Psalm 137

¹ By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
² There on the poplars we hung our harps,
³ for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
⁴ How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?
⁵ If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.
⁶ May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.
⁷ Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried, “tear it down to its foundations!”
⁸ O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us
⁹ he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

Read Isaiah chapter 13 and 14 to fully understand this psalm.

As I read verse three “for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” it reminds me of the scene in the movie The Return of the Kings where Pippin is ask to sing a song of his homeland. He reply that that we do not have songs for great halls and evil times. The seventy years that Judah spent in captivity were times that gave three generations time to reflect on their relation with God. They were living in a land that was not their home. They also knew God will redeem them and destroy Babylon.

As believers we are also in the same place as Israel was in Babylon. We are not of this world, yet we live in this world. We are are looking forward to the new heaven and the new earth. The songs we sing are those that speak of our redemption. These songs of the Blessed Assurance that we have found in Christ. In John chapter fourteen Christ speaks of his leaving to go to his Father’s house and preparing a place for us. He also stated that he will also be coming back again and take us unto himself. As Judah waited for the day that they where to return home to Jerusalem, so should we as believers long for the day of Christ’s return.

Some verses must be placed in our hearts to help assist in our daily meditations. I John 2:15,16 is one of these “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of this world.”