Psalm 137 is one of the most painful Psalms in Scripture. It remembers worship under captivity, grief for Jerusalem, and the terrible danger of letting Babylon’s children grow inside the heart. The Church does not read this Psalm as permission for cruelty. The Fathers read its hard ending as ascetic warfare: evil thoughts must be broken against Christ the Rock while they are still small. The Psalm teaches the soul to grieve exile without forgetting Jerusalem.
Psalm 137 (LXX 136) - By the Rivers of Babylon
Psalm Metadata
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| NKJV / Masoretic numbering | Psalm 137 |
| Septuagint / Coptic numbering | Psalm 136 |
| Accepted author | LXX superscription: “For David, a Psalm of Jeremias.” The Psalm itself is an exile lament from the Babylonian captivity tradition. |
| Period in author’s life | The historical setting is the Babylonian exile after Jerusalem’s destruction. The LXX heading connects the lament to Davidic and Jeremianic memory rather than a single Davidic life episode. |
| Christ prophecy status | Typological and ecclesial by fulfillment. Christ enters His people’s exile, weeps over Jerusalem, suffers outside the gate, and becomes the Rock against which evil beginnings are shattered. |
| Coptic lectionary/service use | Verified local rows preserve printed Psalm 137 in the Agpeya Twelfth Hour, Veil Prayer, and Midnight Prayer Third Watch. |
| Numbering issue | This note embeds Brenton LXX Psalm 136. Local rows preserve printed Psalm 137, corresponding to the project title Psalm 137 while the LXX text is Psalm 136. |
Historical and Scriptural Context
Psalm 137 comes from the wound of exile. Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 586 BC. The Psalm remembers captives by the rivers of Babylon, mocked by their captors and asked to sing Zion’s songs for entertainment.
The LXX superscription says, “For David, a Psalm of Jeremias.” That heading is spiritually rich. David represents Jerusalem’s royal and liturgical memory; Jeremiah represents prophetic grief over Jerusalem’s fall. The Psalm joins kingship, prophecy, worship, loss, anger, and hope in one lament.
Geographical Significance ⛰️
The Psalm’s geography is the contrast between Babylon’s rivers and Jerusalem’s holy hill. Babylon’s rivers move, carry, distract, and exile. Jerusalem is remembered as the chief joy. Zion is absent physically but present through grief, loyalty, and hope.
Augustine reads Babylon’s waters spiritually as passing loves: “The waters of Babylon are all things which here are loved, and pass away.” That line turns the Psalm toward the soul. Babylon is not only an empire. It is the world as loved apart from God, a flood of desires that carries the heart away from Jerusalem.
The Characters 👥
The exiles. The people of God grieving by Babylon’s rivers.
The captors. Those who demand songs of Zion while profaning Zion’s grief.
Jerusalem / Zion. The holy city, temple memory, and spiritual homeland of the people of God.
Edom. The hostile neighbor remembered for crying, “Rase it, rase it.”
Daughter of Babylon. The city and system of confusion, violence, and captivity.
Christ the Rock. The patristic key to the final verse, from 1 Corinthians 10:4.
🕯️ Light from the Word
Psalm 136:1-4, tears by Babylon and harps hung on willows
136:1 For David, a Psalm of Jeremias. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat; and wept when we remembered Sion.
136:2 We hung our harps on the willows in the midst of it.
136:3 For there they that had taken us captive asked of us the words of a song; and they that had carried us away asked a hymn, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Sion.
136:4 How should we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
The Psalm begins seated, weeping, and remembering. The exiles are not faithless because they weep. Their tears prove they still remember Zion. The dangerous soul is not the one that grieves exile, but the one that becomes comfortable in Babylon.
Augustine’s interpretation is piercing: “The waters of Babylon are all things which here are loved, and pass away.” He warns that one may rejoice and weep according to Babylon’s standards: happy when gaining, crushed when losing, yet never grieving separation from God. The Psalm teaches a different grief: tears born from remembering Zion.
