Psalm 137 is a corporate lament, a prayer that gives voice to a sense of collective disorientation. We are in the middle of a pandemic and are also experiencing collective disorientation! I think, if we look closely, we can find some solidarity and comfort in this Psalm.
“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.
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.
Remember, Lord, what Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried, “tear it down to its foundations!”
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”
The nation of Israel was God’s people in the Old Testament. They had been forced by enemy invaders to leave their homeland. Their city and temple (the place of worship around which their whole culture was organized) had been ransacked. God had promised that they would be a people in specific locale spreading blessing to the whole world, but circumstances seemed to be heading the opposite direction.
They were deeply grieving their distance from the temple at Jerusalem because that was the place where God’s presence dwelled. They reeled with shock and trauma from having their city plundered and themselves kidnapped. They longed for God to make things right, but it seemed like the opposite was happening. If we look closely, we can see how this psalm invites us to lament the griefs we are experiencing now.
In 2020 we, too, find ourselves mourning. We fight the anxieties of an uncertain future and carry the burden of being unable to connect and enjoy each other’s physical presence. It’s hard to care for friends or family members who are sick or alone. Socially distant church services, online worship, zoom hangouts, and reducing friendships to our those in our “bubbles” isn’t fun anymore (not that it ever was).
I miss hosting groups of friends in our home and serving meals and hugging and talking face to face. I miss hanging out in a jam-packed lobby in between services at church, literally bumping elbows squeezing through narrow spaces to get to the coffee bar or that one friend on the other side of the room. God designed us for life together and there is something sacred about togetherness that I, for one, often took for granted.
I am NOT challenging the necessity and wisdom of social distancing – that is not what this is about. But when God’s people gather together for worship, God draws near. We embody God’s presence for one another in a mysterious and powerful way, particularly during times of grief and struggle. He created us as relational beings and it feels as though something of God’s presence is being withheld from us as long as we are physically unable to gather. That is not a reason for defiance, but it is certainly a reason to lament.
In this Psalm, the people of Israel were far from their home and everything associated with God’s physical presence. No wonder they were lamenting! This Psalm was written by (former) temple musicians, which we infer because they talk about their songs and instruments (vs. 2, 3, and 4). The author/s were ancient worship leaders whose job had been to lead worship in the temple.
Their kidnappers were mocking them! They demanded, “Sing songs of Zion”! It poured salt into their wounds adding insult to injury. Joyful songs were inappropriate and the request from those responsible for the devastation was offensive. The songwriter answered, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” He went on, “May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth and hand forget how to play if I forget Jerusalem as my greatest joy!” Perhaps this Psalm of lament and imprecation was the response to that request.
Jerusalem represented the pinnacle of God’s presence in ancient Israel and Zion was the name of mountain where the temple was built. The temple housed the Most Holy Place – the place God chose for his presence to inhabit. So when Psalms or other Old Testament texts refer to Zion, it’s typically a metaphor for God’s presence.
So here in exile, carried away from their home, God – their highest joy – could no longer be accessed in the ways they knew. Jesus had not yet been revealed, nor had the Spirit come to indwell his people in the ways we now experience. It felt like they’d been expelled from God’s presence.
But God had a purpose in their suffering and had not forgotten them or reversed his promise. Verse 7 is where we see find evidence of that, but it’s in a completely unexpected way. Here they remember the destruction they experienced when Jerusalem fell to the enemy invaders. They clung to hope that this wasn’t the end of everything for their nation because verse 8 goes on to say Babylon (the enemy’s capital) is “doomed to destruction.” And then in what is to us a disturbing and crazy twist they said, “Happy is he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks.” Huh?
This is confusing and super disturbing to read in the Bible. It sounds vengeful and sadistic. Why are God’s people singing about the killing of children?
But nothing in this Psalm is justifying child murder. What we have here, is a call for justice. Terrible actions have terrible consequences and it’s “happy” because we long for the injustices in the world to be made right. We cling to hope that one day God will set all the wrong things right. They were staking their hopes on the reality that God will not let the wicked go unpunished.
