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<TITLE>Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible [Psalms CXXXVII].</TITLE>
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Matthew Henry<BR><I>Commentary on the Whole Bible</I> (1710)
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<BR><FONT SIZE=+3><B>P S A L M S</B></FONT>
<BR>
<BR><FONT SIZE=+2>PSALM CXXXVII.</FONT>
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<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
There are divers psalms which are thought to have been penned in the
latter days of the Jewish church, when prophecy was near expiring and
the canon of the Old Testament ready to be closed up, but none of them
appears so plainly to be of a late date as this, which was penned when
the people of God were captives in Babylon, and there insulted over by
these proud oppressors; probably it was towards the latter end of their
captivity; for now they saw the destruction of Babylon hastening on
apace
(<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+137:8">ver. 8</A>),
which would be their discharge. It is a mournful psalm, a lamentation;
and the Septuagint makes it one of the lamentations of Jeremiah, naming
him for the author of it. Here
I. The melancholy captives cannot enjoy themselves,
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+137:1,2">ver. 1, 2</A>.
II. They cannot humour their proud oppressors,
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+137:3,4">ver. 3, 4</A>.
III. They cannot forget Jerusalem,
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+137:5,6">ver. 5, 6</A>.
IV. They cannot forgive Edom and Babylon,
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+137:7-9">ver. 7-9</A>.
In singing this psalm we must be much affected with the concernments of
the church, especially that part of it that is in affliction, laying
the sorrows of God's people near our hearts, comforting ourselves in
the prospect of the deliverance of the church and the ruin of its
enemies, in due time, but carefully avoiding all personal animosities,
and not mixing the leaven of malice with our sacrifices.</P>
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<TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER=0>
<TR><TD><FONT SIZE=+1><I>The Sorrows of Captivity.</I></FONT></TD>
<TD ALIGN=RIGHT><FONT SIZE=-1> <! -- Date --> </FONT></TD></TR>
<TR><TD COLSPAN=2><HR SIZE=1></TD></TR>
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<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
<FONT SIZE=+1>1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept,
when we remembered Zion.
&nbsp; 2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
&nbsp; 3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a
song; and they that wasted us <I>required of us</I> mirth, <I>saying,</I>
Sing us <I>one</I> of the songs of Zion.
&nbsp; 4 How shall we sing the L<FONT SIZE=-1><B>ORD</B></FONT>'s song in a strange land?
&nbsp; 5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget <I>her
cunning.</I>
&nbsp; 6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof
of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
</FONT></P>
<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
We have here the daughter of Zion covered with a cloud, and dwelling
with the daughter of Babylon; the people of God in tears, but sowing in
tears. Observe,</P>
<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
I. The mournful posture they were in as to their affairs and as to
their spirits.
1. They were posted <I>by the rivers of Babylon,</I> in a strange land,
a great way from their own country, whence they were brought as
prisoners of war. The land of Babylon was now a house of bondage to
that people, as Egypt had been in their beginning. Their conquerors
quartered them <I>by the rivers,</I> with design to employ them there,
and keep them to work in their galleys; or perhaps they chose it as the
most melancholy place, and therefore most suitable to their sorrowful
spirits. If they must build houses there
(<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Jer+29:5">Jer. xxix. 5</A>),
it shall not be in the cities, the places of concourse, but by the
rivers, the places of solitude, where they might mingle their tears
with the streams. We find some of them by the <I>river Chebar</I>
(<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Eze+1:3">Ezek. i. 3</A>),
others by the <I>river Ulai,</I>
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Da+8:2">Dan. viii. 2</A>.
2. There they <I>sat down</I> to indulge their grief by poring on their
miseries. Jeremiah had taught them under this yoke to <I>sit alone,</I>
and <I>keep silence,</I> and <I>put their mouths in the dust,</I>
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=La+3:28,29">Lam. iii. 28, 29</A>.
"We sat down, as those that expected to stay, and were content, since
it was the will of God that it must be so."
3. Thoughts of Zion drew tears from their eyes; and it was not a sudden
passion of weeping, such as we are sometimes put into by a trouble that
surprises us, but they were deliberate tears (we <I>sat down and
wept</I>), tears with consideration--we <I>wept when we remembered
Zion,</I> the holy hill on which the temple was built. Their affection
to God's house swallowed up their concern for their own houses. They
remembered Zion's former glory and the satisfaction they had had in
Zion's courts,
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=La+1:7">Lam. i. 7</A>.
<I>Jerusalem remembered, in the days of her misery, all her pleasant
things which she had in the days of old,</I>
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+42:4">Ps. xlii. 4</A>.
They remembered Zion's present desolations, and <I>favoured the dust
thereof,</I> which was a good sign that the time for God to favour it
was not far off,
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+102:13,14">Ps. cii. 13, 14</A>.
4. They laid by their instruments of music
(<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+137:2"><I>v.</I> 2</A>):
<I>We hung our harps upon the willows.</I>
(1.) The harps they used for their own diversion and entertainment.
