Psalm 137:4-9

4 (136-4) How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land?

5 (136-5) If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten.

6 (136-6) Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee: If I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy.

7 (136-7) Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom, in the day of Jerusalem: Who say: Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

8 (136-8) O daughter of Babylon, miserable: blessed shall he be who shall repay thee thy payment which thou hast paid us.

9 (136-9) Blessed be he that shall take and dash thy 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.