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Psalm 137 (LXX 136) - By the Rivers of Babylon

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This narration is from a previous version of the study. The text on this page is current.

Psalm 137 begins with people sitting and weeping beside the waters of a land where they have been taken captive. They remember Zion, and the very people who carried them away demand a song. The lament ends not with an easy resolution, but with a cry for retribution that shocks us. How do we hear its grief honestly and bring its anger to Christ?

Psalm 137 (LXX 136) - By the Rivers of Babylon

Psalm Metadata

FieldNotes
NKJV / Masoretic numberingPsalm 137
Septuagint / Coptic numberingPsalm 136
Accepted authorLXX superscription: “For David, a Psalm of Jeremias.” The Psalm itself is an exile lament from the Babylonian captivity tradition.
Period in author’s lifeThe 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 statusTypological 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 useThe consulted references preserve printed Psalm 137 in the Agpeya Twelfth Hour, Veil Prayer, and Midnight Prayer Third Watch.
Numbering issueThis note embeds Brenton LXX Psalm 136. The consulted references preserve printed Psalm 137, corresponding to the project title Psalm 137 while the LXX text is Psalm 136.

Historical and Scriptural Context

The Psalm remembers the Babylonian exile after the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. The biblical histories tell of conquest, death, and deportation; the lament gives the displaced a voice. Their suffering is not evidence that any particular captive deserved what happened.

Brenton’s received superscription associates the Psalm with David and Jeremias, but it does not establish biographical authorship. Theodoret of Cyrus disputes the added Jeremian title: he points out that Jeremiah went to Egypt rather than to Babylon with the captives. The heading remains part of the text displayed here; Theodoret’s objection helps us distinguish a received heading from a settled account of composition.1

Geographical Significance ⛰️

Babylon’s rivers are where the singers find themselves; Zion is the Jerusalem they remember. The distance is first a real separation from the city and its temple, not merely an image of an inward feeling. Christian reflection can learn from that distance without taking the historical loss away from Israel.

🕯️ 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. Zion is not an idea detached from life: it is the city whose loss has changed the people’s worship and common life. Their tears are not a failure of faith. The Psalm lets remembrance and grief belong together.

The request for a song comes from those who hold the singers captive. A song of worship is demanded from people who have been carried away from the place they love. Their question in verse 4 refuses to make that holy song into their captors’ amusement. There are moments when silence protects worship from being profaned. This is not a ban on every public performance of sacred music or on praying away from Jerusalem.

Theodoret connects the hanging of the instruments with his understanding that the law appointed a particular place for worship. He also reads the captors’ request as mockery, not a desire to learn. In his account, those who have been granted return remember their captivity and their hope for the city’s restoration and worship.2

Augustine later gives the rivers a Christian spiritual meaning: passing things can carry us away when we make them the measure of our lives. He urges humility by the waters, not immersion in or beneath them, so that humility is not itself overwhelming. He asks his hearers to remember Zion and long for God, rather than measure joy and sorrow only by gain and loss. This spiritual invitation is not a judgment against a person grieving a real loss.3

For Augustine, the instruments suggest Scripture, its commands and promises, and meditation on the life to come. His willows picture people nourished by passing pleasures but bearing no fruit in good works; hanging the instruments suggests holding back sacred words from those who want to mock them. This is his moral image, not a lesson in botany. At the end of his sermon he urges his hearers to sing Zion’s songs and live fruitfully, not to abandon sacred song.4

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 voice moves from the people’s shared lament to a personal vow addressed to Jerusalem. The vow is bodily. Hand and tongue are offered as witnesses: the singer would rather lose the hand’s skill and the tongue’s speech than forget the city. This is the forceful language of an oath, not an instruction to harm oneself or a judgment on a person with a disability.

Remembrance is more than retaining a fact. Augustine observes that even enemies can remember Jerusalem when they intend to destroy it. The vow speaks instead of loving the city and placing it at the height of joy: memory has a direction, toward the life and communion associated with Zion.5

For Christians, the historical city is not erased when we hear the promise of the heavenly Jerusalem. Hebrews 12:22-24 speaks of that city and of Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. In Christ, the Church learns to hope for communion with God and His people. Asking what guides our joy can open our lives to Him; it is not a test in which deep sorrow for a loved person proves that we have loved God too little.

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.

The singer asks God to remember Edom’s part in Jerusalem’s ruin: its cry calls for the city to be torn down to the foundations. Then the address turns directly to Babylon. Verse 8 calls for repayment in the measure of the wrong suffered; verse 9 names the terrible violence wished upon Babylon’s infants. In the historical sense, these are children. The Psalm gives voice to a real wound and a desire for reciprocal punishment; it does not tell us that its particular speakers witnessed children being killed.

We must neither soften this ending nor make it an instruction to harm anyone. Christian reading refuses cruelty to children or other living people, ethnic blame, collective punishment, private revenge, and self-harm. We must not attach the names Babylon or Edom to contemporary peoples or personal adversaries. Edom’s cry does, however, challenge us to refuse the pleasure of urging on another person’s destruction.