These they laid aside, both because it was their judgment that they
ought not to use them now that God called to weeping and mourning
(<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Isa+22:12">Isa. xxii. 12</A>),
and their spirits were so sad that they had no hearts to use them; they
brought their harps with them, designing perhaps to use them for the
alleviating of their grief, but it proved so great that it would not
admit the experiment. Music makes some people melancholy. <I>As
vinegar upon nitre, so is he that sings songs to a heavy heart.</I>
(2.) The harps they used in God's worship, the Levites' harps. These
they did not throw away, hoping they might yet again have occasion to
use them, but they laid them aside because they had no present use for
them; God had cut them out other work by <I>turning their feasting into
mourning and their songs into lamentations,</I>
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Am+8:10">Amos viii. 10</A>.
Every thing is beautiful in its season. They did not hide their harps
in the bushes, or the hollows of the rocks; but hung them up in view,
that the sight of them might affect them with this deplorable change.
Yet perhaps they were faulty in doing this; for praising God is never
out of season; it is his will that we should <I>in every thing give
thanks,</I>
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Isa+24:15,16">Isa. xxiv. 15, 16</A>.</P>
<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
II. The abuses which their enemies put upon them when they were in this
melancholy condition,
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+137:3"><I>v.</I> 3</A>.
They had <I>carried them away captive</I> from their own land and then
<I>wasted them</I> in the land of their captivity, took what little
they had from them. But this was not enough; to complete their woes
they insulted over them: They <I>required of us mirth and a song.</I>
Now,
1. This was very barbarous and inhuman; even an enemy, in misery, is to
be pitied and not trampled upon. It argues a base and sordid spirit to
upbraid those that are in distress either with their former joys or
with their present griefs, or to challenge those to be merry who, we
know, are out of tune for it. This is adding affliction to the
afflicted.
2. It was very profane and impious. No songs would serve them but the
<I>songs of Zion,</I> with which God had been honoured; so that in this
demand they reflected upon God himself as Belshazzar, when he drank
wine in temple-bowls. Their enemies <I>mocked at their sabbaths,</I>
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=La+1:7">Lam. i. 7</A>.</P>
<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
III. The patience wherewith they bore these abuses,
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+137:4"><I>v.</I> 4</A>.
They had laid by their harps, and would not resume them, no, not to
ingratiate themselves with those at whose mercy they lay; they would
not answer those fools according to their folly. Profane scoffers are
not to be humoured, nor pearls cast before swine. David prudently
<I>kept silence even from good</I> when the <I>wicked were before
him,</I> who, he knew, would ridicule what he said and make a jest of
it,
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+39:1,2">Ps. xxxix. 1, 2</A>.
The reason they gave is very mild and pious: <I>How shall we sing the
Lord's song in a strange land?</I> They do not say, "How shall we sing
when we are so much in sorrow?" If that had been all, they might
perhaps have put a force upon themselves so far as to oblige their
masters with a song; but "It is the <I>Lord's song;</I> it is a sacred
thing; it is peculiar to the temple-service, and therefore we dare not
sing it in the land of a stranger, among idolaters." We must not serve
common mirth, much less profane mirth, with any thing that is
appropriated to God, who is sometimes to be honoured by a religious
silence as well as by religious speaking.</P>
<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
IV. The constant affection they retained for Jerusalem, the city of
their solemnities, even now that they were in Babylon. Though their
enemies banter them for talking so much of Jerusalem, and even doting
upon it, their love to it is not in the least abated; it is what they
may be jeered for, but will never be jeered out of,
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+137:5,6"><I>v.</I> 5, 6</A>.
Observe,</P>
<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
1. How these pious captives stood affected to Jerusalem.
(1.) Their heads were full of it. It was always in their minds; they
remembered it; they did not forget it, though they had been long absent
from it; many of them had never seen it, nor knew any thing of it but
by report, and by what they had read in the scripture, yet it was
graven upon the palms of their hands, and even its ruins were
continually before them, which was ann evidence of their faith in the
promise of its restoration in due time. In their daily prayers they
opened their windows towards Jerusalem; and how then could they forget
it?
