September 15, 2023 — Psalm 137

“By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How could we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy. Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall, how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations!” O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!”

The writer of Psalm 137 begins by remembering his people being taken away from their home. Jerusalem had been attacked and conquered—the temple destroyed. The ruler of Babylon needed to dismantle the power base in Israel so that the people could not rebuild—so they rounded up all of their leaders, their religious leaders, the power brokers of the day, and took them to Babylon. This is what we know today as the Babylonian exile. Defeated, with the knowledge that their country had been ravaged, their homes ransacked and looted, and that many of their family members and friends had died during the struggle— the people were now being “carried”—”taken against their will”  to what was, to them, a completely godless place. 

The psalmist writes how they had stopped on the journey, probably to rest by one of the canals of Babylon. And as they sat down, the Israelites began to cry; they were weeping for all they had lost, for their homeland, and also for the loss of their…G-d— the One who lived in the temple—G-d’s dwelling place, the temple was destroyed. And it seemed more than they could bear. As they rested, maybe to pass the time, maybe to show their power, or maybe just for sport, the Babylonian captors begin to poke fun at their prisoners — to taunt them at the core of their pain…  Mockingly they ask: “Sing us one of those songs of Zion”. What they meant was for the Israelites to sing one of the songs they used to sing in Jerusalem, in the temple, in worship—a song about and for G-d.

There will come a day where the Babylonians will be defeated, and they too shall have to endure seeing their “little ones dashed against the rock!” G-d will avenge G-d’s people — a new day will come where they will once again be able to worship in Jerusalem. But for now, it shall be the “remembrance” of those days that will need to carry them through.

The day is coming, and perhaps soon, where G-d’s people shall once again worship the Lord in his eternal Temple, in the Kingdom of G-d. Until then we cannot lose hope – for the Lord will triumph.

Let us Pray:

God of courage and compassion, comfort the exiled and oppressed, strengthen the faith of your people, and bring us all to our true home, the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Pastor Dave