Psalm 137:4-9

4 How can we sing ¹the LORD'S song In a foreign land?

5 If I ²forget you, O Jerusalem, May my right hand forget her skill.

6 May my ³tongue cling to the roof of my mouth If I do not remember you, If I do not ⁴exalt Jerusalem Above my chief joy.

7 Remember, O LORD, against the sons of ⁵Edom The day of Jerusalem, Who said, "Raze it, raze it ⁶To its very foundation."

8 O daughter of Babylon, you ⁷devastated one, How blessed will be the one who ⁸repays you With the recompense with which you have repaid us.

9 How blessed will be the one who seizes and ⁹dashes your little ones Against the rock.

Psalm 137:4-9 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.

Cross References

• 1. 2 Chronicles 29:27; Nehemiah 12:46
• 2. Isaiah 65:11
• 3. Job 29:10; Psalms 22:15; Ezekiel 3:26
• 4. Nehemiah 2:3
• 5. Psalms 83:4-8; Isaiah 34:5, 6; Jeremiah 49:7-22; Lamentations 4:21; Ezekiel 25:12-14; Ezekiel 35:2; Amos 1:11; Obad 10-14
• 6. Psalms 74:7; Habakkuk 3:13
• 7. Isaiah 13:1-22; Isaiah 47:1-15; Jeremiah 25:12; Jeremiah 50:1-46; Jeremiah 51:1-64
• 8. Jeremiah 50:15; Jeremiah 51:24, 35, 36, 49; Revelation 18:6
• 9. 2 Kings 8:12; Isaiah 13:16; Hosea 13:16; Nahum 3:10

Footnotes

• [a] I.e. become lame
• [b] Lit "cause to ascend"
• [c] Or "devastator"
• [d] Lit "your recompense"