Although Psalm 137 is rather well-known and the words put to modern songs, it is also one of the saddest and most bitter presentations in all of the Psalms. The reason is that it depicts Jewish exiles in Babylon during the captivity after King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and took most of the living as slaves to his capital in Babylon. The psalm concludes with a prayer for destruction of Babylon for their atrocities against the people of Judah; and against Edom for taunting Jerusalem when it was under Babylonian siege.
Yours and His,
But I want us to see Psalm 137 from another perspective. Many believe this was written near the end of the exile when the Persians were already making advances on the Babylonian kingdom. We know that soon after Medo-Persia conquered Babylon, Cyrus king of Persia gave a proclamation for all Jews to return to Judah to reoccupy and rebuild Jerusalem, including the temple. Ezra 1:5 says that God stirred up the spirit of many to go, but there were also many Jews who did not make the long, dangerous journey to a now desolate land.
Why did these 2nd generation-removed Jews respond to God’s prompting? Because something was passed on to them from the older generation that they could not forget. They spoke of Jerusalem, the great city, and its Mt. Zion and temple. No doubt they recited the Scriptures – the Torah and the Prophets. And they sang the psalms as well as the laments that produced a longing in their sons and daughters. They even composed psalms in the exile like this one.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
The 2nd stanza, verses 4-6, says:
How can we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her skill.
May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy.
Something was passed on of the former glory of that place, and of the glory of their God. If the Lord tarries, it is conceivable that we or our children or grandchildren could be taken captive, and our freedom to worship swept away. Have we passed on the faith, life in Jesus, the Word of God, and the glory of God to our children and grandchildren such that they will remember and so long to worship God and His Christ, that they will act in the day when He stirs their spirit?