bouchier.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 7. The hatred of the ungodly to true religion.

WORKS WRITTEN ABOUT THE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVENTH PSALM. IN SPURGEON'S DAY

"An Exposition upon some select Psalms of David ... Written by that faithful servant of God M. Robert Rollok ... And translated out of Latine into English by Charles Lumisden ... Edinborgh ... 1600", 8vo. contains a short exposition on Psalm 137. Of little value.]