Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 137

By the rivers of Babylon - The streams, the water-courses, the rivulets. Properly, only one river flowed through Babylon—the Euphrates; but the city was watered, as Damascus is today, by means of canals or water-courses cut from the main river, conveying water to different parts of the city.

For a description of Babylon, see the introductory notes to Isaiah 13:0. If the reference here is to Babylon proper, or the city, the allusion would be to the Euphrates flowing through it; if to Babylonia, the allusion would be to the Euphrates and the other rivers that watered the country, such as the Tigris, the Chaboras, and the Ulai.

As it is most probable that the captive Hebrews were not scattered throughout the empire but were concentrated in one or a few places, it is perhaps not improper to understand this of Babylon itself.

There we sat down - There we were sitting. Perhaps a little company of friends; perhaps those assembled for worship; perhaps those who happened to come together on some special occasion; or, perhaps, a poetic representation of the general condition of the Hebrew captives, as sitting and meditating on the desolations of their native land.

Yea, we wept - We sat there; we meditated; we wept. Our emotions overpowered us, and we poured forth tears. So now, there is a place in Jerusalem, at the southwest corner of the area on which the temple was built, where the Jews resort on set occasions to weep over the ruins of their city and nation.

When we remembered Zion - When we thought on our native land; its former glory; the wrongs done to it; the desolations there; when we thought of the temple in ruins, and our homes as devastated; when we thought of the happy days which we had spent there, and when we contrasted them with our condition now.

We hanged our harps upon the willows - The harps once used to accompany the songs of praise and the service of God in the temple; the harps with which they had sought to beguile their weary hours, and to console their sad spirits in their captivity. The word rendered “willows” - ערבים ‛ ărâbiym - used only in the plural, denotes the willow or osier, so called from its white, silvery leaves. Gesenius, Lexicon. . It is probable that the weeping willow - the willow with long pendulous branches - is here referred to. Trees in desert lands spring up along the courses of the streams, and appear, in the wide desolation, as long and waving lines of green wherever the rivers wind along.

The course of a stream can thus be marked by the prolonged line of meandering green in the desert as far as the eye can reach. It has been objected to the statement here that the willow is not now found in the neighborhood of ancient Babylon, but that the palm is the only tree which grows there. I saw, however, in 1852, in James’ Park in London, a willow-tree with a label on it, stating that it was taken from the site of ancient Babylon; and there seems no reason to doubt the correctness of the account. The willow may be less abundant there now than it was in former times, as is true of the palm tree in Palestine, but there is no reason to doubt that it grew there. All that the psalm, however, would necessarily demand in a fair interpretation would be that there should have been even a single clump of these trees planted there, under which a little band of exiles may have seated themselves when they gave utterance to the plaintive language of this psalm.

In the midst thereof - In the midst of Babylon; showing that this referred to the city proper. They could not sing, such was their grief, though they had their harps with them; and they hung them up, therefore, on the branches of the trees around them; or, poetically, they were as dumb as if they had hung up their harps there.

For there those who carried us away captive - The Babylonians.

Required of us a song - Asked of us a song. The word does not express the idea of compulsion or force. The margin, as in Hebrew, reads "words of a song." Perhaps the idea is that they did not merely ask for music, but they wished to hear the words—the songs themselves—in which they were accustomed to praise God. This may have been a taunt, and the request may have been in derision; or it may have been made seriously, with no desire to reproach them or add to their sorrows.

We are not to attribute bad motives to others where there is no evidence of any, and where the assumption of good motives explains the situation just as well.

The expression here may have been a kind and natural wish to hear the songs of these foreigners—songs about which they might have heard much by report, perhaps songs they had overheard them singing when they were in a less despondent state of mind and sought to comfort themselves with these ancient national melodies.

Since the only reason given for not complying with this request was that they could not “sing the Lord’s song in a strange land” (Psalms 137:3), we are rather led to infer that there was no bad motive—no disposition to taunt and ridicule them—in the request that was made.

And those who wasted us - The margin reads, "laid us on heaps." The Hebrew word means a tormentor; properly, one who extorts lamentation from others, or who causes them to howl—namely, under oppression or wrong. The Septuagint and Latin Vulgate render it, "They who led us away." The general idea is those under whom they were then suffering, or who had caused these trials to come upon them.

Required of us mirth - literally, "Our tormentors, joy." The Hebrew word means joy, and the sense is that they asked them to give the usual indications of joy and happiness—namely, a song. The language means, "Cheer up; be happy; give us one of the beautiful songs which you were accustomed to sing in your own land." It may, indeed, have been in derision, but there is no proof that it was.

Saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion - The songs—the sacred hymns—which you were accustomed to sing in worship in your own land.

How shall we sing the Lord’s song - The song designed to celebrate his praise; that is, appropriate to the worship of Yahweh.

In a strange land - Far from our home, far from the temple, as exiles and captives: how can we find spirit in such circumstances to sing? How can we do what would be indicative of what we do not feel, and cannot feel—joy and happiness! The idea is not that those psalms or songs would be profaned by being sung there, or that there would be anything improper in itself in singing them, but that it would be misplaced and incongruous to sing them in their circumstances. It would be doing violence to their own feelings; their feelings would not allow them to do it. There are states of mind when the language of joy is appropriate and natural; there are states where the heart is so sad that it cannot sing.

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem - The meaning here is that to sing in such circumstances would seem to imply that they had forgotten Jerusalem, that they were heedless of its sorrows and did not care that it was desolate. The remembrance of its calamities pressed hard upon them, and they could not do anything that would seem to imply that they had become heedless of the sufferings that had come upon their nation.

One will not rejoice when a wife or child lies dying, or on the day of the funeral, or over the grave of a mother. A joyous and brilliant party, accompanied with music, feasting, and dancing—when a friend has just been laid in the grave, when the calamities of war are widespread, when pestilence is raging in a city—we feel to be untimely, unseemly, and incongruous.

So these captives said it would be if they should rejoice while their temple was in ruins, while their city was desolate, and while their people were captives in a foreign land.

Let my right hand forget her cunning - Let my right hand forget its skill in music—all its skill. If I should now play on the harp—as indicative of joy—let the hand that would be used in sweeping over its strings become paralyzed and powerless. Let the punishment come where it would seem to be deserved—on the hand that could play at such a time. So Cranmer held the hand that had been used in signing a recantation of his faith in the fire, until it was burned off and dropped in the flames.