Theodoret reads the ending historically, as a prediction of Babylon’s punishment. He associates Cyrus with that punishment and with the captives’ release and the rebuilding of the temple. Hill, the modern translator, questions this historical association in a note, observing that Cyrus was lenient toward Babylon. Theodoret’s interpretation does not establish that Cyrus killed Babylonian infants.6

Augustine offers a different, spiritual reading. He asks, “What are the little ones of Babylon? Evil desires at their birth.”7 He then says, “Dash it against the Rock; and that Rock is Christ.”8 Drawing on the identification of the Rock with Christ in 1 Corinthians 10:4, he urges resistance to evil desire before it becomes a practiced habit. He also addresses desires already deeply established: they, too, must be brought to Christ. His sermon ends in hope, with longing for the everlasting Jerusalem and a life that follows that hope.9 His reading does not make the historical children disappear from the Psalm.

As pastoral application, an unwanted or intrusive thought is not the same as choosing to cherish evil. Trauma, illness, addiction, and involuntary despair are not simply acts of consent. Watchfulness means turning toward Christ, not panicking or hating oneself. If distress persists, seeking help from a trusted pastor or a qualified clinician can accompany prayer.

Christ weeps over Jerusalem and bears suffering on the Cross. We can bring our anger and longing for justice to Him while learning His way of love for enemies; Romans 12:17-21 directs Christians away from private vengeance and toward doing good. That does not excuse abuse or require someone to forget it, return to danger, or feel forgiveness immediately. Seeking safety, appropriate protection, and accountability is consistent with prayer.

The Church’s Voice in Worship 📖

In one Book of Agpeya, this whole lament appears in the Twelfth Hour, or Compline; the Veil Prayer; and the Midnight Prayer’s Third Watch. That book marks the Veil Prayer for monks, not as an office imposed on every reader. Its Psalm has no Brenton superscription, divides the verses differently, and uses different wording at the ending. The Scripture displayed in this guide remains Brenton’s text.10

The Gospel companions offer pastoral connections without explaining why the offices were assembled. At the Twelfth Hour, Simeon receives the Christ Child and speaks of departing in peace (Luke 2:25-32). In the Veil Prayer, Christ approaches His frightened disciples on the sea and reassures them (John 6:15-23). In the Third Watch, He assures the little flock of the Father’s kingdom and calls for readiness and faithful care of the household, warning against abuse of fellow servants (Luke 12:32-46). Alongside the lament, these readings invite trust and watchfulness with mercy. Watchfulness is not a reason to fear sleep.

Iconography Connection 🖼️

Arthur Hacker’s By the Waters of Babylon is a possible Western biblical art reference, not an Orthodox icon or a historical reconstruction (catalogue reference: commons.wikimedia.org). Assess any image for suitability and rights before using it. A visual should not aestheticize trauma or soften the Psalm’s hard ending.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

  1. Bring grief to God. Speak honestly, or sit quietly before Him, without demanding that sorrow disappear on a schedule.
  2. Honor what is holy. Discern when a request for sacred song serves worship and when it turns someone’s suffering into a spectacle.
  3. Remember your chief joy. Ask how prayer, mercy, and communion with Christ can shape the work of your hands and the words of your mouth.
  4. Turn toward the Rock. If you notice yourself deliberately rehearsing revenge, pause and ask Christ for help. Seek trusted pastoral or clinical support when you need it.
  5. Refuse another’s destruction. Do not join in the delight of tearing a person down. Seek what is just without feeding cruelty.

Footnotes

  1. Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on the Psalms, Psalm 137, §1, translated by Hill, p. 323. ↩

  2. Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on the Psalms, Psalm 137, §§2-4, translated by Hill, pp. 323-324. ↩

  3. Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm CXXXVII (Latin CXXXVI), §§2-4, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 8, CCEL. ↩

  4. Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm CXXXVII (Latin CXXXVI), §§5, 7, 13, CCEL. ↩

  5. Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm CXXXVII (Latin CXXXVI), §9, CCEL. ↩

  6. Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on the Psalms, Psalm 137, §§5-6, translated by Hill, pp. 324-325; Hill’s historical caution is in note 3, p. 324. ↩

  7. Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm CXXXVII (Latin CXXXVI), §12, CCEL. ↩

  8. Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm CXXXVII (Latin CXXXVI), §12, CCEL. ↩

  9. Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm CXXXVII (Latin CXXXVI), §13, CCEL. ↩

  10. Rites: Agpeya Book, Twelfth Hour, pp. 159-160 and 167-168; Veil Prayer, pp. 180, 209-210 and 216-217; Third Watch, pp. 284-285 and 293-295, St. Bishoy PDF. ↩

  11. Athanasius of Alexandria, Letter to Marcellinus, discussion of the Psalms as words of prayer; Gregory of Nyssa, On the Inscriptions of the Psalms, I.1-3, J25-34. ↩

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