They were still looking forward to the Messiah. They didn’t know Jesus yet, but the existence of evils like what they experienced (and what we experience, too), is the very reason Jesus had to come. He didn’t come just to forgive our individual sins, but to undo the Curse on the whole earth. Sin polluted all of humanity and creation itself. Case in point, when Jerusalem was attacked, the Israelites experienced unspeakably horrific things. Perhaps this author witnessed Israelite babies being brutally killed in this way. Perhaps his own child was murdered. We don’t know, but the righting of wrongs necessarily means judgment on evil (Revelation 21:5-8). When Jesus returns he will right all wrongs once and for all and this righting of wrongs is the ultimate climax to which time is building. And even though we are much farther along in God’s story than ancient Israel was, we are still waiting for this.
These worship leaders weren’t personally seeking vengeance, but they were longing for the injustices they experienced to be set right and they expressed that in the terminology they knew. They spoke their agonized feelings to God in honest lament.
So what does this have to do with us? Their situation was different and their experience was from ours. We don’t have a temple and our cities don’t represent God’s presence on earth. We haven’t had our homes ransacked or been carried away as slaves.
From where we’re sitting, we know the promises God made to Israel have been fulfilled in Jesus! We aren’t tied to the temple’s sacrificial system because we have the blood of Jesus atoning for our sin. We have the presence of the Spirit with us no matter where we go.
But there are still applications for us.
We still live in a world that’s full of injustice and strife, sickness and death. In this season of uncertainly and loneliness, We’ve been stripped of some of the things we used to find comfort and distraction in – so it’s an opportunity to refocus and tune our hearts in to God and what he is doing in us. If you’re like me, you have already had some opportunities for that since March.
But more to my point, we are separated from the physical presence of our communities – perhaps not completely, but certainly in many aspects. For those of us to want to worship together on Sundays, but can’t – we know we are the Church, yet we long to worship as one Body. The isolation brings grief. I have a friend who lives alone and per her doctor’s orders, she spent many months not touching or being in close contact with another human being because of particular health concerns. No one is designed to live that way!
People are alone in hospitals and can’t be surrounded by their loved ones. Funerals and memorials and weddings can’t happen. It is right that we feel torn and broken because this is not how we are meant to live. It is appropriate for us to lament. Instead of Babylonian invaders, our enemy is a microscopic virus and the disruption to life as we know it. Instead of taking our anger out on those who think differently than us, we should feel our grief and lament the losses with the Lord. He is the only one big enough to handle it. He hasn’t abandoned us. None of this has surprised him and he is still working. One day he will make things right for us, too.
The Israelites looked to a future Hope and that Hope is ours, too. One day, people from every nation, tribe, people and language will gather together in a group so large it cannot be numbered. All our diseases will be healed and we will stand before the throne of God, in his very presence and worship together. A loud voice will cry, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4).
And then we will all feast together. It’s what Revelation calls “the marriage banquet of the lamb” – the final consummation of Jesus and his bride – the Church. And the greatest separation – death, our true, and last, enemy – will be done away with.
But until then, let’s lament. Like The Psalmists of 137, let’s grieve our hardships with God and agree with him that the world is broken. Let’s realign our hearts by seeking his kingdom and not our own ideals. Let’s love the people in front of us in whatever opportunities we have – whether it’s our next-door neighbor, that client or coworker over zoom, or the people we live with. Let’s fight for joy and cling to hope and trust that each time we do, God’s kingdom is more fully present in us and in our circle of influence. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Resources
Collins, John C. Study notes on Psalms. In ESV Study Bible, 1114-1115. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008.
Kidner, Derek. Psalms 73-150. Kidner Classic Commentaries. 1975. Reprint, Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008.
Longman, Tremper III. “Lament.” In Cracking Old Testament Codes, by D. Brent Sandy and Ronald L. Giese, Jr. 197-213. Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman, 1995.
Longman, Tremper III. Psalms. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, Volumes 15-16. Ed. David Firth. Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. 2014.
Miller, Paul E. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World. 2009. Reprint, Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2009.