(2.) Their hearts were full of it. They <I>preferred</I> it
<I>above</I> their <I>chief joy,</I> and therefore they remembered it
and could not forget it. What we love we love to think of. Those that
rejoice in God do, for his sake, make Jerusalem their joy, and prefer
it before that, whatever it is, which is the head of their joy, which
is dearest to them in this world. A godly man will prefer a public good
before any private satisfaction or gratification whatsoever.</P>
<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
2. How stedfastly they resolved to keep up this affection, which they
express by a solemn imprecation of mischief to themselves if they
should let it fall: "Let me be for ever disabled either to sing or play
on the harp if I so far forget the religion of my country as to make
use of my songs and harps for the pleasing of Babylon's sons or the
praising of Babylon's gods. <I>Let my right hand forget her art</I>"
(which the hand of an expert musician never can, unless it be
withered), "nay, <I>let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,</I>
if I have not a good word to say for Jerusalem wherever I am." Though
they dare not sing Zion's songs among the Babylonians, yet they cannot
forget them, but, as soon as ever the present restraint is taken off,
they will sing them as readily as ever, notwithstanding the long
disuse.</P>
<A NAME="Ps137_7"> </A>
<A NAME="Ps137_8"> </A>
<A NAME="Ps137_9"> </A>
<A NAME="Sec2"> </A>
<TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER=0>
<TR><TD><FONT SIZE=+1><I>The Sorrows of Captivity.</I></FONT></TD>
<TD ALIGN=RIGHT><FONT SIZE=-1> <! -- Date --> </FONT></TD></TR>
<TR><TD COLSPAN=2><HR SIZE=1></TD></TR>
</TABLE>
<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
<FONT SIZE=+1>7 Remember, O L<FONT SIZE=-1><B>ORD</B></FONT>, the children of Edom in the day of
Jerusalem; who said, Rase <I>it,</I> rase <I>it, even</I> to the foundation
thereof.
&nbsp; 8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy <I>shall
he be,</I> that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
&nbsp; 9 Happy <I>shall he be,</I> that taketh and dasheth thy little ones
against the stones.
</FONT></P>
<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
The pious Jews in Babylon, having afflicted themselves with the
thoughts of the ruins of Jerusalem, here please themselves with the
prospect of the ruin of her impenitent implacable enemies; but this not
from a spirit of revenge, but from a holy zeal for the glory of God and
the honour of his kingdom.</P>
<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
I. The Edomites will certainly be reckoned with, and all others that
were accessaries to the destruction of Jerusalem, that were aiding and
abetting, that <I>helped forward the affliction</I>
(<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Zec+1:15">Zech. i. 15</A>)
and triumphed in it, that <I>said, in the day of Jerusalem,</I> the day
of her judgment, "<I>Rase it, rase it to the foundations;</I> down with
it, down with it; do not leave one stone upon another." Thus they made
the Chaldean army more furious, who were already so enraged that they
needed no spur. Thus they put shame upon Israel, who would be looked
upon as a people worthy to be cut off when their next neighbours had
such an ill-will to them. And all this was a fruit of the old enmity of
Esau against Jacob, because he got the birthright and the blessing, and
a branch of that more ancient enmity between the seed of the woman and
the seed of the serpent: <I>Lord, remember</I> them, says the psalmist,
which is an appeal to his justice against them. Far be it from us to
avenge ourselves, if ever it should be in our power, but we will leave
it to him who has said, <I>Vengeance is mine.</I> Note, Those that are
glad at calamities, especially the calamities of Jerusalem, shall not
go unpunished. Those that are confederate with the persecutors of good
people, and stir them up, and set them on, and are pleased with what
they do, shall certainly be called to an account for it against another
day, and God will remember it against them.</P>
<P> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
II. Babylon is the principal, and it will come to her turn too to drink
of the cup of tremblings, the very dregs of it
(<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Ps+137:8,9"><I>v.</I> 8, 9</A>):
<I>O daughter of Babylon!</I> proud and secure as thou art, we know
well, by the scriptures of truth, thou <I>art to be destroyed,</I> or
(as Dr. Hammond reads it) <I>who art the destroyer.</I> The destroyers
shall be destroyed,
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Re+13:10">Rev. xiii. 10</A>.
And perhaps it is with reference to this that the man of sin, the head
of the New-Testament Babylon, is called a <I>son of perdition,</I>
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=2Th+2:3">2 Thess. ii. 3</A>.
The destruction of Babylon being foreseen as a sure destruction (thou
<I>art to be destroyed</I>), it is spoken of,
1. As a just destruction. She shall be paid in her own coin: "Thou
shalt be served <I>as thou hast served us,</I> as barbarously used by
the destroyers as we have been by thee," See
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Re+18:6">Rev. xviii. 6</A>.
Let not those expect to find mercy who, when they had power, did not
show mercy.
2. As an utter destruction. The very little ones of Babylon, when it
is taken by storm, and all in it are put to the sword, shall be dashed
to pieces by the enraged and merciless conqueror. None escape if these
little ones perish. Those are the seed of another generation; so that,
if they be cut off, the ruin will be not only total, as Jerusalem's
was, but final. It is sunk like a millstone into the sea, never to
rise.
3. As a destruction which should reflect honour upon the instruments of
it. Happy shall those be that do it; for they are fulfilling God's
counsels; and therefore he calls Cyrus, who did it, his <I>servant,</I>
his <I>shepherd,</I> his <I>anointed</I>
(<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Isa+44:28,45:1">Isa. xliv. 28; xlv. 1</A>),
and the soldiers that were employed in it his <I>sanctified ones,</I>
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Isa+13:3">Isa. xiii. 3</A>.
They are making way for the enlargement of God's Israel, and happy are
those who are in any way serviceable to that. The fall of the
New-Testament Babylon will be the triumph of all the saints,
<A HREF="http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=KJV&passage=Re+19:1">Rev. xix. 1</A>.</P>
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