¹By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. ²Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our harps. ³For there our captors demanded of us songs, and our tormentors mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

Living through the Babylonian exile had provided a sobering incentive to faithfulness for the people of the Lord. That experience would reside in their collective memory alongside the release of their forefathers from Egyptian slavery; it was a profoundly bitter pill to swallow. While the first captivity was not due to any chargeable sin on their part, the latter was a direct result of their straying from the exclusive worship of God and obedience to His Law given through Moses. The Lord had patiently and repeatedly warned them through the prophets, but they continually ignored the warnings and were banished for seventy years to Babylon. God, in His grace, restored them back to the land of Israel—but the effects of captivity sat heavy on their hearts. The lesson learned was to never, ever again, stray from the Lord! They now understand that God’s warnings and His patience were not to be spurned!

This psalm was written after the return, while the generation of those who had personal experience of the captivity were still alive. It begins with the memory of the grief they had experienced in exile (vs. 1). During that time, they had met for prayer and worship by the riverside, absent any temple or synagogue in that foreign land. The thought of their homeland and Jerusalem (here called by its spiritual name, “Zion”) weighed heavily; they could not bear the sound even of instrumental accompaniment to their worship (vs. 2). To make matters worse, their captors (probably the guards or overlords charged with policing them) prodded them continually to sing their homeland “songs of Zion” (vs. 3). Whether the Babylonians enjoyed as entertainment what may have seemed to them exotic tunes, or they were simply goading their Jewish captives in mockery is not certain. What is clear, though, is that the Jews themselves took no joy in the painful memories of life back in the land of promise.

Their connection to all that was important to their national identity as the people of Yahweh was now broken. It must have seemed like they were the terminal generation, the last of the line of those who had inherited the promise made to Abraham and his descendants. Of course, we know from the biblical record that their judgment through exile was caused by the collective sin of many generations, but they were the ones who felt most immediately the failures that invoked this judgment. We can understand, then, their response to their captors’ taunts, when they cry “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (v. 4).

The psalm writer, in a very personal reflection, provided words for everyone in the nation, warning himself to never forget the exilic experience. He writes,

“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, If I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy” (Ps. 137:5-6).

Jerusalem, the capital of the nation, and its temple provided the focus and identity of the Jewish people group. The major feasts and festivals were held there; the temple of Yahweh their God (“Lord”) was there, and it was the place where sacrifices were offered up to God. It was the symbolic center of the universe and of the Jewish culture and religion. Its personal import is reflected in the psalmist’s challenge to himself to never forget the centrality of Jerusalem. Individuals cannot hide behind the collective of the community. The call to holiness and loyalty to Yahweh belongs to every individual.

In a passionate expression of loyalty to the Lord, the psalm turns to imprecations, that is, denunciations of severe judgment against people or nations who denigrate Jerusalem in any shape or form. The first imprecation targets the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s brother (vs. 7, see Genesis 36:1). This is the same Jacob, grandson to Abraham, to whom the twelve tribes of Israel traced their lineage. (Of course, the northern tribes never returned from their captivity, but only the people from the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and the Levites, along with a few others). The Jews were not to “abhor” the descendants of Esau (Deut. 23:7), an attitude not reciprocated by the Edmonites. The latter had cheered on the Babylonians when they invaded the land of the Jews. It was not for the restored Israelites to punish Edom, so the psalm leaves this in the Lord’s hands.

The second imprecation is more terse and direct and is aimed at Babylon. (vs. 8-9). The psalm addresses the “daughter of Babylon,” that is, those who have inherited the guilt of the Babylonian captors. How do we understand the intensity and seeming inhumanity of this passage: “How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock”? Should we set aside our concerns by assigning these thoughts to pre-Christian morality?

In answering this question, writer William MacDonald reminds us to establish the right foundation for dealing with this difficult statement: “First, we begin with the premise that this verse is part of the Word of God, verbally and plenarily inspired. Therefore, any problem lies in our understanding rather than in the Word itself” (BBC). We can surmise that the Lord might, in His foreknowledge, authorize temporal judgment on children whom He knows would grow up to re-enact their parents’ destructive behavior. And we might even find solace in trusting that God may sometimes allow harsh treatment on these children as a way of protecting them from growing up into the evil of their parents. In this way we can perhaps begin to understand the psalmist’s imprecation against the children of the Babylonian captors. In any case, the Lord allowed the psalmist to express in the most extreme form his loyalty to God and his devotion and love for Jerusalem, the place where God had chosen to represent His presence in the temple.

MacDonald quotes the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, who applies the lesson of this psalm in a most interesting way:

“I know things in the inner world which are like babies; the infantile beginnings of small indulgences, small resentments, which may one day become dipsomania, or settled hatred, but which woo us and wheedle us with special pleadings, and seem so tiny, so helpless that in resisting them, we feel we are being cruel to animals. They begin whimpering to us, ‘I don’t ask much, but,’ or ‘I had at least hoped,’ or ‘you owe yourself some consideration.’ Against all of such pretty infants (the dears have such winning ways) the advice of the Psalm is the best. Knock the little brats’ brains out. And “blessed” he who can, for it’s easier said than done.”

Lord, when I have remorse over sin in my life, I am motivated to not continue in it but to live faithfully for You.