Seventh-day Adventist Bible CommentaryPsalms 137

Rivers of Babylon. Babylon was known as the land of “many waters” (Jer. 51:13). The most important watercourse was the Euphrates, which has many tributaries. The captives had resorted to the banks of these streams. We wept. The remembrance of the Holy City and especially of their Temple now in ruins made their hearts so sorrowful that they found it impossible to restrain their tears. To them there was no land like Canaan. It was a goodly land (Deut. 8:7–9). It held many precious memories for them.

Hanged our harps. The music of the lyre (see p. 34) had been sweet and delightful to them, but now that calamity had overtaken them, their harps were silent.

Required of us a song. For an Assyrian pictorial representation of this verse see Fig. 9, p. 35, together with comments made there. Songs of Zion. Their masters were deriding them and asking them to sing one of their sacred melodies.

If I forget. To have consented to sing a song of the Temple under these conditions would have seemed to the Israelite like being unfaithful to his beloved city, which he adored with all his heart. Sooner would he forget his most treasured possession than forget Zion, the pride and glory of Israel.

Tongue cleave. That is, lose the ability to speak.

The children of Edom. Edom manifested an unbrotherly spirit toward Israel on several occasions. Despite their kinship with the descendants of Jacob, the Edomites helped the Babylonians against the Israelites (Obadiah 10–14. Edom is repeatedly

denounced by the prophets for its heartless treatment of a brother nation (Jer. 49:7; Lam. 4:21; Eze. 25:12–14; Joel 3:19; Amos 1:11).

Against the stones. The murder of innocent children, though customary in ancient warfare, was one of the cruelest and most abhorrent of all practices (2 Kings 8:12; Isa. 13:16; Hosea 10:14). In view of the fact that such stern treatment had been meted out by the Babylonians (see Jer. 51:24), the psalmist is simply enunciating a law of life—“as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee” (Obadiah 15; cf. Matt. 7:2).