The harps are hung because the songs of Zion cannot be turned into entertainment for captors. Holy things must not be performed for mockery. There are moments when silence protects worship from being profaned.
St Athanasius says the Psalms give the Church words for the soul’s own prayer, and St Gregory of Nyssa teaches that psalmody trains the soul toward virtue and that the end of the life according to virtue is blessedness. Psalm 137 (LXX 136) is an exile lament that teaches the soul to remember Jerusalem, refuse Babylon’s false joys, and guard holy song from profanation.
Lesson Guide
- Key phrases: “By the rivers of Babylon”; “wept when we remembered Sion”; “hung our harps”; “strange land.”
- Emphasize: godly grief remembers Zion and refuses to make holy worship a show for Babylon.
- Avoid: shaming grief. The Psalm honors holy sorrow.
Psalm 136:5-6, the vow not to forget Jerusalem
136:5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill.
136:6 May my tongue cleave to my throat, if I do not remember thee; if I do not prefer Jerusalem as the chief of my joy.
The vow is bodily. Hand and tongue are offered as witnesses. If the singer forgets Jerusalem, the hand may lose skill and the tongue may lose speech. This is not melodrama. The Psalmist is saying that praise, work, speech, and memory must remain ordered toward the holy city.
For Christians, Jerusalem opens into the Church and the heavenly Jerusalem. Hebrews 12 says believers have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God. Galatians 4 speaks of Jerusalem above as mother. Revelation shows the new Jerusalem descending from God. The Christian must not forget this homeland while living in the world.
This has a direct spiritual practice. Ask: what has become my chief joy? If it is comfort, achievement, reputation, money, control, being right, or escape, then Babylon has trained my hand and tongue. The Psalm calls the soul to reorder joy.
Lesson Guide
- Key phrases: “If I forget thee”; “right hand”; “tongue”; “chief of my joy.”
- Emphasize: memory of Jerusalem must govern speech, skill, and joy.
- Avoid: turning Jerusalem into nostalgia only. It points to the Church’s heavenly homeland.
Psalm 136:7-9, Edom, Babylon, and the hard word about infants
136:7 Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to its foundations.
136:8 Wretched daughter of Babylon! blessed shall he be who shall reward thee as thou hast rewarded us.
136:9 Blessed shall he be who shall seize and dash thine infants against the rock.
This is a hard text and should be named as such. Literally, it rises from the trauma of a conquered people who saw Jerusalem destroyed and children slaughtered. The Psalm gives voice to wounded justice and rage. Scripture is honest enough to preserve that cry without pretending the heart of exile is tidy.
The Church, however, does not read verse 9 as permission for cruelty. Augustine gives the classic spiritual reading: “What are the little ones of Babylon? Evil desires at their birth.” Then he says, “Dash it against the Rock; and that Rock is Christ.” This is the key patristic insight. The verse becomes a rule of watchfulness: do not negotiate with destructive thoughts while they are still small.
This reading is not avoidance. It is spiritual precision. Adult passions are harder to fight because they have become habits. Pride, lust, resentment, envy, addiction, contempt, and despair begin as small thoughts. If they are cherished, they grow into Babylon. The Psalm teaches the ascetic urgency of bringing them against Christ before they mature.
Edom’s cry, “Rase it,” warns against participation in another’s destruction. The soul can become Edom when it enjoys someone else’s collapse. The Christian response is sober judgment, repentance, and refusal to feed the children of Babylon in the heart.
Lesson Guide
- Key phrases: “Remember, O Lord”; “Rase it”; “daughter of Babylon”; “dash thine infants against the rock.”
- Emphasize: the patristic reading breaks evil thoughts against Christ while they are still small.
- Avoid: either sanitizing the verse or using it to justify violence. Name the historical wound and the Church’s spiritual reading.
