Psalm 137:3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying… We fix attention on the fact that the people of Babylon expected the religion of Jehovah to be a joyous religion. They may have asked for a song partly as a taunt, but below the taunt must have been the association of the Jehovah-religion with harp and song. And men were right in this. The religion of Jehovah, and of Jehovah-Jesus, ought to make hearts glad: we should "sing on our heavenward way." Dr. Barry thinks the call for a song may have meant "anexhortation to forget a lost home, and make the best of a new country;" but the psalmist was in no mood to respond to such an exhortation. I. THE CAPTIVES MIGHT HAVE SUNG EVEN IN CAPTIVITY. They would if their faith in God had mastered their circumstances. It is not much to say for them that they were so overwhelmed by their sorrows, and so crushed by their humiliations, that they could not even sing a song. True, their Zion was a desolation; but God, their God, still lived. True, they were under his chastening hand; but then he only chastens for our profit. True, a long waiting-time was before them; but then God's promises never fail. It was not praiseworthy that they should hang up their harps on the willows for the wind to make melancholy music through them. They had better have kept them in their hands, and cheered each other with enlivening strains of trust and hope. And as to the people of Babylon, they would have honored God much more if they had responded to the request brightly and cheerfully, put their own feelings aside, and sung them songs of high confidence and joy and hope. These captives who refused a reasonable request did nothing praiseworthy. A Christian's harp has no business on the willows. II. THE CAPTIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO SING IF THEY HAD THOUGHT LESS OF THEIR OWN AFFAIRS. Their patriotism was self-centeredness; and that always makes people feel weak and miserable. It led these captives to neglect their duty. They were put in Babylon to witness for God to the Babylonians; and instead, they made themselves miserable and helpless by brooding over their miseries, so that when a song was asked for in honor of Jehovah, they could not sing. If they had thought about God, and less about themselves and about their country, they would have found the joy of serving even by "singing the Lord's song in a strange land." - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. |
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