Woe to Babylon!

Psalm 137.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

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.

How shall we sing the LORD’S song in a strange land?

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

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.

Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

Israel had been defeated by Babylon, and thousands had been removed from Jerusalem to Babylon. This was a time of great grieving, and the people had gone so far as to literally hang up their harps on the tree branches. The music was no longer in their hearts, because of their grief over their homeland.

It is possible that this psalm was written in remembrance of their captivity once they had returned to Jerusalem; or, it could have been written at some point during their captivity. In any event, the psalm captures the sorrow and grieving that the Hebrews experienced in their captivity. Over what, specifically, did they grieve?

• They wept over the death of so many loved ones.
• They wept over the loss of almost everything they owned.
• They wept over the destroyed city of Jerusalem and her great temple.
• They wept over the agony of a forced march from Judea to Babylon.
• They wept over the cruelty of their captors.
• They wept over the loss of such a pleasant and blessed past.
• They wept over the forced captivity of their present.
• They wept over the bleak nature of their future.
• They wept over their sin that invited such judgment from God.

Guzik, BlueLetterBible

The Babylonians could see the open grieving, yet they taunted the Israelites: “Come on, sing us one of your songs!” They wanted their captives to entertain them, but the Israelites had no heart for it.

The final verses of this psalm call down judgment on Babylon: “Let them be treated as they have treated us!” We may recoil at the violence, but it was what the Hebrews had experienced at the hands of the Babylonian soldiers. Warfare was just as ugly and horrendous then as it is now.