The Church’s Voice in Worship 📖
Verified local rows preserve printed Psalm 137 in the Agpeya Twelfth Hour, Veil Prayer, and Midnight Prayer Third Watch. This placement is spiritually exact. These are nighttime prayers, when the soul examines exile, death, hidden thoughts, and readiness for the Bridegroom. Psalm 137 teaches the worshiper to remember Jerusalem in the night and to break Babylon’s young thoughts before sleep and darkness make them stronger.
No date-resolved, Pascha, or special-service row was verified for printed Psalm 137 in the current query. The Psalm’s themes still resonate with Lent, repentance, exile, and the heavenly Jerusalem, but this note does not invent a specific Coptic lectionary placement beyond the verified Agpeya rows.
Iconography Connection 🖼️
Psalm 137 can use visual art only with pastoral restraint. Arthur Hacker’s By the Waters of Babylon (circa 1888, public domain, Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arthur_Hacker_-_By_the_Waters_of_Babylon_(1888).jpg) is a useful Western biblical art source for grief by the rivers of Babylon. It is not an icon and not a historical reconstruction.
The project Zion, Exile, and the Rivers of Babylon schematic may also help readers see the Psalm’s spiritual geography: exile away from Zion, memory of Jerusalem, and the danger of singing holy songs for entertainment in Babylon. Any visual must deepen lament and repentance; it must not aestheticize trauma or soften the Psalm’s hard ending.
Spiritual Fruit 🍇
- Let grief remember Zion. Do not let sorrow become mere self-pity. Turn it into longing for God.
- Refuse Babylon’s entertainment. Not every holy thing should be performed for people who intend to mock or consume it.
- Guard your chief joy. Ask what would devastate you most if lost. That question reveals whether Jerusalem is first.
- Break thoughts early. Bring resentment, lust, despair, envy, and pride to Christ while they are still small.
- Do not become Edom. Refuse the pleasure of watching another person’s fall.
Teacher's Notes
- Timing: 15 minutes on exile and holy grief, 10 minutes on Jerusalem as chief joy, 20 minutes on the hard final verses and Augustine’s ascetic reading, 10 minutes on Agpeya nighttime placement.
- Where to linger: Augustine’s interpretation: “What are the little ones of Babylon? Evil desires at their birth.”
- Key phrase to say slowly: “Dash it against the Rock; and that Rock is Christ.”
- Pastoral warning: this Psalm must not be used to justify violence, cruelty, or revenge. Teach the historical wound honestly, then give the Church’s spiritual reading clearly.
Glossary
- Babylon: Historically the empire of exile; spiritually the world loved apart from God and the confusion of passions.
- Zion / Jerusalem: The holy city remembered in exile, fulfilled in the Church and heavenly Jerusalem.
- Willows: In Augustine’s reading, barren trees by Babylon’s waters, an image of fruitless attachment to passing things.
- Edom: Neighboring people remembered here for rejoicing in Jerusalem’s destruction.
- Christ the Rock: The New Testament identification from 1 Corinthians 10:4, used by Augustine to interpret the hard final verse ascetically.
Translation and Source Notes
Embedded Scripture is Brenton’s English Septuagint, Psalm 136. The study title uses NKJV Psalm 137 with LXX 136 in parentheses. The LXX superscription reads, “For David, a Psalm of Jeremias.” Local lectionary rows preserve printed Psalm 137 in Agpeya nighttime prayers.
Sources
Primary sources: Brenton Septuagint, Psalm 136; 2 Kings 25; 2 Chronicles 36; Jeremiah 52; Lamentations 1; Luke 19:41-44; Hebrews 12:22-24; Galatians 4:26; Revelation 21; 1 Corinthians 10:4.
Patristic sources: St Augustine, Exposition on Psalm CXXXVII in NPNF1 volume 8 via CCEL; Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on the Psalms; St Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus; St Gregory of Nyssa, On the Inscriptions of the Psalms.
Coptic Orthodox / liturgical sources: Coptic Orthodox lectionary lectionary references and Agpeya rows for printed Psalm 137 in the Twelfth Hour, Veil Prayer, and Midnight Prayer Third Watch.