John Calvin Commentary Psalms 137:4

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

How shall we sing, etc. The Psalmist puts a lofty and magnanimous answer into the mouths of the Lord’s people in response to their insolent reproach: they abstained from their songs, just as they did from their legal sacrifices, because the land where they were then living was polluted. The Chaldeans thought the Jews were bound down permanently to this place of their exile; the Psalmist, when he calls it a foreign land, suggests that it was only the place of their temporary stay.

But the main idea is that Chaldea was not worthy of the honor of having God’s praises sung in it. No doubt, the children of God, wherever they have lived, have always been strangers and foreigners in the world. However, the land of Canaan was the sacred rest provided for them, and the Psalmist aptly describes them as being foreigners and sojourners when they were in other lands.

In this way, the Psalmist wanted them to be always ready and prepared for their return, tacitly reinforcing what Jeremiah had prophesied. To prevent them from forgetting their native country, Jeremiah had specifically foretold the duration of their exile (Jeremiah 25:11; Jeremiah 29:10). Meanwhile, the Psalmist aimed to encourage their constancy and urge them not to coalesce with the Babylonians out of fear.

In our own day, under the Papacy, however great the danger to which the faithful expose themselves by not conforming to the example around them, the Holy Spirit uses such a barrier as this to separate them from sinful compliances. For those—whether French, English, or Italian—who love and practice the true religion, even their native country becomes a foreign land when they live under that tyranny.

And yet, there is a distinction between us and God’s ancient people. At that time, the worship of God was confined to one place. But now, He has His temple wherever two or three are met together in Christ’s name, if they separate themselves from all idolatrous profession and maintain purity of divine worship.

The Psalmist, through the language he uses, by no means intends to suppress every attempt on their part to celebrate God’s praises. Rather, he exhorts them in their affliction to wait with patience until the liberty of publicly worshipping God was restored, saying, in effect—we have been bereft of our Temple and sacrifices; we wander as exiles in a polluted land, and what remains for us, in remembrance of our outcast state, but to sigh and groan for the promised deliverance?