This is a song of memory. From the midst of the circumstances of restoration the singer looks back to days of captivity and sorrow. The picture is graphic. Babylon was far from their own land, and far removed in every way from the city of God and the temple of The LORD. All its material splendour was noting to the captive souls who were yet faithful to The LORD.
This Psalm is the desolation of those who are away from the place of God’s manifestation. With the prayer only for judgment upon their enemies, who have destroyed or sympathized with the destruction of the home of their affections, Edom and Babylon are both doomed by the prophets to extinction as a people. The deepest sense of justice still makes punishment a necessary thing in the economy of God.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
Psalms 137:2
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
Psalms 137:3
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
Psalms 137:4
How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land?
Psalms 137:5
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
Psalms 137:6
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
Psalms 137:7
Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
Psalms 137:8
O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Psalms 137:9
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
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