Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 137:3

"For there they that led us captive required of us songs, And they that wasted us [required of us] mirth, [saying], Sing us one of the songs of Zion." — Psalms 137:3 (ASV)

A song. —See the margin. The expression is generally regarded as redundant, but may be explained as in Psalm 105:27 (see the note there). Perhaps “some lyric thing” would express the original. No doubt it is a Levite who is requested to sing.

They that wasted us. —A peculiar Hebrew word which the Septuagint and Vulgate interpret as synonymous with the verb in the first clause. The modern explanation, “they that make us howl,” is far preferable. Those whose oppression had raised the wild, Eastern scream of lamentation now asked for mirth.

Songs of Zion —or, as in the next verse, songs of Jehovah, were, of course, the liturgical hymns. Nothing is more characteristic than this of the Hebrew sensibility. The captors asked for a national song to amuse them, much as the Philistines asked Samson for sport. The Hebrew can think only of one kind of song: that to which the unique spirit of their people was dedicated.