Psalm 137 explained: Grief and Anger in Exile

Weeping by Babylon's rivers (vv. 1-3)

After Babylon conquered Jerusalem around 586 BC, many of its people were taken there as captives, and here they weep for Zion, the hill where the temple stood, used as a name for Jerusalem. They hang their harps on the trees (willows in older translations, poplars in newer ones), and their captors demand cheerful songs from home, which most readers hear as mockery.

A song they could not sing (v. 4)

The songs of the LORD were tied to worship at the temple, and singing them on command in a conqueror's land felt impossible. Readers differ on whether the reason is crushing grief, a sense that these songs were too holy to perform as entertainment, or both.

A vow to remember (vv. 5-6)

The right hand plays the harp and the tongue sings, so the singer asks to lose both if Jerusalem is ever forgotten. It is a solemn promise that the city, even in ruins and far away, will remain their greatest joy.

Calling out Edom (v. 7)

Edom was Jerusalem's neighbor to the southeast, traditionally descended from Esau, the brother of Israel's ancestor Jacob, and other books such as Obadiah also accuse it of cheering on Jerusalem's fall. Asking the LORD to remember is asking God to hold Edom to account.

Paying Babylon back (v. 8)

The poet now speaks directly to Babylon, pictured as a daughter, a common poetic way of naming a city, and calls happy whoever pays her back for how she treated them. Babylon fell to the Persian king Cyrus in 539 BC, largely without a battle, and he soon let the exiles go home.

The cry about children (v. 9)

Still speaking to Babylon, the poet calls happy whoever takes her little children and smashes them against rock, a real cruelty of ancient warfare that the book of Isaiah also predicts for Babylon. Readers differ on what this line is: some hear the honest anguish of people who had watched their own city destroyed, while others, including older commentators, read it as a prophecy of Babylon's complete fall and a cry for justice rather than personal revenge.

Key verse: Psalm 137:4

Where Christians differ

Christians genuinely differ over the closing verses: some read them as honest anguish voiced in a prayer that leaves justice to God, some as a prophecy of Babylon's deserved fall, some as words not fit for Christian prayer today, and some, following early church writers, read the little ones as small wrong thoughts to be crushed early, while some church traditions leave these verses out of public worship.

Something to think about

When people have survived great cruelty, what do you think is a healthy thing to do with the anger that follows?