Reflections on Psalms 137

 Psalms 137(Contemporary English Version)

1. Beside the rivers of Babylon we thought about Jerusalem, and we sat down and cried.
   
2. We hung our small harps on the willow trees.
   
3. Our enemies had brought us here as their prisoners, and now they wanted us to sing and entertain them. They insulted us and shouted, "Sing about Zion!"
   
4. Here in a foreign land, how can we sing about the LORD?
   
5. Jerusalem, if I forget you, let my right hand go limp.
   
6. Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I don't think about you above all else.
   
7. Our LORD, punish the Edomites! Because the day Jerusalem fell, they shouted, "Completely destroy the city! Tear down every building!"
   
8. Babylon, you are doomed! I pray the Lord's blessings on anyone who punishes you for what you did to us.
   
9. May the Lord bless everyone who beats your children against the rocks! 

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Jerusalem was the Jews' spiritual center. They were required by the Mosaic law to go there for worship and to give offerings of thanksgiving and make sacrifices of atonement for their sin. But Jerusalem along with their entire homeland had been taken from them when the Babylonians invaded Israel, destroyed Jerusalem, and took the people captive. In Babylon their captors taunted them to sing "the songs of Zion." But how could they, in their grief and loss, sing songs of rejoicing, and furthermore, how could they sing songs dedicated to the Lord in the midst of heathens?

Beyond their pain there was an irony to this taunt to sing the songs of Zion. They were in exile precisely because they had failed to sing these songs in their homeland, or worse, had sung them to idols rather than the Lord. Not only were the songs a reminder of their loss but of the reason for their loss. In light of this, we can better understand why the psalmist prayed the curse on himself that he lose the ability to play or sing music if he should fail to "exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!" He and his countrymen had failed to do this and lost Jerusalem. Now they realized it as their greatest joy and recognized what they had lost.

Any who have experienced a loss and born the responsibility for that loss understands the desire to take back the actions that caused it. They can understand as well the vow to never again do the things that brought such loss. For the psalmist the vow was to never again fail to exalt Jerusalem as his greatest joy.
Verses 7-9 are difficult to understand, particularly from a Christian perspective that recalls Jesus' teaching to love our enemies. But, then, even the Old testament taught that vengeance belongs to the Lord. In these verses the psalmist asks the Lord to remember the Edomites who stood by and cheered on the Babylonians while they destroyed Jerusalem, and also to remember the Babylonians who brought the destruction. His prayer is that the Lord will do to them what they did to Israel which included the dashing of their babies against the rocks.

The psalmist may only have been reminding the Lord of what He foretold through the prophet Isaiah,saying, "Their children will be smashed to death before their eyes; their houses will be looted, and their wives raped." (Isaiah 13:16) Whether this was the case or not, he was anxious for his tormentors to be dealt with.