By the Rivers of Babylon
1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion. 2 On the willows in that land, we hung up our harps. 3 For there, those who led us captive asked us for songs. Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” 4 How can we sing Yahweh’s song in a foreign land? 5 If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. 6 Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I don’t remember you, if I don’t prefer Jerusalem above my chief joy. 7 Remember, Yahweh, against the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who said, “Raze it! Raze it even to its foundation!” 8 Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, he will be happy who repays you, as you have done to us. 9 Happy shall he be, who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock.
Musicians who will not perform on request, and the most terrible sentence in the Psalter.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
The only psalm that can be dated to the hour. It is written by someone who was in Babylon, beside the irrigation canals, and the memory is fresh enough to still hurt.
On the willows in that land, we hung up our harps.
The instruments are put away rather than broken. They are temple musicians, still carrying the tools of a trade there is no longer any occasion for.
For there, those who led us captive asked us for songs. Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
The specific cruelty of the psalm. Not violence — a request for entertainment. Their captors want to hear the famous music of the country they have just destroyed, and the psalm calls the request torment.
How can we sing Yahweh’s song in a foreign land?
The refusal, and it is not sulking. These songs were liturgy, sung in a building that no longer stood, and performing them as after-dinner music for the men who pulled it down would have emptied them.
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. 6 Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I don’t remember you, if I don’t prefer Jerusalem above my chief joy.
A musician's oath, sworn on the two things he needs — the playing hand and the singing tongue.
Remember, Yahweh, against the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who said, “Raze it! Raze it even to its foundation!”
Edom's crime was cheering. Descendants of Esau, standing outside the city of their relatives, calling for it to be taken down to the foundations.
Happy shall he be, who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock.
The most terrible sentence in Scripture, and it should not be explained away. Three things can be said and none of them makes it comfortable.
It describes what the Babylonians had done. This was standard practice in the sack of a city, and the people writing had watched it — the psalm asks for nothing that was not done to their own children first.
It is a prayer, not a plan. Nobody in this psalm is going anywhere near a Babylonian child; they are sitting by a canal with their instruments in a tree.
And it is recorded rather than approved. Scripture preserves what the exiles actually said, at the worst moment of their history, without editing it into something more presentable — and a book that prints this is not flattering the people it is about.
held with reason What this mark means