John Calvin Commentary Psalms 137:1

"By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion." — Psalms 137:1 (ASV)

By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down. I have elsewhere said that it is a great mistake to suppose that it is David who here prophetically informs the people of God of the captivity that would come upon them. The Prophets, in speaking of future events, employ very different language.

What is presented here is the event as it has now historically occurred and become a matter of experience. We will briefly explain the scope of the Psalmist. There was a danger that the Jews, when cast off in such a distressing manner, would lose hold altogether of their faith and their religion.

Considering how ready we are, when mingled with the wicked and ungodly, to fall into superstition or evil practices, it was to be feared that they might become profane among the population of Babylon. Moreover, the people of the Lord might be thrown into despondency by their captivity, the cruel bondage to which they were subjected, and the other indignities that they had to endure.

The writer of this Psalm, whose name is unknown, drew up a form of lamentation so that by giving expression to their sufferings in sighs and prayers, they might keep alive the hope of that deliverance of which they despaired. Another purpose he has in view is to warn them against the decline of godliness in an irreligious land and against defilement with the contaminations of the heathen.

Accordingly, he denounces merited judgment upon the children of Edom and declares that Babylon—whose prosperity, short-lived as it was destined to be in itself, eclipsed at that time the rest of the world—was an object of pity and near destruction.

The length of time during which the captivity lasted can itself convince us how useful and even necessary it must have been to support the discouraged minds of God’s people. They must have been ready to acquiesce in the corrupt practices of the heathen unless endowed with surprising mental fortitude throughout a period of seventy years.

When they are said to have sat, this denotes a continued period of captivity, signifying that they were not only torn from the sight of their native country but were, in a way, buried and entombed. The demonstrative adverb of place, שם (sham, meaning “there”), is emphatic, setting the subject, as it were, before the eyes of the reader.

Though the pleasantness of the country, irrigated by streams, might have had an effect in soothing their dejected minds, we are told that the Lord’s people, as long as they dwelt there, were continually in tears. The particle גם (gam, meaning “even”) is used as an intensive, to show us that those who truly feared the Lord could not be tempted by all the luxuries of Babylon to forget their native inheritance.

The language also suggests that they were not so entirely overwhelmed by their calamities as not to recognize in them the deserved chastisement of God, and that they were not to be accused of obstinately struggling against Him; for tears are the expression of humility and penitence, as well as of distress.

This appears even more plainly from the fact that it was Zion they remembered, which proves that what had charms for them was not any worldly advantage they might enjoy there, but the worship of God. God had erected His sanctuary like a banner on Mount Zion, so that as often as they looked to it, they might be assured of His salvation.

Therefore, however fair and fertile the region where they dwelt was, with charms that could corrupt minds prone to indulgence, and however long they were detained in it, their tears—which are proverbially soon dried up—never ceased to stream from their eyes, because they were cut off from the worship of God, which they were accustomed to attend, and felt that they were torn from the inheritance of promise.