Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

Psalm 137. 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).

137:1-3 Our Sadness as Captives in Babylon. The opening section recalls the captivity by the waters of Babylon (the Euphrates River, several streams and canals), where the Babylonian captors had required of us songs. The songs of Zion would be sacred songs (such as the psalms), and apparently the captors wanted the Judeans to sing them for entertainment (and perhaps gloating) rather than for worship.