Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 137:4

"How shall we sing Jehovah`s song In a foreign land?" — Psalms 137:4 (ASV)

Strange land.— The feeling expressed in this question is too natural to need any such explanation as that it was contrary to the Law to sing a sacred song in a strange land. Nehemiah’s answer (Nehemiah 2:2–3) offers a direct illustration.

Of Jerusalem’s choir in Babylon it might truly be said:

“Like strangers’ voices here they sound,
In lands where not a memory strays.
Nor landmark breathes of other days,
But all is new unhallowed ground.”

TENNYSON: In Memoriam.