By the Waters of Babylon We Sat Down and Wept – Psalm 137

This is a psalm of imprecation.  Imprecation means “A curse; the act of invoking evil upon anyone; a prayer that a curse or calamity may fall on anyone.” [Bible Hub] 

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.  On the willows there we hung up our lyres.  For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?  If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill!  Let my tongue stick 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, how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!”  O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us!  Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!  (Psalm 137 ESV)

There is a loyalty above all loyalties to God that is what keeps us sane no matter what horrid things are perpetrated against us.  When we are being treated with contempt we stay true to Yahweh and anticipate the day when He will make all things right.  Haste the day, Lord.

What follows is the ESV Study Bible note on this psalm:

“This community lament remembers the Babylonian captivity, and provides words by which the returned exiles can express their loyalty to Jerusalem and pray that God would pay out his just punishment on those who gloat over its destruction. This psalm is notable for the ferocity of its final wish (v. 9). This is a vivid application of the principle of talion, the principle that punishment should match the crime (Gen. 9:6; Ex. 21:23–24). It is a prayer that the Babylonians, who had smashed Israelite infants, should be punished appropriately.”

Three additional comments may be made.

First, even though Babylon was the Lord’s tool for disciplining his people, they apparently went about their work with cruel glee (cf. Isa. 47:6; cf. the Assyrians, Isa. 10:5–7).

Second, the vile practice of destroying the infants of a conquered people is well-attested in the ancient world (e.g., 2 Kings 8:12; Hos. 10:14; 13:16; Nah. 3:10; Homer’s Iliad 22.63), and was therefore foretold of the fall of Babylon (Isa. 13:16). Further, the Babylonians had apparently done this to the Judeans (as the connection with Ps. 137:8 suggests), and the prophets led the people to await God’s justice (Isa. 47:1–9; Jer. 51:24).

In this light, the psalm is not endorsing the action in itself but is instead seeing the conquerors of Babylon as carrying out God’s just sentence (even unwittingly). Neither Israelites nor Christians are permitted to indulge personal hatred and vengeance (cf. Lev. 19:17–18; Matt. 5:44); generally speaking, the repentance of those who hate God’s people is preferred (see note on Ps. 83:9–18), and yet, failing that, any prayer for God’s justice (and for Christ’s return) will involve punishment for those who have oppressed his people (cf. Rev. 6:9–10).